Over the course of the past year the following TODS Associate Editors have completed their terms.

• Rakesh Agrawal
• Peter Buneman
• Michael Carey
• David Lomet
• Alberto Mendelzon
• Gerhard Weikum
• Marianne Winslett

I have tremendously enjoyed working with these people, whose scholarship I deeply respect and admire and of whose diligence to this task I am exceedingly grateful.

They nurtured some manuscripts to acceptance, provide detailed feedback to hundreds of other papers, many of which subsequently appeared in other venues, worked closely with perhaps one thousand reviewers, helped realize scientifically accurate and well written papers for the readership, and in general maintained the very high quality of TODS.

Working with this legion of reviewers and authors, and in cooperation with the others on the Editorial Board, they have achieved all of this while also maintaining exemplary responsiveness. Specifically, for the year ending May 2004 (the last month for which data is available), the average turnaround time is an astounding 2.8 months, and the average turnaround time for papers that went out to reviewers is an equally astonishing 3.6 months.

The task of a TODS Associate Editor is a typical scholarly activity: a lot of work, for the benefit of the scientific community, with no pay and only the knowledge of a job well done as a reward.

I want to recognize the contributions and their years and years of effort. When you see them at conferences (for they are still all very active researchers), please thank them for this selfless service.