Commission B has had another active triennium between the Lille and Toronto General Assemblies. The Commission embraces a large worldwide community of radio scientists with interests in the varied aspects of fields and waves. The Commission participates in and supports the activities of URSI, and those scientists and engineers affiliated with Commission B are very active in other organizations whose activities encompass fields and waves.

The officers of Commission B during the 1997 – 1999 triennium are Professor Chalmers M. Butler, USA, Chair, and Professor Staffan Strom, Sweden, Vice Chair. They have been assisted in carrying out their tasks by a large number of enthusiastic B colleagues.

Commission B’s principal triennial activity between General Assemblies is its International Symposium on Electromagnetic Theory. The sixteenth symposium in the series, spanning 45 years, was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, during 25-28 May 1998. Approximately 470 synopses were submitted to the Technical Program Committee, of which 290 (260 oral and 30 poster) were accepted. Accepted papers were published in the 854 page Symposium Proceedings and were presented during the four-day meeting. The symposium featured a number of invited and tutorial papers, plus six special sessions organized by experts on topics of current interest and relevance. Two of these special sessions included panel discussions. Topics covered in special sessions were

• Wave Interrogation of Complexity: Deterministic—Stochastic Interactions
• Recent Developments in Asymptotic Analysis of Wave Problems
• Nonlinear Phenomena
• New Leakage and Radiation Effects on Waveguiding Structures
• Electromagnetic Compatibility
• Electromagnetic Theory Borderlands

A Young Scientist Program enabled twenty Young Scientists, most of whom otherwise would not have been able to have traveled to Thessaloniki, to attend the EMT Symposium. Travel funds were provided for the recipients of the Young Scientist Fellowships. The funds came partly from the Commission B triennial allocation from the URSI Secretariat and partly from a portion of the general registration fees assessed all symposium attendees. The enthusiasm of the Young Scientists was very evident. The Young Scientists participated fully in the program and took advantage of the opportunities to interact with the general attendees.

For the first time, synopses submitted to the EMT Symposium were accepted electronically. The synopses were received in several different electronic forms, and, of course, a few synopses were submitted on paper. All synopses were converted to .pdf files and it was in this form that they were sent to the nineteen members of the Technical Program Committee for review. The entire review process was conducted electronically. This experiment with electronic information transfer was not without a few minor difficulties but, in general, it was successful. Except in the cases of six persons, all communications associated with the technical program with authors, session convenors, and session chairs were conducted via e-mail.

The Thessaloniki Host Committee and the Technical Program Committee did an excellent job of planning the symposium program and administering the logistical details necessary for the success of the event. The technical program was very good from all points of view and the ancillary social program was outstanding, especially for the many attendees who were interested in the history of the ancient world. The Commission is grateful to both committees for jobs well done.

A special issue of the journal Radio Science based on selected papers presented at the Electromagnetic Theory Symposium is being planned. Outstanding papers from the symposium were selected and their authors were invited to submit full-length manuscripts to the journal. The review by experts of all manuscripts should be completed by the end of August 1999 and the special issue will be published in due course.

Commission B’s 2001 Electromagnetic Theory Symposium will be in Victoria, BC, Canada.

Consistent with the practice of past years, Commission B has sponsored meetings held by other organizations on topics which fall within the general purview of the Commission’s terms of reference. All such meetings during the 1997 – 1999 triennium were sponsored under mode A (without financial contribution). Among those meetings sponsored during 1997 – 1999 were ICAP’97, Edinburgh; 1997 International Symposium on Non-Linear EM Systems, Braunschweig; Bianisotropics’97, International Conference and Workshop on Electromagnetics of Complex Media, Glascow; Radio Africa’97, Nairobi; ISAE’97, Xian; 1997 International Symposium devoted to Galileo Ferraris, Torino; 1998 International Wireless and Telecommunications Symposium and Exhibition, Kuala Lumpur; 1998 International Symposium on EM Theory, Thessaloniki; MMET’98, Kharkov; International Workshop, "Day on Diffraction’98," St. Petersburg; 1998 Bianisotropics, Braunschweig; 1998 Physics and Engineering of mm and submm EM Waves, Kharkov; 1998 IEEE AP-S Conference on Antennas and Propagation for Wireless Communications, Waltham; JINA98, Nice; APMC’98: Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference, Yokohama; IWTS’99 -- 1999 International Wireless and Telecommunications Symposium and Exhibition, Shah Alam; and International Workshop, "Day on Diffraction’99," St. Petersburg.

Commission B has planned an extensive technical program for the Toronto General Assembly. There will be approximately 375 B papers presented in eighteen sessions. An additional twenty papers will be presented in two joint-with-other-commission sessions that were organized primarily by Commission B. Finally, Commission B will participate in, but has not had the primary organizational responsibility of, another seven joint sessions. There will be more papers from Commission B radio scientists than from any other commission.