On 17-2-2009 23:24, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> Actually the citable history for many students is whatever is on-line. 
>> Nobody uses the library anymore. Unfortunately people are scanning in 
>> old years of the main journals.
> 
> Wow, that sucks. I can't imagine paying for myself subscriptions to 
> every lame-ass journal I ever had to look something up in.  It's almost 
> criminal how places like IEEE and ACM will take your work, publish it, 
> then charge you to have a copy of it.

Most libraries have on-line subscription, so everything is the same 
except that you don't have to go to the library anymore, but download 
the PDF yourself. In case it wasn't clear, I meant unfortunate for the 
student as they can access (and may have to read) much more than a year 
extra every year.
10 years ago everybody used the library, so you could see citations of 
20 years back or more. Then suddenly journals came on-line and the 
citation horizon dropped to about 5 years (except for second hand 
citations of papers they did not actually read of course). Now the 
citation period is almost back to what it was and even on the way of 
exceeding that, because of scanned journals.

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On 17-2-2009 23:34, Florian Pesth wrote:
> Am Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:24:54 -0800 schrieb Darren New:
> 
>> andrel wrote:
>>> Actually the citable history for many students is whatever is on-line.
>>> Nobody uses the library anymore. Unfortunately people are scanning in
>>> old years of the main journals.
>> Wow, that sucks. I can't imagine paying for myself subscriptions to
>> every lame-ass journal I ever had to look something up in.  It's almost
>> criminal how places like IEEE and ACM will take your work, publish it,
>> then charge you to have a copy of it.
> 
> Subscriptions to the journals are usually paid for by the university here 
> (in Germany and I would guess it is the same in he Netherlands?) so if 
> you have access to the university network you usually have access to most 
> journals.
True.
BTW I do have this interesting problem of being in a academic hospital 
with access to most medical journals, but not the Biomedical Engineering 
ones. So when I am peer reviewing a paper and want to check a reference, 
I have to resort to my paper versions at home of the IEEE EMBS, that I 
can't throw away for that reason and for another journal I sometimes ask 
the editor if he can get me a copy. I find that a bit annoying, perhaps 
I should take a partial appointment at a technical university.

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> None of the professors had PhD's?  Heck, the science teachers in my high 
> school had PhDs.

At my University it seemed to be a requirement that to become a professor 
you need a PhD (this is for the UK definition of Professor, which means you 
are head of department or some other very senior role, my understanding is 
that this is not the same in the US).

At my first school only the headmaster had a PhD, but at the school I did my 
A-levels at (16-18 years old) a lot of the science and maths teachers had 
PhDs.

Off topic, my pure maths teacher was the coolest ever, the stereotypical 
maths geek aged about 40 complete with holey wooly jumper and beard.  He was 
fond of writing on peoples end of year reports (where there was space for 
about 10-15 lines) 3 word summaries.

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>>     Imagine if they'd have exploded. What would we be doing right now?
>
> Assuming you mean if the weapons went off - not much chance of that. I 
> reckon those subs could be completely destroyed by a variety of 
> accidents/hostilities and the nukes still wouldn't go off. They need to be 
> set off deliberately.

Yes, it is almost impossible to set off the nuclear weapon "by mistake" due 
to some shock or explosion nearby, *but* the radioactive components of the 
weapon can sure be released during a normal impact/explosion and released 
into the water or atmosphere.  It may not be as severe as a nuclear 
explosion, but there will be a lot of radioactive material released, and the 
sea currents / wind will probably carry it and dump it as rain over 
Europe...

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On 18-2-2009 9:01, scott wrote:
>> None of the professors had PhD's?  Heck, the science teachers in my 
>> high school had PhDs.
> 
> At my University it seemed to be a requirement that to become a 
> professor you need a PhD (this is for the UK definition of Professor, 
> which means you are head of department or some other very senior role, 
> my understanding is that this is not the same in the US).

In the Netherlands it is not a requirement, but uncommon. The most 
common cause is that they wanted a person from a company as professor. 
As a non-PhD professor you can not act as the promotor for a PhD. You 
can do the daily supervision, but for the actual defence you need 
another professor that does have it's PhD.

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scott wrote:
>>>     Imagine if they'd have exploded. What would we be doing right now?
>>
>> Assuming you mean if the weapons went off - not much chance of that. I 
>> reckon those subs could be completely destroyed by a variety of 
>> accidents/hostilities and the nukes still wouldn't go off. They need 
>> to be set off deliberately.
> 
> Yes, it is almost impossible to set off the nuclear weapon "by mistake" 
> due to some shock or explosion nearby, *but* the radioactive components 
> of the weapon can sure be released during a normal impact/explosion and 
> released into the water or atmosphere.  It may not be as severe as a 
> nuclear explosion, but there will be a lot of radioactive material 
> released, and the sea currents / wind will probably carry it and dump it 
> as rain over Europe...

I don't think that would be particularly serious either. The sub's 
reactor would probably be more dangerous than the warheads in that regard.

Obviously a spilled warhead wouldn't be harmless, but I'm not convinced 
that large masses of dense metals such as Pu and U would make it very 
far, least of all rainfall! And I'd like to believe that the sub's 
designers might have though of this too... :)

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> andrel wrote:
> Wow, that sucks. I can't imagine paying for myself subscriptions to
> every lame-ass journal I ever had to look something up in.  It's almost
> criminal how places like IEEE and ACM will take your work, publish it,
> then charge you to have a copy of it.

	Actually, among the abusers, professional societies like IEEE and APS
are quite mild.

	The guys who really charge an arm and a leg are the private for-profit
publishers like Elsevier and Springer.

	Not an ACM member, but someone told me that every member gets access to
all their journals. With IEEE, you have to become a member, and then pay
for each journal you want to access. For individuals, it's very unlikely
to be worth it.

	And yes, I agree the amount they charge for a given article (if you
just want that one) is also ridiculous. It may be OK if you _really_
know that's the article you want, but if you're just doing ordinary
research, you'll have to go through dozens of papers.

	In any case, I've often heard that if you really want a paper, just
email the author and they'll send it to you. Haven't put it to the test.
I've also heard that over the last few years, a number of professional
societies (one or both of the US physics ones, and perhaps IEEE as well)
actually do allow you to put preprints online or on places like arxiv.
Preprints here meaning the version of the paper that has finally been
approved for publication (so pretty much the same paper). The condition
is simply that wherever you post it, you cite the actual IEEE paper.

	So those guys really aren't all that bad. I know Applied Physics
Letters allows you to make your paper open access if you (the author)
pay a fee - close to $1000 (usually comes from the grant that paid for
the research). That may sound like a disincentive, but do realize that
many of the prominent open access journals actually charge similar
rates. I hear IEEE also has a similar fee if you want your paper to be
open access.

-- 
Engineers: often wrong, seldom in doubt.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> 	The guys who really charge an arm and a leg are the private for-profit
> publishers like Elsevier and Springer.

They're pretty bad too.  And the conference proceedings are awfully 
expensive if you can even get them, too.

> 	Not an ACM member, but someone told me that every member gets access to
> all their journals. 

Maybe online these days. There were definitely subscription fees for the 
paper versions back when I was still doing that sort of thing.

> 	And yes, I agree the amount they charge for a given article (if you
> just want that one) is also ridiculous. It may be OK if you _really_
> know that's the article you want, but if you're just doing ordinary
> research, you'll have to go through dozens of papers.

Yeah. I think the idea is you read it in the library or something, and then 
you want a copy, so you buy one instead of just using the photocopier. I 
don't know about nowadays, but it used to be that you'd order articles from 
places that warehoused several copies of the magazines and someone would 
manually sit down and cut out the article to send to you. Again, I suspect 
now that everything's online this is different. :-)

> 	In any case, I've often heard that if you really want a paper, just
> email the author and they'll send it to you. Haven't put it to the test.

Probably, yeah. :-)

> I've also heard that over the last few years, a number of professional
> societies (one or both of the US physics ones, and perhaps IEEE as well)
> actually do allow you to put preprints online or on places like arxiv.

Apparently not ACM.  I've seen a number of online papers taken down because 
the copyright was signed over to ACM.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:
>>     Not an ACM member, but someone told me that every member gets
>> access to
>> all their journals. 
> 
> Maybe online these days. There were definitely subscription fees for the
> paper versions back when I was still doing that sort of thing.

	Yes - I meant for online. Who subscribes to paper versions anymore -
other than institutions?

>> I've also heard that over the last few years, a number of professional
>> societies (one or both of the US physics ones, and perhaps IEEE as well)
>> actually do allow you to put preprints online or on places like arxiv.
> 
> Apparently not ACM.  I've seen a number of online papers taken down
> because the copyright was signed over to ACM.

	But were those the actual ACM articles, or the preprints? You still
can't post the former without permission.

-- 
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
until you hear them speak.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> 	Yes - I meant for online. Who subscribes to paper versions anymore -
> other than institutions?

I haven't really done the academic paper stuff since the times of paper. :-)

> 	But were those the actual ACM articles, or the preprints? You still
> can't post the former without permission.

They were papers published by researchers, left online for many months, then 
taken down when they were accepted to ACM publications. The links to the 
papers were replaced to links to "please pay the ACM for these papers."

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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