Publish or (gulp) Perish

Thu Mar 25 14:12:58 UTC 2004

One of the downsides of peer reviewed journals is that it takes an awfully long time from submission to publication - typically a minimum of a year.  In a quick moving area like network operations this can be especially problematic.  

One great intermediary to this are pre-print archives, especially the Arxiv archive run jointly between Cornell and Los Alamos - http://arxiv.org/ .  They have a big computer science section with lots of good stuff.  Also as far as journals the new Internet Mathematics is good if a bit more academically geared than operational.

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael.Dillon at radianz.com
Date: Thursday, March 25, 2004 6:27 am
Subject: Re: Publish or (gulp) Perish

> 
> >> Powerpoints have a hard time matching the depth of a refereed 
> journal>> submission, because with the powerpoint, soundbites tend 
> to take
> >> precedence over content.
> 
> >Attention to sidebar on page 192 of the Columbia Accident
> >Investigation Board report entitled "Engineering by Viewgraphs":
> >http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/PDFS/VOL1/PART02.PDF
> 
> Everybody who makes slide presentations should read this.
> I know it has influenced me in trying to make my presentations
> clearer and shorter and more precise. If you read nothing
> else from the report, have a look at this slide reproduced
> below as close as possible to the way it originally appeared
> including line breaks and bulleted indentation:
> 
> 
>    Review Of Test Data Indicates Conservatism for Tile
>                       Penetration
>    ---------------------------------------------------
> 
> * The existing SOFI on tile test data used to create Crater
>  was reviewed along with STS-107 Southwest Research data
>  - Crater overpredicted penetration of tile coating 
>    significantly
>    * Initial penetration to described by normal velocity 
>      - Varies with volume/mass of projectile(e.g., 200ft/sec for
>        3cu. In)
>    * Significant energy is required for the softer SOFI particle
>      to penetrate the relatively hard tile coating 
>      - Test results do show that it is possible at sufficient mass
>        and velocity 
>    * Conversely, once tile is penetrated SOFI can cause 
>      significant damage 
>      - Minor variations in total energy (above penetration level)
>        can cause significant tile damage
>  - Flight condition is significantly outside of test database
>    * Volume of ramp is 1920cu in vs 3 cu in for test
> 
> The Columbia investigators zeroed in on the words "significant"
> and "significantly" used 5 times on the slide with meanings varying
> from "detectable in largely irrelevant calibration case study"
> to "an amount of damage so that everyone dies" to "a difference 
> of 640-fold." None of these 5 usages appears to refer to the 
> technical meaning of "statistical significance."
> 
> They also noted that the low resolution of a slide promotes
> the use of compressed phrases like "Tile Penetration" whose
> meaning can be ambiguous and usually is never defined.
> 
> The slide alludes to the idea of damage to the tiles
> but often avoids saying it directly referring to "penetration"
> or "it" and using unclear sentence fragments.
> 
> If you do want to see the original it is on page 95 of the
> PDF file linked above.
> 
> --Michael Dillon
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 