From owner-reliable_computing Sun May 31 19:28:38 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA00309 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:35:55 -0500 Received: from into.nit.spb.su by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA00303 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:35:30 -0500 Received: from slava.UUCP (uucp@localhost) by into.nit.spb.su (8.8.7/8.8.7) with UUCP id PAA12752 for reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu; Sun, 31 May 1998 15:32:29 +0400 (MSD) (envelope-from slava!slava.nit.spb.su!nest) Received: by slava.nit.spb.su (dMail for DOS v1.23, 15Jun94); Sun, 31 May 1998 15:28:38 +0400 To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Message-Id: Organization: Slava Nesterov Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 15:28:38 +0400 (MSD) Reply-To: nest [at] into [dot] nit.spb.su From: "Slava Nesterov" X-Mailer: dMail [Demos Mail for DOS v1.23] Subject: email problems Lines: 14 Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Dear colleagues, >From May 17 till May 30 I had big technical problems with my email system. It seems some messages were lost. Please send them again. In the future if my usual email address nest [at] into [dot] nit.spb.su will not work properly, please use the alternate one intcom [at] glasnet [dot] ru Sorry for inconvenience. Best regards, Slava Nesterov  From owner-reliable_computing Wed Jun 3 09:18:34 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA01207 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Tue, 2 Jun 1998 20:49:35 -0500 Received: from sovcom.relcom.ru by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA01201 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 2 Jun 1998 20:49:30 -0500 Received: from globlab (uucp@localhost) by sovcom.relcom.ru (8.8.8/Relcom-2A) with UUCP id FAA29560 for reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu;Wed, 3 Jun 1998 05:46:52 +0400 (MSD) Message-Id: <199806030146.FAA29560 [at] sovcom [dot] relcom.ru> Received: by sovcom.KIAE.su (UUMAIL/2.0); Wed, 3 Jun 98 04:46:51 +0300 Received: by globlab.msk.su (UUPC/@ v5.09gamma, 14Mar93); Wed, 3 Jun 1998 05:18:34 +0400 To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu From: "Alexander G. Yakovlev" Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 05:18:34 +0400 Subject: News concerning the journal "Reliable Computing" Lines: 48 Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk June 3, 1998 Dear colleagues, I would like to inform about some facts concerning the journal RELIABLE COMPUTING. 1) This is a short list of main URL's related to the journal. The Kluwer's home page of the journal: http://www.wkap.nl/journalhome.htm/1385-3139 Prof. R. Baker Kearfott, the official representative in the Western Hemisphere: http://interval.usl.edu/kearfott.html Prof. Dr. Juergen Wolff von Gudenberg, the official representa- tive in Europe: http://www-info2.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/staff/wvg Interval Computations Website, under supervision of Prof. Vladik Kreinovich: http://cs.utep.edu/interval-comp/main.html 2) You can order a free sample copy of the journal via the Kluwer's home page of the journal (its URL see before). Also you can find there (as well as at Interval Computations Website) complete tables of contents of the journal. 3) The journal is now abstracted/indexed in: CompactMATH, INSPEC Information Services, MATH, Mathematical Reviews, Zentral- blatt fuer Mathematic/Mathematics Abstracts. 4) A new discount has been established for a complete set of back issues (1991-1996), including all supplements. Now it is equal to 30% (before - to 15%). Now individuals can purchase the complete set (22 issues and 4 supplements) for $263 only. On this subject please contact to Dr. Vyacheslav M. Nesterov, the Editor-in-Chief (nest [at] into [dot] nit.spb.su. intcom [at] glasnet [dot] ru). Sincerely yours, Alexander Yakovlev, Managing Editor From owner-reliable_computing Fri Jun 5 08:55:36 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA02467 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Fri, 5 Jun 1998 12:13:24 -0500 Received: from exchange1.onr.navy.mil by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA02461 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Fri, 5 Jun 1998 12:11:01 -0500 Received: by exchange1.onr.navy.mil with Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) id ; Fri, 5 Jun 1998 12:57:08 -0400 Message-Id: From: KOSTOFR [at] ONR [dot] NAVY.MIL To: adrian.thomas [at] zoo [dot] ox.ac.uk, aeainfo [at] ctrvax [dot] vanderbilt.edu, aeisner [at] aom [dot] pace.edu, aestamps [at] ix [dot] netcom.com, aestamps [at] ix [dot] netcom.com, afagen [at] biosun [dot] harvard.edu, afmr [at] dc [dot] sba.com, agar [at] fs4 [dot] ma.man.ac.uk, agc [at] nerc [dot] ac.uk, agold [at] nsf [dot] gov, ahmcgreg [at] med [dot] cornell.edu, ahra [at] world [dot] std.com, ahughes [at] iglou [dot] com, ahusain [at] nmo [dot] jpl.nasa.gov, aimagazine [at] aaai [dot] org, aipinfo [at] aip [dot] org, airboy [at] physics [dot] ucsb.edu, ajp [at] Psych [dot] Org, akeller [at] nsf [dot] gov, abaciocc [at] nas [dot] edu, asb2 [at] lehigh [dot] edu, alanberman [at] aol [dot] com, aboutz@noesis-inc.com, ateich [at] aaas [dot] org, alain [at] ai [dot] iit.nrc.ca, cura [at] fastnet [dot] co.uk Subject: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 12:55:36 -0400 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk From: Ronald N. Kostoff/ ONR To: Distribution The following web site announcement describes a new monograph on "SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION". Feel free to distribute this announcement to members of your organization, and to other colleagues in the broader technical community. RNK WEB SITE ANNOUNCEMENT I. JUNE 1998 ADDITION - SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION A monograph entitled "SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION" was added to the web site http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/kostoff/index.html in June 1998. This thirty page document describes two novel complementary approaches for systematically enhancing the process of innovation and discovery. One approach is workshop-based and the other is literature-based. Both approaches have the common feature of exploring knowledge from very disparate technical disciplines and technologies, and transferring insights and understanding from one or more disparate technical areas to other technical areas. While either approach can be performed independently to enable innovation and discovery, it is highly recommended that the approaches be combined into a single process. This integrated approach utilizes the strengths of each component technique to provide a synergy which can lead more efficiently to innovation than the sum of the two approaches performed separately. It has the potential to be a major breakthrough for the systematic promotion of innovation and discovery. II. APRIL 1998 ADDITION - SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY METRICS A monograph entitled "SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY METRICS" was added to this web site in April 1998. The document describes: a) why S&T assessment and evaluation have become important; b) why metrics have become important for quality S&T evaluation; c) what types of metrics are available for S&T evaluation, and d) how metrics have been and can be applied to prospective and retrospective S&T assessment and evaluation. Many case studies of metrics applications are summarized. The monograph discusses how metrics can be integrated with other evaluation tools to address the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). This comprehensive metrics monograph is self-contained, with 14 Appendices, and can serve as an information resource with over 5600 text and suggested reading references. III. AUGUST 1997 ADDITIONS - ASSESSMENT/ PEER REVIEW/ ROADMAPS There are three other documents on this web site of potential interest to science and technology managers/ sponsors/ administrators/ planners/ transitioners/ researchers and developers/ evaluators and assessors. They are: 1) The Handbook of Research Impact Assessment 2) Research Program Peer Review: Principles, Practices, Protocols 3) Science and Technology Roadmaps All three documents: i) provide extensive background on the importance of the topic; ii) present the theory and principles underlying successful utilization of the methods and techniques discussed; iii) describe many case studies of successful applications, and iv) provide thousands of useful references. Dr. Ronald N. Kostoff Office of Naval Research kostofr [at] onr [dot] navy.mil From owner-reliable_computing Fri Jun 5 09:36:49 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA02859 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Fri, 5 Jun 1998 14:36:51 -0500 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA02849 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing); Fri, 5 Jun 1998 14:36:49 -0500 Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 14:36:49 -0500 From: "Kearfott R. Baker" Message-Id: <199806051936.AA02849 [at] interval [dot] usl.edu> To: reliable_computing Subject: MISC'99 First announcement and CALL for PAPERS Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk ----- Begin Included Message ----- From vehi [at] silver [dot] udg.es Fri Jun 5 10:02:15 1998 Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 16:49:28 +0200 From: Josep Vehi Reply-To: vehi [at] silver [dot] udg.es Organization: Intelligent Systems and Control Engineering Group. University of Girona X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; I) Mime-Version: 1.0 To: na.digest@na-net.ornl.gov, opt-net@zib-berlin.de, im-net-digest [at] iwr [dot] uni-heidelberg.de, automatica [at] sanson [dot] dit.upm.es, eia [at] silver [dot] udg.es, owner-reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Subject: MISC'99 First announcement and CALL for PAPERS Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Length: 4035 MISC'99 1ST ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS Workshop on: Applications of Interval Analysis to Systems and Control with special emphasis on recent advances in Modal Interval Analysis 24-26 February 1999 University of Girona Girona, Spain Presentation During the last years, Interval Analysis has been widely applied to solve open problems in Systems and Control Engineering. So, analysis and synthesis of robust controllers for uncertain plants or fuzzy inference has been stated from the interval point of view. Other fields where the use of Interval Analysis is increasing are qualitative, semiqualitative and interval simulation and its application to fault detection and diagnosis and systems identification. All these applications benefit of the ability of intervals to manipulate imprecise data, keep track of truncation and round-off errors and reliability, but they suffer the main weakness of the classical Interval Analysis: too conservative results are often obtained when the range of a function is computed. The aims of this workshop are: 1.to present recent advances in applications of Interval Analysis in Control, but focusing on the limitations and drawbacks of Classical Interval Analysis, 2.to present recent advances on he Modal Interval Analysis, a new paradigm on uncertainty representation, and some of its lastest applications on control, 3.to analise and discuss, in the context of Modal Interval Analysis, open problems in the field of Control Systems where Classical Interval Analysis is used and fails or seems to be limited. Topics The workshop will focus on four main topics: Modal Interval Analysis: Modal Interval Analysis will be presented with recent results and applications. Open Problems: Authors are encouraged to summit theoretical or practical open problems which may be considered as interval problems, but their resolution goes beyond Classical Interval Analysis. Interval Applications to Control: The following topics will be considered but not restricted to robust control design, identification, fuzzy control, robustness analysis, signal processing,...,etc. Interval Simulation: Interval modelling. Qualitative, semi-qualitative and interval simulation. Applications to fault detection and diagnosis. International Program Committee: Josep Aguilar-Martin Spain Ernest Gardenyes (Chairman), Spain J|ergen Garloff, Germany Luc Jaulin, France Vladik Kreinovich, USA Victor Krymsky, Russia Svetoslav Markov, Bulgaria Mario Milanese, Italia Joseba Quevedo, Spain Josi Rodellar, Spain Sergei Shary, Rusia Louise Trave-Massuyes, France Eric Walter, France Local organisers: Dr. Miguel A. Sainz e-mail:sainz [at] ima [dot] udg.es Dr. Josep Vehi e-mail:vehi [at] eia [dot] udg.es Paper submission Five copies of full papers of no more than 15 pages including abstract, references, figures, and tables (one column format, 11pt Times font, and A4 paper) should to be received by conference organizers by June 20. All papers must be submitted in hard copy form. No paper will be accepted by fax or in electronic form. Submission adress Dr. Josep Vehm Control Engineering and Intelligent Systems Group Campus Montilivi. Edifici P-II University of Girona E-17071 Girona (Spain) Important dates Now : Reply form August 30, 1998 : Full paper submissions September 30, 1998 : Notification of acceptance/rejection November 20, 1988 : Camera-ready copy due & Registration February 22-24, 1999 : Workshop will be held More information and Reply form on: http://eia.udg.es/~vehi/misc99.htm ----- End Included Message ----- From owner-reliable_computing Fri Apr 3 13:30:16 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA11026 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:29:44 -0500 Received: from riscfo (riscfo.spfo.unibo.it) by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA11020 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:29:27 -0500 Received: from [137.204.203.22] by riscfo (AIX 3.1/UCB 5.61/4.03) id AA04674; Thu, 28 May 98 11:20:09 -2300 Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980403113016.0068d324 [at] mailserver [dot] di.unipi.it> X-Sender: bista [at] mailserver [dot] di.unipi.it (Unverified) X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 1998 11:30:16 +0200 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: bista [at] di [dot] unipi.it Subject: CFP: CP98 workshop on Modeling and Computing with Concurrent Constraint Programming Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk --------------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS --------------------------------------------------------------------- CP98 Workshop on Modeling and Computing with Concurrent Constraint Programming (http://www.ueda.info.waseda.ac.jp/cp98-ccp/) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Pisa, Italy 30 October 1998 -------------------------------------------------------------------- (in conjunction with the fourth International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP98)) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Description The workshop is intended to be a forum of discussions on the practical aspects of Concurrent Constraint Programming (CCP), a simple and elegant formalism for modelling concurrent, parallel, and distributed computation. Topics covered by the workshop include: * Experiences with programming in CCP framework * Novel applications of the CCP framework * Novel implementation techniques of the CCP family of languages * Language constructs for addressing novel applications * Comparison between CCP and other programming paradigms The workshop will consist of the presentation of accepted papers and discussions about selected topics. Organizing committee (in alphabetical order) * Andreas Podelski (Max-Planck-Institut, podelski@mpi-sb.mpg.de) * Vijay Saraswat (AT&T, vijay [at] chit [dot] saraswat.org) * Kazunori Ueda (Waseda Univ., ueda [at] ueda [dot] info.waseda.ac.jp) (contact) Paper Submission Authors are invited to send manuscripts by e-mail in a self-contained PostScript file (gzipped and uuencoded) to the organizers. E-mail submissions should be sent to ALL of the following three adresses: ueda [at] ueda [dot] info.waseda.ac.jp, podelski@mpi-sb.mpg.de, vijay [at] chit [dot] saraswat.org The length guidelines are 10-12 pages in 11-point font and 4000 words. In addition, a separate e-mail message should be sent containing the paper title and a 150-word abstract, authors, keywords, postal address, e-mail address and fax number. Publication We plan to publish all the accepted papers on the workshop web site. We will also distribute a hard-copy version of the proceedings at the workshop. Important Dates AUGUST 15, 1998 PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE September 10, 1998 Acceptance decisions October 5, 1998 Final copy due October 30, 1998 CP98 Workshop Workshop URL: http://www.ueda.info.waseda.ac.jp/cp98-ccp/ CP98 URL: http://www.di.unipi.it/cp98/ From owner-reliable_computing Mon Jun 15 01:58:09 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA11873 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Sun, 14 Jun 1998 19:00:51 -0500 Received: from frank.cs.bham.ac.uk ([147.188.192.9]) by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA11867 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Sun, 14 Jun 1998 18:58:27 -0500 Received: from gromit.cs.bham.ac.uk (actually host gromit) by frank.cs.bham.ac.uk with SMTP (MMTA); Mon, 15 Jun 1998 00:55:24 +0100 Received: by gromit.cs.bham.ac.uk (SMI-8.6/client/1.2) id AAA29506; Mon, 15 Jun 1998 00:58:09 +0100 Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 00:58:09 +0100 From: A.Sloman [at] cs [dot] bham.ac.uk Message-Id: <29506.199806142358 [at] gromit [dot] cs.bham.ac.uk> To: THEORY-A [at] LISTSERV [dot] NODAK.EDU, amast [at] cs [dot] utwente.nl, cellular-automata [at] BUPHY [dot] BU.EDU, colt [at] cs [dot] uiuc.edu, concurrency [at] cwi [dot] nl, connectionists [at] cs [dot] cmu.edu, dbworld [at] cs [dot] wisc.edu, evonet [at] dcs [dot] napier.ac.uk, ga-list [at] aic [dot] nrl.navy.mil, gann-list [at] cs [dot] iastate.edu, genetic-programming [at] cs [dot] stanford.edu, hybrid-list [at] cs [dot] ua.edu, mfpsmail [at] math [dot] tulane.edu, ml [at] ics [dot] uci.edu, reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu, sea [at] sna [dot] co.umist.ac.uk Subject: Chair in computer science at Birmingham University Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk [Apologies to anyone who gets this more than once.] I am pleased to announce that as part of the growing support for the School of Computer Science the University of Birmingham is advertising a new professorship. The post is available as soon as possible after the interviews (to be held in October). For anyone unfamiliar with the UK academic structure, I should explain that a professor holds a senior tenured post. So applicants should normally already have substantial post-doctoral experience of research and teaching. If you know of anyone who might be a strong candidate, please pass on the following. ======================================================================= THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE Applications are invited for a newly established Chair in the School of Computer Science, tenable as soon as possible. There are no restrictions in area of research interest. Applicants from all branches of Computer Science will be considered. Candidates should have an outstanding research record and be able to provide leadership in research and teaching. The successful candidate will also be expected to share in the management in the School. FURTHER PARTICULARS MAY BE OBTAINED FROM: Mr P J F Scott Director of Staffing Services The University of Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham B15 2TT England TELEPHONE NO. +44 121-414-6478 FAX NO. +44 121-414-7043 EMAIL P.J.F.Scott [at] bham [dot] ac.uk The closing date for applications is 31 July 1998. (Late applications may be considered.) It is expected that interviews will be held on 28th October. Further information about the School is available via the School web page: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/ Further information about this post and instructions for applying can be found in postscript and plain text files located in the directory ftp://ftp.cs.bham.ac.uk/pub/dist/info/chair98/ For more information on the University see http://www.bham.ac.uk/ INFORMAL ENQUIRIES MAY BE MADE IN CONFIDENCE TO: The Head of School Professor Achim Jung, School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham Birmingham B15 2TT UK Tel: +44 121 414 3711 Email: A.Jung [at] cs [dot] bham.ac.uk ======================================================================= I am also willing to answer any questions, as is Professor John Barnden Email J.A.Barnden [at] cs [dot] bham.ac.uk. === Aaron Sloman, ( http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/ ) Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK EMAIL A.Sloman [at] cs [dot] bham.ac.uk Phone: +44-121-414-4775 (Sec 3711) Fax: +44-121-414-4281 From owner-reliable_computing Mon Jun 15 09:12:21 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA12876 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Tue, 16 Jun 1998 09:36:43 -0500 Received: from washington.engr.ukans.edu by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA12870 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 16 Jun 1998 09:36:37 -0500 Received: from elmo.nwis.net by washington.engr.ukans.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id JAA23499; Tue, 16 Jun 1998 09:35:37 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980615141221.00793ac0 [at] eecs [dot] ukans.edu> X-Sender: bdoyle [at] eecs [dot] ukans.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 14:12:21 -0500 To: cellular-automata [at] BUPHY [dot] BU.EDU, colt [at] cs [dot] uiuc.edu, concurrency [at] cwi [dot] nl, connectionists [at] cs [dot] cmu.edu, dbworld [at] cs [dot] wisc.edu, evonet [at] dcs [dot] napier.ac.uk, ga-list [at] aic [dot] nrl.navy.mil, gann-list [at] cs [dot] iastate.edu, genetic-programming [at] cs [dot] stanford.edu, hybrid-list [at] cs [dot] ua.edu, mfpsmail [at] math [dot] tulane.edu, ml [at] ics [dot] uci.edu, reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu, sea [at] sna [dot] co.umist.ac.uk From: Brian Doyle Subject: Employer Needed! In-Reply-To: <29506.199806142358 [at] gromit [dot] cs.bham.ac.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Hello, I am a recent graduate from the University of Kansas in Computer Science. I am looking for employment in AI programming. Can anyone give me a lead to any companies that might be employing in this field? My resume is on my web page. http://www.eecs.ukans.edu/~bdoyle email: bdoyle [at] eecs [dot] ukans.edu Thanks in advance! From owner-reliable_computing Tue Jun 23 14:45:11 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA20067 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 02:42:07 -0500 Received: from nsc.ru ([194.226.160.65]) by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA20061 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 02:40:28 -0500 Received: from hooker.iis.nsk.su (hooker.iis.nsk.su [194.226.177.235]) by nsc.ru (8.8.8/1.37) id OAA09922; Tue, 23 Jun 1998 14:39:13 +0700 (NSD) Message-Id: <199806230739.OAA09922 [at] nsc [dot] ru> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Alexander Semenov" Organization: Russian Research Institute of AI To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 14:39:11 +6 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Subject: UniCalc- a solver of nonlinear equations Reply-To: semenov [at] iis [dot] nsk.su Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.53/R1) Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Apologies if you received this message more than once. New releases of UniCalc - a solver of algebraic nonlinear equations and inequalities - are available. The solver is based on a combination of interval mathematics, interval constraint propagation and computer algebra. UniCalc can handle both real-valued and integer-valued problems, as well as problems involving variables of both types. The following types of problems can be solved with UniCalc: linear and nonlinear systems of equations and inequalities, problems with imprecise or interval data, Diophantine equations, optimization problems, etc. UniCalc has a friendly user interface and a convenient and simple input language. You are welcome to visit our homepage to know more about UniCalc and download the latest demo versions. The address of our web site is http://www.rriai.org.ru/UniCalc/ Demo versions of UniCalc can be also obtained from anonymous ftp site: ftp://ftp.rriai.org.ru/pub/unicalc/ If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us: e-mail: unicalc [at] rriai [dot] org.ru Thank you for your attention. Alexander Semenov --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander Semenov Novosibirsk Division of the Russian Research Institute of Artificial Intelligence tel. (7 383 2) 34 29 91 pr. ak. Lavrent'eva, 6 fax (7 383 2) 32 83 59 Novosibirsk e-mail semenov [at] iis [dot] nsk.su Russia, 630090 URL http://www.rriai.org.ru/~semenov/ ------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-reliable_computing Tue Jun 23 15:53:37 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA20525 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 06:18:13 -0500 Received: from iph.bio.acad.bg by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA20519 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 06:17:54 -0500 Received: from biomath.bio.acad.bg (biomath.bio.acad.bg [194.141.4.32]) by iph.bio.acad.bg (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id OAA17844 for ; Tue, 23 Jun 1998 14:05:05 +0300 Message-Id: <199806231105.OAA17844 [at] iph [dot] bio.acad.bg> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Svetoslav Markov" Organization: Institute of Biophysics - BAS To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 13:53:37 +0200 Subject: an open letter to the guest editors of RC 4,1 Reply-To: smarkov [at] iph [dot] bio.acad.bg X-Confirm-Reading-To: smarkov [at] iph [dot] bio.acad.bg X-Pmrqc: 1 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.23) Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Dear Guest Editors of Reliable Computing 4,1 (Student issue) I am reviewer of Zentralblatt fuer Mathematik and I received a request to review the following two papers fron RC 4,1: Hu, Ch. et al. : An interval polynomial interpolation problem and its Lagrange solution, 27--38; Davis, C. : A new application of local minima of interval functions: Interval-valued fuzzy control, 99--101. I must say that for first time in my practice as reviewer of Zlb. (I am reviewer for more than 20 years) I have difficulties with writing a review. A review should briefly report on the mathematical results in the paper or on a software tool reported. What should be done if there are no such results at all? As a member of the Editorial board I am concerned with the fate of the journal if similar papers continue to appear. What will reviewers say about such papers? What will a reader say after several hours of rearing to establish that there is nothing in the paper? As far as I remember I was a referee of a previous version of the first paper and I did not recommend publishing. How did it happen that the paper appeared without my knowledge? I really wonder if there has been another referee at all? Let me just mention a striking ignorance: half of the references are not mentioned in the text. As for the second "paper", I already wrote some time ago to the Editor in Chief that all materials in "Letters to the Editor" should be clearly distinguished as nonscientific papers so that they do not undergo scientific reviewing. Probably the same should hold for papers appearing in similar sections like "Short Communications". At present these papers have the same format as a scientific paper. They undergo reviewing and they are probably used for scientific nominations. Is this correct? Svetoslav Markov -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + Dr. Svetoslav Markov Section "Biomathematics", Inst. of phone: +3592-713-3704, +3592-707460, Mathematics and Computer Sci., fax: +3592-971-3649, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, e-mail: smarkov [at] iph [dot] bio.acad.bg "Acad. G. Bonchev" st., block 8, smarkov [at] bgearn [dot] acad.bg BG-1113 Sofia, BULGARIA home address: 11 Mizia, 1124 Sofia, tel. +3592-444651 -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + From owner-reliable_computing Tue Jun 23 08:32:12 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA20934 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:32:36 -0500 Received: from cs.utep.edu by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA20928 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:32:25 -0500 Received: from earth.cs.utep.edu by cs.utep.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17768; Tue, 23 Jun 98 14:32:12 MDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 98 14:32:12 MDT From: vladik [at] cs [dot] utep.edu (Vladik Kreinovich) Message-Id: <9806232032.AA17768 [at] cs [dot] utep.edu> To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Subject: Svetoslav Markov's email Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Dear Friends, First of all, I want to thank Professor Markov for his emotional and thought-provoking letter. I think it is very important for all of us in the area of interval computations (and its generalizations covered in the journal) to feel emotionally connected to the area. As I see it, his letter raises important questions that are worth discussing, much more general questions than whether the editors did a good or sloppy work. As one of the editors of the student issue in which these papers has appeared, I am currently preparing a detailed reply. It may take a day or two because this email does touch on important issues about quality and scope of our journal, and I want to be as clear on this all as possible. Vladik From owner-reliable_computing Tue Jun 23 11:30:47 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA21340 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 16:30:48 -0500 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA21330 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 16:30:47 -0500 Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 16:30:47 -0500 From: "Kearfott R. Baker" Message-Id: <199806232130.AA21330 [at] interval [dot] usl.edu> To: reliable_computing Subject: Subscription verification: Thank you for your cooperation Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Dear list members: Thank you for your cooperation in the recent semi-annual address verification process. The following addresses elicited "unknown user" responses, and I have removed them. Please inform me if you know of updated addresses. angelo [at] fwi [dot] uva.nl akritas [at] ukanvax [dot] bitnet brcb [at] di [dot] ufpe.br bpkice [at] u [dot] washington.edu wkuhn [at] math [dot] gatech.edu vstahl [at] risc [dot] uni-linz.ac.at zm [at] ecs [dot] soton.ac.uk grot [at] alpha [dot] informatik.uni-bonn.de francd [at] ireq [dot] ca mackenb [at] mac [dot] cs.uni-duesseldorf.de georgig [at] tor [dot] numetrix.com sakurai [at] uia [dot] ua.ac.be sp36b8629f [at] colon [dot] net spanish [at] altavista [dot] net The following messages elicited "unknown host" responses, and I have removed them (with further action as indicated). Please inform me if you know of updated addresses. crocco [at] dino [dot] conicit.ve neli [at] BGEARN [dot] BITNET (Changed to neli [at] TREARN [dot] BITNET) johnston [at] ch [dot] hp.com EPOPOVA [at] BGEARN [dot] BITNET (Changed to EPOPOVA [at] TREARN [dot] BITNET) dwelling [at] msagate [dot] mdhc.mdc.com Best regards, --------------------------------------------------------------- R. Baker Kearfott, rbk [at] usl [dot] edu (318) 482-5346 (fax) (318) 482-5270 (work) (318) 981-9744 (home) URL: http://interval.usl.edu/kearfott.html Department of Mathematics, University of Southwestern Louisiana --------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-reliable_computing Tue Jun 23 09:58:29 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA21668 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 17:16:03 -0500 Received: from Happy.DT.UH.EDU by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA21662 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 23 Jun 1998 17:16:01 -0500 Received: by happy.dt.uh.edu (950413.SGI.8.6.12/940406.SGI.AUTO) id QAA13365; Tue, 23 Jun 1998 16:58:29 -0700 From: "Chenyi Hu" Message-Id: <9806231658.ZM13363 [at] happy [dot] dt.uh.edu> Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 16:58:29 -0700 In-Reply-To: vladik [at] cs [dot] utep.edu (Vladik Kreinovich) "Svetoslav Markov's email" (Jun 23, 2:32pm) References: <9806232032.AA17768 [at] cs [dot] utep.edu> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.3 08feb96 MediaMail) To: Vladik Kreinovich , reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Subject: Re: Svetoslav Markov's email Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Dear Friends, Dr. Markov has specificly mentioned a paper authored by three undergraduate students with me in his recent e-mail. I would be happy to send a copy of the paper to anyone who needs to evaluate the undergraduate student project. We very appreciate the superior job done by the anonymous referees and the editors. All of the three students have successfully complelted their undergraduate study. Two of them are working on their graduate degrees at the top universities of the U.S. now. The other student has been employed immediately after her graduation. Yours sincerely, Chenyi Hu -- Ph.D., Associate Professor, Computer and Mathematical Sciences Center for Computational Science and Advanced Distributed Simulation University of Houston-Downtown Phone: 713 221-8414 One Main Street Fax: 713 221-8086 Houston, Texas 77002 E-mail: CHu [at] uh [dot] edu http://happy.dt.uh.edu/~hu/Hu.html From owner-reliable_computing Wed Jun 24 05:10:31 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA22428 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Wed, 24 Jun 1998 12:11:09 -0500 Received: from cs.utep.edu by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA22422 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Wed, 24 Jun 1998 12:10:46 -0500 Received: from earth.cs.utep.edu by cs.utep.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA22295; Wed, 24 Jun 98 11:10:32 MDT Date: Wed, 24 Jun 98 11:10:31 MDT From: vladik [at] cs [dot] utep.edu (Vladik Kreinovich) Message-Id: <9806241710.AA22295 [at] cs [dot] utep.edu> To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Subject: Re: an open letter to the guest editors of RC 4,1 Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Dear Colleagues, First of all, I want to thank Professor Markov for his concerned and thought-provoking letter. I think it is very important for all of us in the area of interval computations (and its generalizations covered in the journal) to feel deeply connected to the area. His letter raises important questions that are worth discussing. Let me try to answer his concerns and related questions one by one. 1) SHOULD WE PUBLISH APPLICATION PAPERS WHICH CONTAIN NO NEW MATHEMATICAL RESULTS? One of the two papers that Professor Markov believes to be inappropriate in Reliable Computing is a paper by C. Davis "A new application of local minima of interval functions: interval-valued fuzzy control", a 3-page paper published in the Short Communications section of the student issue 98,1. For those who did not read this paper, I will briefly explain its contents: it describes, in brief, an application of a known interval-mathematics related algorithm (namely, an algorithm for finding local minima of an interval function) to a new area, in which this algorithm has not been applied before, namely, to the area of intelligent control. This paper does not contain any new mathematical results; however, since the application area is new, and it required some intellectual effort to find this new interesting (and successful) application, the referees believed that this paper (after appropriate revisions) would be of interest to the readership of the journal. As one of the editors of this student issue, I was supervising the refereeing of this paper, so I would like to explain the reasons why we included Davis' paper in this issue. >From my point of view, the ultimate goal of numerical computations is to be able to solve applied problems and to actually solve them. I personally come from a mathematical background, and I like interesting and technically non-trivial mathematical results. These results are, of course, not only esthetically pleasing: they often bring important insights and promote our understanding of the world. (In particular, I immensely enjoy the algebraic foundational papers on interval mathematics which Professor Markov and his students write.) To me, the ultimate test of these mathematical results and related software is applications to real-world problems. Some mathematical results are directly useful, some provide ideas which only later on may lead to applications, some results (such as NP-hardness) describe limitations on potential applications, etc., but to me, it is important that somehow now or eventually the results must be related to computations (because otherwise, they seem to be unrelated to the area of numerical computations). In rare situation, all is done in one paper, which: * starts with a practical problem; * formulates this problem in mathematical terms; * solves this (previously unsolved) problem; and * applies the mathematical solution to the original practical problem. I really enjoy such papers (and some papers of Prof. Markov are like that), but more often, all four steps are done separately, and all four elements of this chain are important for the resulting application. My heart jumps for joy when I see a good theoretical result; but it also jumps for joy when I learn about a new unexpected practical application of the existing methods, because at this moment, the chain that leads to application is completed. (Let me also restate this in an other way: * I like it when to solve a new practical problem, we have to develop a new mathematical method. Such problems are rare gems and important challenges which drive applied mathematics. The resulting technically complicated papers are of great interest. * I also like it when for a new practical problem, for which none of the existing methods seems to be routinely applicable, there suddenly appears a simple idea of how to solve it. The resulting short and not technically complicated papers are elegant and nice. With respect to non-applied mathematics, this distinction was well described by Littlewood in his well-known book Mathematical Miscellany, where, in particular, he argues, by using an example from complex analysis, that a proof of one or two lines may be enough for a Ph.D., if it is unexpected enough and solves an old-standing problem.) The importance of applications is emphasized in the journal's Aims and Scopes statement (published in every issue of RC), according to which the journal "includes various items in the field of theoretical research, computer tools, applications, interdisciplinary research, and other relevant areas". The importance of applications was also specifically emphasized by Kluwer representatives during the talks which brought our journal under Kluwer. I strongly believe that there are already many exciting applications of interval computations which are largely unknown, and there is an even larger potential of applying these methods to different areas. In view of this importance of applications, when we solicited material for the student issue, we actively solicited all kinds of application papers, not only application papers with new mathematical results; we also actively solicited papers from those researchers who did not prove any new mathematical results, but who have the experience of successfully using existing interval methods to solve new problems in unexpected application areas. To make this position more convincing, let me give you a comparison: if I were editing, in 1916, an issue of a journal on applied geometry, I would definitely have approached Einstein because he has some previously unthought-of and successful applications of Riemann geometry (to space-time), although I know for sure that he did not prove any theorems. (I am not saying, of course, that the papers we accepted for the student issue are of the Nobel prize caliber, this was just an example to illustrate the point.) We strongly believe that it is advantageous to the general readers of RC to know about these applications, because: * first, the existence of these applications emphasizes the importance of interval methods, and thus, boosts our field; * second, the knowledge of new areas of applications of interval methods may help researchers who develop these methods to design new (or modified) methods which are specifically tailored towards these new application areas; these new methods may, in turn, lead to even more successful applications; * third, if the application is general enough, then readers may be able to use the intellectual breakthrough of applying this method in one new area to develop new applications in related fields. In some cases, it is sufficient to have a short abstract published, and we do that in the special applications section which we used to run regularly, but sometimes, the understandable explanation cannot be done in just one paragraph (especially if it is a novel idea, not just a modification of the existing application idea). Usually, the readers of RC are not very aware of these applications because they are published in specialized journals (e.g., applications to chemistry in chemical journals, etc.). The papers published in these special journals are usually written for the corresponding professional audience, with lots of professional jargon of the corresponding area, and often without a clear explanation of the problems which are well-known to the researchers from this area, but not to us. As a result of our active solicitation, we received, among others, several application papers which contained no new mathematical results, but which described a new successful application area. These papers were sent to the referees and, if I may, I want to thank the referees who faced, for these papers, an unusually hard job. These papers were written, in some cases, by authors with no experience of writing in mathematical journals, with lots of unexplained non-mathematical terminology, and sometimes, with the erroneous use of mathematical terminology and/or notations. We are very thankful to the referees who, spent quite some time patiently trying to understand and evaluate. Some of these papers (about a half or so) were eventually rejected, usually for one of the following reasons: * the paper may only contain a routine applications of interval computations; any interval researcher would immediately suggest such application; * some papers describe the ideas of the future work, and not the successful applications; these were usually weeded out by the referees; * some papers are too technical and too special, and the explanation of the specific problem requires so much knowledge about the specific field that it is hard to imaging a normal reader of RC understanding it. (Of course, some papers contained mistakes too.) Some papers are still under consideration. A few papers, usually, after (unusually) many iteration between referees and authors, were eventually accepted, many of them - as short communications. In particular, the original version of Davis' paper was 10 pages long, and contained a lot of technical details. After the thorough analysis by the referees, these details were deleted (I hope Davis publishes them elsewhere), and the paper was condensed to its present less than 3 pp. This condensation was made possible by the fact that: * the algorithm which Davis uses was actually published in RC, and * the intelligent control to which he applies this method, was also described in one of the papers published in RC. This allowed the author to replace his original description by a reference to these papers. After this condensation, the paper became so short so as to be a Short Communication. Now that I am seriously thinking about how to classify this paper, it probably could have been better to make it a Letter to the Editor, because it fits well into the description of Letters to the Editor given on the last page of RC: "Responses, amendments, and additions to published materials can be submitted as letters to the Editor." The final version of this paper really is an addition to published materials. 2) HOW TO REVIEW THIS PAPER FOR ZBLATT? Dr. Markov's email starts with the necessity to review the two papers for ZBlatt. I quote: > I must say that for first time in my practice as reviewer of Zlb. (I am > reviewer for more than 20 years) I have difficulties with writing a > review. A > review should briefly report on the mathematical results in the paper > or on a > software tool reported. What should be done if there are no such > results at all? First of all, I want to emphasize that both ZBlatt and Math. Reviews are doing a great job of trying to cover all mathematics, and the main reason why they are so successful is because there are volunteers like Dr. Markov who thanklessly spend lots of time to review numerous papers. I am also a reviewer of ZBlatt (not as long as Dr. Markov, so the previous praise was more oriented towards him :-), but my experience is somewhat different, maybe, because my interest areas have always included such AMS/MOS classification sections as 81 (quantum mechanics), 83 (relativity and astrophysics), etc. I get quite a few application papers which are classified to these areas. Some of them contain new mathematical results (i.e., new theorems), but often, there is no new mathematical theorem proved, but what is new is a new application of the existing mathematical techniques. This is often true in quantum logics, where a paper may simply describe arguments why an existing ordered algebraic model is a good description of a quantum system, or that a certain method well-known in operator theory can actually be successfully used in quantum applications, etc. I have reviewed several such papers, and most of my reviews were accepted and published in ZBlatt (although in some case, based on my review, ZBlatt decided that this particular paper should not be featured in a mathematical review journal). Based on this experience of mine, I think that neither ZBlatt nor MR necessarily require that each paper contain a "mathematical results" in the sense of containing "mathematical theorems"; they also accept papers in which new non-trivial applications are proposed. (My experience with ZBlatt may be unusual because I also sometimes serve as their "troubleshooter": once they sent me a paper outside my normal area of expertise because they could not find an appropriate reviewer for it; since I reviewed it, they sometimes send me similar papers once in a while; I guess that I am also sometimes on a similar position as a referee with RC :-) After explaining why I believe this paper is appropriate for ZBlatt, let me be very constructive and suggest the following draft of the review for ZBlatt (I composed this draft mainly based on the phrases taken from the text of Davis's paper): An expert system methodology transforms the knowledge, which experts formulate by words from natural language, into precise computable algorithms. An (ideal) expert system produces, for each possible situation $s$ and for each possible decision $c$, a number $\mu(c)\in [0,1]$ (called its degree of belief) which describes, crudely speaking, to what extent we can conclude that this decision works well for a given situation. If we use this expert knowledge for an automatic decision-making, then we need to choose a single value $\bar c$. If $c$ is characterized by a single number, and if the function $\mu(c)$ is first increasing, and then decreasing, then a so-called centroid is usually used: $\bar c=(\int c\mu(c)\,dc)/(\int \mu(c)\,dc)$. However, when a function $\mu(c)$ has several local maxima, centroid may get between these maxima, and thus, the resulting solution may not ``work well'' in the sense that the corresponding degree $\mu(\bar c)$ may be small. For these situations, it was suggested to select an area (interval) between two consequent local minima, and only integrate over this area in the integrals defining $\bar c$. \par In real-life applications, the function $\mu(c)$ is often represented by its values $\mu(c_1),\ldots,\mu(c_n)$ in finitely many points $c_1 What will a reader say after several hours of reading > to establish that > there is nothing in the paper? Since there is a text, and I can explain exactly what in this text is new (namely, the idea to use an interval algorithm for finding local minima to solve an intelligent control problem). I have two possible interpretations of this statement about "nothing": * First, although the idea is new and seemed non-trivial to the referees, it looks absolutely trivial (= nothing) to Dr. Markov. * The paper is not well written, requires quite some time to understand ("several hours" is definitely should not be needed to read three pages), and creates, at first, a wrong and thus irritating impression that it contains more material than the simple idea that is actually its contents. In the first case, I would still stick with our decision to publish this paper, because if this idea appeared to be non-trivial for 2 out of 3 people who judged it, I think it is OK. In the second case, it may have been my fault (although justifiable): since, as I mentioned, the initial version of this paper was very technical, I sent this paper to referees who were knowledgeable in this particular area (intelligent control), because other potential referees would simply not have understood the situation. In the beginning, this was the only possibility, but after the paper was transformed into a format (hopefully) more readable for a general audience I could have done an extra step of sending it to a third referee with no preliminary knowledge of intelligent control, to doublecheck on understandability. If this is the case, I apologize for not doing it. If I am completely wrong, and Dr. Markov has in mind some third interpretation of the terms "nothing", I would appreciate the explanations. 3) SHALL WE CONTINUE TO SEND MATERIAL FROM THE "SHORT COMMUNICATIONS" SECTIONS TO THE REFEREES? MAYBE I MISUNDERSTOOD SOMETHING I definitely share with Dr. Markov his desire to make the journal better. However, I am somewhat puzzled by his proposal to achieve this goal by eliminating refereeing for short communications: > I already wrote some time ago to > the Editor in Chief > that all materials in "Letters to the Editor" should be clearly > distinguished as > nonscientific papers so that they do not undergo scientific reviewing. > Probably > the same should hold for papers appearing in similar sections like "Short > Communications". At present these papers have the same format as > a scientific > paper. They undergo reviewing and they are probably used for scientific > nominations. Is this correct? Maybe I misunderstood something? I can interpret this suggestion in two different ways: * Not to referee at all and publish all submitted Short Communications. I do not believe that this is what Dr. Markov means because I witnessed with my own eyes how refereeing rejected some communications and improved others. I do not see how publishing the original hard-to-read texts would have made the journal any better. * Instead of a regular procedure of sending to the referees, let the Editor-in-Chief handle these small pieces. If this is the suggestion, I agree 100%, if Slava Nesterov is willing to do it, but I am afraid that since he has many other duties already, he will simply ask others to referee it, so there will be no big difference except in who handles refereeing. Again, maybe I misunderstood the suggesttion, in this case I would appreciate a clarification. 4) SHOULD WE EXPLICITLY INDICATE THAT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE NOT REFEREED? I think it may be a very good idea. It makes sense to check how this is done in other journals, in particular, in other Kluwer journals. On the other hand, if this explicit indication is not done in any of the journals, it may mean that by default, Letter to the Editor means something that is normally not sent to a referee, only selected by an editor. I am not that comfortable with the idea of calling Letters to the Editor "nonscientific papers". I think this wording is somewhat negative; it sounds to me that this term is more appropriate to describe a criticism of UFOs or extra sense perception. Since I am not a native speaker of English, I may be wrong. 5) WHAT WAS THE REFEREEING PROCESS FOR THE PAPERS SUBMITTED TO THE STUDENT ISSUE (IN PARTICULAR, ARE OUR STANDARDS LOWER IN STUDENT ISSUES)? We tried our best to emulate the normal refereeing process that is used in RC, when (at least) two referees are assigned to each paper. We realized that the very title of the student issue may somehow indicate lower quality and lower requirements, so we took an extra effort to specifically emphasize, in our advertisement for this issue, and in our instructions to the referees, where we specifically wrote: The papers for the student issue must be up to the same standards as all other papers submitted to the journal. The reason for placing student papers (and papers co-authored by students) into a separate issue is that students normally need a speedy publication. If out of two referees, both referees recommended rejection, the paper was rejected; if both recommended acceptance, the paper was accepted, with revisions if necessary. There was no fixed policy for the papers rejected by one referee; such papers were decided on a case-by-case basis. First, the editor handling the paper tried to read, very attentively, both the paper and the reports. * In some cases, the editor got a strong feeling that faults noticed by the rejecting referee are really fatal. In this case, the paper was rejected. * In some cases, the editor got an equally strong feeling that the advantages noticed by the accepting referees outweigh the fault noticed by the rejecting one, or, which was even more often, because the paper was initially badly written, the rejecting referee simply missed the contents which the accepting referee found. In this case, we interpreted the rejecting referee report as a request for a major revision. * In some cases, the editor could not get a clear picture, or the topic was too far away from the editor's area of expertise. In this case, the paper was sent to the third editor whose opinion made a final decision. We realize that this was not a uniform decision, and maybe we should have selected a one which is uniform, and maybe we should have consulted with the editorial board about the general policies. What we did instead was we basically emulated the experiences of ourselves and our colleagues as authors of papers submitted to and refereed in different journals (I am not 100% sure, but, based on the experience of my own accepted and rejected papers, I intend to think that RC in general has all three possibilities open too). I tried my best to trace the story of the paper > Hu, Ch. et al.: An interval polynomial interpolation problem and > its Lagrange > solution, 27--38; It was received in 1995, intended for the 1996 special student issue, and it was sent to two referees. > As far as I remember I was a referee of a previous version of the > first paper This is correct. > and I did not recommend publishing. Yes, in your referee report, you made several very useful suggestions. Both referees did not recommend the publication of the paper in its current form: * your report said that the paper "have not yet reached the stage to be published", and that because of the amount of required improvements, "this paper cannot be prepared for this issue"; as one of the main reasons for your opinion, you mentioned that you did not find a new mathematical result in this paper (a new proposition or a new algorithm); * the second referee repeated some of your specific criticisms (results were not new, problem was not clearly formulated, etc.), added a few criticisms of his/her own, but he did find a new algorithm in this paper, and concluded "the paper is interesting, but it cannot be published in the present form; it must be seriously revised". As indicated above, I looked at both reports and decided to give the authors one more chance, especially since I (probably misunderstanding you) did not view your viewpoint as exactly rejection. You were absolutely right in the sense that there was no time for the authors to make all improvements and return the revised version at the time for the 1996 student issue, so the paper was automatically transferred to the next student issue (which happened to be the future 98,1). On comparing the dates of acceptance published in the paper with the dates dating the files that I have, I realized that the date of acceptance on this paper was incorrect: it should be 1997, not 1996. Since Slava usually keeps a good record of these dates, I think that this is my fault: when I sent this date to Slava with a softcopy of the accepted paper, I made a typo in the year. Now that I see the typo in the dates, I understand why, on seeing this paper, you grew even more concerned: you sent your referee report on December 1995, with serious revision recommendations which would take at least a year to implement, but (according to the journal) already on February 1996, this paper was accepted without your knowledge. In this form, it looks like your report was completely ignored. In reality, the revision did take a year or so for the authors. The author tried their best to revise the paper according to the comments of both referees. > How did it happen that the paper appeared without my knowledge? This is a good question and unfortunately, I do not have the exact answer to it, because I did not keep a log of my email correspondence in 1997, when this acceptance was nearing. I have some memory, but I may be wrong. According to what I remember, and judging by the fact that several papers in the 98,1 issue were accepted at approximately the same time, in February 1997, this was the supposed deadline for the 1997 issue, but which time we were planning to have the bulk of the papers ready so as not to miss the next issue (at that time, we were still planning to have it in 1997). Since several of these papers were already leftovers from the 1996 issue, I was concerned that they may get delayed even further, which kind of defeats the above stated purpose of student issue as a means of fast publications. So, I tried to speed up processing all the papers as much as possible, by pressing both on the authors and on the referees. So, when the revised version of this paper appeared very close to the deadline, I asked the second referee (who I knew was readily available at that time) to check whether all the major drawbacks indicated by both referees were corrected in the revised version. I do not remember why I could not contact you at a short notice (it may be that something was wrong with our email connection). The second referee, in general, agreed that the revision has been successfully made, but made lots of small corrections and suggestions that the authors implemented in a urgent way. To doublecheck, I myself browsed through the revised paper and the recommended corrections, and I got the impression (probably wrong) that the main drawbacks indicated by you (first referee) were indeed eliminated: namely, the new version contained an explicit new algorithm; it contained an explicit mention of the case when the degree of the polynomial was smaller than the number of knots, etc. (If there is something missing, this means that I did not read it attentively enough.) My reading confirmed the opinion of the second editor that the paper was corrected, and the authors clearly used a lot of advise from your report to improve it (and thanked you in their Acknowledgment part). I felt that this paper did contain a new result, and I had a highly favorable opinion of the second referee, so I decided to recommend it for publication. If my recollection is indeed correct, then I am definitely guilty of an unorthodox way of handling this situation. I probably should not have done that, and it may have probably been better to postpone the publication of this paper. I, however, strongly disagree with your opinion that this paper contains "nothing". It does contain a new algorithm (at least the second referee considered it new, and the authors did not find it in the papers that you recommended in your original referee report), and the experimental results of applying this algorithm. > I really wonder if there has been another referee at all? There was a one. I have a copy of his/her referee report. > Let me just mention a striking ignorance: half of the references > are not mentioned > in the text. I would not use this strong words "striking ignorance", but I agree with you that it is not good. My guess is that when the paper was revised, the authors did not realize that after their deletions, references to the deleted papers were unintentionally deleted. The referee does not check this (I can understand that: I for one never check this unless this really strikes me as odd; this is probably easily done in LaTeX), and I, as an editor, did not check this either. It may be a good idea for our journal to follow the example of SIAM journals and to start checking whether all the papers in the bibliography are actually referenced in the text. 6) AN IMPORTANT ISSUE: UNIFORMITY A real important issue raised by Dr. Markov's letter is uniformity: we should avoid rejection of papers of higher intrinsic merit than ones that are published, and visa versa. Again, let me thank Dr. Markov for his concerns and let us hope that his concern will helps us all improve the journal. Yours Vladik From owner-reliable_computing Thu Jun 25 07:55:19 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA19423 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:54:17 -0500 Received: from ns2.ge.com by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA19417 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:54:13 -0500 Received: from thomas.ge.com (thomas.ge.com [3.47.28.21]) by ns2.ge.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA16737 for ; Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:53:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ral-util01.gecmc.ge.com (ral-util01.gecmc.ge.com [3.73.121.205]) by thomas.ge.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA07305 for ; Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:53:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: from nc2-risk01.gecmc.ge.com by ral-util01.gecmc.ge.com (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA08027; Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:55:21 -0400 Received: by nc2-risk01.gecmc.ge.com (SMI-8.6) id LAA05940; Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:55:19 -0400 Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:55:19 -0400 Message-Id: <199806251555.LAA05940@nc2-risk01.gecmc.ge.com> From: Raj Patil <> To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Subject: IA and Monte Carlo Reply-To: Raj Patil Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Hi: I am looking for practical applications (especially in finance) where IA or fuzzy arithmetic has been compared to Monte Carlo simulations. Thanks, Raj Patil GE Capital From owner-reliable_computing Fri Jun 26 04:30:40 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA19913 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Thu, 25 Jun 1998 15:40:19 -0500 Received: from into.nit.spb.su by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA19907 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 25 Jun 1998 15:39:45 -0500 Received: from slava.UUCP (uucp@localhost) by into.nit.spb.su (8.8.7/8.8.7) with UUCP id AAA03452 for reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu; Fri, 26 Jun 1998 00:41:18 +0400 (MSD) (envelope-from slava!slava.nit.spb.su!nest) Received: by slava.nit.spb.su (dMail for DOS v1.23, 15Jun94); Fri, 26 Jun 1998 00:30:40 +0400 To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Message-Id: Organization: Slava Nesterov Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 00:30:40 +0400 (MSD) Reply-To: nest [at] into [dot] nit.spb.su From: "Slava Nesterov" X-Mailer: dMail [Demos Mail for DOS v1.23] Subject: Re: Open letter Lines: 155 Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Dear Colleagues, I have read "Open letter..." by Prof. Markov and the respond by Prof.Kreinovich and I would like to express my opinion concerning some questions arisen in these messages. I see two major things I have to say about. The first is the form of "Open letter" and the second is its contents. I am not sure that Prof. Markov chose the best way to discuss the important questions concerning the journal Reliable Computing and its editorial policy. I think it would be better to discuss them among editorial board (at least for the beginning). Also I cannot accede with style of evaluation of two papers and evaluation of invited editor's activity. In spite of the "emotional" style of the letter which I cannot agree with, Prof. Markov arose very important questions and I'd like to thank him for it. I hope this exchange of opinions will help us to increase the level of the journal. Let me now comment some parts of "Open letter" and Prof. Kreinovich's respond. Prof.Markov wrote: --As far as I remember I was a referee and --I did not recommend publishing. How did it happen that the paper appeared --without my knowledge? I really wonder if there has been another --referee at all I think it is the main editors' fault (and probably the only one). In the case when one report is positive, the other is negative and I have no possibility to continue referee process I never publish a paper. A couple times the following situation occurred: one referee wrote me something like this "I don't like the paper and I don't recommend it for publishing but if you want you can choose other referee because I ...." In this case I definitely chose other referee or attentively considered the paper myself. But if referee said "no" decidedly I didn't publish the paper. --As for the second "paper", I already wrote some time ago to the --Editor in Chief that all materials in "Letters to the Editor" --should be clearly distinguished as --nonscientific papers so that they do not undergo scientific reviewing. It is true. I think it should be mentioned in the "Information for authors" section or something like this. It is my mistake that I didn't do it before. I'll include such words beginning from 1999 when journal's appearance will be slightly changed. In practice I don't conduct the full referee process for such materials. I usually read them attentively myself and very often ask somebody else (one person) to read too. --Probably --the same should hold for papers appearing in similar sections like "Short --Communications". Absolutely disagree. Short communications are the same thing as usual papers but the short ones. Probably some authors (I remember at least one such a case) don't like to place their paper to this section but I think they are not right. The referee process is absolutely the same as for "big" papers. --At present these papers have the same format as a scientific --paper. They undergo reviewing and they are probably used for scientific --nominations. Is this correct? Correct ============================================================== Prof.Kreinovich wrote: --1) SHOULD WE PUBLISH APPLICATION PAPERS WHICH CONTAIN NO NEW --MATHEMATICAL RESULTS? Generally I agree with Vladik's point of view. There are other questions "How many application papers should we publish" and "Should we distinguish such papers and place them to special sections like "application, tutorial etc.". But these questions have to be discussed separately. We should devoted some part of each volume to applications. --3) SHALL WE CONTINUE TO SEND MATERIAL FROM THE --"SHORT COMMUNICATIONS" SECTIONS TO THE REFEREES? --MAYBE I MISUNDERSTOOD SOMETHING I certainly think that the referee process should be the same for "big" papers and materials from "Short Communication" section. --4) SHOULD WE EXPLICITLY INDICATE THAT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE NOT --REFEREED? --I think it may be a very good idea. I think we should. Usually we publish as such letters materials like information about conferences, books etc. Of course these are not scientific papers and should not be refereed. --5) WHAT WAS THE REFEREEING PROCESS FOR THE PAPERS SUBMITTED TO THE --STUDENT ISSUE (IN PARTICULAR, ARE OUR STANDARDS LOWER IN STUDENT ISSUES)? .... -- The papers for the student issue must be up to the same standards as -- all other papers submitted to the journal. The reason for placing -- student papers (and papers co-authored by students) -- into a separate issue is that students normally need a -- speedy publication. Agree --If out of two referees, --both referees recommended rejection, the paper was rejected; if --both recommended acceptance, the paper was accepted, with revisions if --necessary. There was no fixed policy for the --papers rejected by one referee; such papers were decided on a --case-by-case basis. I think it would be better to make arrangement with referee or at least find third referee, obtain positive report and inform referee in advance showing him/her all editor's arguments to publish the paper. --* In some cases, the editor could not get a clear picture, or the -- topic was too far away from the editor's area of expertise. In this -- case, the paper was sent to the third editor whose opinion made a -- final decision. Third referee is meant. I think in this case discussion between referees and editor would be useful. I am sure that in all cases when it is possible we must find the consensus. --We realize that this was not a uniform decision, and maybe we should --have selected a one which is uniform, and maybe we should have --consulted with the editorial board about the general policies. To consult with EB is a good idea. Maybe to initiate a discussion among EB members devoted to criteria of acceptance papers? And not only among EB members. ============================================== As the discussion already takes place in such a wide audience as our mailing list, I'd like to ask people not from the editorial board to express their opinions and vision of the situation. There is Russian proverb: "No prophet in the fatherland". So the opinion from outside may be more exact. Thank you, Slava Nesterov From owner-reliable_computing Thu Jun 25 12:03:01 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA20412 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Thu, 25 Jun 1998 17:02:58 -0500 Received: from boris.mscs.mu.edu by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA20406 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Thu, 25 Jun 1998 17:02:56 -0500 Received: by boris.mscs.mu.edu (Smail3.1.28.1 #9) id m0ypK6g-001HckC; Thu, 25 Jun 98 17:03 CDT Message-Id: From: georgec [at] marque [dot] mscs.mu.edu (Dr. George F. Corliss MU MSCS) Subject: Re: Open letter (fwd) To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 17:03:01 -0500 (CDT) Cc: georgec [at] marque [dot] mscs.mu.edu (George Corliss) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1369 Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk I, too appreciate the open discussion, and thank Professor Markov for raising the issue. Here are a few of my thoughts. 1. Applications are science, too, even if they are not original mathematics. If we cure cancer, that is publishable. Who cares whether we label it math, biology, chemistry, medicine, or computer science? 2. Surprising referees. I, too, have been surprised from time to time by seeing a paper I had recommend rejecting appear. I fully understand the process. When I have served as editor, I have tried to notify each referee of the disposition of the papers they had read, along with a sentence or two on why. It is a bit more work, and I was not always able to do so. However, I recommend that practice to editors. At least that is an extra opportunity to thank the referees for their work and to alert them to the final disposition. I find the courtesy leaves referees more inclined to say, "Yes" to my next request for refereeing, too. 3. I favor slightly flexible standards for student papers, but I suspect they rarely need them. It is good to encourage promising young mathematicians. George F. Corliss Dept. Math, Stat, Comp Sci Marquette University P.O. Box 1881 Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881 USA georgec [at] mscs [dot] mu.edu; CorlissG [at] Marquette [dot] edu http://www.mscs.mu.edu/~georgec/ Office: 414-288-6599; Dept: 288-7375; Fax: 288-5472 From owner-reliable_computing Fri Jun 26 11:38:50 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA21084 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Fri, 26 Jun 1998 04:06:41 -0500 Received: from iph.bio.acad.bg by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA21078 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Fri, 26 Jun 1998 04:06:13 -0500 Received: from biomath.bio.acad.bg (biomath.bio.acad.bg [194.141.4.32]) by iph.bio.acad.bg (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id JAA00384; Fri, 26 Jun 1998 09:41:24 +0300 Message-Id: <199806260641.JAA00384 [at] iph [dot] bio.acad.bg> Comments: Authenticated sender is From: "Svetoslav Markov" Organization: Institute of Biophysics - BAS To: vladik [at] cs [dot] utep.edu (Vladik Kreinovich) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 09:38:50 +0200 Subject: Re: an open letter to the guest editors of RC 4,1 Reply-To: smarkov [at] iph [dot] bio.acad.bg Cc: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu X-Confirm-Reading-To: smarkov [at] iph [dot] bio.acad.bg X-Pmrqc: 1 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.23) Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Dear Vladik, > Let me try to answer his concerns and related questions one by one. thank you for the long explanations. Still some concerns remain. > > 1) SHOULD WE PUBLISH APPLICATION PAPERS WHICH CONTAIN NO NEW > MATHEMATICAL RESULTS? > One of the two papers that Professor Markov believes to be inappropriate > in Reliable Computing is a paper by C. Davis "A new application of > local minima of interval functions: interval-valued fuzzy control", > a 3-page paper published in the Short Communications section of the > student issue 98,1. For those who did not read this paper, I will > briefly explain its contents: it describes, in brief, an application of > a known interval-mathematics related algorithm (namely, an algorithm > for finding local minima of an interval function) to a new area, in > which this algorithm has not been applied before, namely, to the area > of intelligent control. This paper does not contain any new > mathematical results; however, since the application area is new, and > it required some intellectual effort to find this new interesting (and > successful) application, the > referees believed that this paper (after appropriate revisions) > would be of interest to the readership of the journal. > .... > The importance of applications is emphasized in > the journal's Aims and Scopes statement .... > we also actively solicited papers from > those researchers who did not prove any new mathematical results, but > who have the experience of successfully using existing interval > methods to solve new problems in unexpected application areas. > You say nice words about applications, and I completely agree. I even agree with the remark of Prof. Corliss that we may/should accept applications not only in other mathematical branches but also in biology, physics, chemistry. It is important to make clear what an application of the science (theory, method) X into the science Y means. This may be useful for the people of the mailing list, and especially for the authors in RC. And this is the reason why I made this discussion open -- the authors of RC should know about the difficulties met by the Editorial board of RC when estimating their papers. (I appologize to the Editor in Chief; I would not have done so if a discussion between the EB members was available.) An application of X to Y means that a new scientific result has been obtained in the field Y using methods characteristic for the field X. (That is the methods from X need not be new.) We have basically two cases of applications. The first case is when X and Y are from two different basic fields --- by basic field I mean mathematics (M), biology (B), physics (P) and chemistry (C). The interesting situation (for us) is X in M, Y in B, P or C. In this case Y should be related to some real-word experiment and the method X should help in the etablishing a law (relation) between the objects involved in this experiment. The experiment may be not made by the author, but by other authors (but it is better if repeated by the authors, since their methods from X may require some modifications in the experimental measurements). An example: the work of Lang about gravitation reported at SCAN97. This are the best cases, I agree with you, you mention such applications, and the steps in the modelling process. Of course in this case X may not involve new mathematical results but the new result should be in B,P or C. Typical interdisciplinary fields are biochemistry, biophyscs, biomathematics, etc, all combinations of the for letters M,B,P,C, thereby the order can be taken into account (it says where the new result is). The second type (and the most often) is when X and Y are from same basic field, in our case M (otherwise the work will not go to RC). For instance, as in the paper of C. Davis, X is from the field of interval analysis, and Y is from the field of fuzzy control. Both areas are mathematical. Here the main resuls are in Y (fyzzy control) using tools from X. Having worked a long time in interdiscuiplinary fields I understand very well the tricks made by some authors: they do not make clear the direction of the application, that is, where the main result is and where the known tools are. They try to be great by saying that their main results are in both fields. Since the referees are not so great (they are normally specialist in one of the two fields), its a good place for confusion.: the specialst in X should think that the new result is in Y, and the specialist in Y should think that the new result is in X. This is well-known trick. It is fairly obvious that no new result in fuzzy control is found in the paper of C. Davis. But here I am concerned with your statement that just the idea of how to do an application is enough to be published. Here I do not agree with you. An idea, without actually performing the application and finding the new result, may not work at all. This is what I call NOTHING. Or if everybody agrees, then it is trivial (its something obvious). Exactly here I am interested in the oppinion of other EB members. I must say that if more than 50% of them take your side, I should withdraw from the EB. Because I believe that such an understanding will soon make RC a very bad journal. > To make this position more convincing, let me give you a comparison: > if I were editing, in 1916, an issue of a journal on applied geometry, > I would definitely have approached Einstein because he has some > previously unthought-of and successful applications of Riemann geometry (to > space-time), although I know for sure that he did not prove any > theorems. (I am not saying, of course, that the papers we accepted for > the student issue are of the Nobel prize caliber, this was just an > example to illustrate the point.) This is a bad example, and I shall write a separate letter about it > > 2) HOW TO REVIEW THIS PAPER FOR ZBLATT? > ... > Based on this experience of mine, I think that neither ZBlatt nor MR > necessarily require that each paper contain a "mathematical results" > in the sense of containing "mathematical theorems"; they also accept > papers in which new non-trivial applications are proposed. > I agree, unless you agree with my understanding of "application" > An expert system methodology transforms the knowledge, which experts > formulate by words from natural language, into precise computable > algorithms. An (ideal) expert system produces, for each possible > situation $s$ and for each possible decision $c$, a number > $\mu(c)\in [0,1]$ (called its degree of belief) which describes, > crudely speaking, to what extent we can conclude that this > decision works well for a given situation. If we use this expert > knowledge for an automatic decision-making, then we need to choose a > single value $\bar c$. If $c$ is characterized by a single number, and if > the function $\mu(c)$ is first increasing, and then decreasing, > then a so-called centroid is usually used: $\bar c=(\int > c\mu(c)\,dc)/(\int \mu(c)\,dc)$. However, when a function $\mu(c)$ > has several local maxima, centroid may get between these maxima, and > thus, the resulting solution may not ``work well'' in the sense that > the corresponding degree $\mu(\bar c)$ may be > small. For these situations, it was suggested to select an area > (interval) between two consequent local minima, and only integrate > over this area in the integrals defining $\bar c$. > \par > In real-life applications, the function $\mu(c)$ is often > represented by its values $\mu(c_1),\ldots,\mu(c_n)$ in finitely > many points $c_1 find all local minima. However, often, for every $i$, we only > have an {\it interval} $[\mu^-(c_i),\mu^+(c_i)]$ of possible > values of $\mu(c_i)$. In this case, we face a problem of finding > possible intervals between local minima. To solve this problem, the > author proposes to use an algorithm from ZBlatt ... This text is unappropriate for review for Zbl. They need very short reviews. The best is when you first say in several words the field and then in several words the new result. > > I am not quite sure what exactly Dr. Markov means when he says that > there is nothing in this paper: > > > What will a reader say after several hours of reading > > to establish that > > there is nothing in the paper? > > Since there is a text, and I can explain exactly what in this text is > new (namely, the idea to use an interval algorithm for finding local > minima to solve an intelligent control problem). > I have two possible interpretations of this statement about > "nothing": Neither of your two interpretations. As I said, an idea, however great, is just a possible tool.. It should be implemented to get a new scientific result in such a way that the reader is convinced in this (that is, in case of mathematics, a proof is needed). Just the idea is NOTHING. > 3) SHALL WE CONTINUE TO SEND MATERIAL FROM THE > "SHORT COMMUNICATIONS" SECTIONS TO THE REFEREES? > MAYBE I MISUNDERSTOOD SOMETHING > I said. if the EB accepts such communications (containing just an idea), and if such papers are put in a section "Short communications" then such "papers" shoud not be reviewd. BUT, there are real short communications (of courese a great theorem can be put in one page paper), I did not men this case at all. > 4) SHOULD WE EXPLICITLY INDICATE THAT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE NOT > REFEREED? ... > I am not that comfortable with the idea of calling Letters to the > Editor "nonscientific papers". I think this wording is somewhat > negative; it sounds to me that this term is more appropriate to describe > a criticism of UFOs or extra sense perception. Since I am not a native > speaker of English, I may be wrong. Ltters are metascience. I intend to submit this letter for publication, do you think thare is some new scientific result in it? > > 5) WHAT WAS THE REFEREEING PROCESS FOR THE PAPERS SUBMITTED TO THE > STUDENT ISSUE (IN PARTICULAR, ARE OUR STANDARDS LOWER IN STUDENT ISSUES)? > I am glad to here that you, Slava Nesterov, and Gearge Corliss think that a negative report should be respected. The referee should at least know about the final resolution of the Editor and his motivations. To make this letter shorter, I only want to object your last words related to uniformity. I do not agree that the quality standard of RC should be considered established by the quality of the already published papers. Some of the alreasdy published papers are of very law quality. The EB should make an effort that such papers do not appear in the future. Svetoslav -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + Dr. Svetoslav Markov Section "Biomathematics", Inst. of phone: +3592-713-3704, +3592-707460, Mathematics and Computer Sci., fax: +3592-971-3649, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, e-mail: smarkov [at] iph [dot] bio.acad.bg "Acad. G. Bonchev" st., block 8, smarkov [at] bgearn [dot] acad.bg BG-1113 Sofia, BULGARIA home address: 11 Mizia, 1124 Sofia, tel. +3592-444651 -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + From owner-reliable_computing Fri Jun 26 09:15:15 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA21964 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:15:27 -0500 Received: from cs.utep.edu by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA21958 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:15:20 -0500 Received: from earth.cs.utep.edu by cs.utep.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02180; Fri, 26 Jun 98 15:15:16 MDT Date: Fri, 26 Jun 98 15:15:15 MDT From: vladik [at] cs [dot] utep.edu (Vladik Kreinovich) Message-Id: <9806262115.AA02180 [at] cs [dot] utep.edu> To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Subject: Re: Open letter Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk Dear Friends, Once again, I want to thank Dr. Markov for starting this important discussion. I was glad to learn, from his reply to me, that although we disagree in our evaluation of certain papers, we seem to be in complete agreement about the general editorial policy of the journal: 1) We both agree, and other members of the editorial board who responded before also agree, that in addition to papers which contain mathematical results, the journal should publish good papers which contain important applications to real-life problems. (I thank Dr. Markov for a good example of Lang's work on gravitation; I am especially happy to see this example, because this was one of the papers that we actively solicited for the previous student issue). The whole point of my previous email was to argue this point, and I am relieved to know that in spite of the difference in terminology which sounded like we drastically differ on this issue, we both agree on this policy issue. 2) We both agree that trivial papers, with results which are obvious to specialists in a field, should not be published in the journal. I specifically emphasized, in my previous email, that this was one of the main reasons for rejecting several application papers. Again, we disagree with Dr. Markov on specific papers, which is normal: what is trivial to one person may not be so trivial to others, but we agree on the principle. 3) We both agree that we need to be extra careful when refereeing interdisciplinary papers. Usually, for such a paper, if we cannot find a referee who understands both areas, we try to send to several referees who are specialists in different areas. 4) We both agree that negative referee reports should be seriously taken into consideration. Dr. Markov and Dr. Nesterov convinced me also that it is in the best interest of the journal and of the community that not only the contents of the negative referee reports should be taken into consideration, but the referees themselves should decide whether their concerns were taken into consideration in the revised version. In my previous experience as an editor, although I tried to consult the referees, I did not make it a 100% rule. Now I realize that it was a mistake. Once again, I want to sincerely apologize not only to Dr. Markov, but to all other referees who may feel that their negative opinions were neglected, and assure them that their opinions and suggestions were never neglected. I am convinced now that consulting the referees themselves is extremely important. We may want to make it a general policy of the journal. In short, I think that Dr. Markov and I do not have any disagreement on the editorial policy. Vladik P.S. I am so happy that we agree on major points of editorial policy that I may have overlooked some minor issues where we do disagree. I agree with Dr. Markov that it is in the best interest of the journal and of the interval community in general to have high quality papers in the journal. I therefore welcome all suggestions on how we can achieve this goal, and I would be glad to continue the on-line discussion on general policy issues. However, may I suggest that we move the discussion of *specific* papers off-line. I realize that Dr. Markov is seriously concerned about the quality of the journal, and I think I am speaking for all the editors when I say that we all I (otherwise, we would not be on the editorial board). * If a paper contains a mistake (mathematical or applied), I would be the first to push the journal to publish a correction as soon as possible. * However, whether something is trivial or not is often a matter of opinion, not a fact. There are lots of anecdotal evidence in mathematics when a well-known paper was initially rejected as trivial and obvious. For example, I remember a very highly-publicized case in Russia, when a Doctor of Science dissertation on category theory was rejected as trivial, and then was published as an important breakthrough when the author emigrated to the US. It is not a common mathematical practice for editors of a journal to discuss the quality of individual published papers in public, and I think one of the reasons why this is not done is that such discussions may unintentionally hurt the young authors' feeling and reputation, and discourage others from submitting papers to our journal. I may be slightly exaggerating the potential harm, but I would rather be mistaken on the side of caution, and therefore, I urge all the participants of this discussion to avoid using the entire mailing list for discussing individual papers. For such discussions, we can set up an editorial board mailing list. Dr. Kearfott, the maintainer of this (large) mailing list, and Dr. Nesterov (the journal's editor-in-chief) can hopefully help in setting an editorial mailing list. From owner-reliable_computing Fri Jun 26 10:15:29 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA22305 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Fri, 26 Jun 1998 17:15:35 -0500 Received: from cs.utep.edu by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA22299 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Fri, 26 Jun 1998 17:15:32 -0500 Received: from earth.cs.utep.edu by cs.utep.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02450; Fri, 26 Jun 98 16:15:29 MDT Date: Fri, 26 Jun 98 16:15:29 MDT From: vladik [at] cs [dot] utep.edu (Vladik Kreinovich) Message-Id: <9806262215.AA02450 [at] cs [dot] utep.edu> To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu Subject: ZBlatt, MR, CR Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk This email is addressed to all interval researchers who are reviewers for Math Reviews, ZBlatt, and Computing Reviews. Once in a while, each of us receives an interval-related paper which he/she finds difficult to referee. Very often, it happens with multidisciplinary papers, especially papers on applications of interval computations. For example, a paper in which interval computations are applied to quantum mechanics may require an understanding of both areas; there definitely are researchers who have this understanding in both areas, but ZBlatt and MR may be unaware of them (especially since the American Mathematical Society classification, on which their reviewers lists are based, does not reflect interval computations well). ZBlatt and MR explicitly encourage passing papers (which were sent for review) to other researchers or returning them back to ZBlatt or MR office. The second possibility may not be a good idea, because for the same reason (described above) why this paper was sent to a wrong reviewer in the first place, it may be send to another wrong reviewer the second time too. I agree with Dr. Markov that it is extremely important for our field to be well represented to the mathematical community at large, and reviewing journals are one of our main windows to mathematics in general. May I volunteer therefore to serve as a clearing house for these cases: if you have such a troubling paper, and you do not know who to forward it to, please inform me about the paper, and I will try either to review it myself (if it falls within my area of expertise) or send it to somebody else in interval computations who I know to be a specialist in this area. The reason why I may be of help is that after organizing the workshop in 1995 on applications of interval computations and after selecting referees for application papers, I have some understanding of who is doing what applications. However, if anyone else is willing to serve as such a clearinghouse I will be glad to help that person as much as I can. Yours sincerely Vladik My mailing address is: Vladik Kreinovich Department of Computer Science University of Texas at El Paso El Paso, TX 79968, USA From owner-reliable_computing Tue Jun 30 11:51:49 1998 Received: by interval.usl.edu id AA00218 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for reliable_computing-outgoing); Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:51:25 -0500 Received: from bp.ucs.usl.edu by interval.usl.edu with SMTP id AA00212 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:51:22 -0500 Received: from rbk5287.usl.edu (liberty.usl.edu [130.70.46.171]) by bp.ucs.usl.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7/ucs-server_1.1) with SMTP id QAA23966 for ; Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:51:20 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <2.2.32.19980630215149.0087aeb8 [at] pop [dot] usl.edu> X-Sender: rbk5287 [at] pop [dot] usl.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:51:49 -0500 To: reliable_computing [at] interval [dot] usl.edu From: "R. Baker Kearfott" Subject: How to reach the Reliable Computing editorial board Sender: owner-reliable_computing Precedence: bulk A mailing list has been set up to reach members of the editorial board of the journal "Reliable Computing." If you send a message to rc_editors [at] interval [dot] usl.edu it will reach each member of the editorial board, no more, no less. Best regards, R. Baker Kearfott --------------------------------------------------------------- R. Baker Kearfott, rbk [at] usl [dot] edu (318) 482-5346 (fax) (318) 482-5270 (work) (318) 981-9744 (home) URL: http://interval.usl.edu/kearfott.html Department of Mathematics, University of Southwestern Louisiana USL Box 4-1010, Lafayette, LA 70504-1010, USA ---------------------------------------------------------------