From: Paul
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 16:05:42 +0100
Subject: Re: [TSSP] Papers
Marco wrote: > Even if I have been studying math many years at university > and elsewhere, I am partly lost-in-space when I try to follow > your flow. Yes, I think that if a proper mathematician got hold of it and gave it a thorough rewrite it would be half the length and twice as clear. Then it would be much easier to read. There's something very neat about using integral operators to describe the reactive behaviour of distributed structures, but it really needs a proper treatment by someone who knows what they're doing. That's why you're having difficulties. I'll keep on working at it, but it remains an amateur effort and hard work for the reader. One good thing is that it is 'correct' in that all the tssp software (except for geotc) is coded from it [pn1401], so it appears to 'work'. > 1. Update and keep up-to-date pn1401 and such "math for dummies" > kind of (and I count myself amoung these dummies :) > 2. Think to a significative result/finding that: > - can fit in some 4 - 5 pages > - can stand by itself. Hmm, yes, we can do that. I'll give some thought to what we can realistically pull together, but without doing some research in the literature, the context remains unclear. > The article alone must make some sense without > the need to read other 50 references > - can be of public interest also outside the coiler's community I'm jealous of your library facilities in Finland. Here in the UK, things are slowly improving. They have a PC in the local library now, but it doesn't seem to do much. I may well take up your offer to obtain pdf copies for a few articles. Formatting, etc, is not much of a problem, I can use the appropriate TeX macros, etc. > Usually you don't have the space to 100% describe your > experimental setup. Read someone else's paper: you'll > never find all information to really duplicate their experiments. > Results are reported at large, the setup is usually a minor thing Oh yes, I know what you mean. The reader is entitled to assume that the background work has been done properly, and these assumptions are implied by the calibre of the reporting institute and the journal's standards. It's very efficient and means that a lot of mundane stuff can remain unsaid and taken for granted. An amateur contribution would lack this implicit quality assurance and would have to be self supporting in terms of its integrity, thus would contain perhaps a little more detail than normal. To give an example, I was reading an amateur paper the other week (a totally unrelated subject). The paper presented some scientific measurements in the form of a curve. The curve matched the expected data stunningly well, perhaps too well for the equipment in use. I noticed that the curve also matched the response you get from a certain kind of filter (I had gotten the same curve in my measurements, due to noise passing through the filter). If that were a professional paper I could take for granted that such an obvious thing had been allowed for, but with the amateur paper, I have to remain unconvinced that the curve was real. If the paper had gone into such detail (eg so-and-so filter was used, we did this-and-this cross checks, etc), then it would have stood up. Anyway, as Marco say's, we're not in any hurry. Meanwhile with a bit of luck, someone with a flair for this stuff might come along and take it up. -- Paul Nicholson, --
Maintainer Paul Nicholson, paul@abelian.demon.co.uk.