The debate of open access

Many people argue that if your research is sponsored by governmental agencies, your results should be made available to everyone who has paid taxes, part of which goes to the research the publication is based upon. Additionally, professor's salary (and most of the researchers', students', and technicians') are paid by public fund including the majority of private schools (they got tax relieves). Therefore, why should we pay for the research we've paid already?

The answer is: you are paying the publication cost which includes administration cost, salary of the editors, and paper and distribution cost (including web sites). Peer review is very important to the scientific society, but it is also a very expensive process in which all the reviewers are actually doing it for free. The e-publication trend has caught on since early 2000. But it can only offset part of the printing and distribution cost. The real cost of a journal, is still significantly high.

On the other hand, previous literatures become a very important part of any sciences. Current system charges very high rate (~$2000 or more per journal for library access). Although you don't have to pay for publication, the access fee will kill you. Consequently, researchers who can't afford to publish, they can't afford to read either. In then end, sciences will eventually end up as big rich institutions' privileges.

So what’s the solution? I truly believe first, there will be only electronics publication. This is save more than 50% of the current cost of publication. Secondly, there should be two systems: one is the author paid, peer-reviewed system and the other one is non-peer reviewed free publication system that sponsored by the scientific society in a whole. The dual-modal system will ensure all the poor guys (who at least can afford internet access) can have all the publications, peer-reviewed or not, while their publications still can be heard to some degree. At the same time, we assume most of the people who do publish are doing well enough to pay for their own publications. This assumption should not be too far off since modern scientific research is quite expensive and mostly paid for by government or large private funds.

After all these, where will you publish your results? For me, it is the journal with the largest audience that I want to reach.

References:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june04/harnad/06harnad.html
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/
http://www.doaj.org/
http://www.scienceboard.net/community/perspectives.142.html

Am I in the right field?

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Retrofit Daytime Running Light (DRL) to Nissan Sentra

According to some statistics, Daytime Running Light (DRL) makes your car more visible and may avoid accidents. Some says that is not true. You may find the arguments from both sides at here.

Personally, I think driving with my low beam lights on will make me more visible and is a good thing. So, I've been manually turning on my low beam on all the time.

After draining my battery a few times, I finally decided to install an automatically DRL on my Sentra. If you want a professional to retrofit your current vehicle with DRL, it may run about $150 plus tax. But you can do the job in about 20 minutes to an hour with a $30 universal (almost) DRL kit. There are a few companies making those, I got the Hamsar 45020 VISI-LIGHT from JC Whitney (part number: ZX135227R, once specified your car, browse in the light control section) for $27 plus shipping. It arrived within three days and my Saturday noon was subsequently scheduled for that.

For 2001 Nissan Sentra, you will also need an extra 4ft 18 Gauge wire and two tap splice connectors to connect the low beam wire from the two headlamps. The kit has two tap connectors included for connection to the low and high beam wires. Although was told so in the included installation guide, I still went ahead without one. The result was obvious: only one light worked. So, I had to run to the nearest Radio Shack to ge the wire and the tap connectors.

Another confusing part was to tell which wire to the headlamp is the low beam, which is the high beam. For 2001 Sentra, there are three wires connect the headlamp. A black in the middle, which should be ground (yes, it is). The other two are the same orange color wires, I couldn't tell which one according to the installation guide, so just randomly choose one as the low beam, which turned out to be wrong after everything's connected. The correct low beam wire is the one on the driver side.

Anyway, the whole installation took me about 70 minutes including the 15 minutes trip to Radio Shack.

The Real Genius

Heard about this movie for a long time since an old professor of mine was the scientific director for it and he even played a small role in it.

May be this is what the genius in MIT do instead of moving a Cannon across country.

The war between nerds: the story of how the Caltech Cannon showing in MIT

So funny....

See the attached LA Times' story:

2-Ton Cannon Is Fodder for Ongoing Rivalry Between Caltech and MIT

By Arin Gencer, Times Staff Writer
7:26 PM PDT, April 6, 2006

In the ongoing battle of the nerds between Caltech and MIT, the latest volley has been fired from a 130-year-old cannon.

Actually, the latest volley is a cannon.

............. The full story can be found at LA Times

Immigration reform

Like almost everybody else, I have mixed feelings about this immigration reform bill just passed in the Senate.


First, and most important, it is an important hot-bottom issue that finally someone plans to do something about it.

The currently immigration system is a mess.

Millions of who are trying to immigrate to the US are waiting a long time to get in, while those who can't sneak in and live as secondary citizens. They pay taxes (some of them, at least) but have no benefit, no social security, and no health care. So, the emergency rooms are jammed with people who can't afford a family doctor and hospitals (like the one I used to work for) charge them (in paper) five to ten times what they would do to HMOs. In the end, those charges become "charitable donations" and our tax payers foot the bill.

This is what everybody agrees.

Now is the word "mixed" comes in.

Granting amnesty to those already in certainly seems a encouragement to those who haven't. However, the root of the problem is the imbalance of living standard on the two sides of the boarder. Unless we are willing to build a "Mexican Wall" and guard it like what was in Berlin, there will be people taking high risks to cross it. Look at what the Germans done for the past 15 years.

For those who have been waiting in line for years to get in legally, it is kind of "unfair" for those who enter illegally get amnesty. Well, don't they remember that's may be part of the reason may America great. We are humane, and forgiven.

As a security issue, yes, there are high risks to have people going in and out our boarder undocumented. However, building a wall will stop that? I highly doubt it. On another note, do we really need to have all the undocumented immigrants somehow traceable? There are many ways to keep our nation secure, become a police nation is certainly not one of the better ways.

What we can do now, and what's the current bill does address, is to first implement a better system in the IRS (not the INS). More enforcement is needed to have businesses (big and small) be accounted for in hiring undocumented immigrants without paying their fair share of social security and other benefits.

The INS (and the rest of agencies mostly in the Department of Homeland Security) should also put their acts together. The average 5 to 10 years wait is not acceptable. Doing it slow does not stop criminals coming in, it only discourages people from going through the legal way.