Friday, March 11, 2011

MHRD Appoints a Vice Chancellor ...


... and "forgets" to inform him about it. He does the right thing by saying "no" to the offer.

HRD raises bad manners bar -- VC appointment without basic courtesy backfires

Calcutta-based academic Sukanta Chaudhuri has declined his appointment as vice-chancellor of a central university on the ground that the government had not taken his prior consent.

The refusal by Chaudhuri, an internationally renowned scholar of English literature, is an embarrassment for the Union human resource development ministry ...

Thanks for the alert go to Desi Babu.

Conferences, Journals and Computer Science


In my field (and also in most physical and biological sciences), journals are the preferred destination for our research output. There was a time when conference proceedings had a lot of prestige, but they started losing their sheen in the 1970s.

While conferences themselves are doing well, it is the proceedings whose reputation has suffered: the decline and fall have been so precipitous, someone joked recently, that proceedings now rank barely above e-mail spam!

Things are so completely different in Computer Science and allied fields, where conferences rule.

This difference in disciplinary cultures has always intrigued and fascinated me. So I was glad to find this paper by Jonathan Grudin who narrates the story of "why computer science in the U.S. shifted [away from journal articles] to conference publication in the first place."

A key quote:

Technology and a Professional Organization Drove the Shift to Conference Publication

By the early 1980s, the availability of text editing or word processing among computer scientists enabled the relatively inexpensive production of decent-looking proceedings prior to a conference. This was something new. Anticipating that libraries might shelve proceedings, ACM printed many more copies than conferences needed, at a low incremental cost.

ACM also made them available by mail order after a conference at a very low price. Papers in ACM conferences were thus widely distributed and effectively archival. These are the two features that motivated the creation of journals centuries earlier. [Bold and italic texts are from the original]

Are there other explanations for the shift [which, Grudin says, was largely US-centric, and didn't spread to Europe]?

* * *

Thanks to Suresh at The Geomblog for the pointer.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Links ...


  1. Dheeraj Sanghi: Pricing Engineering Education.

  2. David Leonhardt at Economix: Revisiting the Value of Elite Colleges.

  3. Fred Halliday, former Director-Designate of LSE's Middle East Centre, wrote a memo in 2009 to the LSE Council "warning it not to accept a grant from the Qaddafi Foundation." That memo ">has now been published.

Correction


Apologies for repeating a bad meme -- according to which Prof. Venki Ramakrishnan, one of the 2009 Chemistry Nobel winners, fares poorly in citation metrics.

I first found that meme in a comment on my blog way back in 2009. I had also heard it mentioned in conversations on quite a few occasions later. When I found a version of it again in this Current Science letter by my colleagues Prof. Ramasesha and Prof. Sen (I must hasten to add that their wording is a lot more careful, and they don't mention any numbers), I thought it was worth highlighting.

Then Giridhar left this comment; and Sunil followed up with another comment yesterday.

A search in Web of Knowledge (whose database is arguably the most comprehensive) reveals the essential correctness of Giridhar's comment [I couldn't verify the exact numbers he quoted because I'm not sure about my own search skills at WoK].

My search for a (possible) source of the bad meme led me to this site which calls itself Microsoft Academic Search; it occurs at No.2 in this search.

Lessons: Trust but verify -- as far as possible, and however authoritative the source might appear to be. And issue a correction when a mistake is discovered.

Apologies.

And, thanks to Giridhar for pointing out the mistake.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Ready to Return?


Here's the latest hype from Rutgers:

Indian Graduates in U.S. are Ready to Return to India: Faculty shortages at Indian universities could be eased.

The study is based on a survey of nearly 1000 Indian students and post-docs in the US. Let me highlight a couple of points:

  1. Survey respondents' attraction towards India is driven by lofty-softy factors like family, giving back to the motherland, help build India's higher ed, and comfort with society/culture. On the other hand, the factors behind keeping folks away from India are hard-nosed things that have a lot to do with job-related conditions: corruption, red tape, academic work environment, research funding, earning potential. [see page 16] Wonder which set of factors are likely to win?

  2. While the report frames the issue as one of faculty shortage in India, (see the recommendations at the end of the report), the survey includes a large number of masters students (interestingly, their fraction in the study is actually less than their actual fraction among Indian students in the US). All said and done, doctoral programs account for less than a sixth of Indian students in the US [see these NSF documents] -- out of some 67,000 grad students, I would estimate less than 10,000 in the doctoral programs (because only about 1300 PhDs were awarded to Indians annually during 2004-2007).

Needless to say, I'm not happy with the framing; nor with the methodology. Like I said, there's just too much hype ...

Indian students in the US deserve a better study!

Links ...


  1. Toby Ord in Slate: Live Like a Grad Student … Forever: "An Oxford academic recommends living on as little as you can and giving away the rest."

  2. Timothy Morton: Should Computer “Languages” Qualify as Foreign Languages for Ph.D.s?

  3. Which are the top universities in terms of funding from NIH? Johns Hopkins leads the pack with $686 million, followed by Penn with $577 million, UWashington with $570 million, UMichigan with $565 million, and UC-San Francisco with $537 million. Here's the Top 100 list.

  4. Guardian has a fabulous video of a volcano eruption in Hawaii.

Monday, March 07, 2011

Rahul Basu


Via Anant and Rahul Siddharthan comes the sad news that Rahul Basu passed away two days ago.

From this memorial page at the IMSc website for his friends to share their memories:

Rahul Basu, particle physicist; gourmet, cook and blogger; devourer of books, music, film and good wine; traveller, lover of Delhi and bon vivant, but above all a close friend to many from all around the world, passed away on March 5th, 2011. He was 55.

I have never met Rahul. But, thanks to the Web, I have had the good fortune to read, enjoy, and benefit from his blog posts and comments (here and elsewhere) on an amazingly rich variety of topics, ranging from shoddy (China-related) journalism at The Hindu, to the state of science in India, to IPL matches, to Ram Guha's India after Gandhi, to Elections 2009, to movies, to food, and to a movie about food.

These posts represent just a fraction of Rahul's interests. Their clarity, vigour and humour pack quite punch -- Rahul was the kind of person you wanted on your side in public debates!

It's really, really sad that he's no more.

* * *

If you (or, people you know) have memories / tributes to share, IMSc has this memorial page for Rahul Basu.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

The Jed-I Project Challenge


LimberLink Technologies is a start-up founded by (friends and former colleagues) V. Vinay and Swami Manohar. The company has, among other things, two interesting initiatives for youngsters -- college students and graduates.

  1. Jed-I:

    Jed-i stands for the Joy of Engineering, Design, and Innovation. The Jed-i project challenge is an annual event designed to identify and showcase the best final year engineering project.

    The challenge is open to students from all branches from all engineering colleges across India. The branches will be grouped into three divisions for evaluation: Computing, Electrical, and Mechanical.

    The deadline for registration is 15 March 2011. The rules for participation are here

  2. FreshApples:

    This site has an intriguing slogan: "Freshapples helps you to differentiate yourself." You can use the site not only to showcase your talents and skills, but also to meet and interact with "menchers" (mentor + teacher), experienced hands in your field.

    It's this stuff about menchers that makes the site promising and special: menchers are those who offer their support and guidance by helping you discover and develop important skills (as well as identify and plug gaps in your skill-set), and giving you and your skills their stamp of approval.

    The focus of the site is firmly on career development, but it goes beyond CV-hosting, and forces you to combine self-initiative and expert guidance in a fairly methodical and deliberate fashion. Also, the mencher-mentee relationship is a lot more active (and a lot more structured) than that of "links" LinkedIn.

    Take a look!

In Praise of ...


  1. Doodling.

  2. Play.

  3. Sleep.

Links ...


  1. Helen Pearson in Nature Study of a Lifetime [free access, thankfully]: "In 1946, scientists started tracking thousands of British children born during one cold March week. On their 65th birthday, the study members find themselves more scientifically valuable than ever before."

  2. Paul Krugman: Falling Demand for Brains?

  3. Zeynep Tufekci at TechnoSociology: Can “Leaderless Revolutions” Stay Leaderless: Preferential Attachment, Iron Laws and Networks .

  4. And, finally, Arunn Narasimhan has a fine rant at nOnoScience: Response to N. Ram from a Thin Skinned Music Listener.

Friday, March 04, 2011

How not to respond to a negative book review in an academic journal: Part II


Part I was about an author of an academic tome suing a journal editor for carrying a negative review of her book.

She lost. From the excerpts posted by the journal editor, Prof. Joseph Weiler:

... [I]n effect, the Review of her book does not contain words damaging her honor or her reputation, and only expresses, what is more, in moderate terms, a scientific opinion on [her book] without ever exceeding the limits of free criticism to which all authors of intellectual works expose themselves

* * *

Update: This NYTimes story has a nice summary of the case and the issues raised by it. It's more than three weeks old, though.

Rajat Gupta's Double Standards?


Rajat Gupta is in serious trouble [and here].

His troubles are serious enough for him to resign from the Board of P&G -- "A company spokesman said he resigned to prevent any distraction to P.&G. and its board."

Then, why are they not serious enough for him to step aside from the ISB Board? Why is it okay to let ISB deal with "distractions" arising from his troubles? As DNA reports:

Experts on ethics and governance pointed out that it is nothing short of double standards that Gupta chose to resign from the board of institutions in the US while remaining on the board of Indian institutions.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Plagiarism Derails German (Ex) Minister


In spite of early (and firmly articulated) support from his boss, Chancellor Angela Merkel, public outcry over his plagiarized thesis has forced zu Guttenberg to resign from Merkel's ministry.

The outcry has taken   several   forms, including Guttenberg being dubbed zu Googleberg and, even worse, Germany's Sarah Palin! The most substantive protest is through this letter to Chancellor Merkel, signed by over 20,000 academics, post-docs, and students. Here's an excerpt:

... When it is no longer an important value to protect ideas in our society, then we have gambled away our future. We don't expect thankfulness for our scientific work, but we expect respect, we expect that our work be taken seriously. By handling the case of zu Guttenberg as a trifle, Germany's position in world science, its credibility as the "Land of Ideas", suffers.

A second line of attack -- which probably clinched the issue -- targeted his leadership of defence academies, especially since it came from political adversaries partners:

"Should he continue to allow the circumstances of his dissertation to remain so unclear, I think that he, as minister and as the top official of two Bundeswehr universities, is no longer acceptable," Martin Neumann, parliamentary spokesman for academic issues for the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), Merkel's junior coalition partner, told the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper.

Budget WTF


Alternate title: UPA Government's Mixed Signals --Part II: The Curious Case of Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development

Back in 2009, a review committee set up by MHRD classified RGNIYD as one of the institutions which, "neither on past performance, nor on their promise for the future, have the attributes ... to retain their status as universities." [Source; 18MB pdf].

In Budget 2011-12 presented yesterday, the same institution has been lavished with a largess of Rs. 20 crores, as "special grants to recognise excellence in universities and academic institutions." [Paragraph 101 of the Budget Speech; 867 KB pdf].

* * *

This case is much worse than the WTF-inducing episode involving SRM University (see Part I) for at least two reasons.

  1. The Tandon Committee saw SRM as "merely" deficient, but blacklisted RGNIYD as, shall we say, irredeemable.

  2. Moreover, with SRM, it was only a case of a couple of high functionaries in the government "merely" participating in its convocation; but with RGNIYD, what we have is a blacklisted institution being recognized for its excellence and lavished with lots of money.

* * *

Thanks to Subrahmanya Katte for the Buzz.

"Walking on the shores of the world's largest lava lake"


You've got to check out these beauties over at The Big Picture. Amazing stuff.

In June 2010, a team of scientists and intrepid explorers stepped onto the shore of the lava lake boiling in the depths of Nyiragongo Crater, in the heart of the Great Lakes region of Africa. The team had dreamed of this: walking on the shores of the world's largest lava lake. Members of the team had been dazzled since childhood by the images of the 1960 documentary "The Devil's Blast" by Haroun Tazieff, who was the first to reveal to the public the glowing red breakers crashing at the bottom of Nyiragongo crater. Photographer Olivier Grunewald was within a meter of the lake itself, giving us a unique glimpse of it's molten matter.