(Conflict-of-interest disclaimer: I was sent an Advance Reader Copy of The Monty Hall Problem and I really enjoyed reading it; so, feeling guilty about not finishing reviews of books I got for free, I try to compensate by posting brief, laudatory notes.)
Jean-Daniel Bancal and Romualdo Pastor-Satorras, "Steady-State Dynamics of the Forest Fire Model on Complex Networks" (arXiv:0911.0569).
Many sociological networks, as well as biological and technological ones, can be represented in terms of complex networks with a heterogeneous connectivity pattern. Dynamical processes taking place on top of them can be very much influenced by this topological fact. In this paper we consider a paradigmatic model of non-equilibrium dynamics, namely the forest fire model, whose relevance lies in its capacity to represent several epidemic processes in a general parametrization. We study the behavior of this model in complex networks by developing the corresponding heterogeneous mean-field theory and solving it in its steady state. We provide exact and approximate expressions for homogeneous networks and several instances of heterogeneous networks. A comparison of our analytical results with extensive numerical simulations allows to draw the region of the parameter space in which heterogeneous mean-field theory provides an accurate description of the dynamics, and enlights the limits of validity of the mean-field theory in situations where dynamical correlations become important.
Their approach looks reasonable; extending their technique to include pairwise correlations (the first order of sophistication beyond the simple mean field) might be a worthwhile thing to try.
Also, my SciBling Bora Zivkovic recently interviewed me about science and fiction. For those who missed it, the questions and responses can be read here.
I got forwarded this from someone who got forwarded this from someone whose sister's former roommate got it from Al Gore.
Today CBSG continues with its pointers for budding scientists with the
second part on serving as a peer reviewer for papers and grants.
Okay, you've decided that you are going to reject a manuscript. The naive reviewer might think that it is enough to simply state the reasons for the rejection as clearly and succinctly as possible. But this overlooks a major issue: ensuring that the authors do not know that it is you who rejected the manuscript.
Because the peer review process is anonymous, this may seem like no concern, as long as you extirpate all references to your own work to keep your identity secret. Wrong! You have to keep in mind that no matter how crappy the paper is, the authors are going to be pissed that it is rejected, and they are going to immediately begin wracking their brains to identify referees who might have done the dirty on them. Most will form a list of at least 5 or 6 people that they think are likely to have screwed them. Since most papers are reviewed by no more than 2-3 reviewers, this means you have a good chance of being on the list even if you were NOT the reviewer. Thus, particular pains must be taken to direct the authors ire elsewhere. Several different means to accomplish this are described below:
1. Pretend that you are British. (Note — this does not work well if you actually are British).
Just a few decades ago, it was enough to include a liberal sprinkling of "rathers" and "doubtlesses" throughout the review, and convert all colors to colours,analyze to analyse,polymerize to polymerise, etc.
I started doing this when I got my newest computer. Somehow, Firefox got installed with the English-English spell-checking dictionary, and compared to reconfiguring software, adding a letter here or there was a mere bagatelle.
However, the increasing intellectual and cultural cross-pollination brought by the internet has rendered such limited measures ineffective. Thus, you need to be au courant with all the most specific idioms available to the average Brit.
For example, you might want to refer to a poorly run gel as being "dodgy", "gammy" or "a bit pear-shaped". Especially effective are slang terms derived from cricket. This is because no self-respecting American knows anything about this sport (indeed, outside the British Commonwealth, cricket is universally reviled as the one sport even more boring than baseball). Here are some cricket-based phrases worked into sentences that you might include in a review. Instead of writing "Some of the data presented by the authors are mutually contradictory" write "The authors seem to have gotten themselves into a bit of a sticky wicket".
Instead of writing "The documentation of morpholino efficacy by monitoring expression of exogenously provided target rather than the endogenous target is not quite fair" write "Using GFP-ponticulin as a read out for the morpholino effects is not quite cricket". And, instead of writing "I was chagrined to see that the authors ignored the previous studies by the Jones lab", write "the failure of the authors to cite the seminal studies of Jones and colleagues hit me for six".
"While technically correct, the limited scope of the authors' results makes them rather small beer."
1B. Pretend that you are an American pretending to be British (Note: this does work if you are British, but does not work if you are American.) The strategy here is similar to #1 above, but instead of being a little bit subtle, you go straight over the top. Thus, instead of writing "I seriously doubt that anyone will believe ...": "Blimey! Blokes would have to be right daft if they were to believe ..."
2. Pretend that you are Canadian. This is harder because the only major language difference between Americans and Canadians is that the latter tend to mispronounce words with the short O sound such that they rhyme with newt. Needless to say, this sort of thing is not manifest in written reviews.
However, the canny reviewer can draw on the one or two features of Canadian culture that are unique. Interestingly (in light of the cricket discussion above) most of these revolve around Canadian football. For example, you might allude to a paper not being ready for the Grey Cup yet (a reference to the Canadian equivalent of the Super Bowl), describe an experimental situation as being "3rd and long" (an allusion to the fact that there are only three downs in Canadian football) or argue that the authors need to "bring in a couple more coaches" (referring to the fact that Canadian football teams have 4 head coaches). Cite obscure Canadian journals: "J Can. Med. Assoc." or "Can. J. Cardio." No one outside of Canada reads these journals.
3. Pretend that you are German. This is even harder, because even if you know some German, you have to write your review in English for most journals. Be extremely precise and technical. You could also try simply putting the verb at the end of your sentences (as in "The experiments in figures 5 and 6 should repeated be"), however this runs the risk of having yourself labeled not as a German, but as an imbecile or an incarnation of Yoda. Alternatively cite organic chemistry articles from the late 19th and early 20th century that have never been translated into English. Cite German aricles during the 30s and 40s when the rest of Academia was trying its best to ignore German science.
Too soon?
3B. Pretend that you are an American pretending to be German; sprinkle the text with flavorful comments such as "Ach mein lieber!" or "Du spinnst!" Or, if a line of reasoning is particularly awful, "Ist gibt ein Blutbat en der Hoelle!" Stick umlauts on random words, and make liberal use of the eszett. Downside: the editor will conclude you have flipped.
4. Pick one of the people from you own list of 5-6 enemies and pretend to be that person. Heavily cite their work. Reference their obscure conference presentations. Arrogantly suggest that person's methods in favor of the methods used in the paper, especially where they are clearly inapplicable.
First, a hearty congratulations to Brian Switek, whose book, now titled Written In Stone, is set to be published next fall! If the sample chapters I saw a few months back are any indication, Brian's book will be a superb addition to the science lover's bookshelf.
Third, on top of everything else I'm trying to do (like get a career started), I've started writing one myself. For an appropriately loose definition, it'll be my second; either way, it means I'll be around these parts even less than I have been of late.
In the next movie, we will find out who was James T. Kirk's real father. I mean, the emperor Tiberius was born Tiberius Claudius Nero; how much more obvious could it get?
(I'm reading and commenting upon a friend's PhD thesis right now, so anything I say on the Interwebs will likely be rather frivolous.)
The main event - the actual sessions of the conference - will be held, like last two years, in the beautiful building of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society (and publisher of American Scientist). The main conference program will occur on Saturday, January 16th and half of Sunday, January 17th, 2010.
And as for the registration process:
Registration will be capped at 250 participants. Even this number will make Sigma Xi start bursting at the seams but if everyone's in a good mood, we'll be fine. So far, about double that number has showed interest in coming to the conference so there will be feisty competition for those 250 slots, we expect.
Thus, we will make sure that speakers/moderators/panelists/presenters get registered first. We will open for registration later than last year (late October) when people have a better idea if they can truly come or not. We will have the Program pretty much set up and public by then so you can see exactly what you can expect. And we will ask for a small registration fee (graded according to employment status or something) to ensure that only dedicated travelers and local participants actually register (i.e., nobody registers and then does not show up, leaving serious contenders on the waiting list).
Sign up here for advance notice on further conference updates, and pester the organizers with programme suggestions. When last I asked, there was some interest in a session or a discussion of how to use the Web for teaching mathematics, and I've also heard talk from people who want to integrate programming and modelling into science education.
![[sex and science]](http://www.sunclipse.org/downloads/sexandscience3.png)
