Those people who are wondering whether or not their abstract has been accepted
for ISB93 in Paris may like to know the criterion used at a previous ISB
Congress. All papers which appeared to be on the subject of biomechanics were
accepted. Others which appeared to be unrelated to biomechanics were returned
to the authors with a suggestion that they might try a different conference.
Since more delegates means more income, some of the same pressures may be
expected to apply this year. In other words abstracts probably have a 99%
chance of acceptance. But this is only my view of the world.
I received notification from ISB93 that my paper had been selected for oral
presentation (10 min + 5min discussion). "Double projection will be
available. You will be allowed a maximum of 5-6 slides per projector".
Well this is a first for an ISB Congress. I will be using single slide
projection. If I have 12 slides I expect this means that I will have to use 2
projectors and put 6 in each! I may have 15 slides - in which case I expect I
will put all 15 in one carousel and let the organisers remove as many as they
want. This will mean that my presentation will end after 5 minutes and so I
will be able to profitably use the time to expound on the subject of slide
limitation. I plan to indicate on the confirmation form my intention not
to be restricted by an arbitrary number of slides. I suggest that others of
like mind do the same. I rate the chances of this slide limit holding to be
less than 1%.
Staying on the subject of conferences: I have great concern over the trend of
submitting conference papers on floppy disc so that the organisers can
produce a uniform Book of Abstracts. The result of this procedure seems to be
a good looking book which has errors introduced by the compilers. Now when I
write something I expect all the blunders and errors to be my own. I think
that authors deserve better than having their own work passed through an
error inducing algorithm prior to publication. I said as much to Bob Marshall
in Perth but in a more colourful way. I have said the same to Bernard
Landjerit who is organising the simulation satellite conference this year.
Does anyone agree that it is better to use the hardcopy supplied by the author
rather than risk missing out equations, changing words, changing meanings and
generally making papers less understandable?
Remember to smile.
fred yeadon (M.R.Yeadon@uk.ac.lut)