The second Cairo International Conference on High Energy Physics (CICHEP II) will be held on 14-17 January 2006. Organized by the German University in Cairo (GUC), this is the sequel to CICHEP I held in January 2001, and to the first GUC Workshop on High Energy Physics held in January 2005.
The conference aims to bring together scientists from universities and research institutes all around the world to discuss current developments, new trends, results and perspectives in high-energy physics.
The main theme will be theoretical, phenomenological and experimental aspects of high-energy physics, including the status
of the Standard Model, flavour problems and CP violation, SUSY models and grand unification, neutrino physics, string theory, dualities and M-theory, astrophysics and cosmology. The deadline for registration is
1 December 2005. For further information see www.math.guc.edu.eg/site/.
Lino Baranao, second from right, president of the National Agency for the Promotion of Science and Technology in Argentina, toured the ATLAS experiment's underground cavern during his visit to CERN on 9 May. Here he is seen with ATLAS spokesperson, Peter Jenni (left), and the ATLAS Muon System project leader, Giora Mikenberg, listening to Karina Loureiro (right), an Argentinian student at the University of Wisconsin.
The vice-minister-president of the Flemish government, Fientje Moerman, visited CERN on 12 June. Her tour included the CMS cavern, where she is seen with Walter van Doninck of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (right), together with Andreas De Leenheer of Ghent University (centre left) and Eddi De Wolf of Antwerp University (centre right).
On 30 June, Mosibudi Mangena, South Africa's minister for science and technology (left), visited CERN and spent time at the ALICE experiment, in which physicists from the University of Cape Town participate. Here the ALICE spokesperson, Jürgen Schukraft (centre) explains a point to the minister and Glaudine Mtshali, ambassador for South Africa to the UN in Geneva.
New Products
CVI is offering new mirrors and anti-reflection coatings for transmissive optics, designed for fibre-laser wavelengths. Coatings are optimized for both wavelength-and laser-damage characteristics. CVI has also produced a cleanable silver-coated mirror, which will become a standard coating for their protected silver (PS) mirror products. To find out more contact Lynore Abbott, tel. +1 505 296 9541, e-mail labbott@cvilaser.com or see www.cvilaser.com.
Kulite has announced a range of robust miniature pressure sensors that operate at cryogenic temperatures, covering a range from -195.5 to +120 °C. The CCQ-093 and CCQ-062 series, with cylindrical sensors 9.5 mm in length and a diameter of 2.4 or 1.7 mm, respectively, can be incorporated in user-designed probes. They are suitable for use in all nonconductive, noncorrosive liquids or gases. For further information, tel. +49 6192 29000 or +44 1256 461646, or e-mail info@kulite.de or sales@kulite.co.uk.
LEDtronics has introduced a low-profile, surface-mount, full-spectrum red, green and blue LED. The SML5050RBG1K-TR measures 5.5 × 5.5 mm and provides high-intensity light with a viewing angle of 120°. Depending on colour, luminous intensities are in the range 150-500 mcd at 20 mA. The company is also offering STP30XC super-white, hi-flux LED light strips for signs, displays, etc. For further information contact Jordan Papanier, tel. +1 310 534 1505 ext. 120, e-mail jpapanier@ledtronics.com or see www.ledtronics.com.
Resolve Optics provides miniature colour zoom lenses (type 207) that match the resolution of high-quality CCTV cameras. Measuring 50 × 34 × 31 mm, the 6-18 mm f/2.8 lenses can remain in focus from infinity down to 35 mm in front of the lens. For further information tel. +44 1494 777100, e-mail sales@resolveoptics.com or see www.resolveoptics.com.
In "Tsunami earthquake detected in ATLAS cavern" (CERN Courier April 2005 p6), the vertical scale was given as micrometres (μm); it should have been millimetres (mm).
CERN Courier welcomes letters from readers. Please e-mail cern.courier@cern.ch. We reserve the right to edit letters.
The costs of open access
Ken Peach advocates open access to scientific literature (CERN Courier June 2005 p50) but doesn't deal with who will pay for the essential services that the journal publishers provide. Two that concern me are archiving and keeping up on the rest of physics.
In the open-access world, who will be responsible for keeping research results available for the long term? I can now access any article published in more than 100 years of existence of the Physical Review. In this case the American Physical Society has taken responsibility for keeping the material available as computer operating systems evolve and as storage media change. This needs to be paid for and it is part of the subscription fee that would be abolished in the new world.
In keeping up with science how should I choose what to read? I do not need journals for the latest news in experimental high-energy physics - I keep up with that through the preprint server. I do, however, want to keep up with other areas, and have neither the expertise nor the time to sort through everything to find the important article that might be submitted to a site open to everything. The journals, their editors, and their referees do the screening for me. If we are not all to become narrow specialists, this needs to be paid for too.
In a future where the open-access movement has won out, I see a world where only the latest papers are available to be read and where it becomes much more difficult for a scientist to know what is going on in areas outside his or her own narrow speciality.
Burton Richter, SLAC.
I would like to support Ken Peach's viewpoint that the community of high-energy physicists needs to take more initiative in favour of open-access publishing. Clearly, the question of how to cover the costs for such publishing is not trivial. However, in the case of conference proceedings the conference organizers are responsible for the financing of the publication and it should therefore not be a problem to apply the principles of open-access publishing at least in this case. Some publishers are in fact quite receptive to open-access publication, but one must, of course, bring the issue up when negotiating the publishing order.
As an example of this, I can report that the organizing committee of the Lepton-Photon 2005 symposium has negotiated with World Scientific to publish the proceedings in a limited number of paper copies as well in an open-access electronic version. The publishing agreement stipulates that the conference organizer shall buy a minimum number of paper copies from World Scientific, but also that the publishers shall make the proceedings available on the Web, allowing free access to all interested parties.
Tord Ekelöf, Uppsala, chair of the organizing committee for Lepton-Photon 2005.