News Notes

Proceedings online. "Our goal in creating eConf is to completely displace print publishers of [physics] conference proceedings," says eConf cofounder Michael Peskin, a physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, which launched the Web site this past October (see http://www.slac.stanford.edu/ econf). The idea is to get conference proceedings--starting with high-energy physics--online quickly and cheaply, to archive them long-term, and to link them to broader, searchable publications databases, such as SLAC's SPIRES and the electronic preprint archives at Los Alamos National Laboratory. A handful of such online archives already exist, but they are neither linked nor easily searched, says Peskin. Meanwhile, publishers of print proceedings, whose earnings eConf could eat into, are keeping close watch. The American Institute of Physics, for example, which puts out proceedings from some 50 conferences each year, foresees a continuing role for print proceedings, but also plans to start posting them electronically later this year.

State Department fellowship. The American Institute of Physics and the Department of State are creating a new science fellowship allowing a physical scientist or engineer to spend a year working on the science and technology aspects of foreign policy issues. The selected fellow will provide scientific expertise to the department while "learning firsthand how scientific and technical knowledge can contribute to the nation's foreign policy," the announcment said. Norman Neureiter, science and technology adviser to the secretary of state, said the department's regional bureaus, which cover specific geographical areas, are weak on science, and that's where he hopes to assign the AIP fellow. The range of problems faced by the bureaus includes everything from mad cow disease in Europe to cybersecurity in Asia, he said. The idea for the fellowship originated with the AIP governing board more than a year ago, when concerns were expressed about the lack of scientific expertise within the State Department, said James Stith, director of AIP's Physics Resources Center. Fellowship applicants must be US citizens, have a PhD or equivalent research experience in physics or a related field, and belong to one of AIP's member societies. The fellowship has an annual stipend of $49 000. Applications are due 15 April. More information can be found at http://www.aip.org/mgr/sdf.html