Paper is out

Well, the paper i mentioned earlier is finally officially out on the ACS Nano webpage. As promised, there is more. The paper was also highlighted in Nature.

Some good news

Well, apparently good news come in packs. There are some very exciting things happening with the paper I mentioned in my previous posts. I will update once those are finalized. In the meanwhile our previous paper got a news release on the University of Nebraska -- Lincoln web page. It's, obviously, not the Washington Post, but it is still cool.

Paper publication

The paper I mentioned in the previous post had been posted on-line as a pre-publication process in ACS Nano. It's been an interesting journey with this paper, to say the least. Some of it good, some of it bad. What is remarkable, is that it showed very strongly to me that although science is supposedly objective, in reality it is subjective in many respects, or, at least, open to interpretations :-) Anyway, here is the link to the prepub. I will post a link on the side bar when the paper is out officially.

Another paper

Another paper was finally accepted (updates forthcoming). The reviewer comments also were extremely positive.

Additions to the blog

I've added links to my recent publications and my photos selling at microstocks on the left side of the blog

Paper out

Well, finally... My first paper was published on-line. In case anybody is reading this and is interested, the paper can be founded here http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn303423x The other papers are as they say "in the pipeline" and hopefully, I will be able to say something on the subject soon. Cheers and Happy New Year

Finally!

Well, one of our papers was finally accepted to ACS Nano. Updates forthcoming :-)

Good news and more updates

Hey, it couldn't have been only a month since my last post :-) Anyway, I've had some good news recently. Despite my scepticism, Nature Materials actually agree to send our rewritten paper for review after rejecting the initial version. suffice it to say that my boss is pretty excited (maybe overly so). Nature Materials is a sub-division (if it can be called this way) of the general journal Nature. They reject about 95% of the papers they recieve at the first stage, when editors read them (which is surprisingly or not, not that different from fiction editors and agents). The rest go to peer review (I am not sure how much of those make it into print, so, I can't speculate about our chances). The paper in its new form is pretty solid in my view. I think it is better this way than the short "brevia" version we originally submitted to Science. So, anyway, I am hoping for the best, but even if it is not published in Nature Materials, it has an excellent chance of being published in another high level journal. Which brings me to another set of good news. The paper we submitted to ACS Nano had returned from review. One reviewer suggested publishing it as is, another suggeted mostly stylistic comments and one was pretty negative. some of his comments have merit and we are working on addressing them. Some of the other comments, I have to say, are slightly weird. In any case, the revision should be finished shortly and I am pretty sure it will go through this time. ACS Nano is not as high end as Nature Materials, but it is still a very high ranking journal. So, this is very good. Our third paper is almost done (finally....) and should be out to a journal in the next few days. All in all, pretty good progress. I also have some updates on the personal front, but I'll leave them for another post.

Updates

Well, as expected our submission to Science was rejected (not really surprising, given that it is Science and given the format that we tried to publish. Since then we've reworked the paper a bit (I went through something like thirty versions of figures in addition to the previous ones) and it is now out to another journal. Overall the paper is solid and I expect it to be published. In addition, our paper with collaboration from Northwestern University was rejected from Nature Communications (you can't say that my boss doesn't have ambition :-) ), and resubmitted to ACS Nano. Chances are it will be accepted this time. The biggest issue with the paper (in my view) is it's length (about forty pages of text with several more of references). This is due to the fact that it combines work from three groups. All in all, the paper is nice and shows some interesting and cool results. The third paper (again, in collaboration with Northwestern) is finally out (in an updated form) to our collaborators. My boss is extremely proud of the way it is written despite the fact that he originally almost discarded it to low level journals, and now wants to push it to higher impact. Frankly, in the earlier version, despite some pretty solid writing, I thought the paper was weak (it still had enough to be published, but not on the high level). Now, after I've added some new results, there is "meat" to the paper, and I think we will have no trouble in publishing it. So, all in all, things are moving, albeit slowly, on this front. Not so much on other issues, but this is a topic for another time :-).

Yes, I am still alive

This turns out to be a regular feature, isn't it. I start each new post with an apology for being quiet for so long and the promise to do better in the future. So, let's just skip this part this time... The semester is finally open. I was fairly busy during the semester and the couple of weeks after it ended. Now, finally, things had calmed down a bit. We've finally submitted one paper. To Science of all places. They didn't kick us out yet (though it is surprising they hadn't replied yet after more than three weeks. For those who don't know, Science and Nature have a two tier acceptance process. Most of the papers are rejected without peer review by the editor. This usually takes about a week. In case the editor decides the paper has potential, it is sent out to reviewers, but they usually let you know if this happens. So, the fact that we hadn't heard anything is fairly strange). I am fairly skeptical about our chances. My boss decided to try and go with a very specific short format, which is published one per issue. This makes it next to impossible to get through. Before sending it out to the journal, he sent the paper to few specialists in the field to see what they say. Most responses were very positive, but one of the guys warned us that it would be very hard to publish in this format. Anyway, even if the paper is eventually rejected, together with the supplementary material, we have a full paper to send to any other journal. Two more paper drafts were sent to our collaborators at Northwestern. These are fairly straightforward papers, which have good chances of being published in high level journals. I am guessing, they'll be out to journals fairly soon. We are also working on another paper, which should be done shortly. Now, you can understand why I was so busy lately :-) On the home front nothing changed much. I finished a draft divorce agreement with my lawyer and sent it to my ex. No response as of yet. In the meanwhile, she took the kids for a month of vacation in Israel. I would have loved to go, but ,unfortunately, couldn't. They've been gone for less than a week, and I already miss them. I have no idea how what things will be like when they move to North Carolina in August... Well, that's it for now. I will try to give more updates, but no promises :-)

Free at Last

Hooray! This semester is finally over. I sent the last of my assignments in on Friday (had the kids over for the weekend). This was one crazy semester. The class of my boss was interesting, but the pace and the sheer amount of info to digest together with the other things, such as learning to program in Matlab (I knew I had to do it earlier :) ) made the course very time intensive. The other class I took was relatively easy, but also time intensive due to a great number of labs and home assignments. Together with the important project review, the papers and the personal stuff, this semester was very very hard on me. Now, it is finally over. Here is hoping the next one will be better :). I am off to New York with my kids next week to visit my cousin.
Happy holidays to those who might be reading.
Cheers

Tiger Lily RIP

I received some bad news a couple of days ago. When we left Israel to come to US, we left one of our cats, Tiger Lily, with my wife's parents. Unfortunately, she passed away a few weeks ago (just before my wife's mom came here). Tiger Lily wasn't young, but she wasn't too old either (she was 12). She always suffered from overweight and eventually died of liver problems. She was a very nice and friendly cat, and she will be missed. I will post some pictures later.

Through the Rabbit Hole

I haven't posted on personal issues on this blog, but there some important things that I think I should share. It has been building up for a while now. Bear with me. If anybody is reading this, but doesn't feel like reading about my personal problems, skip this post.

About a month ago I and my wife decided to separate. Our marriage was in trouble for a long time before that (for about year), so this decision didn't come out of the blue. In the past several weeks, I reflected on the last year and realized just how unhappy I was. While we are on ok terms at the moment, and would do everything we can to ease the situation for our kids, too much bitterness had accumulated and is poisoning almost every interaction we have. At the moment, the situation can't be helped. In fact, our relationship had improved slightly after we decided to separate. I guess, to a degree we both feel relieved, and are trying to move forward (I certainly do). It isn't easy, and will certainly have an impact on our kids, but, in the end, I think it will be for the best. This way we both can get on with our lives (we are still young). Only time will tell.

Over the last couple of weeks, I had a friend, who is in a somewhat similar situation, help me through. I found that I can still interact with people, and that was a major thing. I am deeply grateful to her for all the help, and I am also trying to help her through her rough times. It's strange. I always thought myself as self-sufficient -- basically not needing anyone, but she showed me just how much I missed that human component. I hope it will make me a better person in the long run, as I begin this new stage in my life. I just realized something this morning. I've become a true Israeli. For those who don't know, Israelis who are born in Israel call themselves "tzabarim". Tzabar is a fruit from a cactus. It is tough and has needles on the outside, but soft inside. :)

As Danny in the Song of Ice and Fire keeps saying, "If I turn back I am lost." I don't regret my life so far. It had many good moments and gave me two beautiful children, but it is time to look ahead.

Back from the dead

Well, it's been a really long while since I posted anything here. I am planning to change that now.

So, a couple of updates, I've written drafts for three papers during the last couple of months. I will update on their fate (hopeflly they would move along fast).

I am also finally starting the final edits on the novel. The goal is to finish by the end of September.

So, check in later for updates.

Hebrew songs

Long silence again. I'd been really busy with several things happening on the home front too.

With all the things happening, I'd been feeling a bit lonely lately. So much so that I really liked to hear some Israeli songs today. Today is the Erev Rosh Hashana -- the eve of the Jewish New Year, and this craving seemed really fitting.

So, Happy New year to all the Jews out there. May it be better than the last one.

Back from the grave

Well, I've been silent for so long that some might think I gave up on this blog. Those phantom people who actually read it :)

Anyway, the reason for the long silence is that I was really busy. I started my PhD in the University of Nebraska and was plowing through literature on the subject of my research. In the meanwhile I also did some translations.

I have to say that this period was rather satisfying. I had perfect freedom to look for anything I thought relevant, think on the subject of the project and write my thoughts down. I also had the chance to see what it takes to publish a scientific paper. On this front, I have to say, the picture isn't too pretty. Apart from several papers (out of about 60 I went through) most of the papers were somewhat superficial and left plenty of open questions. All the better for me to answer them :)

I also talked to my professor and though he narrowed the field for me somewhat, I still have a lot of latitude. I think the next years are going to be fun :)

Anyway, apart from that, our lives are going and advancing. My wife goes to conferences with the regularity of approximately once a month. The weather isn't much better than in Israel at this time of year, but could be worse.

I hope I am going to update more often from now on.

News from the Bookshelf

I've recently had several additions to my bookshelf, which make my reading list extremely long.

First of all, did mention I love my e-reader? I do. It has a small problem with glare, and I would have liked it to ave the option to invert the black and white colors for reading in a poor light, but other than that... It is handy, easy to handle, just the right size etc.

Second, I had bought a couple of DVD's with an extended list of classics to read. I won't read them all, obviously, but even those I already downloaded to my e-reader make for a long but satisfying list.

I bought the electronic version of the "Warriors" volume (I had already read the "Mystery Knight" and Martin is excellent as always, but other stories are also very good so far), and I also bought the second volume of "Dreamsongs" (I already had the first one) and a couple of books by my friend Don Platt (check his site out).

All in all, this makes me very happy and busy with reading in the future.

Shameless Promotion Time

Well, I think it's about time for some self-promotion and self-aggrandizement :)

My story Something for Nothing had appeared in the 12/39 volume of Allegory magazine (here is a link to the story itself). I urge everyone to go to the site and read the story (and all the other stories, of course).

Have a great week

A dilemma

Well, it seems that good news go in packs. I got a phone call today from Jenna Lucas, who is responsible for admissions to the UNO writing MFA program. I was accepted to the program. Now, it looks like I have a small dilemma on my hands. If I get some form of scholarship (if I don't then there is no real dilemma), do I go to this program, do I go to the Materials Engineering PhD or do I try to do both? Theoretically I think it is possible to do both, since the writing program is low residence program, but it will be very hard and there will still be a problem of the few residences. I'll have to think about this till the end of the month.

Happy Dance

I have great news.
First, I have been accepted for PhD studies at the Nebraska University at Lincoln (Materials Engineering).

The second bit, I had mentioned about a month ago. Now it's official. I made my first sale. Something for Nothing is going to appear at the Allegory magazine issue 12/39 on May 1st.