Rheology BulletinVol. 72, No. 1 (January 2003)Rakesh Gupta, Editor |
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Contents
Executive Committee - 2001-2003
Committees
75th Annual Meeting
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Technical Program | ||
Ronald Larson Phone: (734) 936-0772 Fax: (734) 763-0459 E-mail: rlarson@umich.edu |
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Local Arrangements | ||
Guy C. Berry Phone: (412) 268-3131 Fax: (412) 268-6897 E-mail: gcberry@andrew.cmu.edu |
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Rakesh K. Gupta Phone: (304) 293-2111 ext 2427 Fax: (304) 293-4139 E-mail: rakesh.gupta@mail.wvu.edu |
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Lynn Walker Phone: (412) 268-3020 Fax: (412) 268-7139 E-mail: lwalker@andrew.cmu.edu |
Last summer John Dealy, a distinguished member and former President of the Society, questioned our policies with regard to dues for members and the subscription rates charged to libraries for the Journal. The concern expressed was “with the fact that the Society is making a substantial profit from its library subscriptions and using this profit to subsidize the members’ dues”. Members have long received the Journal with no additional charge beyond the dues. He feels this to be unethical, “in fact, doing the very thing (for which) we condemn the commercial publishers”, and noted that surpluses from the Journal have increased our reserve such “that no reasonable person would believe that we need to make it larger”. He proposed that the Society
Presentation of these issues at the Business Meeting in Minneapolis generated a very lively discussion, leading to a motion instructing the Executive Committee to develop a proposal for changes in the dues structure. That proposal failed, but the narrow margin leads me to conclude that the Executive Committee should review both the financial reserves of the Society and the dues and subscription structure to gauge whether our current practices are appropriate. To begin this process I report here on some aspects of the finances that led us to disagree with John at the meeting.
The actual cost of the Journal is roughly $250,000/1550 pages = $160/page, whereas the incremental or marginal cost of supplying the Journal is $27. The latter includes the member fulfillment charge and pro rata amounts for printing, binding, postage, storage and fees, normalized to 1600 pages to facilitate comparisons with other years. For members and libraries to bear equally the cost would mean fees of $250,000/(1700 member subscriptions+387 library subscriptions) = $119/subscriber, assuming retention of all current members.
For 2001 the Treasurer closed the books for the JoR with a shortfall of about $4000, based on the current library subscription rate of $550. The balance varies from year to year according to unpredictable items such as advertising volume and the number of pages printed. The trend, however, suggests that the members will need to carry more of the load in the future. Our reserves have been increasing slightly in recent years, but still are the smallest per capita of the small AIP societies. The Treasurer always takes the prudent course of aiming for a balance of current income and costs, rather than spending down the reserves.
Early last Fall I gathered data from the web in order to compare our costs to libraries with a variety of other journals published by or associated with professional societies:
Journal | pages year |
print + web subscription |
subscription cost/page |
member subscription |
lib subs. member subs. |
Rheologica Acta | 600 | $1,239 | $2.07 | $1,037 | 1.2 |
AIChE Journal (no web) | 2866 | $950 | $0.33 | $105 | 9.0 |
Langmuir | 8454 | $4,294 | $0.51 | $201 | 21.4 |
Macromolecules | 9208 | $3,851 | $0.42 | $194 | 19.9 |
I&EC Research | 6250 | $2,514 | $0.40 | $135 | 18.6 |
JoR | 1500 | $550 | $0.37 | $40 | 13.8 |
By any measure we are not presently more expensive per page than other journals offering similar quality. Admittedly my comparison in the last column of cost to SoR members relative to the cost to libraries attributes all of our dues to JoR, which is specious. On the other hand, if one took a difference instead of a ratio, the SoR would be well ahead even with zero cost for member subscriptions.
We could reduce the cost to libraries a bit by charging the members the marginal cost of $27. However, delivering 75% of the subscriptions at the marginal cost rate is illogical and the potential loss in members even with that modest change would run counter to the primary objective of the Society to advance the understanding and appreciation of rheology. Instead, we could set the library subscription rate/member subscription rate = 20 in accord with Langmuir, Macromolecules, and I&EC Research. On that basis I estimate the charges to break even as $250,000/ (20´387+1700) = $26 to members and $400 to libraries. Alternatively, the Executive Committee has discussed the possibility of including electronic access in the dues and charging extra for paper copies. Whatever the approach, we need to take into account the value added by members who write and review papers, perhaps by imposing a substantial overhead charge against the Journal budget for services provided by the Society.
In thinking about these issues we should recognize that the library subscriptions are undoubtedly quite insensitive to the rate, i.e. inelastic, while the member subscriptions could be very sensitive. Also the library subscriptions have been declining monotonically as indicated in the plot. The upward blip for 2002 is encouraging but could disappear when the Chinese libraries involved in a recent settlement that produced the upturn realize that they now must pay annually for their subscriptions. Another threat appeared just last month as one of the consolidators that purchases subscriptions in bulk on behalf of libraries declared bankruptcy instead of delivering subscription fees due to many journals, including JoR. Another consolidator has purchased the bankrupt company but our losses are not yet determined. This provides a clear example of the importance of reserves.
Your thoughts on any or all of these issues are welcome as guidance to our future discussions of the Executive Committee.
William B. Russel
1/8/03
The winners of the 2002 Journal of Rheology Publication Award are Thomas Thiele, Jean-Francois Berret, Stefan Muller, and Claudia Schmidt. A committee consisting of Mort Denn, Lisa Mondy, Bob Powell, Tom McLeish, and John Dealy selected their paper, “Rheology and nuclear magnetic resonance measurements under shear of sodium dodecyl sulfonate/decanol/water nematics,” for the award. The paper appeared in the Journal of Rheology in volume 45, 29-48 (2001).
Authors should submit an abstract after March 15, 2003, but before May 9, 2003, through the World Wide Web using the SoR abstract submission page at www0.rheology.org. However, the deadline for receipt of abstracts for the poster session is August 8, 2003. Note that plenary lectures will be given by Art Metzner, Bob Bird, and the 2003 Bingham Medalist. The planned symposia and the corresponding chairs are given below:
1. Biorheology |
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Robert Armstrong Department of Chemical Engineering Room 66-350 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 Phone:(617) 253-4581 Fax: (617) 253-8992 E-mail: rca@mit.edu |
Patrick Doyle Department of Chemical Engineering Room 66-456 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 Phone: (617) 253-4534 Fax: (617) 258-5042 E-mail: pdoyle@mit.edu |
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2. Entangled Polymers and Analytical Rheology |
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Monty Shaw Department of Chemical Engineering University of Connecticut 97 N Eagleville Rd Storrs, CT 06269-3136 Phone: (860) 486-3980 Fax: (860) 486-4745 E-mail: shawmt@uconnvm.uconn.edu |
James P. Oberhauser Department of Chemical Engineering University of Virginia P.O. Box 400741 Charlottesville, VA 22904-4741 Phone: (434) 924-7974 Fax: (434) 982-2658 E-mail: oberhauser@virginia.edu |
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3. Suspensions and Multiphase Fluids |
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Andy Kraynik Dept. 9112, MS0834 Sandia National Laboratories Albuquerque, NM 87185-0834 Phone: (505) 844-9696 Fax: (505) 844-8251 E-mail: amkrayn@engsci.sandia.gov |
Michael Solomon Dept of Chemical Engineering University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2136 Phone: (734) 764-3119 Fax: (734) 763-0459 E-mail: mjsolo@mich.edu |
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4. Liquid Crystalline Polymers, Self-Assembling Fluids & Nanomaterials |
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Karen Winey Department of Materials Science and Engineering University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6272 Phone: (215) 898-0593 Fax: (215) 573-2128 E-mail:winey@lrsm.upenn.edu |
Peter Olmsted Department of Physics & Astronomy Room 9.305, University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT, UK Phone: 44 113 343 3830 Fax: 44 113 343 3846 E-mail:p.d.olmsted@leeds.ac.uk |
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5. Viscoelastic Flows and Instabilities |
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Jonathan Rothstein Engineering Labs Building, Rm. 219 160 Governors Drive Amherst, MA 01003 Phone: (413) 577-0110 Fax: (413) 545-1027 E-mail: rothstein@ecs.umass.edu |
Bamin Khomami Department of Chemical Engineering Washington University St. Louis, Missouri 63130 Phone: (314) 935-6065 Fax: (314) 935-7211 E-mail: bam@poly1.che.wustl.edu |
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6. Rheology of Solids and Near-Solids |
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Greg McKenna Department of Chemical Engineering Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79409-3121 Phone: (806) 742-3553 Fax: (806) 742-3552 E-mail: greg.mckenna@coe.ttu.edu |
Tony McHugh Department of Chemical Engineering Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA 18015 Phone: (610) 758-4470 Fax: (610) 758-6245 E-mail: ajm8@Lehigh.edu |
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7. Microrheology, Microfluidics & MEMS |
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Gerry Fuller Department of Chemical Engineering Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-5025 Phone: (650) 723-9243 Fax: (650) 725-72 E-mail: ggf@chemeng.stanford.edu |
Kalman Migler Polymers Division National Institute of Standards and Technology Building 224, Room A207 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8544 Phone: (301) 975-4876 Fax: (301) 975-4924 E-mail: kalman.migler@nist.gov |
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8. Poster Session |
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Surita Bhatia Department of Chemical Engineering University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 Phone: (413) 545-0096 Fax: (413) 545-1647 E-mail: sbhatia@ecs.umass.edu |
John Douglass Ferry, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died October 18, 2002, in Madison, at the age of 90. He was born on May 4, 1912, in Dawson, Yukon Territory, Canada and was undoubtedly the most widely recognized research pioneer in the study of motional dynamics in macromolecular systems via viscoelastic techniques, and thus played a definitive role in polymer rheology. From the very beginning, he realized that the unique physical properties of polymeric materials are intimately linked to the motions and configurations available to these large, flexible macromolecules, and he made an extensive and concentrated effort to determine experimentally the relation between the chemical structure of well characterized samples and their viscoelastic properties.
John attended Stanford University, receiving the A.B. degree in 1932 at age 19. Following graduate study at the University of London, together with research at the National Institute for Medical Research, he returned to Stanford and completed the Ph.D. degree in 1935. He subsequently conducted research at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University and then served as instructor and tutor in biochemical sciences at Harvard University.
During the second world war, he held a joint appointment at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the Harvard Medical School. In 1946, John joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry of the University of Wisconsin as an Assistant Professor; by 1947 he had been promoted to full Professor. He served as Department Chairman from 1959 to 1967 and was appointed Farrington Daniels Research Professor in 1973. He was a founding member of the Rheology Research Center at Wisconsin, serving on its Executive Committee until 1984.
John’s fundamental studies of rubbers, polymer melts, and polymer solutions provided the foundation in mechanical properties for polymer scientists. His 1961 book Viscoelastic Properties of Polymers rapidly became a standard reference for researchers in the polymer field. His research group’s most notable contributions to rheology include the principle of reduced variables, giving the mathematical form and physical basis for time-temperature superposition, and the development of the WLF equation and detailed examinations of the relation between the temperature dependence of viscoelastic properties and free volume.
John was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He served as President of the Society of Rheology and was a recipient of the Bingham Medal of the Society. We join John’s family and friends, the Department of Chemistry at Wisconsin, and the polymer science community, to which John was friend, mentor, colleague and exemplar, in mourning his passing.
John L. Schrag
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Bohlin Instruments has introduced Gemini™, a rheometer system incorporating a new Rotonetic™ drive. The use of adaptive control technology allows for both strain controlled and stress controlled operation. The torque range is broad and goes up to 200 mNm. The instrument is also capable of creep, stress relaxation and oscillatory testing.
75th Annual Meeting
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
October 12-16, 2003
76th Annual Meeting
Lubbock, Texas
February 13-17, 2005
77th Annual Meeting
Vancouver, BC, Canada
October 16-20, 2005
78th Annual Meeting
Portland, Maine
October 8-12, 2006
If you are moving, please inform Janis Bennett by phone at (516) 576-2403 or by fax at (516) 576-2223. You may also write to her at:
THE SOCIETY OF RHEOLOGY c/o American Institute of Physics Suite 1NO1 2 Huntington Quadrangle Melville, NY 11747 |
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