Primary Manuscript Research Articles

The dissemination of the results of scientific research in the era of electronic media

This paper is the extended text of a lecture presented during an “on-invitation” symposium: “ Future Trends in Spectroscopy”, organized on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of Spectrochimica Acta. This symposium was held under the auspices of the Pontificia Academia Scientiarum in the Casina Pio Quattro in Vatican City. The lecture considers the future of scientific publishing primarily from the point of view of the actual behaviour of authors, editors, reviewers, publishers, and readers. In this scope the author discusses (a) aims and format of scientific publications, (b) new approaches to conventional scientific publishing, i.e., in “hardcopy journal format”, (c) the implications of desktop publishing (DTP) and camera-ready copy (CRC) for author, editor, reviewer, and publisher, and (d) the truly electronic publication, i.e., a publication on an electronic medium, such as a diskette, which does not only contain text and graphics, but also executable programs, source codes, data files, and parameter sets. The paper includes a tutorial discussion of issues such as word processors, scientific word processors, DTP, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) versus ML (Markup Language), procedural markup versus descriptive markup, text versus graphics, and standard generalized markup language (SGML). As to conventional scientific publishing the author concludes that the “DTP-CRC approach” is not a viable alternative. The most promising appears an approach in which the author produces the “author's primary electronic manuscript” (APEM) in ASCII format with graphics in a format such as Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM) without procedural markup but with a minimum of descriptive markup, for example, in SGML codes. The “APEM-SGML approach” is considered (i) to provide for a balanced distribution of tasks among authors, editors, reviewers, and publishers, (ii) to eliminate the necessity of rekeying documents, and (iii) to give publishers additional “handles” to exploit the information via on-line and CD-ROM databases. This appears to be the solution that will make every shoecobbler stick to his last and thus feel entirely comfortable. As to the truly electronic publication, the author feels that there must be excellent perspectives for an electronic spectroscopy journal and proposes to investigate the viability of a journal Spectrochimica Acta Electronica (SAE), as a supplement of Parts A and B.

R-spaces associated with a Hermitian symmetric pair

The linear isotropy representation of a Riemannian symmetric pair (G,K) is defined as the differentialof the left action of K on GJK at the origin. Every orbit of the linear isotropy representation of (G,K) is called an R-space associated with {G,K), which is an important example of equivariant homogeneous Riemannian submanifolds in a Euclidean sphere (See Takagi-Takahashi [2] and TakeuchiKobayashi [3]). This paper is concerned with the linear isotropy representation of a Hermitian symmetric pair (G,K). Its restriction to the center of K defines an S1-action on the associated i?-spaces. We determine all i?-spaces associated with Hermitian symmetric pairs (G,K) on which the semisimple part of K acts transitively. In particular,we know allirreducible Hermitian symmetric pairs such that each of the associated i?-spaces has such a property. This result is utilizablefor the classificationof orthogonal transformation groups by their cohomogeneity (See the forthcoming paper [4] concerned with this problem in low cohomogeneity). The authors are profoundly grateful to Professor Ryoichi Takagi for his helpful suggestion and criticalreading of a primary manuscript.

New Guides to Primary Sources on the History of Early British America

JT should come as no surprise to historians of early British America that the resources for the subject are not only rich and diverse but also widely scattered. In an era of cheap air fares and photocopies, this last characteristic creates less of a burden than in the days of George Bancroft or Charles M. Andrews-provided, of course, that we can first identify what we need to see. Fortunately, scholars have come forward with guides and handbooks that make such research both easier and potentially more comprehensive than in the past. The purpose of this essay is to introduce a variety of recently published guides to primary materials-particularly manuscript materials-and to place them in the context of what is already available. The exercise seems especially necessary because the major journals in American history, this one included, no longer regularly review such guides as they appear. In addition, I hope that this notice will encourage the creation of more guides, since all students of the period benefit greatly from them. Many a fine book has been made possible by the existence of good guides to the sources. Preparing the best of these handbooks is as much an intellectual attainment as is the realization of any monograph based upon them. The immediate occasion of this essay is the appearance of several volumes that constitute de facto revisions of the classic Carnegie Institution of Washington manuals produced early in this century under the direction of J. Franklin Jameson.' This new spate of guides has been

A total publication system for scientific information

As the literature of science has grown and as the editorial and production costs of publications have escalated, it has become mandatory to eliminate the duplication of intellectual effort, and if possible the mechanical effort, which today goes into the preparation and analysis of a scientific document. The primary journal is the true repository of the original scientific and technological data. The secondary service provides access to that originial data; it does not replace it; it is not a surrogate. Experiments to date include the exchange of abstracts, index entries, and uniform bibliographic citations; also, the simultaneous editorial processing of the primary manuscript and the required secondary records. In the latter example, it is possible to produce primary journal indexes automatically from the secondary service database and to plan for one-time keyboarding of specific input data needed by both services. Large computer composition systems developed for the needs of secondary services are now composing primary journals economically.

A Manuscript of Ovid's Heroides

In spite of the labours of Sedlmayer,1 Ehwald2 and Palmer,3 it cannot be said that there exists a completely satisfactory edition of Ovid's Heroides. One or all of these editors sometimes leave a corrupted text, sometimes adhere too closely to a manuscript reading, and sometimes introduce untenable emendations. A new edition is called for, with revised collati ons of the known manuscripts, and an augmented apparatus criticus, exhibiting the large class of what I may term the ‘Vulgate’ manuscripts, which represents a tradition different from, and probably later than that of our chief authority, the excellent but unfortunately incomplete eleventh-century Parisinus (P), which, like all primary manuscripts of this type, contains many readings or corruptions which should not on account of its mere authority be accepted slavishly. Light is often thrown on the text from less important sources, and the truth may be recovered from manuscripts of the ‘Vulgate’ family, where our better authority fails. In this connexion the study of my own manuscript (O) has led me to some conclusions in certain passages which I venture to set forth as suggestions towards an improved constitution of the text of the Heroides. Though it is clear from the preceding investigation into its nature that O is no primary manuscript, but belongs rather to that large class which has passed through various stages of reproduction involving alterations (as is natural in the case of so popular an author as Ovid) due either to carelessness of copyists or, more rarely, to deliberate alteration, it presents at the same time a phenomenon not unusual with such manuscripts, inasmuch as it often supports the best tradition, and in some cases preserves a reading which yields the truth, or from which the truth can be elucidated. I have used the following symbols:P = Parisinus 8242 s. xi.E = Etonensis s. xi.G = Gueferbytanus s. xii.V = Schedae Vindobonenses s xii.O = my manuscript s. xiv.D = Dresdensis s. xiii.ω = all or the majonly of the ‘Vulgate’ manuscripts.ζ = some of these manuscripts.