piner@pur-phy.UUCP (Richard Piner) (07/31/85)
Posted: Thu Jul 11, 1985 1:48 PM EDT Msg: UGIF-2031-7612
From: RPARK
To: WHATSNEW
CC: RPark
Subj: What's New
WHAT'S NEW, Friday, July 12, 1985 Washington, D.C.
1. WHEN DOES CONGRESS'S PORK MEAN FAT FOR ACADEME? The answer:
When the "spoils system," part of the nation's political heritage
that goes back to Andrew Jackson's presidency, works wonders,
unimpeded by hearings, debates and markups. This year, despite
demands for fiscal restraints, Congress is dipping into the pork
barrel for some good ol' (and some not so ol') universities. So,
during a reading of the $13 billion supplemental spending bill for
fiscal 1985, senators inserted amendments for an energy research
center at the University of Utah ($2 million) and additions to the
Dartmouth engineering school ($15 million). More handouts appeared
in the House Appropriations Committee's report on the energy and
water development bill for fiscal 1986. Among these: a science and
technology center for Atlanta University ($6 million), Florida
State's supercomputer institute (another $8.5 million), Columbia U's
chemistry building (another $12 million), an energy and mineral
research center at the University of Alabama ($8 million) and a
Demonstration Center for Information Technologies at Brown
University ($5 million)--all to come from the Energy Department's
Basic Energy Sciences program. If the bill passes unchanged, DoE
also will provide $6 million for proposals for a 6-GeV synchrotron
light source (highest priority of last year's Seitz-Eastman report
on materials sciences), restore $10 million to the proposed $25.5
million cut in high-energy physics and add $4 million to Argonne's
1986 budget for materials sciences and energy chemistry. But DoE
also suffers large reductions: $8 million from the requested $17.4
million for Lawrence Berkeley's Center for Advanced Materials and
another $5 million whack from magnetic fusion projects.
2. EUREKA, FRANCE'S RESPONSE TO "STAR WARS," got an important boost
on 26 June when four leading Western European electronics companies
agreed to collaborate. The four--GEC (Britain), Philips (Nether-
lands), Siemens (West Germany) and Thomson (France)--will work on
advanced microprocessors and gallium arsenide integrated circuits.
The agreement, announced on the eve of the EEC summit in Milan, was
cheered by France's President Mitterrand, who launched Eureka in
April in reaction to Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.
Mitterrand argues that SDI provides a pretext for the US government
to throw $26 billion at US firms for high-tech R&D over the next
five years, thereby lessening chances for European companies in such
fields as optics, advanced materials, micro-electronics, computers,
lasers and artificial intelligence. The reaction to SDI is not
surprising, considering that France developed nuclear weapons on its
own, after being shut out of postwar work by the US and Britain.
With Eureka, Mitterrand believes Europe will advance in high-tech
manufacturing on its own, without any spinoffs of SDI. But the lure
of Pentagon funds is attractive. One French company, REOSC, has a
$900,000 contract from SDI for a 1.85-meter mirror to reflect laser
beams in space. Other firms--Messerschmitt in West Germany, Selenia
in Italy, and British Aerospace--are negotiating with SDI.
Robert L. Park
American Physical Society THAT'S ALL 7/12/85piner@pur-phy.UUCP (Richard Piner) (08/01/85)
Posted: Fri Jul 19, 1985 12:51 PM EDT Msg: OGIF-2036-3540
From: RPARK
To: WHATSNEW
CC: RPark
Subj: What's New
WHAT'S NEW, Friday, July 19, 1985 Washington, D.C.
1. THE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FACILITIES REVITALIZATION ACT of
1985 (H.R. 2823) introduced by Representative Don Fuqua (D-FL),
chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology,
would authorize the creation of university and college research
laboratory modernization programs in the major federal R&D
agencies. The federal share of the 10 year program would be
about $5 billion, which is expected to leverage another $5
billion in non-federal funds, but would be indexed to the
annual level of federally supported R&D performed at univer-
sities and colleges. The bill contains a critical provision to
protect the base of university R&D funding so that laboratory
modernization would not be an undue tax on funding for research
grants. This provision prevents the facility programs, once
established, from growing any faster than the R&D base during
years of increased R&D funding. It also provides that in a
year in which R&D funding is cut 10% or more, the program would
drop to zero. Modernization funds will go to smaller institu-
tions at least in proportion to their share of other research
funds. Much of the stimulation for the current legislation
results from the controversy over pork barrel funding of
science facilities which in recent years has threatened the
entire system of merit-based support for science.
2. THE CUBAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY invited three Americans to speak
at their third symposium in Santiago June 27-29. The symposium
attracted more than 100 papers by Cuban authors. The Cuban
economy is in serious difficulty as a result of the economic
blockade by the United States and the low price of sugar on the
world market. These economic difficulties are clearly
hampering their attempts to improve science and move into high
technology. The government urges an emphasis on experimental
physics to benefit their technological development, but in view
of the extreme shortage of research facilities and equipment,
they could perhaps make a greater contribution in theory. In
addition to research equipment, they have serious deficiencies
in their libraries and they are anxious to have American
physicists, particularly in areas related to solid state
electronics, visit Cuba and lecture on recent developments.
They would also like to send some of their better physics
students to the United States for further study. According to
Congressman George Brown (D-CA), who traveled to Cuba with
Representative Don Ritter (R-PA) at about the same time, even
the Russians would welcome a normalization of Cuban-U.S.
relations. The Soviets are awash with sugar obtained from Cuba
as payment on their debt, but are seriously short of hard
currency. A current joke in Moscow is of a Russian who returns
from a visit to the United States. When asked what things
were like he replies, "It is just like here, you can buy
nothing with rubles and anything you want with dollars."
Robert L. Park
American Physical Society THAT'S ALL 7/19/85
piner@pur-phy.UUCP (Richard Piner) (08/03/85)
Posted: Fri Aug 2, 1985 4:11 PM EDT Msg: IGIF-2044-5806
From: RPARK
To: WHATSNEW
CC: RPark
Subj: What's New
WHAT'S NEW, Friday, August 2, 1985 Washington, D.C.
1. WHAT DOES CONGRESS'S BOTTOM-LINE AGREEMENT ON THE 1986
BUDGET MEAN FOR SCIENCE? If appropriations bills and floor
debates suggest things to come, science will fare exceedingly
well considering the worries in Washington about deficit
reduction, despite some aberrations. There was a flurry of
excitement in the House on 25 July over increases to Reagan
Administration requests for the National Science Foundation
and NASA. Representative Paul Henry of Michigan argued for
freezing the budgets of both agencies at 1985 levels. But
impassioned pleas by a bipartisan group of House members, led
by Florida's Don Fuqua, Ohio's Mary Rose Oakar and
California's Ron Packard and Jerry Lewis, enabled the House
to defeat Henry's amendments by a lopsided 300 to 112 vote.
The House would add $40 million more to NSF research and $56
million for NASA than the Administration wants--though NSF's
Very Long Base-line Array radiotelescope would be capped at
$8 million, which is $3 million less than requested, and
NSF's science education program would get $10 million more
than the original $50 million item. All this will have to be
agreed upon in conference with the Senate when Congress
reassembles in September. Meanwhile, the Energy Department's
budget, which the House approved weeks ago with pork-barrel
additions (see What's New, 12 July), sailed through the
Senate with a few exceptions--most notably, the Senate didn't
honor the House's $5 million gift to Brown University for an
information technology center. But Senators liked the House
idea to initiate competitive bidding for a 6-GeV synchrotron
light source and to pump money into a struggling Argonne.
2. THE ACADEMIC SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER HOLDOUTS, the
University of Illinois and Cornell University, have finally
signed contracts with the National Science Foundation that in
their opinion offer no threat to academic freedom. As we
have previously reported, contracts to operate supercomputer
centers at the University of California, San Diego and at
Princeton University, commit those centers to abide by
whatever policy is currently being developed by the Senior
Interagency Group on Technology Transfer (see What's New,
June 21, 1985). That policy could, if it takes on the force
of law, compel Illinois and Cornell to renegotiate their
contracts. Officials at both institutions have acknowledged
the possibility that it might result in closing the centers
they have agreed to operate if the principle of academic
freedom would be violated. A particularly disturbing aspect
of this controversy is that government efforts to control
access to supercomputers did not begin until the decision was
made to locate supercomputers at universities. Private
companies have been leasing time on supercomputers without
restriction to anyone who will pay the fee.
Robert L. Park
American Physical Society THAT'S ALL 8/2/85piner@pur-phy.UUCP (Richard Piner) (08/10/85)
Posted: Fri Aug 9, 1985 3:21 PM EDT Msg: SGIF-2048-8200
From: RPARK
To: WHATSNEW
CC: RPark
Subj: What's new
WHAT'S NEW, Friday, August 9, 1985 Washington, D.C.
1. UNIVERSITIES RESEARCH ASSOCIATION, INC., which manages
Fermilab and R&D and conceptual design for the SSC, has
announced the resignation of Guy Stever as president. URI is
a consortium of 56 US and Canadian universities engaged in
high energy physics. Stever, a former director of the
National Science Foundation, will be replaced by another
former director, Ed Knapp.
2. CONGRESS IS IN RECESS until September 4 in their annual
exodus to avoid Washington's notorious August weather.
Washington doesn't quite come to a stop in their absence, but
it certainly slows down. There are, however, plenty of
unresolved issues for Congress to take up when it returns.
3. A PERMANENT EXCLUSION OF EMPLOYER-PROVIDED EDUCATIONAL
ASSISTANCE from gross income would be provided by bills now
before the Senate (S. 558) and House (H.R. 1356). Such an
exemption is currently provided by Section 127 of the
Internal Revenue Code which will soon expire without
Congressional action. A permanent exclusion is included in
the President's proposed tax reform plan in keeping with the
recommendation of the President's Commission on Industrial
Competitiveness "that our tax code not further bias employers
against funding employee training." Such an exclusion is
regarded by many as essential in the rapidly changing
environment of high technology industry.
4. THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE HOLDING SECURITY CLEARANCES is to be
reduced by 10% as a result of the recent spy scandals. This
will affect about 130,000 defense contractor employees and is
expected to result in a sizable number of layoffs. It is
also expected to result in an expanded use of the polygraph
in the screening of applicants for jobs on classified
projects. Those favoring expanded use of the polygraph
appeared to be supported by reports that the CIA employee
charged recently with disclosing the names of CIA informants
in Ghana was investigated after she failed a routine
polygraph examination. In fact, Representative Don Edwards
(D-CA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil and
Constitutional Rights, notes that the CIA station chief in
Ghana ordered the employee to terminiate her relationship
with a Ghanaian more than a year before the test was
administered. It has been argued that the successes claimed
for the polygraph usually occur when the examiner has
independent knowledge of evasion.
Robert L. Park
American Physical Society THAT'S ALL 8/9/85
piner@pur-phy.UUCP (Richard Piner) (08/19/85)
Posted: Fri Aug 16, 1985 4:37 PM EDT Msg: PGIF-2053-2805
From: RPARK
To: WHATSNEW
CC: RPark
Subj: What's New
WHAT'S NEW, Friday, August 16, 1985 Washington, D.C.
1. CLOSED SESSIONS AT TECHNICAL MEETINGS, that is, sessions
for U. S. citizens only, continue to be scheduled by the
Society for the Advancement of Material and Process
Engineering. Such sessions are planned for their l8th
International Technical Conference, to be held in Seattle in
October, entitled "Materials for Space--the Gathering
Momentum," and also for their l7th International Technical
Conference, entitled "Overcoming Material Boundaries," to be
held at Kiamesha Lake, New York, also in October. Most of
the closed sessions will deal with metal matrix composites,
as they have in the past. Meanwhile, the DoD, which prefers
the euphemistic term, "export controlled sessions," has been
working on a statement of policy and guidelines for the
presentation of DoD-sponsored scientific and technical
papers. The stated purpose is to establish policy for the
dissemination of scientific and technical information in the
possession or under the control of the DoD. A number of
societies, including The American Physical Society, have firm
policies barring any participation in conferences that place
restraints on communication of unclassified scientific
information.
2. THE OFFICE OF INNOVATIVE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, of the
Strategic Defense Initiative Organization, has been having
its own trouble with the issue of freedom of scientific
communication. Although IST Director Jim Ionson has insisted
from the beginning that there would be no restrictions on the
dissemination of research results or of participation of
non-US citizens for on-campus research sponsored by IST, the
funds all come from the DoD 6.3 category, which is designated
for development. As such, it falls outside the DoD policy
guaranteeing openness in fundamental research conducted on
campus for the DoD. Apparently, not everyone at SDIO was
aware of Ionson's policy, and universities have received
mixed signals concerning their responsibilities in obtaining
clearance for contacts with the press or the release of
technical papers. At an urgent meeting last Friday, DoD
officials drafted a letter from Ionson to military
procurement officers, instructing them that 6.3a research
("a" denotes SDI) in universities will be treated as 6.1,
which is the designation for basic research. An intemperate
memo from the commander of an Army Corps of Engineers'
laboratory at the University of Illinois, calling for an end
to all contacts with university researchers who had signed an
anti-SDI petition, contributed to the atmosphere of
confrontation. The memorandum was later withdrawn with an
apology.
Robert L. Park
American Physical Society THAT'S ALL 8/16/85