Scientific Advisory Board Meeting

The Scientific Advisory Board meeting was held on Thursday-Friday last week. This is probably the most important official event held this year for the Center. 5 external scientists, 4 from the US, visited for a two-day event featuring faculty seminars and break-up sessions for interviews. The interview part was an interesting one in which graduate students and research fellows were all invited for small-group Q&A sessions, discussing not research, but the Center's operation. The seminar session, occupying most of Thursday, was good for everybody to learn what other groups in the Center are up to. Repeated questions raised by the Board, as well as by ourselves in a wrap-up, are (i) how to define a grand theme of the research for the whole Center, (ii) how to attract talents to work here, and (iii) how to balance global and local (Korean) ways to operate the Center in terms of culture and language. Many who participated in the Meeting came away with an impression that the Center is now more stable and generally on the right track, compared to last year.

New template-based layout for MRM

Magnetic Resonance in Medicine has conducted a poll over switching to a new article layout, and the results are in. The decision was made to make the switch (some time soon). The new format apparently follows one of the standard templates of the publisher, and will speed up typesetting for accepted manuscripts. The new format features larger line spacings and less crowded letters. The downside is increased page count, by maybe about 20%. The change speaks to the pressure on the academic journals to make a rapid turnaround in the publication process. This undoubtedly reflects a fast pace and increasing number of players in academic research. It is hoped that this latest move by MRM will help attract high-quality paper submissions by more authors.