Subsidiaries of the distressed Dutch publisher Swets are up for sale after an attempt to sell the group fell through.

As you may know, Swets Information Services  has recently been receiving much attention because of its current financial position.

This news places both publishers and libraries who work with Swets in a difficult position.

We are happy to help subscribers through this situation.

If you have any questions about your subscription or any other matter we can help you with, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Subscriber.services@electrochem.org

And if you aren’t a subscriber, visit the ECS Digital Library and see what we have to offer.

Towering like a beacon of hope in Germany’s North Sea stand wind turbines. Stretching as high as 60-story buildings and standing as far as 60 miles from the mainland, the turbines are part of Germany’s push to find a solution to global warming.

Some call it change. Some call it transformation. We call it a revolution.

According to an article in the The New York Times, it is expected that by the end of the year, scores of new turbines will be set in place – thus allowing low-emission electricity to be sent to German cities hundreds of miles south.

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This weekend I watched the recently released short film, Disruption, which is available online for free viewing. In less than one-hour, the scientists, authors and activists featured in the film highlight some truly frightening data and trends. As those who believe in the vast majority of the science already understand, we must do more to limit greenhouse gas emissions if we want any chance of keeping global temperature change below 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels.

Thankfully, the conversion to a clean energy economy is already feasible, both economically and technologically. Countries like Germany have been demonstrating the possibilities of renewable energy, despite having sunshine similar to that of Alaska. We also know the scientists of ECS are currently working on even more exciting research to improve our understanding and technological capabilities in photovoltaics, nanotechnology and fuel cells, among other cutting-edge fields.

In my view, the bold pledge to move toward open access at ECS has serious implications for action on climate change. If we can make the scientific research results and latest findings more widely accessible, we may speed up the scientific discovery process. Perhaps a young scientist in the developing world will unlock the key to some perplexing scientific dilemma, once we’ve made the latest findings more freely available in an ECS journal. Many of us believe we can accelerate the pace of innovation, and help solve critical challenges by opening access to scientific research. You can support those efforts by donating to the ECS Publications Endowment.

In the meantime, I plan to attend the Peoples Climate March on Sunday, September 21. There is an entire staging area for scientists, among the various  1,500 other groups, including students, environmentalists, labor unions, and community activists. Together, we’ll be demanding action on climate change, just two days before President Obama and other world leaders are set to attend a Climate Summit at the United Nations hosted by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

On September 10th, sites across the web will display an alert with a symbolic “loading” symbol and promote a call to action for users to push comments to the FCC, Congress, and the White House.

Today a group of popular websites that rely on speedy Internet have launched an online protest against proposed changes to “net neutrality.” They call themselves Team Internet and are comprised of popular websites, such as Netflix, Vimeo, Reddit, and WordPress – just to name a few.

The protest aims to fight policy changes via the U.S. Federal Communications Commission that would overturn a 2010 ruling that required Internet service providers to treat all web traffic the same.

This from TIME:

Since May, the FCC has been weighing changes to its regulations on “net neutrality” — the 2010 rules requiring Internet service providers to treat all web traffic the same. The changes would allow cable companies to grant paying customers faster service, but ban them from slowing down, or throttling, the access of nonpaying companies. The FCC has already lost two court cases brought by cable companies who have challenged the legality of its existing net-neutrality rules.

Read the full article here.

ECS fights a similar battle in the realm of publication. In order to avoid the dissemination of science and research that creates a world of haves and have-nots, ECS fully supports open access publishing.

Find out more about open access and check out our Digital Library to find the latest published OA pieces.

The ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology (JSS) is one of the newest peer-reviewed journals from ECS launched in 2012.

Atomic Layer Etch (ALEt) and Atomic Layer Clean (ALC) are emerging as enabling technologies for sub 10nm technology nodes. At these scales performance will be extremely sensitive to process variation.

Atomic layer processes are the most promising path to deliver the precision needed. However, many areas of ALEt and ALC are in need of improved fundamental understanding and process development. This focus issue will cover state-of-the-art efforts that address a variety of approaches to ALE and ALC.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Surface reaction chemistry and its impact on selectivity
• Plasma ion energy distribution and control methods
• Novel plasma sources and potential application to ALEt & ALC
• Innovative approaches to atomic layer material removal
• Novel device applications of ALEt & ALC
• Process chamber design considerations
• Advanced delivery of chemicals to processing chambers
• Metrology and control of ALEt & ALC
• Device performance impact
• Synthesis of new chemistries for ALEt & ALC application
• Damage free surface defect removal
• Process and discharge modeling

Find out more.

Co-editor of Interface, Vijay Ramani, talks about open access publishing in this letter from the editor.

The following is an article from the latest issue of Interface by co-editor Vijay Ramani.

Late last year, I accepted the invitation to become co-editor of Interface safe in the knowledge that I would not actually be called upon to do anything for the foreseeable future.* Thanks to the outstanding ECS staff and conscientious guest editors and authors, this happy state of affairs has persisted until now. But just as “even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea,” so it is that the inevitable passage of time has brought upon a situation wherein actual effort is required on my part, viz. this editorial. The increasingly plaintive entreaties from our admirably patient Director of Publications seeking the contents of this column can no longer, in good conscience, be ignored or fobbed off with feeble excuses.

Read the rest.

Plan now to participate at CSTIC 2015, one of the largest and the most comprehensive annual semiconductor technology conferences in China.

We invite you to submit your papers now for the China Semiconductor Technology International Conference 2015, one of the largest and the most comprehensive annual semiconductor technology conferences in China. CSTIC is organized by SEMI and IEEE, co-organized by China’s High-Tech Expert Committee (CHTEC). It is co-sponsored by ECS, MRS and China Electronics Materials Industry Association. CSTIC 2015 will be held on March 15-16, 2015 at the SHICC, Shanghai, China, in conjunction with SEMICON China 2015. It will cover all the aspects of semiconductor technology and manufacturing, including devices, design, lithography, integration, materials, processes, manufacturing as well as emerging semiconductor technologies and silicon material applications. Hot topics, such as 3D integration, III-V semiconductors, carbon nanoelectronics, LEDs, and MEMS. And CPTIC 2015 has joined CSTIC 2015 as Symposium XII : Si Materials and Photovoltaic Technology.

We are soliciting papers from authors around the world on all aspects of semiconductor and photovoltaic technology and manufacturing, including semiconductor design, Frond-End-of-Line (FEOL), Back-End-of-Line (BEOL), packaging, testing, as well as emerging semiconductor technologies; photovoltaic market, policy, power grid, device, design, process, tooling, materials, and fundamental study between China and the rest of the world with a focus on industrial applications.

Submit your abstract online.

The 227th ECS Meeting is in Chicago, IL from May 24 – 28, 2015

The call for abstracts for the 227th ECS Meeting to be held May 24-28, 2015 in Chicago, IL is now open.

Meeting abstracts should explicitly state objectives, new results, and conclusions or significance of the work.

Regardless of whether you submit as a poster or an
oral presentation, it is at the symposium organizers’ discretion whether it is scheduled for an oral or poster presentation.

Programming for this meeting will occur in January 2015.

Abstracts are due no later than November 14, 2014.

Find out more.

“Google Science” would launch a number of journals, be “self-organising” and yet have a team of “qualified reviewers.”

There is a Google Scholar, but what if there was a Google Science? The UK edition of Wired magazine is tracking the mystery of whether it is or is not in the mix in How ‘Google Science’ could transform academic publishing.

“Google Science” would launch a number of journals, be “self-organising” and yet have a team of “qualified reviewers”.

“99.9 percent of the work, including peer review would be done by the scientific community,”

This is, of course, about open access an issue we at ECS are committed to. There’s a great discussion on this. The article says:

“Most [academics] don’t particularly care about open access, in part because they are not incentivised to do so. This is changing, but only slowly, and right now most still care more about publishing in established, high-profile journals and in gaining a lot of citations.”

Google could change the game, if they really were going to get involved. Spoiler alert: Wired found no evidence a Google Science was in the works.

Find out more about ECS open access.

This focus issue will cover state-of-the-art efforts that address a variety of approaches to printable functional materials and devices.

Printing technologies in an atmospheric environment offer the potential for low-cost and materials-efficient alternatives for manufacturing electronics and energy devices such as luminescent displays, thin film transistors, sensors, thin film photovoltaics, fuel cells, capacitors, and batteries.

Significant progress has been made in the area of printable functional organic and inorganic materials including conductors, semiconductors, dielectric, and luminescent materials

These will enable exciting advances in printed electronics and energy devices. Some examples are printed amorphous oxide semiconductors, organic conductors and semiconductors, inorganic semiconductor nanomaterials, silicon, chalcogenide semiconductors, ceramics, metals, intercalation compounds, and carbon-based materials.

This focus issue will cover state-of-the-art efforts that address a variety of approaches to printable functional materials and device. The focus issue will include both invited and contributed papers reflecting recent achievements. Prospective authors are encouraged to submit contributions reporting the original research results or reviewing key emerging trends in printable functional materials and devices for publication in this focus issue.

Find out more.