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CMNS/LENR Update
August 1, 2008
ICCF-14 Schedule Appears - No Abstracts Yet The 14th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science and Cold Fusion draft schedule is now online. The conference starts in nine days.
Vice Admiral Pete Nanos, second in command of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, is giving the keynote address, on “The Fleischmann-Pons Effect: Evidence and Importance.”
Forty-five oral presentations are listed, though 35 other papers had been submitted. Some have been designated for poster sessions. Hideo Kozima and Larry Forsley were among the researchers who requested but were not listed for oral presentations.
Conference Management Experiences Growing Pains
The ICCF conference series is loosely managed by researchers and participants in the field in an informal governing body known as the International Advisory Committee.
This governing body appears to have no written guidelines or rules, though a loosely defined etiquette developed over the last few years seems to have worked.
The committee has only two tasks: It votes on which country will get to host the subsequent year's conference, and it decides who will manage the conference. Because the conference management is highly autocratic, these positions carry significant power to control the content and selection of future conferences. These votes were conducted behind closed doors; general members of the research community and the press have not been permitted to attend.
This year's committee members are listed here. Last year's are listed here. The members from the year before that are listed here.
The ICCF-13 IAC member listing differs from that of ICCF-12 in only one respect: the addition of ICCF-13 scientific secretary Igor Goryachev.
For this year's conference, the following people have been added to the IAC committee: Scott R. Chubb, Martin Fleischmann, Michael E. Melich, David J. Nagel and Vittorio Violante.
The following people have been removed from the committee: Tullio Bressani, Francesco Celani, Antonella De Ninno, Andrei Lipson, Jirohta Kasagi, Ken-ichiro Ota, Nikolai Samsonenko and Francesco Scaramuzzi.
Remaining members from last year are Yuri Bazhutov, Jean-Paul Biberian, William Collis, Igor Goryachev, Peter L. Hagelstein, Yasuhiro Iwamura, Xing Zhong Li, Michael C. H. McKubre, George Miley, Edmund Storms, Akito Takahashi and Mahadeva Srinivasan.
The process of adding and removing people from this governing body appears to be entirely in the hands of the chairmen of the current ICCF conference.
Michael Melich, ICCF-14 co-chairman, explained this year's policy in a letter to Francesco Celani regarding his delisting as a member of the committee.
Dear Francesco,
Dave Nagel reviewed the past members of the IAC, when he started to organize ICCF-14. As chairman of the IAC, he felt that there had to be a way to keep the membership somewhat more limited, since it had been growing steadily. The dominant criterion for membership is now service as a past, current or prospective ICCF chairman or co-chairman. Holding office in the ISCMNS is important, of course, but is not a qualifying position, particularly since much of the senior leadership of ISCMNS is included on the committee (Collis, Li, Takahashi). We hope you are not offended by this change, especially because of your important contributions to our field.
We look forward to seeing you in Washington, D.C.
Last year at ICCF-13, Bill Collis and Larry Forsley announced their interest in organizing ICCF-15 in Italy.
Steven B. Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times
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