ASCE and relevance to society-a note to President of ASCE
Dear Mr President, welcome! I am worried the path ASCE is taking. A solution to save 98.5% of man made energy in transportation is being denied publication in our Journal on Transportation Engineering! It is a disservice to the members of ASCE to be denied an opportunity to be the first to share a breakthrough development by one of their members. Now they will have to read from some other journals. USA needs urgent solution to make us energy independent, and economic down turn can be addressed with such energy saving transportation solution like Gravity Powered Urban Rail! It is not a joke to be able to save 98 to 70% of man-made energy , replacing the same with gravity power, while using the existing infrastrutire too. I am intrigued as a very senior civil engineering professional with enough professional work reported all round the world, and not needing an endorsement at this stage in my life, what our society is looking for- to be unconcerned with current problems of scoiety makes us irrelevant to the country. Hope you will give fresh direction to make ASCE more responsive to the needs of the society.
Wishing you all the best,
Attached is the correspondence for public view- for introspection.
Dear Mr.Editor,
I am a little intrigued by your approach and cannot resist but put down my views as a senior professional civil engineer.
I concentrated on presenting only innovative portions of the conceptual design, not wasting time again on existing transport systems, because I thought I am addressing professionals in transportation engineering.
The purpose of the ASCE cannot be a pure research oriented organisation. Only post graduate research papers with no immediate practical use will be eligible.
The real life problems of transport and energy saving are not trivial matters to be over looked.
Peer review , discussions among colleagues become possible when such an important development as saving 98.5 % of energy in transportation design concept gets published.
If our ASCE thinks that saving 98.5% energy in transportation is not an important development, and refuses to publish saying it is design and not research, does it mean engineering innovations do not matter to the ASCE?
A breakthrough of this nature does not happen daily. I am truly amazed at your decision while you are fully within your right to be bureaucratically correct, you are missing a serious concern of USA- energy conservation and impact on economy.
On the one hand President of ASCE says he invites engineers to give solutions for alternate energy sources and ideas to make USA energy independent but here you are throwing out a solution ! DESIGN is what can be implemented today without research effort- and USA needs urgent solution. The Journal by deny itself this opportunity, cannot hope to become relevant to society and its concerns- is my personal opinion.
Hope you take my comments in the right spirit. I am too senior a professional and am concerned the way the ASCE is shaping up. Of course rest assured , the interest of the energy saving and reducing global warming are much larger topics, and the work I offered to you for publication, is very relevant to the world beyond ASCE, and only feel sorry as a member of the organisation, you are unable to avail benefit of my work.
With kind regards,
- Hide quoted text -
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 8:26 PM, Journal of Transportation Engineering wrote:
Ref.: Ms. No. TEENG-206
Gravity Powered Urban Rail Transportation Systems
Rajaram Bojji, M.Tech ( Structures)
Dear Mr Bojji,
Your Technical Paper, listed above, was recently returned to us after an initial review by the editor. The editor's decision was to decline the manuscript as being outside the scope of the journal, as indicated in the comments below.
We appreciate having had the opportunity to consider your manuscript for ASCE's Journal of Transportation Engineering.
Sincerely,
Jessica Freeman
Editorial Coordinator
Reviewers' comments:
This paper is a revision of TEENG-147 which was earlier declined. The revision to the paper includes a fairly extensive conceptual design added to the original material. However, the paper still fundamentally represents a high-level DESIGN of a rail system. It provides no comparative analysis to other systems (nor a substantive literature review of alternatives). It apears that much of the paper is pulled from a patent submission. In fact, this paper does represent a proposed conceptual design - not research. Thus it is not appropriate for ASCE J of TE.
Wishing you all the best,
Attached is the correspondence for public view- for introspection.
Dear Mr.Editor,
I am a little intrigued by your approach and cannot resist but put down my views as a senior professional civil engineer.
I concentrated on presenting only innovative portions of the conceptual design, not wasting time again on existing transport systems, because I thought I am addressing professionals in transportation engineering.
The purpose of the ASCE cannot be a pure research oriented organisation. Only post graduate research papers with no immediate practical use will be eligible.
The real life problems of transport and energy saving are not trivial matters to be over looked.
Peer review , discussions among colleagues become possible when such an important development as saving 98.5 % of energy in transportation design concept gets published.
If our ASCE thinks that saving 98.5% energy in transportation is not an important development, and refuses to publish saying it is design and not research, does it mean engineering innovations do not matter to the ASCE?
A breakthrough of this nature does not happen daily. I am truly amazed at your decision while you are fully within your right to be bureaucratically correct, you are missing a serious concern of USA- energy conservation and impact on economy.
On the one hand President of ASCE says he invites engineers to give solutions for alternate energy sources and ideas to make USA energy independent but here you are throwing out a solution ! DESIGN is what can be implemented today without research effort- and USA needs urgent solution. The Journal by deny itself this opportunity, cannot hope to become relevant to society and its concerns- is my personal opinion.
Hope you take my comments in the right spirit. I am too senior a professional and am concerned the way the ASCE is shaping up. Of course rest assured , the interest of the energy saving and reducing global warming are much larger topics, and the work I offered to you for publication, is very relevant to the world beyond ASCE, and only feel sorry as a member of the organisation, you are unable to avail benefit of my work.
With kind regards,
- Hide quoted text -
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 8:26 PM, Journal of Transportation Engineering wrote:
Ref.: Ms. No. TEENG-206
Gravity Powered Urban Rail Transportation Systems
Rajaram Bojji, M.Tech ( Structures)
Dear Mr Bojji,
Your Technical Paper, listed above, was recently returned to us after an initial review by the editor. The editor's decision was to decline the manuscript as being outside the scope of the journal, as indicated in the comments below.
We appreciate having had the opportunity to consider your manuscript for ASCE's Journal of Transportation Engineering.
Sincerely,
Jessica Freeman
Editorial Coordinator
Reviewers' comments:
This paper is a revision of TEENG-147 which was earlier declined. The revision to the paper includes a fairly extensive conceptual design added to the original material. However, the paper still fundamentally represents a high-level DESIGN of a rail system. It provides no comparative analysis to other systems (nor a substantive literature review of alternatives). It apears that much of the paper is pulled from a patent submission. In fact, this paper does represent a proposed conceptual design - not research. Thus it is not appropriate for ASCE J of TE.
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