5 ms·

The referenced paper says "Near-perfect" and never uses "perfect" without qualifier to describe the lens. The distinction is important. Shame on spie.org/phys.o

The referenced paper says "Near-perfect" and never uses "perfect" without qualifier to describe the lens. The distinction is important. Shame on spie.org/phys.org. https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/advanced-photonics/volume-2/issue-05/055001/Near-perfect-microlenses-based-on-graphene-microbubbles/10.1117/1.AP.2.5.055001.full https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/advanced-photoni...

quietbritishjim 6y ago
Unsurprising that they use this sort of tactic. SPIE is not a serious journal, instead you pay to submit and they will accept essentially anything. I say this from a background of knowing people who have submitted several SPIE papers (somewhat begrudgingly).
- hellosire 6y ago
  Sorry, but that is dead wrong. SPIE is not a predatory journal and is considered seriously internationally and is one of the counterparts to OSA. I work in this field.
  - quietbritishjim 6y ago
    In truth, there are even a couple of SPIE papers with my name on them (not my proudest moments). The work they describe is actually pretty reasonable, worthy of a real journal article or two, but only if you went into far more detail than the actual articles did. The company involved would never have agreed to that though, it would have given too much IP away, which is why they went for SPIE articles instead. I've seen some SPIE articles that are even worse, almost approaching advertising copy of a new product (our ones had a hint of that but they did at least give an overview of the research). I don't mean to suggest that they're necessarily the very worst end of things. There does need to be a hint of research involved, and I imagine they would actually reject GPT3 text. Maybe they even have some serious academic research, especially in their historical subject of optics (as this graphene article is). But given they accept articles like the ones I've seen/been involved in, the mere fact that an article is on SPIE doesn't tell you anything more than it being a PDF on a random website.
    - hellosire 6y ago
      I'm not sure why you mention off-topic GPT3. If you are trying to imply editors will accept GPT3 written papers somehow now or in the future, then that is completely false, disingenuous, and not based on reality at all. There is no need to "imagine" the acceptance of GPT3 text as it cannot produce anything remotely close to what editors and reviewers will accept. I am surprised this possibility is even being raised, and makes me doubt the extent of your actual involvement in the field. SPIE has a different audience compared to basic research. There have been many highly cited papers from SPIE in my applied field. SPIE cooperates with OSA on the largest optics conferences for this very reason to cover applied and basic research. If you are coming from the basic research side, then I would not make a comment such as "being a PDF on a random website" as it really discredits this avenue when it is an honest and serious journal in the applied side. Aside from your reservations of industrial conflicts of the author of this paper, the journal is a fine avenue. Is it Nature? No, of course not. The editors themselves admit the very fact that its h-index cannot compete simply because it is a venue for applied research. But I would not go to the extreme of casting it as predatory or crank.
      - quietbritishjim 6y ago
        > I'm not sure why you mention off-topic GPT3. I mentioned that because there are true scams where they accept literally any text (and payment!) and "publish" it on their online only "journal". I believe instances of GPT-like nonsense being "published" by those scams have been posted to HN in the past. I was just trying clarify that I was NOT levelling that accusation against SPIE, in my case my original comment had made it sound like I did. Your offense at me bringing it up, just to say that I'm not accusing SPIE of that, is frankly an overreaction. > SPIE has a different audience compared to basic research. ... it is a venue for applied research "Applied research" is not an excuse for articles that contain little or no technical content. I have seen several articles that are just a description of a demonstration that took place of a new product. That product undoubtably contains interesting technical innovations, but those innovations are not described in the article, at least not in any sort of detail that would benefit future practitioners. That is not a serious research article of any kind, including applied research. > There have been many highly cited papers from SPIE in my applied field. SPIE cooperates with OSA on the largest optics conferences ... First of all: Regardless of this whole SPIE discussion, I have seen some truely awful articles that have been cited a lot. Infamously, there was an article in a medical journal that reinvented the centuries-old (millenia-old maybe?) trapezium rule for estimating the area under a curve and was cited thousands of times. Citation count, I'm sure we can all agree, is not an indicator of quality, at least not by itself. But, as I said before: I can believe that interesting original articles with some real technical content are published to SPIE, particularly in its original field of optics. (The articles I'm referring to are more like products that include a camera or similar as a component, which technically falls under the field of "optics" but is rather far away from something more basic than a study of an individual type of lens, as in this article.) If you have seen articles like that then I'm not trying to invalidate your experience. But I have also seen papers very unlike that, as I said above, and I ask you not to invalidate my experience by claiming that those don't exist. Ultimately, the conclusion for a reader like me that hears "this paper was in SPIE" is that maybe it's like the dubious papers I've seen in the past. If SPIE publishes some serious papers and some rather less so, perhaps in different journals under the SPIE banner, then the blame is on them for tainting their previously good reputation by accepting lower quality articles.

quietbritishjim 6y ago

Unsurprising that they use this sort of tactic. SPIE is not a serious journal, instead you pay to submit and they will accept essentially anything. I say this from a background of knowing people who have submitted several SPIE papers (somewhat begrudgingly).

hellosire 6y ago
Sorry, but that is dead wrong. SPIE is not a predatory journal and is considered seriously internationally and is one of the counterparts to OSA. I work in this field.
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  In truth, there are even a couple of SPIE papers with my name on them (not my proudest moments). The work they describe is actually pretty reasonable, worthy of a real journal article or two, but only if you went into far more detail than the actual articles did. The company involved would never have agreed to that though, it would have given too much IP away, which is why they went for SPIE articles instead. I've seen some SPIE articles that are even worse, almost approaching advertising copy of a new product (our ones had a hint of that but they did at least give an overview of the research). I don't mean to suggest that they're necessarily the very worst end of things. There does need to be a hint of research involved, and I imagine they would actually reject GPT3 text. Maybe they even have some serious academic research, especially in their historical subject of optics (as this graphene article is). But given they accept articles like the ones I've seen/been involved in, the mere fact that an article is on SPIE doesn't tell you anything more than it being a PDF on a random website.
  - hellosire 6y ago
    I'm not sure why you mention off-topic GPT3. If you are trying to imply editors will accept GPT3 written papers somehow now or in the future, then that is completely false, disingenuous, and not based on reality at all. There is no need to "imagine" the acceptance of GPT3 text as it cannot produce anything remotely close to what editors and reviewers will accept. I am surprised this possibility is even being raised, and makes me doubt the extent of your actual involvement in the field. SPIE has a different audience compared to basic research. There have been many highly cited papers from SPIE in my applied field. SPIE cooperates with OSA on the largest optics conferences for this very reason to cover applied and basic research. If you are coming from the basic research side, then I would not make a comment such as "being a PDF on a random website" as it really discredits this avenue when it is an honest and serious journal in the applied side. Aside from your reservations of industrial conflicts of the author of this paper, the journal is a fine avenue. Is it Nature? No, of course not. The editors themselves admit the very fact that its h-index cannot compete simply because it is a venue for applied research. But I would not go to the extreme of casting it as predatory or crank.
    - quietbritishjim 6y ago
      > I'm not sure why you mention off-topic GPT3. I mentioned that because there are true scams where they accept literally any text (and payment!) and "publish" it on their online only "journal". I believe instances of GPT-like nonsense being "published" by those scams have been posted to HN in the past. I was just trying clarify that I was NOT levelling that accusation against SPIE, in my case my original comment had made it sound like I did. Your offense at me bringing it up, just to say that I'm not accusing SPIE of that, is frankly an overreaction. > SPIE has a different audience compared to basic research. ... it is a venue for applied research "Applied research" is not an excuse for articles that contain little or no technical content. I have seen several articles that are just a description of a demonstration that took place of a new product. That product undoubtably contains interesting technical innovations, but those innovations are not described in the article, at least not in any sort of detail that would benefit future practitioners. That is not a serious research article of any kind, including applied research. > There have been many highly cited papers from SPIE in my applied field. SPIE cooperates with OSA on the largest optics conferences ... First of all: Regardless of this whole SPIE discussion, I have seen some truely awful articles that have been cited a lot. Infamously, there was an article in a medical journal that reinvented the centuries-old (millenia-old maybe?) trapezium rule for estimating the area under a curve and was cited thousands of times. Citation count, I'm sure we can all agree, is not an indicator of quality, at least not by itself. But, as I said before: I can believe that interesting original articles with some real technical content are published to SPIE, particularly in its original field of optics. (The articles I'm referring to are more like products that include a camera or similar as a component, which technically falls under the field of "optics" but is rather far away from something more basic than a study of an individual type of lens, as in this article.) If you have seen articles like that then I'm not trying to invalidate your experience. But I have also seen papers very unlike that, as I said above, and I ask you not to invalidate my experience by claiming that those don't exist. Ultimately, the conclusion for a reader like me that hears "this paper was in SPIE" is that maybe it's like the dubious papers I've seen in the past. If SPIE publishes some serious papers and some rather less so, perhaps in different journals under the SPIE banner, then the blame is on them for tainting their previously good reputation by accepting lower quality articles.