I am pleased to announce that a new blolg associated with the International Journal of Fracture has been created by Springer. This is an ambitious project that aims to augment the published version of the papers and to create a dialogue between authors and readers. All articles beginning with the Dec 2004 issue now have a blog entry; ealier volumes will be added as digital processing of information continues. Discussion is not restricted to papers published in the journal, but should relate to the fracture/failure/structural integrity theme/micromechanics. Please see my post of Oct 25, 2006 for a detailed description of the obectives of the blog. I welcome your particpation in this experiment to enhance archival publication.

Dear Fellow ASME Micro & Nano Professionals :

There still is time to participate in the "Micro & Nano Society-Wide Forum" which will be held on Wednesday, November 8th, 5-8 pm, Williford Room C at the Chicago Hilton and Towers during ASME's Congress 2006.

The intention of this program is to stimulate cross-disciplinary knowledge-exchange, networking and synergy among ASME Members and other professionals interested in the development of nanotechnology. We extended the submission due date to Oct. 25th. (Previous one was a too short notice.)

A complimentary light dinner along with beverages will be provided during the program. All you need is your poster which will be tacked onto a poster board that is 96 inches by 48 inches (2.4 m by 1.2 m).

The effects of light propagation direction on the stress induced polarization dependence of silicon-based waveguide were studied. As silicon is an anisotropic material, the change of polarization dependence induced by the photoelastic effect depends on the light propagation directions. It is found that when the light propagates in <100> directions on {100} silicon, the changes of refractive index and polarization shift are about 20% more sensitive to the stress than those when the light propagates in <110> directions. (IEEE Photonic Technology Letters, vol. 18, No.

Getting papers published and getting proposals granted are often great challeges for young researchers, let alone being a good reviewer. The "Ten Simple Rules" series by P.E. Bourne, L.M. Chalupa, and A. Korngreen delineate what we should follow.

• Ten simple rules for getting published
• Ten simple rules for getting grants
  
• Ten simple rules for reviewers.

More details about writing a good paper and proposal were also given by G. M. Whitesides ("writing a paper") and M.F. Ashby ("how to write a paper").

I thought I should take advantage of iMechanica and obtain feedback on some recent work that we did on nonlinear stability analysis of patterns.

A paradigmatic model that governs monolayer self-assembly was constructed a few years back by Wei Lu (Michigan) and Zhigang Suo. Apart from obtaining several physical insights they also conducted a linear stability analysis of their model. Borrowing technqiues from the nonlinear physics community, our work presents nonlinear stability analysis i.e. the initial state is no longer homogeneous and stable states beyond the transition are calculated. This allows a detailed construction of stability maps for various patterns without extensive numerical calculations.

This work is currently under review and I am attaching a pre-print with this post. Any comments and suggestions would be well-appreciated.

Open Faculty Positons:

• Computational Mechanics
• Multiscale Environmental Fluid Dynamics
• Smart Structures and Intelligent Systems

Open Faculty Position in Computational Mechanics

The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Arizona State University seeks applicants for a tenure-track faculty position in the area of computational mechanics. The appointment will be commensurate with the candidate’s experience and accomplishments and can be at the assistant, associate or full professor rank, beginning August 2007. At the time of appointment, candidates must have an earned doctorate in engineering or a related field.

The SES 2007 Conference, Oct. 21-24, 2007, Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas, home to the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

Call for abstract

Symposium: Mechanics of micro/nano structures on soft substrates: applications for flexible and stretchable electronics

Advances in the research of the theory of Piezoelectricity and Acoustic Waves have provided essential foundation and new opportunities to device technology and have been fostering academic exchanges and interaction in the piezoelectric device industry.With the increased research activities in piezoelectricity and acoustic waves and recent fast growth in piezoelectric devices, we are also facing many technological challenges from real engineering applications and product design and manufacturing.Following the successful SPAWDA 2004 in Ningbo, Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, IEEE UFFC and the Acoustical Society of China have decided, also with industrial support, to hold the SPAWDA 2006 at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China from December 14-17.The conference topics include, but not limited to,

The Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM) at Virginia Tech seeks applications for two tenured or tenure-track faculty colleagues. The ideal candidates are expected to interface mechanics with the domain of biology (cellular mechanics, soft tissue biomechanics, macro-molecular biology, biodynamics, biofluids); the domains of nanotechnology or nanobiotechnology (mechanics of self-assembly, nanocomposites, functional nanodevices, biological and biomedical applications); or the domain of energy, with an emphasis on nanoscale and microscale problems or biological principles (fuel cells, renewable energy, energy conversion, clean energy, energy storage). However, intellectual depth is more important than the specific area of specialization, since ESM faculty members are expected to have a broad scholarly interest in engineering with a special emphasis on the fundamental mechanics.

From Robert M. McMeeking (UC Santa Barbara).

The American Academy of Mechanics calls for nominations for two awards from its members:

The 2006 American Academy of Mechanics Outstanding Service Award

Preliminary nominations should consist of a one-page letter describing the outstanding service of the nominee to the Academy as well as to the profession, along with a one-page biographical sketch of the nominee, together with the names of at least three people willing to write letters of support in the event that the Awards Committee requests them.

The 2006 American Academy of Mechanics Junior Award