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Dr. Leonid Perlovsky

Doctor, Visiting Scholar
Harvard University
Boston
 

Brief Biography:


Dr. Leonid Perlovsky, Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, Principal Research Physicist and Technical Advisor at the Air Force Research Lab. Leads research programs on modeling the mind, language, cognition, consciousness, emotions, evolution of languages and cultures. As Chief Scientist at Nichols Research, a $0.5 B high-tech organization, he led the corporate research in intelligent systems and neural networks. He served as Professor of Physics at Novosibirsk University and Professor of Psychiatry at New York University; participated as a principal in startups developing tools for text understanding, biotechnology, and financial predictions. His company predicted the financial market crash following 9/11 a week before the events.  He delivered invited keynote plenary talks and tutorial lectures around the globe, published more than 400 papers, 11 book chapters, 3 books including “Neural Networks and Intellect,” Oxford University Press, 2001 (currently in the 3rd printing). Dr. Perlovsky organizes conferences on Computational Intelligence, Co-Chairs the IEEE NN Tech Committee, Chairs IEEE Task Force on “The Mind and Brain,” serves on the Board of Governors of the International Neural Network Society where he Chairs the Award Committee, and on editorial boards of 7 professional journals, including Editor-in-Chief for “Physics of Life Reviews,” which he originated together with Nobel Laureate I. Prigogine. He received prestigious National and International Awards, including Gabor Award 2007, the highest engineering award from the International Neural Network Society, and McLucas Award 2007, the highest basic research award from the USAF.

 

Academic positions:


Harvard University

 

Research interests:


Mathematical models of the mind, cognitive algorithms, dynamic logic, models of cognition and language, cognitive functions of the beautiful, sublime, and music, evolution of languages and cultures, neural networks.

 

What I think of the idea behind WebmedCentral:


I consider an honor your invitation to participate as an advisor to your journal. I think your approach combining open publication format and pre-review publication overcomes the fundamental deficiencies of the current academic publication system. Being a member of Editorial Boards of 7 professional journals, I see among fundamental deficiencies of the current system, long publication delays and reviewers conflict of interest.

Deficiencies of the current system:

Finding qualified reviewers often is difficult. We, Editors have to resort to reviews by former co-authors (usually exaggeratedly positive). If the reviews are written by authorities in the field, they are decisively negative, especially in case of good, innovative papers. More often reviews are written by graduate students who’s outlook is limited by views of their professors. They do not have a broad view and do not understand innovations. As a result, it is easy to publish mediocre paper, but very difficult to publish innovative papers. Sometimes I have to appeal to Editor-in-Chief or to use my own Editor-in-Chief power to overwrite opinions of unqualified reviewers. And still I am thankful even to poorly qualified reviewers, for agreeing to invest their time in reviewing papers. The result is that even highly rated journals publish a significant number of third-rated papers.

Advantages of open, post-publication review system:

Your editorial philosophy of open, post-publication reviews overcomes these difficulties. First, publications speed up by months, which is extremely important in current fast-paced academic process. Second, reviews are becoming publications in themselves, and reviewers take an authorship interest and responsibilities in their reviews. I see it as the future of academic publishing, and believe that WebmedCentral will overtake current academic journals.

I am glad to take part in this transformational process, and will be glad advising WebmedCentral Team on improving your journal.