[seek-taxon] news from Nico

[Nico Franz]

Hi Taxon folks:

   I'm due for an update on what's been happening. Huyen, Skylar and I 
arrived in Mayaguez in early January, about a week before the start of 
the semester. There are more things to Puerto Rico than the nice 
weather. Most dealings with banks, stores, other service providers, 
medical doctors, university, etc. feel like "big bureaucratic 
government" when they should be more flexible and faster. Also, because 
I joined late in the process, the Department assigned me to teach an 
introductory biology course for this semester. Preparing two lectures 
each week for 60 students has taken up time. In addition I'm trying (and 
slowly succeeding) to set up my lab, and also managing to get out to the 
field sometimes and catch bugs. I'm planning to submit a Research 
Initiation Grant proposal to NSF by July to get some equipment and funds 
for students. Starting next semester I'll be teaching courses in 
systematic entomology.

   All in all though I must say that the new situation is really sweet. 
I love the fact that as a person who likes field work in the tropics I 
can work where I live. The Department is in a dynamic phase, with a new 
building and many new faculty, and also on the verge of offering a 
doctoral degree that will help shift the balance more towards research. 
The relatively high teaching load will be reduced to the extent that I 
can justify or get money for research projects. So there are many 
challenges, but meanwhile it's fun going to work and seeing what will 
come of it.

   As far as SEEK related things. The revised version of the paper I 
presented last year in Cardiff is in press now. You can access the PDF 
here: http://www.uprm.edu/~franz/pub.html   I'm still due to deliver 
various other things, including a half-finished manuscript on concept 
relationships (I've reopened it now), one on concept stability, "data 
and input" to the CIPRes group, feedback to Xianhua, and also to the 
KR-SMS ontology. Because I've now managed to get past the first hurdles 
here, I think I'll get to each of these in the coming weeks and months. 
Hoping that's acceptable. If it's ok I'll make a note of the next 
conference call date we just set and join in.

Saludos,

Nico

Nico M. Franz
Assistant Professor & Curator of Entomology
Department of Biology
University of Puerto Rico
PO Box 9012
Mayagüez, PR 00681

Phone: (787) 832-4040, ext. 3912; Fax: (787) 834-3673; E-mail: 
franz at uprm.edu
Website: http://www.uprm.edu/~franz/