Mathcad and articles for Journals

A really good showcase for the 'mathematical' interface and interactiveness of Mathcad, Valery.

I've suggested a more direct relationship between Mathcad and publications before, eg, here :http://communities.ptc.com/message/159662#159662, including a reference to your server

The need to keep accurate track of what you've calculated and how has raised it head yet again, this time in Nature. As analysis of huge data sets with computers becomes an integral tool of research, how should researchers document and report their use of software? This question was brought to the fore when the release of e-mails stolen from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, generated a media fuss in 2009, and has been widely discussed, including in this journal. The issue lies at the heart of scientific endeavour: how detailed an information trail should researchers leave so that others can reproduce their findings? The question is perhaps most pressing in the field of genomics and sequence analysis. As biologists process larger and more complex data sets and publish only the results, some argue that the reporting of how those data were analysed is often insufficient. Take a recent survey by comparative genomist Anton Nekrutenko at Pennsylvania State University in University Park and computer scientist James Taylor of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The pair examined 14 sequencing papers published last year in Science, Nature and Nature Genetics, and found that the publications often lacked essential details needed to reproduce the analysis — the papers referenced merely bioinformatics software, for example, without noting the version used or the value of key parameters Sounds like a good opportunity for PTC to start flying the flag.   It's also worth looking at what is needed to really make Mathcad a true concept-to-publication tool,  perhaps allowing publishers to use interactive worksheets on their websites like Valery does (as part of a 'premium' package, of course).   I don't know what future directions PTC intend for Mathcad, but it would be nice to see the GUI improved to take into account the increasingly common tablet interface, particularly wrt to hand-writing and drawing.

and here http://communities.ptc.com/message/159782#159782

I believe that Mathcad should be viewed from several points of view to see what capabilities it should have. The Whiteboard The first viewpoint I take is that which led to the invention of Mathcad - The Whiteboard. The concept of the whiteboard has moved on over the years to the extent  that it is common to encounter active (or at least semi-passive)  whiteboards that allow the user to capture what's written on a PC, with  automatic text recognition and vectorization routines that 'tidy up'  drawings.  It's not too difficult to extend the concept to a more active  whiteboard that does this live (eg, a fast touch-sensitive screen + supporting tools, eg automatic or on-demand  visual 'tidying up' with automatic interpretation).  It should have a  drag and drop capability, so that, say, a variable could be selected and  dragged into a place holder, or a subset of a matrix could be selected  and copy-dragged elsewhere.  Now imagine yourself either thinking things  through by yourself or giving a lecture/presentation and think what  features you'd find useful in such an active whiteboard - that's what  Mathcad should have, eg, quick text formatting without quotes, or the  ability to choose either freehand drawing or the ability to pick from a  palette of simple drawing tools. A major implication of this is that notation should be flexible to allow the maths Prof their Jν(x)  whilst letting the 'programmer' enter J(n,x).  Instantly, this means  both left and right superscripts/subscripts and the ability to format  them independently of the main name. Detailed Analysis/Implementation It's fairly easy to imagine that the Whiteboard is used to sketch out  the design for some particular problem and get buy-in to progress to a  more detailed analysis (eg, Whiteboard: "I've got this great idea for a  new nozzle design! Here's the outline ..." followed by Detailed  Analysis: "OK, looks promising.  Flesh it out and generate some test  data we can drop into the lab people.").  This would be an extension of  the Whiteboard with improved data presentation and more automated  control over plots and animations, and access to their data/images. Documentation/Publication/Presentation The next stage, having done the donkey work and got some results back  from the lab/production people, is to formally document it and/or  prepare it for publication or presentation.  This requires an additional  set of tools, such enhanced text formatting, equation numbering, and  style-guides (plus checkers) and layout enhancements, such as 2-column  presentation.  As you've mentioned elsewhere, the ability to output in  pdf or LaTex format would be essential (built-in not bolted-on, so that,  for example, default output file names would be automatically related  to the worksheet name. I think all of the above are in keeping with PTC's (and Mathsoft as was)  aim of having Mathcad at the heart of a one-stop calculation management  system. Whilst I'm aware of the dangers of overkill (the UML saga  referred to), there are a lot of capable and competent competitors out  there and not doing enough is a much a killer as capability bloat.

Stuart

Thanks, Stuart, for remarks!

It is very interesting.

I did a report on the subject (published formulations in the living form) at a meeting of the working groups of IAPWS (http://www.iapws.org/) in Boulder in early October 2012 (NIST). Now IAPWS will publish their formulations not only in the form of pdf documents, but also in the form of live interactive calculations (Mathcad Server).

See examples:

http://www.iapws.org/relguide/ThCond.htm

http://www.iapws.org/relguide/IAPWS-95.htm

http://www.iapws.org/relguide/viscosity.htm

But PTC does not want to support Mathcad Server and I have to look for a replacement, alternative to this server

It will by good to insert Mathcad-sheets (as Mathcad server calculations or download sheets) in Wikipedia.

One example