Dear CAST Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce LAPSE: The Living Archive for Process Systems
Engineering. LAPSE is an open-access repository for preprints, postprints,
open access articles, models, simulation files, conference presentations,
educational materials, and data. It is the first and only repository
designed for the needs of the international Process System Engineering
Community. It is currently funded by the CSChE, CAChE Corp, SINTEF Energy,
and the Technical University of Denmark, and is partnered with multiple
journals. We've already reached 250 submissions since launch. 

Check it out at: http://PSEcommunity.org/LAPSE

We designed LAPSE to make it as easy as possible to deposit your research
materials to comply with the open-access requirements of major funders. But
it is so much more: it’s designed as a place where research materials are
interconnected with each other. For example, through the research maps
feature, you can easily link your deposits to other research articles,
conference slides presenting your work, key predecessor or successor
articles, educational material presenting it, publisher versions, etc. This
creates a concept tree that makes it easy for viewers to see how your work
fits into the big picture of your overall research program.

Key features of LAPSE include:

* Unique, citable LAPSE IDs which work as permalinks (similar to DOI).
* Embargo feature: submit items now to appear at a later date
* Convenient journal databases: Automatically suggests embargo periods,
  required licenses, and legal disclaimers based on publisher’s open access 
  and self-archiving policies
* Google scholar visible: Meta data in page designed to Google Scholar
  technical specifications
* Research maps: see above.
* Journal partnerships: The journals Processes and Energies automatically index
  all of their published works in LAPSE so you don’t have to.
* User-friendly: Easy submission system
* Version control: Update files and data later. Version histories available.
* Multi-language support: Submit two versions of titles and abstracts (with
  different languages). English need not be the primary language of submission.
   
LAPSE is also part of a larger community-wide push toward the open sharing
of models and simulation files used as a part of PSE research, not just the
final results. This is a contribution to an international effort for
cultural change in this area. As an example, all of the Aspen Plus files
from one of my recent research papers is now publicly available on LAPSE
here http://psecommunity.org/LAPSE:2018.0126.

I encourage you all to use LAPSE. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Thomas A. Adams II (McMaster University), with:
Seyed Mansouri (Technical University of Denmark)
Calvin Tsay (University of Texas at Austin)