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In a message dated 11/4/01 1:29:54 PM EST, forams@flash.net writes: << I don't think so. According to Article 8.1.3 of the current Code of Zoological Nomenclature, one criterion of publication is that the work "must have been produced in an edition containing simultaneously obtainable copies ...." My understanding is that University Microfilms generates copies of dissertations on demand--you send them your payment, they make a copy--a condition which fails to satisfy the "simultaneously obtainable copies" criterion. It seems to me that the Code is very clearly limiting "publication" to publications that produce in one printing a batch of copies and then distribute them at one time, like a journal, or gradually, like a monograph.>> Yes, this is correct, and this is why UMI copies of dissertations are not publications as defined by the ICZN, which consequently excludes dissertation names from scientific availability. << Either way, University Microfilms copies fail to qualify as publications, and new names contained in them would not be available and hence would be nomina nuda. A "nomen dissertatio" would be a simple nomen nudum as well. By the way, if you think University Microfilms qualifies as a publication, I don't understand why you don't think the names would be available. >> It's not quite a nomen nudum (except in the ICZN sense, where any name not meeting the ICZN criteria is a nomen nudum--and properly so), because the author (usually) provides a complete description, with type species and type specimens, included specimens, diagnoses, referred species, and so forth. This is a lot more information than is provided, say, in a Walt Disney digest (an issue of which introduced the nomen nudum species Utahraptor spielbergi, later formally named Utahraptor ostrommaysorum). I >do< think UMI-distributed dissertations qualify as publications, but since they're not scientific publications in the ICZN sense, names introduced in them should have a category of their own and should not be considered as formally published. As noted above, the term nomen nudum is too broad and would rate dissertations as equivalent to newspaper reports and Walt Disney digests. People who take the trouble to track down a nomen dissertationis (this is so far the best name for this category to have emerged from my request for a proper name) via the Dinosaur Genera List can expect to find a serious discussion of the genus, not just a paltry press release or something.
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