Science and scientific collaboration in South Africa: apartheid and after

Scientific collaboration is growing in its importance; more so in Asian and African countries. This paper examines the scenario of science and scientific collaboration in South Africa which had passed through the colonial and apartheid regimes before it became a democracy in 1994. South African science under distinct political periods moved through some difficult periods but it did not badly affect the progress and direction of South African science. Science and scientific collaboration continued to grow under its major political phases amidst serious challenges. Despite internal conflict and boycott by the international scientific community, South Africa could move onto a stable and steady path of growth in science and collaboration under apartheid which is being carried on in the new South Africa. Collaborative research is encouraged at various levels of knowledge production and in science. The importance science and scientific development is gaining in today’s South Africa is remarkable.     

Reconsidering Price's model of scientific growth: An overview

This paper presents an overview of the general model of scientific growth proposed by D. J. de Solla Price. Firstly, the formulation of the model is examined using the seminal sources. Later, forerunners, offshoots and criticisms to the model are discussed. Finally, an integrative review using retrieved empirical studies exposes the complexity and diversity of models of scientific growth and the absence of consistent patterns. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Mainstream and non mainstream scientific literature in four peripheral Asian scientific communities

This paper describes the mainstream scientific output of the scientific communities of four newly industrializing Asian countries (Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and considers its adequacy for describing local scientific activities in biochemistry, biology, physics, electrical engineering, and computer science. An examination of non mainstream scientific literature in these specialties shows that a high proportion of non mainstream authors also publish in mainstream literature. Data concerning degree of parochialism, age of references and use of vernacular literature are examined. The paper argues that it is misleading to characterize these peripheral scientific communities as principally stratified in function of local scientists' participation in mainstream science.     

Contribution of Indian universities to the mainstream scientific literature: A bibliometric assessment

This paper examines the contribution of Indian universities to the mainstream scientific literature during 1987–1989 along two distinct, but inter-related dimensions of quantity and quality of research output. The quantity of output is assessed through the number of articles published in journals covered byScience Citation Index, while the quality of output is assessed through the impact factors of journals in which the articles are published. The impact factors are normalized to eliminate the confounding effects of their covariates,viz. the subject field and the nature of journal. A number of relative indicators are constructed for inter-field and inter-institution comparisons,viz. publication effectiveness index,¹ relative quality index,² activity index³ and citability index⁴. Inter-field comparisons are made at the level of eight macrofields: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Earth & Space Sciences, Agriculture, Medical Sciences and Engineering & Technology. Inter-institution comparisons cover thirty three institutions which had published at least 150 articles in three years. The structure of correlations of these institutions with eight macrofields is analyzed through correspondence analysis of the matrices of activity and citability profiles. Correspondence analysis yields a mapping of institutions which reveals the structure of science as determined by the cumulative effect of resource allocation decisions taken in the past for different fields and institutions i.e. the effect of national science policy.     

Challenges in the study of Cuban scientific output

Cuban scientific output at macro level has not been frequently studied in the literature on scientometrics. The current paper explores the different metric approaches to the Cuban scientific activity carried out by national and international authors. Also, the article develops a scientometric study of the Cuban scientific production as included in Scopus during the period 1996–2007, using socio-economic indicators combined with bibliometric indicators supported by the SCImago Journal & Country Rank. Web of Science and Scopus are compared as information sources. Results confirm the possibility to use Scopus to obtain an objective picture of the Cuban science behaviour during the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the XXI century. The SCImago Journal & Country Rank, in this case, offers an important set of indicators. The combination of these indicators with those related to socio-economic aspects of activities in Science and Technology, allow the authors to show a perspective of the Cuban science system evolution during the period analyzed. The inclusion in Scopus of less-cited journals published in Spanish language and its impact on productivity and citation-based indicators is also discussed. Our investigation found an increasing growth of the Cuban scientific production during the whole period, which is in correspondence to the country efforts and expenditures in Research and Development activities.     

The influence of scientific research output of academics on economic growth in South Africa: an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) application

An increasing number of researchers have recently shown interest in the relationship between economic growth of a country and its research output, measured in scientometric indicators. The answer is not only of theoretical interest but it can also influence the specific policies aimed at the improvement of a country’s research performance. Our paper focuses on this relationship. We argue that research output is a manifestation of the improvement of human capital in the economy. We examine this relationship specifically in South Africa for the period 1980–2008. Using the autoregressive distributed lag method, we investigate the relationship between GDP and the comparative research performance of the country in relation to the rest of the world (the share of South African papers compared to the rest of the world). The relationship is confirmed for individual fields of science (biology and biochemistry, chemistry, material sciences, physics, psychiatry and psychology). The results of this study indicate that in South Africa for the period 1980–2008 the comparative performance of the research output can be considered as a factor affecting the economic growth of the country. Similarly, the results confirm the results of Vinkler (2008) and Lee et al. (2011). In contrast, economic growth did not influence the research output of the country for the same period. Policy implications are also discussed.     

Funding information in Web of Science: an updated overview

Despite the limitations of funding acknowledgment (FA) data in Web of Science (WoS), studies using FA information have increased rapidly over the last several years. Considering this WoS’ recent practice of updating funding data, this paper further investigates the characteristics and distribution of FA data in four WoS journal citation indexes. The research reveals that FA information coverage variances persist cross all four citation indexes by time coverage, language and document type. Our evidence suggests an improvement in FA information collection in humanity and social science research. Departing from previous studies, we argue that FA text (FT) alone no longer seems an appropriate field to retrieve and analyze funding information, since a substantial number of documents only report funding agency or grant number information in respective fields. Articles written in Chinese have a higher FA presence rate than other non-English WoS publications. This updated study concludes with a discussion of new findings and practical guidance for the future retrieval and analysis of funded research.

     

Cognitive consensus in recent mainstream American sociology: An empirical analysis

A number of observers have commented that American sociology has recently experimenced a shift in its cognitive structure. In order to empirically investigate these observations, citations in the two most prominent sociological journals during 1955 and 1970 are examined. The data indicate that (a) various theory groups account for a relatively small percentage of authors cited during either period, (b) a number of the earlier theory groups are less prominent than they once were, and (c) there is evidence of the emergence of one new theory group.     

Differences in scientific productivity of research units: Measurement and analysis of output inequality

Three aspects of inequalities in scientific productivity of research units-scientists within RUs, RUs in the full sample and its cross-section, and an aggregate approach, in which components referring to the first two types of inequality were distinguished—was used to analyse the causes underlying unequall productivity. Using inequality measure based on the theory of information (Theil measure) an inverse relationship between volume of productivity and its inequality was empirically found both within research units and among RUs of a given organizational system. Therefore identifying the soruces of variability of output inequalities may be helpful in drawing conclusions regarding to the absolute volumes of scientific productivity of RUs.     

High-speed superconductive circuitry: An overview

Superconductive digital circuits have been demonstrated with speeds >2 GHz. Simulations show that some should be capable of much higher speed, including an analog-to-digital converter clocked at 20 GHz and a shift register with 60-GHz clocking. This article reviews the experimental status and the developments expected on the basis of simulations. The emphasis is on low-temperature superconductors.     

Science in Africa: A Bibliometric Panorama Using PASCAL Database

PASCAL, whose troublesome artefacts we highlight, also has its strong points (multidisciplinarity, codification of the topic of each article, better coverage of some countries). As other sources, it shows that the current decade is one of crisis in African research. However, developments are highly contrasted, depending on the discipline and the regions. To the north of Africa, the Maghreb is witnessing an unprecedented gain in power. Nigerian science is in quite the contrary situation, imploding. In the rest of Africa, classification of countries brings to evidence very striking changes in order. Basic science declines. The Agricultural and the Medical sciences are stagnating. Conversely, the Engineering sciences are growing, in particular to the North of the Sahara.     

Prospects of microwave processing: An overview

Microwave processing has been emerging as an innovative sintering method for many traditional ceramics, advanced ceramics, specialty ceramics and ceramic composites as well as polymer and polymer composites. Development of functionally gradient materials, joining, melting, fibre drawing, reaction synthesis of ceramics, synthesis of ceramic powder, phosphor materials, whiskers, microtubes and nanotubes, sintering of zinc oxide varistors, glazing of coating surface and coating development have been performed using microwave heating. In addition, microwave energy is being explored for the sintering of metal powders also. Ceramic and metal nanopowders have been sintered in microwave. Furthermore, initiatives have been taken to process the amorphous materials (e.g. glass) by microwave heating. Besides this, an attempt has been made to study the heating behaviour of materials in the electric and magnetic fields at microwave frequencies. The research is now focused on the use of microwave processing for industrial applications.     

The scientific output of the EC's less favoured regions

Results are given of a bibliometric study covering 1977–86 and 28 scientific fields defined by journals and title keywords. Attention was focussed on publications from less favoured regions of the EC, containing 20% of the population, 10% of the g.d.p., but only 5% of scientific output, although this is growing rapidly. The scientific strengths of the different LFRs vary and details are given. Finally, some appropriate indicators are suggested to measure the effectiveness of scientific infrastructure support planned for these regions.This work has been sponsored by the MONITOR programme of the Commission of the European Communities.     

Prospects of microwave processing: An overview

Microwave processing has been emerging as an innovative sintering method for many traditional ceramics, advanced ceramics, specialty ceramics and ceramic composites as well as polymer and polymer composites. Development of functionally gradient materials: joining; melting; fibre drawing; reaction synthesis of ceramics; synthesis of ceramic powder, phosphor materials, whiskers, microtubes and nanotubes; sintering of zinc oxide varistors; glazing of coating surface and coating development have been performed using microwave heating. In addition, microwave energy is being explored for the sintering of metal powders also. Ceramic and metal nanopowders have been sintered in microwave. Furthermore, initiatives have been taken to process the amorphous materials (e.g. glass) by microwave heating. Besides this, attempt has been made to study the heating behaviour of materials in the electric and magnetic fields at microwave frequencies. The research is now focused on the use of microwave processing for industrial applications.     

Benchmarking scientific output in the social sciences and humanities: The limits of existing databases

Summary The goal of this paper is to examine the impact of linguistic coverage of databases used by bibliometricians on the capacity to effectively benchmark the work of researchers in social sciences and humanities. We examine the strong link between bibliometrics and the Thomson Scientific's database and review the differences in the production and diffusion of knowledge in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) and the natural sciences and engineering (NSE). This leads to a re-examination of the debate on the coverage of these databases, more specifically in the SSH. The methods section explains how we have compared the coverage of Thomson Scientific databases in the NSE and SSH to the Ulrich extensive database of journals. Our results show that there is a 20 to 25% overrepresentation of English-language journals in Thomson Scientific's databases compared to the list of journals presented in Ulrich. This paper concludes that because of this bias, Thomson Scientific databases cannot be used in isolation to benchmark the output of countries in the SSH.     

Hydro turbine failure mechanisms: An overview

Turbine failure not only increases the plant down-time and brings about revenue losses but also poses a serious threat to the life of the operational and maintenance personnel especially when the power house is underground. There are basically four main failure modes identified in open literature. The current article presents an overview of these four hydro turbine failure modes based on an extensive literature review and also field observation from the Tala Hydropower Plant, Bhutan. Moreover, the report provides information about different turbine parts that are more likely to be liable to damage under these failure modes. It also attempts to elucidate some recommended methods to prevent/mitigate against these failure modes.     

Institutional sectors of ‘mainstream’ science production in Subsaharan Africa, 1970–1979: A quantitative analysis

The place of production of ‘mainstream’ scientific authors in Subsaharan Africa is examined in terms of institutional sectors for the period 1970 through 1979. Patterns of production of ‘mainstream’ scientific literature and the citation visibility of this literature are also examined, for a shorter period of time, in terms of institutional sectors. It is shown that the university and public sectors predominate in the production of ‘mainstream’ authors. These same sectors also assure more consistent intra-African visibility of research results than do other sectors. However, the growth of the university and public sectors appears to have slowed considerably since the mid-1970s. Research conducted within regional and subregional cooperative organizations declined dramatically during the decade. A growing emphasis on external interventions under multilateral (rather than bilateral) auspices is noted.