Government organizations’ innovative use of the Internet: The case of the Twitter activity of South Korea’s Ministry for Food,Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Noting the government’s role in diffusing information across various sectors of society, this study analyzes the Twitter activity of the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MFAFF), one of Korea’s government organizations. From a broad perspective, this study provides a better understanding of innovation activity mediated by social media—particularly the government’s Twitter activity, a topic that has not been addressed by previous webometric research on Triple Helix relationships—by employing social network analysis and content analysis. The results indicate some limitations of the MFAFF’s activity on Twitter as a mutual communication channel, although Twitter has the potential to facilitate risk management. Further, based on the MFAFF’s confined use of its Twitter account, the results suggest that its Twitter account can be an effective information distribution channel, indicating Twitter’s value as a communication tool for innovation activity through social media. This study provides an empirical analysis of the government’s Twitter activity and contributes to the literature by providing an in-depth understanding of the Triple Helix relationship on the Web.     

Countries positioning in open access journals system: An investigation of citation distribution patterns

By their widespread availability and dissemination through open access media, scholarly outputs witness an improved visibility supposed to cause a better citation performance. However, due to the existence of the Matthew effect in science system, which affects users’ perceptions of quality, ultimate effects of the enhanced visibility on different entities are obscure. Moreover, different attitudes towards open access give rise to a more strong quality dynamics in the open access world. Aiming to explore the consequence of the interaction between visibility and quality dynamics, this study investigates countries positioning in open access journals. The results show that the world’s countries welcome open access pattern whether by submitting to or publishing open access journals. A large proportion of the enduring, prestigious open access journals are published by scientifically proficient and developing nations, emphasizing their successful commitment to maintain the undertaken role. The results of the citation analysis highlight national inequalities regarding citation distributions among countries contributing to the journals within the system and within individual disciplines in the system. Well-performing countries mainly consist of advanced ones; however, some lessdeveloped nations are found to perform well in the journal system.     

Using Essential Patent Index and Essential Technological Strength to evaluate industrial technological innovation competitiveness

The aim of this article is to develop new patent indicators for evaluating technological innovation competitiveness between companies. A novel indicator representing an industrial’s patent performance, Essential Patent Index (EPI), was developed by incorporating information on who cited these patents and when these patents were cited, based on the assumption that both contribute to meaningful quality assessment. By combining EPI and Chi’s well known Technological Strength (TS) indicator, a second novel indicator Essential Technological Strength (ETS) was developed to represent the innovation competitiveness of an individual company. In this study, patent performance of three high-tech industries in Taiwan were analyzed using ETS as well as the traditional TS for comparison. Results from this analysis demonstrated that ETS provided better insights by clearly verifying the latent influence of citations, reinforcing the impact of essential patents, and aggrandizing the differences of innovation competitiveness between companies.     

Auditory-like filterbank: An optimal speech processor for efficient human speech communication

The transmitter and the receiver in a communication system have to be designed optimally with respect to one another to ensure reliable and efficient communication. Following this principle, we derive an optimal filterbank for processing speech signal in the listener’s auditory system (receiver), so that maximum information about the talker’s (transmitter) message can be obtained from the filterbank output, leading to efficient communication between the talker and the listener. We consider speech data of 45 talkers from three different languages for designing optimal filterbanks separately for each of them. We find that the computationally derived optimal filterbanks are similar to the empirically established auditory (cochlear) filterbank in the human ear. We also find that the output of the empirically established auditory filterbank provides more than 90% of the maximum information about the talker’s message provided by the output of the optimal filterbank. Our experimental findings suggest that the auditory filterbank in human ear functions as a near-optimal speech processor for achieving efficient speech communication between humans.     

Incentive contrats and strictly proper scoring rules

When a decision maker (DM) contracts with an expert to provide information, the nature of the contract can, create incentives for the expert, and it is up to the DM to ensure that the contract provides incentives that align the expert’s and DM’s interests. In this paper, scoring rules (and related functions) are viewed as such contracts and are reinterpreted in terms of agency theory and the theory of revelation games from economics. Although scoring rules have typically been discussed in the literature as devices for eliciting and evaluating subjective probabilities, this study relies on the fact that strictly proper scoring rules reward greater expertise as well as honest revelation. We describe conditions under which a DM can use a strictly proper scoring rule as a contract to give an expert an incentive to gather an amount of information that is optimal from the DM’s perspective. The conditions we consider focus on the expert’s cost structure, and we find that the DM must have substantial knowledge of that cost structure in order to design a specific contract that provides the correct incentives. The model and analysis suggest arguments for hiring and maintaining experts in-house rather than using outside consultants.     

Detection of bearing defects in three-phase induction motors using Park’s transform and radial basis function neural networks

This paper investigates the application of induction motor stator current signature analysis (MCSA) using Park’s transform for the detection of rolling element bearing damages in three-phase induction motor. The paper first discusses bearing faults and Park’s transform, and then gives a brief overview of the radial basis function (RBF) neural networks algorithm. Finally, system information and the experimental results are presented. Data acquisition and Park’s transform algorithm are achieved by using LabVIEW and the neural network algorithm is achieved by using MATLAB programming language. Experimental results show that it is possible to detect bearing damage in induction motors using an ANN algorithm.     

A Study on Engineering History Base

During engineering processes, many kinds and amounts of information are used and produced. Such information is useful in successive cases, and thus its reuse is desired. In this paper, information on attributes of the products is referred to as ‘product information’, and information on the reasons for and/or history of a designer’s thought process is referred to as ‘process information’. According to this classification, process information can be used for obtaining an explanation of product information. The purpose of this work is to build a database, called an ‘engineering history base’, from which engineers can retrieve explanations to enable the reuse of product information. In this paper, explanation from the ‘process’ viewpoint is thought to be important in promoting the reuse of product information. There are two types of explanation for the process: teleological and causal. However, until now, little attention has been paid to the causal explanation for the process. Thus, in this paper, an information model which focuses on both types of explanation is proposed. The model is adopted for the engineering history base and a prototype system is developed. The appropriateness of this model is discussed by analyzing the actual data in the development of a color video printer.     

An information system for village handpumps

The need for a computerised information system for handpumps installed in any state is brought out. A system with organisational and software aspects is presented. The organisational aspect covers the generation and transmission of data on handpumps at the users’ and the government level. The software consists of a Fortran program, data files, an updating program and a transaction file. The periodic updating of data files is discussed. The system output covers many items of vital information needed for formulating maintenance and research and development policies. A test run of the program with an arbitrarily selected data base is discussed.     

The Correction Capability of the Berlekamp–Massey–Sakata Algorithm with Majority Voting

Sakata’s generalization of the Berlekamp–Massey algorithm applies to a broad class of codes defined by an evaluation map on an order domain. In order to decode up to the minimum distance bound, Sakata’s algorithm must be combined with the majority voting algorithm of Feng, Rao and Duursma. This combined algorithm can often decode far more than (d _min −1)/2 errors, provided the errors are in general position. We give a precise characterization of the error correction capability of the combined algorithm. We also extend the concept behind Feng and Rao’s improved codes to decoding of errors in general position. The analysis leads to a new characterization of Arf numerical semigroups.     

EVITHERM: The Virtual Institute of Thermal Metrology

Evitherm is a web-based thermal resource centre, resulting from a 3-year project partly funded by the EU’s GROWTH programme (2002–05). Evitherm links together the widely distributed centres of excellence (NMIs, research and teaching institutes, consultants, etc.) and others concerned with thermal measurements and technology to provide a focal point for information exchange and knowledge transfer between all these organizations and industry. To facilitate the quick and easy flow of thermal knowledge to users of thermal technologies, evitherm has a website (www.evitherm.org) through which it disseminates information and by which it also provides access to resources such as training, property data, measurements and experts. Among the resources available from the website are (1) thermal property data—offering access to some of the world’s leading databases; (2) expertise— evitherm has a database of consultants, an Advice line, a public Forum and a unique Consultancy Brokering Service whereby users are linked to the expert they need to solve their thermal industrial problems; (3) industry resources—thermal information for particular industry sectors; (4) services—information directories on thermal property measurement, training, equipment supply, reference materials, etc.; (5) literature—links to books, papers, standards, etc.; (6) events—conferences, meetings, seminars, organizations and networks, what’s happening. A user only has to register (for free) to gain access to all the information on the evitherm website. Much of the thermal property data can be accessed for free and in a few cases we have negotiated affordable rates for access to some leading databases, such as CINDAS, THERSYST and NELFOOD. This article illustrates the aims and structure of the evitherm Society, how it is directed, and how it serves the thermal community worldwide in its need for quick and easy access to the resources needed to help ensure a well resourced industrial work force and clean and efficient thermal processes.     

Homogenised finite element for transient dynamic analysis of unconstrained layer damping beams involving fractional derivative models

This paper presents a homogenised finite element formulation for the transient dynamic analysis of asymmetric and symmetric unconstrained layer damping beams in which the viscoelastic material is characterised by a five-parameter fractional derivative model. This formulation is based on the weighted residual method (Galerkin’s approach) providing a fractional matrix equation of motion. The application of Grünwald-Letnikov’s definition of the fractional derivatives allows to solve numerically the fractional equation by means of two different implicit formulations. Numerical examples for a cantilever beam with viscoelastic treatment are presented comparing the response provided by the proposed homogenised formulation with that of Padovan, based on the principle of virtual work. Different damping levels and load cases are analysed, as well as the influence of the truncation and time-step. From the numerical applications it can be concluded that the presented formulation allows to reduce significantly the degrees of freedom and consequently the computational time and storage needs for the transient dynamic analysis of structural systems in which damping treatments have been applied by means of viscoelastic materials characterised by fractional derivative models.     

A variation of the calculation of the first author cocitation strength in author cocitation analysis

The method of author cocitation analysis (ACA) was first presented by White and Griffith in 1981 as a “literature measure of intellectual structure” and its applicability for the mapping of areas of science has since then been tested in various bibliometric science mapping studies. In this study, an experimental method of calculating the first or single author cocitation frequency is presented and compared with the standard method. Applying Ward’s method of clustering, the analysis revealed that the two approaches did not produce similar results and a tentative interpretation of deviations was that the experimental method provided with a more detailed depiction of the specialty structure. It was also concluded that a number of additional research questions need to be resolved before a comprehensive understanding of the suggested method’s merits and demerits is reached.     

An empirical study of users’ hype cycle based on search traffic: the case study on hybrid cars

Many forms of technology cycle models have been developed and utilized to identify new/convergent technologies and forecast social changes, and among these, the technology hype cycle introduced by Gartner has become established as an effective method that is widely utilized in the field. Despite the popularity of this commonly deployed model, however, the currently existing research literature fails to provide sufficient consideration of its theoretical frame or its empirical verification. This paper presents a new method for the empirical measurement of this hype cycle model. In particular, it presents a method for measuring the hype of the users rather than the hype cycle generated by research activities or by the media by means of analyzing the hype cycle using search traffic analysis. The analytical results derived from the case study of hybrid automobiles empirically demonstrated that following the introductory stage and the early growth stage of the life cycle, the positive hype curve and the negative hype curve, the representative figures of the hype cycle, were present in the bell curve for the users’ search behavior. Based on this finding, this paper proposes a new method for measuring the users’ expectation and suggests a new direction for future research that enables the forecasting of promising technologies and technological opportunities in linkage with the conventional technology life cycle model. In particular, by interpreting the empirical results using the consumer behavior model and the adoption model, this study empirically demonstrates that the characteristics of each user category can be identified through differences in the hype cycle in the process of the diffusion of new technological products discussed in the past.     

Réseaux et genèse de la forme: perspectives épistémologiques

Our paper focuses on Stuart Kauffman’s theory from 1993 to 2004. Kauffman is looking for an explanation of the genesis of living beings by genetic networks. From interactions to cell types, Kauffman’s viewpoint is concerned with differentiation and self-organization as network’s properties. His approach of morphogenetic processes is interesting but it is insufficient. According to Sole, Fernandez and Kauffman [2003], networks would give an explanation of the diversity in patterns and cell types. Some other authors [as Perkins et al., 2004] consider that it is necessary to explore interactions, not with logical methods only, but non-linear systems too. Network’s structure is related to biological diversity. It supposes genes’ power’s mediators within the cells and between them.     

Further emissions and energy targeting: an application of CO2 emissions pinch analysis to the Irish electricity generation sector

This paper aims to further probe the influence of the emission factors of renewable energy on both the energy resource mix and emissions mix of the Irish electricity generation sector. Furthermore, the effects of external short-term disturbances on the same mixes are studied in relation to the generation of CO₂ emissions. This paper explores the recently developed CO₂ emissions pinch analysis methodology, which can determine the sector’s optimal energy resource mix, and then further extends the basic methodology with two new adaptations (improvements). The adapted methodology is designed to give improved and more realistic energy and emissions targets for renewables. These adaptations are illustrated using the sector’s statistics for the years 2005 and 2006.     

Tracking R&;D behavior: bibliometric analysis of drug patents in the Orange Book

The Publication Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations (commonly known as the Orange Book) identifies drug products approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for safety and effectiveness, and provides substantial information on new drug applications (NDAs) with patent data. To explore the patterns among drug patents in the Orange Book, this study used patent bibliometric analysis. The productivity and impact are presented at the assignee level and applicant level, respectively, and the applicant’s patent portfolio is further discussed. 2,033 drug patents are identified in this current study. Our findings indicate that the applicant’s patent portfolio in the Orange Book is helpful in revealing the technological capability and patent strategy of the pharmaceutical incumbents. By linking drug data and patent information, this current study sheds light on patent research in the pharmaceutical industry.     

Partial-differential-equation-constrained amplitude-based shape detection in inverse acoustic scattering

In this article we discuss a formal framework for casting the inverse problem of detecting the location and shape of an insonified scatterer embedded within a two-dimensional homogeneous acoustic host, in terms of a partial-differential-equation-constrained optimization approach. We seek to satisfy the ensuing Karush–Kuhn–Tucker first-order optimality conditions using boundary integral equations. The treatment of evolving boundary shapes, which arise naturally during the search for the true shape, resides on the use of total derivatives, borrowing from recent work by Bonnet and Guzina [1–4] in elastodynamics. We consider incomplete information collected at stations sparsely spaced at the assumed obstacle’s backscattered region. To improve on the ability of the optimizer to arrive at the global optimum we: (a) favor an amplitude-based misfit functional; and (b) iterate over both the frequency- and wave-direction spaces through a sequence of problems. We report numerical results for sound-hard objects with shapes ranging from circles, to penny- and kite-shaped, including obstacles with arbitrarily shaped non-convex boundaries. Partial support for this work was provided by the US National Science Foundation under grant award CMS-0348484.     

International scientific and technological collaboration of China from 2004 to 2008: a perspective from paper and patent analysis

Since China adopted Open-Up and Reformed Policy for global collaboration, China’s science and technology have experienced an astounding growth. Papers and patents encompass valuable scientific and technological (S&T) information and collaborative efforts. This article studies China’s international S&T collaboration from the perspective of paper and patent analysis. The results show that China’s total papers and patents have continuously increased from 2004 to 2008, the papers and patents resulting from China’s international collaboration also present a steady growth. However, there is a decline in the share of international collaboration papers and patents with a certain range due to the rapid independent R&D. China’s international scientific collaboration (ISC) is broadly distributed over many countries, the USA being the most important ISC partners. China’s international technological collaboration (ITC) is mainly carried out with USA and Taiwan, and Taiwan has been the most significant ITC partner of when taking countries’ patent output into account. Besides, ISC shows a continuous raise of Chinese papers’ citation. Even the countries with a small amount of papers and ISC with China, exert a positive influence on the impact of citation of Chinese papers as well. However, ITC does not always play an active role in the improvement of citation impact of Chinese patents.     

Galton 2011 revisited: a bibliometric journey in the footprints of a universal genius

Commemorating the 100th death anniversary of Francis Galton, this paper is a bibliometric impact analysis of the works of this outstanding scientist and predecessor of scientometrics. Citation analysis was done in Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar (Publish or Perish) in order to retrieve the most cited books and journal articles. Additionally references were identified where Galton was rather mentioned than cited in order to analyze the phenomenon of obliteration by incorporation. Finally occurrence counts of Galton’s works in obituaries, Festschrift, the website Galton.org, major encyclopaedias and biographical indexes were compared to citation counts. As an outcome Galton’s works are increasingly cited or mentioned. Obliteration (use of eponyms) applies to one-third of Galton’s works and seems to be typical for fields like mathematics or statistics, whereas citations are more common in psychology. The most cited books and journal articles are also the most mentioned with remarkable correlation. Overall citation analysis and occurrence counting are complementary useful methods for the impact analysis of the works of “giants”.     

Citation analysis of Ted Nelson’s works and his influence on hypertext concept

This study investigates Ted Nelson’s works and the influence of his hypertext concept through citation analysis, including citation counting, characteristics of citing articles on language, document type, citing year, discipline, and citation content. The selection of the Nelson’s works was based on searching Library Literature & Information Science, Library and Information Science Abstracts, Google and Yahoo search engines. The citation data were compiled from the database of Web of Science. The results of the study reveal that hypertext has directly great impact on information retrieval and world wide web; therefore, the concept has had profound influence on information, library and computer science disciplines. Moreover, the influence of Nelson’s works spreads to other disciplines variously, especially on education, literature, business and economics, engineering, sociology, psychology, etc. The citation context analysis of citing articles on information and library science reveals that (1) definition, orientation and general introduction of hypertext; (2) relation of Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson in terms of hypertext; (3) Nelson’s Xanadu system and its component of hypertext; (4) the application of hypertext in information science and library science are four most citing purpose.