Four aspects of the institutionalization of physics research in India (1990–1950): Substantiating the claims of histortical sociology through bibliometrics

This paper examines the process of the institutionalization of research in physics in India. In order to do so, it employs bibliometric data such as research publications in physics research journals between 1900 and 1950. This data is then analyzed to obtain certain indicators that are pointers of the aspects of the institutionalization of research in physics in India. The four aspects of institutionalization studied here are important for the researches of those adopting sociological approaches in the study of the history of sciences. Thus the bibliometric techniques employed complements the efforts of historians of science studying the professionalization of physics research in India, and in this case those dealing with disciplines like physics. Further, the bibliometric data helps substantiate the claims of historians of science that the years 1905 to 1935 were particularly important for the history of physics in India. The conclusions of historians are based on success stories of a few leading physicists of the time. Within an institutional framework, this paper argues that there was a larger ground swell indicative of the emergence of a phhsics research community in India.     

Interdisciplinarity and knowledge inflow/outflow structure among science and engineering research in Korea

Interdisciplinary research has been encouraged through the policies of many governmental and institutional funding agencies in Korea. This paper measured the degrees of interdisciplinarity in individual and collaborative researches and analyzes the factors affecting it. This paper also examined flow of knowledge among different disciplines in science and engineering research using a database obtained from research proposals submitted to Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF). The analysis indicated that 54.6% of collaborative research proposals were interdisciplinary, while 35.8% of individual research proposals were interdisciplinary. The analysis of knowledge inflow/outflow structure showed that Natural science served as a link between Life science and Engineering. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Predicting the degree of interdisciplinarity in academic fields: the case of nanotechnology

With today’s technological advances and uncertainty, interdisciplinary research (IDR) is recognized as the core element for an advancement not only in academic realms but also in non-academic worlds. Conventionally, the concept of interdisciplinarity has been measured indirectly through using historical data and estimating how frequently the knowledge is exchanged among various disciplinary fields. However, they were incapable of determining whether a certain discipline may turn out to be a successful interdisciplinary research field in the future. This paper, in response, highlights the significance of data points appearing in the future for predicting the degree of interdisciplinarity in academic fields. To this mean, the future data points are predicted through a stochastic basis, and they are further used to predict the future degree of disciplinary convergence. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach, we have selected the case of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary academic field where diverse scientific and engineering disciplines merge with one another and contributes to various scientific development and social problem solving. In details, citation data of nanotechnology journals are gathered to estimate the expected citation frequency through a stochastic model, called Glänzel–Schubert–Schoepflin model, and its future potential of IDR is predicted through a diversity index. The result of the analysis predicted that the IDR of nanotechnology will be actively occurred with other disciplines such as chemistry, material science and energy in the future, and it also holds higher probability of being more frequently conducted compared to other field of studies.     

Advances in Biomimetic and Nanostructured Biohybrid Materials

The rapid increase of interest in the field of biohybrid and biomimetic materials that exhibit improved structural and functional properties is attracting more and more researchers from life science, materials science, and nanoscience. Concomitant results offer valuable opportunities for applications that involve disciplines dealing with engineering, biotechnology, medicine and pharmacy, agriculture, nanotechnology, and others. In the current contribution we collect recent illustrative examples of assemblies between materials of biological origin and inorganic solids of different characteristics (texture, structure, and particle size). We introduce here a general overview on strategies for the preparation and conformation of biohybrids, the synergistic effects that determine the final properties of these materials, and their diverse applications, which cover areas as different as tissue engineering, drug delivery systems, biosensing devices, biocatalysis, green nanocomposites, etc.     

Funding acknowledgement analysis: an enhanced tool to investigate research sponsorship impacts: the case of nanotechnology

There is increasing interest in assessing how sponsored research funding influences the development and trajectory of science and technology. Traditionally, linkages between research funding and subsequent results are hard to track, often requiring access to separate funding or performance reports released by researchers or sponsors. Tracing research sponsorship and output linkages is even more challenging when researchers receive multiple funding awards and collaborate with a variety of differentially-sponsored research colleagues. This article presents a novel bibliometric approach to undertaking funding acknowledgement analysis which links research outputs with their funding sources. Using this approach in the context of nanotechnology research, the article probes the funding patterns of leading countries and agencies including patterns of cross-border research sponsorship. We identify more than 91,500 nanotechnology articles published worldwide during a 12-month period in 2008–2009. About 67% of these publications include funding acknowledgements information. We compare articles reporting funding with those that do not (for reasons that may include reliance on internal core-funding rather than external awards as well as omissions in reporting). While we find some country and field differences, we judge that the level of reporting of funding sources is sufficiently high to provide a basis for analysis. The funding acknowledgement data is used to compare nanotechnology funding policies and programs in selected countries and to examine their impacts on scientific output. We also examine the internationalization of research funding through the interplay of various funding sources at national and organizational levels. We find that while most nanotechnology funding is nationally-oriented, internationalization and knowledge exchange does occur as researchers collaborate across borders. Our method offers a new approach not only in identifying the funding sources of publications but also in feasibly undertaking large-scale analyses across scientific fields, institutions and countries.     

Cluster methods for assessing research performance: exploring Spanish computer science

The objective of this paper is to propose a cluster analysis methodology for measuring the performance of research activities in terms of productivity, visibility, quality, prestige and international collaboration. The proposed methodology is based on bibliometric techniques and permits a robust multi-dimensional cluster analysis at different levels. The main goal is to form different clusters, maximizing within-cluster homogeneity and between-cluster heterogeneity. The cluster analysis methodology has been applied to the Spanish public universities and their academic staff in the computer science area. Results show that Spanish public universities fall into four different clusters, whereas academic staff belong into six different clusters. Each cluster is interpreted as providing a characterization of research activity by universities and academic staff, identifying both their strengths and weaknesses. The resulting clusters could have potential implications on research policy, proposing collaborations and alliances among universities, supporting institutions in the processes of strategic planning, and verifying the effectiveness of research policies, among others.     

Nanotechnologie: Eine neue soziale Dynamik an der Schnittstelle zwischen Wissenschaft und ?ffentlichkeit

This paper investigates the development of nanotechnology from three different points of view: (1) as a new technology, (2) as social dynamics, and (3) as an ideology. It argues that nanotechnology is not a new technology but a new social dynamics guided by programmatic ideas and situated at the interface between science and the public. Rather than being determined by social constructivism, the main argument is based on the poor scientific and technological identity of nanotechnology. Finally the paper concludes that nanotechnology is to be considered an extension and increase of materials science and engineering, not only scientifically but in particular socially and ideologically, by pointing out common characteristics and differences.     

Interdisciplinarity and insularity in the diffusion of knowledge: an analysis of disciplinary boundaries between philosophy of science and the sciences

Two fundamentally different perspectives on knowledge diffusion dominate debates about academic disciplines. On the one hand, critics of disciplinary research and education have argued that disciplines are isolated silos, within which specialists pursue inward-looking and increasingly narrow research agendas. On the other hand, critics of the silo argument have demonstrated that researchers constantly import and export ideas across disciplinary boundaries. These perspectives have different implications for how knowledge diffuses, how intellectuals gain and lose status within their disciplines, and how intellectual reputations evolve within and across disciplines. We argue that highly general claims about the nature of disciplinary boundaries are counterproductive, and that research on the nature of specific disciplinary boundaries is more useful. To that end, this paper uses a novel publication and citation network dataset and statistical models of citation networks to test hypotheses about the boundaries between philosophy of science and 11 disciplinary clusters. Specifically, we test hypotheses about whether engaging with and being cited by scientific communities outside philosophy of science has an impact on one’s position within philosophy of science. Our results suggest that philosophers of science produce interdisciplinary scholarship, but they tend not to cite work by other philosophers when it is published in journals outside of their discipline. Furthermore, net of other factors, receiving citations from other disciplines has no meaningful impact—positive or negative—on citations within philosophy of science. We conclude by considering this evidence for simultaneous interdisciplinarity and insularity in terms of scientific trading theory and other work on disciplinary boundaries and communication.     

Will China’s quest for indigenous innovation succeed? Some lessons from nanotechnology

Over the past decade, the Chinese state has made major efforts to transition China’s economy away from a focus on manufacturing, and towards a focus on generating indigenous innovation in R&D intensive fields such as nanotechnology. This goal has been pursued through a comprehensive industrial policy framework that aims to give preferential treatment to Chinese companies in domestic markets while also devoting significant resources towards basic and applied R&D, building science parks and research centers, funding focused venture capital funds, and recruiting prominent expatriate scientists and entrepreneurs from universities and businesses abroad. This paper, based on interviews with scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists in Shanghai, Suzhou, and Beijing, examines the strengths and weaknesses of China’s push for indigenous innovation. We use the case of nanotechnology to address the pressing question of why China continues to underperform with regards to generating innovative, high-tech companies and products, despite heavy public R&D investment and the presence of one of the world’s largest talent pools of potential scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs.     

Regional development and interregional collaboration in the growth of nanotechnology research in China

China is becoming a leading nation in terms of its share of the world??s publications in the emerging nanotechnology domain. This paper demonstrates that the international rise of China??s position in nanotechnology has been underwritten by the emergence of a series of regional hubs of nanotechnology R&D activity within the country. We develop a unique database of Chinese nanotechnology articles covering the period 1990 to mid-2006 to identify the regional distribution of nanotechnology research in China. To build this database, a new approach was developed to clean and standardize the geographical allocation of Chinese publication records. We then analyze the data to understand the regional development of nanotechnology research in China over our study period and to map interregional and international research collaboration linkages. We find that the geographical distribution of China??s domestic nanotechnology research is characterized by regional imbalance, with most of the leading regions located in eastern China, including not only Beijing and Shanghai but also a series of other new regional hubs. There is much less development of nanotechnology research in central and western China. Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong are among the leading Chinese regions for international nanotechnology research collaboration. Other Chinese nanotechnology regions are less focused on international collaboration, although they have developed domestic interregional collaborations. Although new regional research hubs have emerged in the nanotechnology domain, the paper notes that their concentration in eastern China reinforces existing imbalances in science and technology capabilities in China, and in turn this may further reinforce the dominant position of eastern China in the commercialization of new technologies such as nanotechnology.     

Nanoscience and nanotechnology research publications: a comparison between Australia and the rest of the world

Nanoscience and nanotechnology are research areas of a multidisciplinary nature. Having a good knowledge of the rapidly evolving nature of these research areas is important to understand the research paths, as well as national and global developments in these areas. Accordingly, in this reported study nanoscience and nanotechnology research undertaken globally was compared with that of Australia by way of analyzing research publications. Initially, four different bibliometric Boolean-based search methodologies were used to analyze publications in the Web of Science database (Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Knowledge). These methodologies were (a) lexical query, (b) search in nanoscience and nanotechnology journals, (c) combination of lexical query and journal search and (d) search in the ten nano-journals with the highest impact factors. Based on results obtained, the third methodology was found to be the most comprehensive approach. Consequently, this search methodology was used to compare global and Australian nanoscience and nanotechnology publications for the period 1988–2000. Results demonstrated that depending on the search technique used, Australia ranks fourteenth to seventeenth internationally with a higher than world average number of nanoscience and nanotechnology publications. Over the last decade, Australia showed a relative growth rate in nanoscience and nanotechnology publications of 16 % compared to 12 % for the rest of the world. Researchers from China, the USA and the UK are from the main countries that collaborate with Australian researchers in nanoscience and nanotechnology publications.     

From DNA Nanotechnology to Material Systems Engineering

In the past 35 years, DNA nanotechnology has grown to a highly innovative and vibrant field of research at the interface of chemistry, materials science, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. Herein, a short summary of the state of research in various subdisciplines of DNA nanotechnology, ranging from pure “structural DNA nanotechnology” over protein–DNA assemblies, nanoparticle‐based DNA materials, and DNA polymers to DNA surface technology is given. The survey shows that these subdisciplines are growing ever closer together and suggests that this integration is essential in order to initiate the next phase of development. With the increasing implementation of machine‐based approaches in microfluidics, robotics, and data‐driven science, DNA‐material systems will emerge that could be suitable for applications in sensor technology, photonics, as interfaces between technical systems and living organisms, or for biomimetic fabrication processes.     

Low awareness of the link between science and innovation affects public policies in developing countries: The Chilean case

Developing countries share disbelief about the benefits of the endogenous production of science as a tool for economical growth. Hence, public policies to strengthen science and technology and promote the culture of innovation are, in general, weak and sometimes incoherent. Patenting has become not only an icon to protect discoveries which can yield profits and enable socio-economical growth but also a potent informetric tool to assess innovation and certainly, since the seminal work of Narin, to understand the multidimensional interactions between science, technology and innovation. In this article we examine the impact of Chilean research articles on world technology as viewed by the link between articles produced in Chile and US patents. Our results show that from 1987 to 2003, 509 US patents had 562 citations to 273 articles produced at least, by one author working in a Chilean institution. US, not Chilean companies are the holders of patents citing Chilean produced articles. The research articles covered many disciplines but a clear concentration occurred in the biomedical field. Additionally, chemistry was also well cited. Our results confirm that in Chile a non-patenting culture which involves researchers and institutions still prevails. Hence, public policies need to be designed and implemented to foster scientific production and innovation in order to advance progress in the current knowledge-economy-driven society which sustains competitiveness in the globalized world.     

Tracking the evolution of new and emerging S&;T via statement-linkages: Vision assessment in molecular machines

The past 10 years has seen an explosion of interest for the area of science and technology labelled “nanotechnology.” Although at an early stage, nanotechnology is providing a space for the creation of new alliances and the forging of new ties in many actor arenas, initiated based on promises and high expectations of the fruits that could be harvested from development and investment into nanotechnology. Those trying to characterise the dynamics of emerging ties and networks within this field are faced with a number of complexities which are characteristic of the nanotechnology umbrella term, which covers many technologies, various mixes of disciplines and actors, and ongoing debates about definitions of fields and terminology. In this paper we explore an approach for capturing dynamics of emergence of a particular area of nanotechnology by investigating visions of possible futures in relation to molecular mechanical systems (molecular machines). The focus of this text is to outline an approach used to map and analyse visions in an emerging field by taking as the unit of analysis linkages made in statements in texts, and the agglomeration of linkages around certain nodes. Taking the linkage, rather than node, allows one to probe deeper into the dynamics of emergence at early stages when definitions and meanings of certain words/nodes are in flux and patterns of their use change dramatically over short periods of time. As part of a larger project on single and macromolecular machines we explore the dynamics of visions in the field of molecular machines with the eventual aim to elucidate the shaping strength of visions within nanotechnology.     

Mapping the social and behavioral sciences world-wide: Use of maps in portfolio analysis of national research efforts

We have developed a method to identify and map the internationally most visible research topics occurring in the social and behavioral sciences, as well as the topics which changed most over a decade. Methods and data relevent to a portfolio analysis of national research efforts are described. Keywords used by authors in scientific or scholarly publications provide a window on scientific developments and changes in scientific research. Using an interdisciplinary database, the SSCI, developments in publications were traced world-wide and for the US, UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. We compared two periods: 1981–85 and 1986–90 We discuss the major substantive developments occurring during 1981–1990, as visible in maps depicting both topics and disciplines. It is shown that the maps, enriched with scientometric indicators of strengths and weaknesses of national research efforts, can be important tools for science policy. The findings indicate that the research front on many topics in both social and behavioral sciences is international in the late 1980s.     

Collaboration in Indian physics: A case study of the macro and micro parametrization of sub-disciplines (1800–1950)

The decade beginning 1920 is an important watershed in the history of physics in modern India. This is evident from the bibliometric data available on the publications in physics between 1800 and 1950. The paper studies the evolution of collaboration in four subdisciplines of physics during this period. In order to do so, two sets of measures of research collaboration have been employed. The collaboration index and collaboration coefficient have been calculated for the sub-disciplines. As far as the micro-parametrization of the discipline is concerned, collaboration measures developed by Egghe are obtained for the research careers of four leading Indian physicists, who were responsible for the institutionalization of physics research in India. In the present case the role of individuals responsible for the institutionalization of physics research is seen to be germane to the explosion of the number of publications in the 1920s. At the conjucture of the history of science and scientometrics, it is evident how the former can endow the latter with a modality of explanation; further, it is evident how scientometrics can inform the efforts of historians of science.     

A comparative study of interdisciplinary changes between information science and library science

This study employs the method of direct citation to analyze and compare the interdisciplinary characteristics of the two disciplines of library science and information science during the period of 1978–2007. Based on the research generated by five library science journals and five information science journals, library science researchers tend to cite publications from library and information science (LIS), education, business/management, sociology, and psychology, while researchers of information science tend to cite more publications from LIS, general science, computer science, technology, and medicine. This means that the disciplines with larger contributions to library science are almost entirely different from those contributing to information science. In addition, researchers of library science frequently cite publications from LIS; the rate is as high as 65.61%, which is much higher than the rate for information science, 49.50%. However, a decreasing trend in the percentage of LIS in library science indicates that library science researchers tend to cite more publications from non-LIS disciplines. A rising trend in the proportion of references to education sources is reported for library science articles, while a rising trend in the proportion of references to computer science sources has been found for information science articles. In addition, this study applies an interdisciplinary indicator, Brillouin’s Index, to measurement of the degree of interdisciplinarity. The results confirm that the trend toward interdisciplinarity in both information science and library science has risen over the years, although the degree of interdisciplinarity in information science is higher than that in library science.     

Inequality and collaboration patterns in Canadian nanotechnology: implications for pro-poor and gender-inclusive policy

Policymakers and scholars are increasingly concerned with how nanotechnology can reduce inequalities and provide benefits for disadvantaged and poor communities. This paper simultaneously addresses two concerns related to nanotechnology and equity: the lack of research and development focused on nanotechnology applications that benefit developing nations (pro-poor R&D) and the lack of women in nanotechnology fields. The paper focuses on Canada, an affluent country committed to both pro-poor and gender responsive policies. Social network analysis is used to examine the relationship between gender and collaboration patterns of authors and inventors whose work is related to pro-poor applications of nanotechnology. Findings reveal that female first-authored papers have a lower citation rate and are published in higher ranked journals compared to those papers first-authored by men. Nevertheless, when women are last or corresponding authors, their papers receive equal or higher citation rates and are published in lower or similar ranked journals. Women are as, or more, collaborative as their male peers in their co-authorship and co-inventorship networks. While the majority of male authors and male inventors collaborate exclusively with men, those involved in a mixed-gender team outperform male-only teams. Women, as both authors and inventors, are involved in more gender-balanced collaboration teams. The study calls for development and implementation of gender-related policies in Canada to increase the prevalence of female scientists in collaboration networks, and to support the participation of women in pro-poor areas.     

Globalization at the nano frontier: The future of nanotechnology policy in the United States, China, and India

The field of nanotechnology offers the possibility of transforming the international science and technology (S&T) policy landscape and making a significant impact on the direction of research and development for a wide range of nations and companies. Nanotechnology endeavors in the United States, China, and India remain some of the most interesting because of the opportunities and challenges this field poses for future competition and collaboration between these three nations. This paper examines how nanotechnology will raise new science and policy questions—and lead to new strategic linkages—that will have a major impact on the futures of these nations for decades to come. Then the paper analyzes and compares the current state of nanotechnology in these three countries, discusses some of the main drivers of collaboration, investigates current and potential uncertainties associated with nanotechnology, and offers policy suggestions on ways that these difficulties may be addressed.     

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