‘Cognitive mobility’ or migration of authors between fields used in mapping a network of mathematics

In this paper we have looked at a new measure of connectedness between research areas, namely, the migration of authors between subfields as seen from their contributions to different areas. Migration may be considered as an embodied knowledge flow that bridges some part of the cognitive gap between fields. Our hypothesis is that the rate of author migration will reflect cognitive similarity or affinity between disciplines. This is graphically shown to be reasonable, but only above certain levels of migration for our data from mathematical reviews spanning 17 years (1959–1975). The inter-related structure of Mathematics is then mapped using migration data in the appropriate range. We find the resulting map to be a good reflection of the disciplinary variation in the field of Mathematics.     

Research collaboration networks of two OIC nations: comparative study between Turkey and Malaysia in the field of ‘Energy Fuels’, 2009–2011

With the world in the midst of an energy crisis, recent research has placed considerable emphasis on harnessing renewable and sustainable energy while efficiently using fossil fuels. Researchers create and sustain academic societies as a result of social interactions. This study takes a social network perspective to understand researchers’ associations using two Organisation of Islamic Co-operation nations, Turkey and Malaysia, in the fast-developing field of ‘Energy Fuels’. The study found both similarities and differences in the scholarly networks of these two countries. The mean distance between the authors in the Turkey and Malaysia networks was 8.4 and 6.5, respectively, confirming the small world nature of these networks. The popularity, position, and prestige of the authors in the network, as determined through centrality measures, had a statistically significant effect on research performance. These measures, however, were far more correlated with the research performance of the authors in the Malaysia network than in the Turkey network. PageRank centrality was found to be the most efficient topological measure when it came to correlation with research performance. We used authors’ ‘degree’ to reach to the ‘core’ (‘Deg-Core’) of the network (in contrast to the K-Core method), which was found to capture more productive authors. A method to detect academic communities of productive authors by extracting motifs (large cliques) from the network is suggested. Finally, we visualize the cognitive structure of both countries using a 2-mode network representing research focus areas (RFAs) and prominent authors working in these RFAs.     

Bibliometric spectroscopy of Russia’s nanotechnology: 2000–2014

The article investigates the scientific performance of Russia in the field of nanotechnology, focusing on production, impact and collaboration. An underlying multidisciplinary corpus of publications was extracted from the Science Citation Index Expanded database through relevant keywords. The various bibliometric findings are presented in a top-down sequence, starting with a comparative analysis of Russia and other selected countries, scrutinizing further a revitalization of science in universities and finally presenting some (possible) centers of excellence within the domestic scientific system. Focusing on the most highly-cited nano papers, I use the analysis not only in terms of percentages of world shares of publications, but also in terms of the proportions of top-1 and top-10% publications. It is shown that among the comparative countries, Russia maximally increases the citation impact depending on its internationalization efforts and that, for example, the co-authorship between Russia and Australia in the top-10% layer as well as between Russia and the UK in the top-1% layer is above expectation. Implementing the president’s initiative “Strategy of Nanoindustry Development” and the role of governmental university-centered policy are discussed in light of the performed bibliometric study.     

Evaluation across and within collaborative manufacturing networks: a comparison of manufacturers’ interactions and attributes

Evaluation on collaborative manufacturing network (CMN) structure characteristics has important implications for network operations such as production decision-making, product recovery, creating consensus. Several recent studies suggest that augmenting network structure with nodes’ attributes can provide a more fine-grained understanding of the network. However, there have been few studies to provide a systematic understanding of these effects in a CMN at scale. This gap is bridged using an industrial printing machinery CMN data-set collected on a web-based producing and outsourcing service platform. Novel phenomena with respect to both interaction and attribute metrics across and within the CMNs are observed. Moreover, although many studies employ either interaction or attribute data to study the relative roles of manufacturers in a CMN, relatively little is known about the relationship between these two types of data. This study explores this relationship by comparing two defined metrics (i.e. relational capability and node capability), which evaluate the manufacturers’ interactions and attributes, respectively. We examine to what extent the two metrics of manufacturers correlate with each other, and how possible dissimilarities and similarities can be explained based on the collected industrial CMN data-set. The insights thereby provide a better basis for efficient operations decision-making in CMN.     

Study on themes and authors’ influence of open access in China

Using Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure as the data resource, this paper searched some papers about open access (OA). Some Visual Basic for Applications programs were developed to generate the co-word matrix, compute the E-index value of keywords as well as the density and centrality of thematic clusters. Callon’s clustering method was also used to generate keywords clusters. Then, co-word analysis method and strategic diagrams were utilized to detect the main research themes as well as explore the development situation and status of these research themes. Furthermore, author-themes coupling network was mapped with the help of Netdraw in order to detect the relationship between core authors and research themes of OA as well as the core authors’ influence on these themes. Based on this, some conclusions were got in the end.     

A comparative study of research performance in nanotechnology for China’s inventor–authors and their non-inventing peers

This paper explores the relationship between patenting and publishing in the field of nanotechnology for Chinese universities. With their growing patents, Chinese universities are becoming main technological source for nanotechnology development that is extremely important in China. Matching names of patentees to names of research paper authors in Chinese universities, we find 6,321 authors with patents, i.e. inventor–authors, and 65,001 without any patent. Research performance is measured using three indicators—publication counts, total citations and h-index received by each researcher. It is found that research performance of authors who are also inventors holding patents is better than that of those authors who do not have a patent, and that most of high quality research is performed by inventor–authors. Our findings indicate that patent-oriented research may produce better results.     

An analysis of the connection between researchers’ productivity and their co-authors’ past attributions,including the importance in collaboration networks

Although many studies have analyzed the “synchronic” correlation of properties between authors and their co-authors, the “diachronic” correlation of properties, i.e., the correlation between their subsequent and precedent activity, has not yet been sufficiently studied using quantitative methods. This study pays attention not only to productivity but also the importance in the collaboration network as a measure of the researcher’s activity, and clarifies whether there is any connection between (i) the researcher’s activity subsequent to a collaboration and (ii) the collaborator’s precedent activity, aiming at deriving knowledge about the diachronic effect of collaborators.     

Inspecting the Achilles heel: a quantitative analysis of 50 years of family business definitions

Despite numerous attempts by academics from many disciplines and various regional contexts, there is still no agreement on a definition of family business. Subjecting 258 definitions found in work published over the past 50 years (1964–2013) to the bibliometric techniques of consensus and co-word analysis to uncover intellectual structure, we identify the key terms used to underpin the concept of family business and to track the progress made towards consensus on its definition. We find an emergence of definitional key terms by which scholars attempt to clarify the concepts of family and family business, and growing agreement of what criteria should be met in framing a definition. This study contributes to the literature by offering a synthesis of what constitutes a family business, as well as a systematic and quantitative analysis of its evolution over a half century of research. It also shows how bibliometric tools can be used to shed light on fields where definitional ambiguity persists.     

Adhesion between bitumen and aggregate: implementation of spectroscopic ellipsometry characterisation and estimation of Hamaker’s constant

Refractive indices of seven bitumen samples and three aggregates (typical components in flexible asphalt pavement) were determined by ellipsometry in order to predict dispersive bitumen–aggregate adhesion and dispersive bitumen–bitumen cohesion using Hamaker’s constant. Hamaker’s constant according to Lifshitz was introduced to the asphalt field by two of the authors to describe and estimate van der Waal’s interaction and bitumen–aggregate adhesion. Lifshitz used the refractive index to estimate the dispersive non-polar van der Waal’s interaction component of adhesion, the predominant component in adhesion between minerals and bituminous binder. The impact of an intervening thin medium such as air or water on the adhesion can be estimated using Hamaker’s coefficient, which in turn can be related to stripping potential. The bitumen binders studied were delivered as a paving grade 70/100 according to EN 12591:2009 and came from different bitumen suppliers. The three aggregates studied were two types of granite and one diabase. It is concluded from the measurement of refractive indices and calculations of the dispersive component of Hamaker’s constant that there was a larger spread in refractive index among the three aggregate samples studied than among the seven bitumen samples.     

A hierarchical approach to analyzing knowledge integration between two fields—a case study on medical informatics and computer science

As a driver in modern science, interdisciplinary research has attracted a lot of attention. Major foci are laid on exploring the relations of multiple involved disciplines as well as the knowledge structure in interdisciplinary field. However, there is still a lack of decomposing the knowledge structure of interdisciplinary field to investigate how knowledge from relevant disciplines is integrated in the field. This study proposes an approach to investigating knowledge integration relationships between two research fields from a perspective of hierarchy. Medical Informatics (MI) and its most relevant field of Computer Science (CS) are chosen in the case study. This study decomposed each keyword network of the two fields into four layers by using the K-core method, then quantified the knowledge integration relationships between different layers of the two fields together. The results present that the MI basic layer shows the strongest knowledge integration with CS, followed by the middle layer, with the detail layer the weakest. And all MI layers have the greatest breadth and strength of knowledge integration with the CS middle layer, followed by the CS marginal layer and detail layer, but with the CS basic layer the weakest. A time series analysis shows that the integration of new CS knowledge into MI is a gradual process without explosive growth and the path of knowledge integration between the two fields were identified. The proposed approach could be applied to deeply understanding the integration of one discipline knowledge by an interdisciplinary field.

     

Spanish doctoral theses in physical activity and sports sciences and authors’ scientific publications (LUSTRUM 2013–2017)

Scientometrics - The purpose of a doctorate is educating new researchers to later produce scientific articles derived from their doctoral thesis. The objective of this study is to verify if...     

Garfield number: on some characteristics of Eugene Garfield’s first and second order co-authorship networks

In this note we give an overview of the first- and second-order collaboration network reflected by Eugene Garfield’s publications in scientific journals. Although he had only a quite limited number of co-authors and co-publications, his co-authors’ own collaboration networks generate a large world-wide and multidisciplinary coverage. The classical model of co-authorship network is the Erd?s network with the Erd?s Number indicating the shortest co-authorship path through which an author is connected with Paul Erd?s. The two networks, generated by Erd?s and Garfield, respectively, show completely different patterns and characteristics but illustrate the ways how ideas of great scholars and pioneers disseminate and influence the respective scientific communities.     

Quantitative structure–activity relationships study of herbicides using neural networks and different statistical methods

A series of herbicidal materials, N-phenylacetamides (NPAs), has been studied for their Quantitative Structure–Activity Relationships (QSAR). The molecular structure as well as the activity data were taken from literature [O. Kirino, C. Takayama, A. Mine, Quantitative structure relationships of herbicidal N-(1-methyl-1-phenylethyi) phenylacetamides, Journal Pesticide Science 11 (1986) 611–617]. The independent variables used to describe the structure of compounds consisted of seven physicochemical properties, including the mode of molecular connection, steric factor, hydrophobic parameter, etc. Fifty different compounds constitute a sample set which is divided into two groups, 47 of them form a training set and the remaining three a checking set. Through a systematic study by using the classic multivariate analysis such as the Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and the Partial Least Squares (PLS) Regression, several QSAR models were established. For finding a better way to depict the nonlinear nature of the problem, multi-layered feed-forward (MLF) neural networks (NNs) was employed. The results indicated that the conventional multivariate analysis gave larger prediction errors, while the NNs method showed better accuracy in both self-checking and prediction-checking. The error variance of predictions made by NNs was the smallest among the all methods tested, only around half of the others.     

Patterns and impact of collaboration in China’s social sciences: cross-database comparisons between CSSCI and SSCI

Scientometrics - This study quantitatively analyzes the patterns and impact of collaboration at author and country levels in China’s social sciences from 1998 to 2017. Chinese Social Sciences...     

Is there a correlation between journal impact factor and researchers’ performance? A study comprising the fields of clinical nephrology and neurosciences

Quantifying the scientific performance of investigators has become an integral part of decision-making in research policy. The aim of the present study was to evaluate if there is a correlation between journal impact factor (IF) and researchers’ influence among a selected group of Brazilian investigators in the fields of clinical nephrology and neurosciences. This study was based on 94 senior investigators (36 in clinical nephrology and 58 in clinical neurosciences) receiving productivity scholarships from the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) according to a list provided by the agency in February 2009. Scientific performance indicators included in the analysis were: number of papers indexed by the Web of Science and Scopus databases, number of citations, h- and m-index. IFs were analyzed as (1) cumulative IF (∑IF), (2) IF adjusted by time (IF/t), and (3) average IF. There was a moderate positive correlation only between ∑IF and two indicators: total number of citations (P < 0.001) and h-index (P < 0.001). There was also a positive correlation between IF/t and m-index (P < 0.001). There was an agreement in these correlations between both groups (clinical nephrology and neurosciences). No significant correlation between the average IF and any of the scientific indicators was detected. A cut-off of 10.53 for IF/t showed the best performance in predicting researchers with m-index equal to or greater than 1. According to our findings, other qualitative and quantitative instruments rather than IF are clearly needed for identifying researchers with outstanding scientific output.     

The pursuit of academic excellence and business engagement: is it irreconcilable?

Universities currently need to satisfy the demands of different audiences. In light of the increasing policy emphasis on “third mission” activities, universities are attempting to incorporate these into their traditional missions of teaching and research. University strategies to accomplishing its traditional missions are well-honed and routinized, but the incorporation of the third mission is posing important strategic and managerial challenges for universities. This study explores the relationship between university–business collaborations and academic excellence in order to examine the extent to which academic institutions can balance these objectives. Based on data from the UK Research Assessment Exercise 2001 at the level of the university department, we find no systematic positive or negative relationship between scientific excellence and engagement with industry. Across the disciplinary fields reported in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (i.e. engineering, hard sciences, biomedicine, social sciences and the humanities) the relationship between academic excellence and engagement with business is largely contingent on the institutional context of the university department. This paper adds to the growing body of literature on university engagement with business by examining this activity for the social sciences and the humanities. Our findings have important implications for the strategic management of university departments and for higher education policy related to measuring the performance of higher education research institutions.     

Participation of ‘international national organisations’ in Africa’s research: a bibliometric study of agriculture and health in Zimbabwe

Scientometrics - The study investigated the participation of so-called ‘international national organisations’ (INOs) in agricultural and health research in Zimbabwe, a country in...     

Surface analytical study of the interaction between γ-amino propyl triethoxysilane and E-glass surface

Angle-resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has been used to study the interaction of hydrolysed -aminopropyltriethoxysilane (HAPS) with a flat E-glass slide surface. Formation of a HAPS coating with a thickness of about 6 nm, which consists of three components of differing molecular structure on the glass surface, was confirmed. The results provided further evidence for the incorporation of aluminium ions from the glass substrate into the HAPS coating. At the outer surface, a warm-water-soluble oligomer exists in which the amino group of the HAPS molecule is in the form of a free -NH₂. Beneath, there is a three-dimensional graded network whose ends, after extraction with warm water, are involved in an internally hydrogen-bonded structure between the amino and silanol groups, probably in a cyclised conformation. Adjacent to the glass surface, a molecular layer of HAPS remained after extraction with hot water, which was chemically bound to the glass surface through siloxane and/or aluminoxane bonds. The results tend to favour the former with Al(OH)₃ copolymerized into the siloxanol deposit.