The scientists pyramid

Summary In this short paper I propose a combination of qualitative and quantitative criteria to classify the quality, talent and creative thinking of the scientists of the “hard”, medical and biological sciences. The rationale for the proposed classification is to focus on the impact and overall achievements of each individual scientist and on how he is perceived by his own community. This new method is probably more complete than any other form of traditional judgment of a scientist's achievements and reputation, and may be useful for funding agencies, editors of scientific journals, science academies, universities, and research laboratories.     

The collaboration behavior of top scientists

Scientometrics - The intention of this work is to analyze top scientists’ collaboration behavior at the “international”, “domestic extramural” and...     

The responsibilities of corporate scientists and engineers

The individual scientist or engineer can not only preserve his or her ideas in a corporate environment, but actually grow morally. This is done by upholding the established standards of his discipline, meeting the demands of the marketplace within the framework of his corporate culture, and limiting the social disservice caused by the advance of science and technology. Excellence in all three spheres is essential.     

The decontamination of a disused gas works site

This paper describes work carried out at a site which was to be cleared prior to its use for erection of a large retail superstore together with its adjacent car park. A preliminary site investigation indicated that contamination, especially by tar, was widespread and that numerous underground pipes and tanks were also present. During site clearance approximately 10,000 m³ of contaminated solid material was removed and deposited in two licensed landfill sites 25 km and 40 km from the gas works. Liquid tar was adsorbed onto contaminated solids prior to disposal. A below-ground gas holder was used as a holding tank for contaminated aqueous liquids to enable suspended solids and immiscible organics to separate. After removal of contaminated material the site was covered with clean, crushed and compacted stone having known geotechnical characteristics.     

Life-span and precocity of scientists

Studies on the life-span of past scientists according to data of theChronicle of Major Events of Natural Sciences have found that the age of optimum peak value of scientific discovery is about half the peak value of their life-span. Achievements of those scientists who made a name before 25 years old are 44 percent more than average and their life efficiency is 1.7 times that of the average. Therefore it is an effective measure to train prococious scientists for a nation in her strive to catch up with or surpass world level in science.     

The relationship between scientists and science: knowledge-based innovation output

Many scientists were respected by people and science has made great development in the twentieth century. What role do scientists play in the process of scientific development? Does scientific development bring more researchers into scientists? This paper mainly analyzes the two interested questions and suggests that: (a) not all researchers’ output could be attributed to scientific knowledge, only the innovative output could promote science to develop. Scientists play a more significant role than the rest researchers in scientific development in average because scientists’ innovative consciousness is far higher than that of non-scientists. (b) Distinguishing scientists from researchers in accordance with the fixed basic contribution of innovative output in the process of scientific development. Researchers’ innovative work becomes easier with the accumulated scientific knowledge growing gradually in the initial stage of scientific development. Thus, scientific development could produce more and more scientists. On the contrary, researchers’ innovative work becomes more challenged with the accumulated scientific knowledge increasing gradually while science develops to a certain stage. As a result, scientific development would make researchers become scientist increasingly difficult.     

The effects of electronic alert letters for internet surveys of academic scientists

Scientometrics - Survey alert letters improve response rates and assure potential respondents that the research is legitimate and of high quality. Pre-notification by mail increases response rates...     

The contribution of star scientists to overall sex differences in research productivity

The state of the art on the issue of sex differences in research efficiency agrees in recognizing higher performances for males, however there are divergences in explaining the possible causes. One of the causes advanced is that there are sex differences in the availability of aptitude at the “high end”. By comparing sex differences in concentration and performance of Italian academic star scientists to the case in the population complement, this work aims to verify if star, or “high-end”, scientists play a preponderant role in determining higher performance among males. The study reveals the existence of a greater relative concentration of males among star scientists, as well as a performance gap between male and female star scientists that is greater than for the rest of the population. In the latter subpopulation the performance gap between the two sexes is seen as truly marginal.     

Maghrebi scientists and regional conflict

Long-standing disputes in the Maghreb originated in the colonial period and were aggravated by differences in the political, social, and economic strategies of the three principal nations in the region: Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Despite a degree of scientific and technical cooperation among these nations, the larger scientific community has done little to reduce regional tensions. This article explores the cultural and political barriers in each country that hinder intervention by scientists to prevent regional conflicts.     

The publication rate of scientific papers depends only on the number of scientists

In the fields of physics, astronomy, geophysics, mathematics, and chemistry, the numbers of American papers published depend only on the membership numbers of their scientific societies and not upon improved facilities or instrumental breakthroughs, although those improvements have caused the scientific contents of those papers to be far better in recent decades. In the past 30–35 years there have been no increases in the average annual number of published papers per scientist in those fields.