Science in Brazil. Part 1: A macro-level comparative study

Summary In the present paper, the evolution of publication activity and citation impact in Brazil is studied for the period 1991-2003. Besides the analysis of trends in publication and citation patterns and of national publication profiles, an attempt is made to find statistical evidences of the relation between international co-authorship and both research profile and citation impact in the Latin American region. Despite similarities and strong co-publication links with the other countries in the region, Brazil has nonetheless a specific research profile, and forms the largest potential in the region.     

Dentistry scientometric analysis: a comparative study between Brazil and other most productive countries in the area

This research aims at performing a comparative study between the Brazilian scientific production in Dentistry, from 2000 to 2009 and countries that contribute with at least 2 % of the world’s scientific production indexed in the Scopus database. More specifically, we intend to assess the annual Brazilian scientific production by comparing it to the other countries’, analyze the Brazilian and other countries’ publications in journals with higher impact factors, as well as to highlight the scientific production from these countries and its international visibility, measured by its total and by its average of citations and normalized citation index per year, by comparing the countries, and to compare the index h of such countries. As work procedure, the SCImago Journal and Country Rank was used as source, identifying the group of producing countries in the Dentistry area from 1996 to 2009. From a total of 136 countries, 13 were highlighted as the most productive, each one of them accounting for at least 2 % the worldwide scientific production in the area. The following indicators were raised for each country: number of produced documents, total of citations, self-citations, average of citations per document and index h. We verified that Brazil is the only country in Latin America that is pictured among the most productive ones in the Dentistry area. We observed that Brazil presents a growing visibility and impact in the international scenery, what suggests that its production is constantly consolidating, with Brazilian scientific recognition in the main vehicles of dissemination in the area.     

Scientific knowledge production in China: a comparative analysis

Scientometrics - Over the past few decades, the rising economic power of China has led to the expansion of its indigenous science and technology capacity. However, the key characteristics and...     

Spanish performance in life sciences. A comparative appraisal of the scientific production of Spain and five other European countries in 1989

The output in life science disciplines from Spain and five other European countries has been measured in a datafile derived from theCurrent Contents-Life Sciences on diskette (1989). The results of this flash evaluation were contrasted with data retrieved from a survey covering the yearly output during the 1973–83 period and thee 1981–85 aggregated value from Schubert, Glänzel, Braun datafiles. The results of these studies showed an increasing share of Spain in the six countries' output, especially in the subfields of organic chemistry and phytochemistry. However, the quality of the Spanish articles—as deduced from the journal impact factors (JRC-1989)—is below the six countries average. The usefulness of the Current Contents on diskette for handy and reliable flash evaluations has been ascertained through a comparative analysis with more comprehensive surveys.     

Scientific production on tetrachloro-dibenzo-dioxins: A bibliometric study

Summary Tetrachloro-dibenzo-dioxins were declared as human carcinogenic substances in 1997. Objective: to analyse the scientific production about tetrachloro-dibenzo-dioxins between 1976 and 2005. Solla Price and Bradford models were applied. Different aspects of papers were analysed. Impact factor of journals was studied. 3484 articles were found. The number of articles published each year is fitted to Solla Price model. It has been shown the scientific literature dispersion. Specialisation of some journals of Nucleus and 1st Bradford Zone has been shown.     

Age Structures of Scientific Collaboration in Chinese Computer Science

Scientometrics - This paper is a scientometric study of the age structure of scientific collaboration in Chinese computer science. Analysis reveals some special age structures in scientific...     

Bibliometric study on food science and technology: Scientific production in Iberian-American countries (1991-2000)

This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the scientific production in the food science and technology (FST) field for the period 1991-2000, in Iberian-America (IA). Eight selected IA countries contributed 97.6% of the IA production and accounted for a 6.6% of the world production. The most frequent document type is journal article published in English. Retrieved records display characteristical authorship patterns and preferred subject areas. Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Portugal determine the IA pattern of sources of publication. The fifty top ranked journals, 80% of which were indexed by the SCIE, encompass two-thirds of the IA production. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Indicators of research planning: A comparative study of research groups in six countries

In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine the characteristics of research planning at the micrososmic level of the research group in six countries-Argentina, Egypt, India, Republic of Korea, Poland and UkSSR. The paper focusses on the following aspects: (1) intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing the choice of research themes and orientation of the research programme; (2) quality of research planning measured by dimensions, such as planning consistency, task-interdependence and prior contacts with potential users; and (3) pattern of funding of research groups. Variations in the characteristics of research planning and funding mechanisms in different institutional and socio-cultural settings (countries) have been examined.     

Bibliometric study on vaccines (1990–1995) part I: Scientific production in Iberian-American countries

Analysis of scientific production is made in the domains of vaccines for the period 1990–1995, including eight Iberian-American countries. To attain the results, different indicators were applied such as: collaboration rate, activity index and representation techniques, using a cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling. Similarities between countries are represented according to their activity index in the subject field. Results show a discontinuity in the scientific production over the years, where each country has a peculiar behavior.     

Science funding and research output: a study on 10 countries

This study reports research on analyzing the impact of government funding on research output. 500,807 SCI papers published in 2009 in 10 countries are collected and analyzed. The results show that, in China, 70.34% of SCI papers are supported by some research funding, among which 89.57% are supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Average grants per funding-supported paper in China is 2.95, when in the USA the number is 2.93 and in Japan it is 2.40. The results of funding agency analysis show that, China, Germany and Spain are single funding agency dominated countries, while USA, Japan, Canada and Australia are double funding agencies dominated countries, and the source of funding in UK, France and Italy is diversified.     

Brazilian scientific production in areas of biological sciences: a comparative study on the modalities of full doctorate in Brazil or abroad

Know and compare the Brazilian scientific production of researchers that did full PhD in Brazil or abroad may be important to evaluate the development of science in the country. In this context, the current study was planned to verify the evolution of scientific production of researchers that concluded PhD in Brazil or abroad between 1997 and 2002. The evaluation included specifically the scientific production of PhDs in the areas of biochemistry, physiology and pharmacology during the period of 9 years after the PhD conclusion. The data were obtained from the database of CAPES (Foundation for Higher Education Development in Brazil), CNPq (National Council of Technological and Scientific Development), Lattes, Web of Science (Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and Scival—Scopus). In terms of quantity, researchers that did full PhD in Brazil published more articles than the researchers that did it abroad. However, articles from researchers that did the PhD in Brazil were published in journals with lower impact factor and received less citation than the articles published by researchers that did PhD abroad. The results indicate that the qualitative performance of researchers that did PhD abroad was better than those who did PhD in Brazil. Consequently, the policies of Brazilian government need to be devoted to enhance the relevance of Brazilian articles in terms of scientific quality and international insertion.     

S&T knowledge production from 2000 to 2009 in two periphery countries: Brazil and South Korea

This paper investigates the dynamic evolution profiles of science and technology knowledge production in Brazil and the Republic of Korea from 2000 to 2009. The two countries have followed different models of publication profiles, bioenvironmental model and Japanese model, and they currently belong to periphery countries in terms of the center-periphery framework. Brazil and the Republic of Korea have established a few core disciplines successfully and increased their share in the world publication of scientific papers over the last decade. Notwithstanding the fact that the two countries have recorded sustained growth in the percentage of published scientific papers, South Korea has evolved into a more balanced science and technology knowledge production system, whereas Brazil into the more unbalanced knowledge production system. Core-lagging or periphery-lagging patterns of science production have been revealed in Brazil and indirectly imply that the existing science base has not been fully stimulated or utilized.     

Scientific innovation in bibliographical databases: A comparative study of the science citation index and the pascal database

This study compares information obtained from the INIST/CNRS bibliographical database PASCAL with that found in theAtlas of Science published by ISI. The goal of the comparison was to contribute, to a better understanding of how databases can be used to carry out fine-grained studies of social and cognitive factors which affect the definition of a scientific research program. The program studied concern the development of research on brushborder cell membranes.     

Artificial intelligence and patents in Brazil: Overview on patentability and comparative study on patent filings

Innovations related to artificial intelligence (AI) can impact many technological fields and gather attention of several sectors from industry. Brazil is a developing country with a large territory and consumer market, attracting investment from foreign companies, including AI technologies. In the present work, we carry out a review of the Brazilian IP Law, Guidelines and Resolutions regarding patentability of AI inventions in Brazil, and also perform comparative analyses with the guidelines from the EPO and USPTO. Then, patent searches are carried out to analyze filing indicators of patent applications for AI inventions, wherein it is possible to verify that most of the filing applicants in Brazil are foreign companies, mainly from the US. Brazilian entities, which rank second overall in filing for patent applications in Brazil, do not even appear among the main applicants for AI inventions. We conclude that Brazil is not a competitive country in the production of patents related to AI, and it is important for Brazil to establish some degree of legal certainty regarding patent protection for AI inventions and disseminate knowledge about protecting such inventions by patents, so that inventors opt to disclose their AI inventions instead of keeping them as a trade secret. Therefore, more and more sectors of society might benefit from innovations arising from AI.     

A comparative study of production control mechanisms using simulation-based multi-objective optimisation

There exist many studies conducted to compare the performance of different production control mechanisms (PCMs) in order to determine which one performs the best under different conditions. Nonetheless, most of these studies suffer from the problems that the PCMs are not compared with their optimal parameter settings in a truly multi-objective context. This paper describes how different PCMs can be compared under their optimal settings through generating the Pareto-optimal frontiers, in the form of optimal trade-off curves in the performance space, by applying evolutionary multi-objective optimisation to simulation models. This concept is illustrated with a bi-objective comparative study of the four most popular PCMs in the literature, namely Push, Kanban, CONWIP and DBR, on an unbalanced serial flow line in which both control parameters and buffer capacities are to be optimised. Additionally, it introduces the use of normalised hyper-volume as the quantitative metric and confidence-based significant dominance as the statistical analysis method to verify the differences of the PCMs in the performance space. While the results from this unbalanced flow line cannot be generalised, it indicates clearly that a PCM may be preferable in certain regions of the performance space, but not others, which supports the argument that PCM comparative studies have to be performed within a Pareto-based multi-objective context.     

A comparative study of the difference in research performance in biomedical fields among selected Western and Asian countries

In this study, a series of relative indicators are used to compare the difference in research performance in biomedical fields between ten selected Western and Asian countries. Based on Thomson’s Essential Science Indicators (ESI) 1996–2006, the output of papers and their citations in ten biomedical fields are compared at multiple levels using relative indicators. Chart diagrams and hierarchical clustering are applied to represent the data. The results confirm that there are many differences in intra- and interdisciplinary scientific activities between the West and the East. In most biomedical fields Asian countries perform below world average.     

Predicting the intention to use and hedonic motivation for mobile learning: A comparative study in two Middle Eastern countries

Drawing on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) Model, this study aimed to determine the key variables that facilitate the acceptance of mobile learning in two Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia and Iraq), as well as identifying the constructs that can help enhance learners' motivation. A conceptual framework was proposed based on a modified UTAUT2, wherein trust was integrated, and new relationships were assumed among the proposed Model variables. Data were gathered using an online questionnaire from 469 higher education students of Computer Science. The collected data were analyzed with partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis (MGA) techniques. The results suggest significant differences in learners' perceptions from both countries. It was found that although some variables were significant in one country, they were not in the other and vice versa. Overall, the proposed framework explained 56.1% and 40.7%, respectively of the variance of behavioral intention and hedonic motivation among the Saudi sample (N = 246), and 51.1% and 41.9%, respectively of the variance of behavioral intention and hedonic motivation in the Iraqi sample (N = 223). These research outcomes are significant for educational institutions as they could help policy-makers better understand the issues facing mobile learning acceptance in terms of cultural similarities and differences. Accordingly, new strategies could be formulated to ensure improved mobile learning uptake.     

Science on the periphery: a citation study of three less developed countries

The scientific interactions of three peripheral nations in terms of citations and references to scientific literature is considered. The nations chosen are Argentina, Brazil and Norway, each with scientific establishments much smaller than those of central, or major, scientific nations. These three nations cite publications of the central nations strongly in comparison to those of their own country. Of the citations to the publications of these three countries, the bulk are generated from within the country involved. There is comparatively little interaction with neighbours. Further work is needed to determine if these patterns exist for most peripheral countries.     

Science in the eighties: A typology of countries based on inter-field priorities

This paper seeks to compare the research priorities of thirty three countries in five macrofields (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and Engineering & Technology) in two time spans: 1980–1984 and 1985–1989. Comparative analysis is based on the distribution of publications in different fields. Since the raw counts of publications are confounded by the size of the countries and the size of the subject fields, a relative index — Research Priority Index (PI) — is computed for cross-national comparisons. Correspondence analysis is applied to the asymmetrical matrices of priority profiles to reveal the structure of multivariate relationships between countries and fields. The configurations for the two time-spans, obtained through correspondence analysis, are compared to reveal the dynamics of research priorities of these countries.     

A comparative study on the use of fly ash and phosphogypsum in the brick production

Over 15 million tons of fly ash (FA) and 3 million tons of phosphogypsum (PG) are produced in Turkey every year. The utilization of these industrial by-product materials is important in terms of environmental and economical issues are concerned. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the technical possibilities of incorporating FA and PG in production of building blocks. Various mixtures were prepared by incorporating these industrial wastes by replacing clay with seven different weight proportions (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30%). All specimens were fired at 1000°C peak temperature. The physical and mechanical properties of all specimens such as; unit weight, compressive strength, flexural strength, dimensional stability and water absorption values were recorded. The effect of PG incorporation on the properties of samples seems to be more dominant than the effect of FA incorporation. The test results showed that; PG incorporation increased the unit weight and mechanical strength values while lowering the water absorption values. Utilization of these wastes additives is not only for conservation of clay resources, but also an alternative solution to a difficult and expensive waste disposal problems.