Unseen science? Representation of BRICs in global science

A survey of scientific periodical publications (or venues-as distinct from articles) from BRIC country practitioners counted more than 15,000 national publications. Data collected from and about Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC countries) show that 495 venues, or about 3%, are listed in the Science Citation Index Expanded^© (SCIE^©) in 2010. Contrary to our expectation of under-representation overall and coverage limitation of SCIE, the average percentage of SCIE-listed venues for the BRICs is about the same as that for advanced countries. China has the lowest representation of national venues in SCIE at 2% of all publications; Russia has the highest at about 8%. India has about 6% of venues in SCIE; Brazil has about 4%. In other words, SCIE includes about the same percentage of high quality science from these four countries as for North America and Europe, meaning that these countries are not under-represented in SCIE. Moreover, the number of national venues available as outlets suggests that national scientists in these countries have good access to publications and venues. Some of the BRIC national publications are difficult to “see” at the global level because of language barriers, diverse publication formats, and lack of digitization. Other national differences represent historical traditions surrounding publication.     

Controlled Growth of Conductive AlN Thin Films by Plasma-Assisted Reactive Evaporation

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - In this work, the growth of conductive AlN thin films by plasma-assisted reactive evaporation at different filament-to-substrate distances was presented...     

FE parametric study of RWS/WUF-B moment connections with elliptically-based beam web openings under monotonic and cyclic loading

International Journal of Steel Structures - This paper provides numerical results investigating the behaviour of steel web-perforated beams with different shaped single openings located close to...     

The design and fabrication of a monodisperse aerosol generator

Abstract

A monodisperse aerosol generator using a dual stream carrier gas designed and built for combustion research is described. Tetralin is used as the working fluid to generate the mist. The system is capable of generating monosize droplets of diameters between 7 μm to 58 μm. The stability of the system can be maintained up to 4 hours with a typical monodispersity of 0.12.     

Nitrogen-doped graphene-supported zinc sulfide nanorods as efficient Pt-free for visible-light photocatalytic hydrogen production

Nitrogen-doped graphene-ZnS composite (NG-ZnS) was synthesized by thermal treatment of graphene-ZnS composite (G-ZnS) in NH₃ medium. In the second step, the as-synthesized samples were deposited on indium tin oxide glass (ITO) by electrophoretic deposition for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction. The as-prepared NG-ZnS-modified ITO electrode displayed excellent photocatalytic activity, rapid transient photocurrent response, superior stability and high recyclability compared to the pure ZnS and G-ZnS-modified ITO electrode due to the synergy between the photocatalytic activity of ZnS nanorods and the large surface area and high conductivity of N-graphene.     

Human gait recognition using localized Grassmann mean representatives with partial least squares regression

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Gait recognition has become popular due to the rising demand for nonintrusive biometrics. At its nascent stage of development, gait recognition faces a number of...     

Inkjet-printed patch antenna emitter for wireless communication application

This research focuses on exploring low-cost and rapid production solutions for fabricating emitters for patch antennas for wireless communication applications. Additive manufacturing technique is employed to fabricate two patch antennas using silver nanoparticle ink on FR4 substrate. Finite-element simulation software, HFSS is used to analyse and predict the theoretical performance of the antenna designs for 2.4?GHz MIMO and 6?GHz wireless data transmission. The fabricated antennas have resonant frequencies closely matching the design values. The work provides a viable solution for fabricating emitters and finally antennas commercially using inkjet printing platform, thus overall reducing the cost and simplifying the process.     

Ethanol dehydration activity on hydrothermally stable LaPxOy catalysts synthesized using CTAB template

Nanocrystalline LaP_xO_y with various starting P to La ratios from 0.5 to 2.0 catalysts were prepared by a sol?Cgel method using cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as template. The catalysts were thoroughly characterized by N₂ physisorption, powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), temperature programmed desorption (TPD) of NH₃, solid state ³¹P and ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. XRD results indicate the presence of predominantly monazite LaPO₄ with minor amounts of (??3.0 wt%) rhabdophane LaPO₄ phase in the samples with starting P/La ratios of 1.0 and 1.5. NH₃-TPD results show an increasing trend in the total acidity with increase in P/La ratio. These catalysts were tested in the selective ethanol dehydration in the temperature range between 250 and 400?°C. The catalyst activity (??mol/h/m²) is increased with P/La ratio and the catalyst with highest P/La ratio of 2.0 exhibiting the highest ethanol dehydration activity. The ethanol conversion increased with reaction temperature, reaching 100% at 350?°C and remains unchanged at higher temperatures. On the other hand, the ethylene selectivity is also increased up to 350?°C and then decreased with further increase of reaction temperature. At a P/La ratio of 2, the CTAB templated LaP_xO_y catalyst showed higher catalytic activities compared to the LaP_xO_y by hydrothermal method without any template.     

Dynamics of safety performance and culture: A group model building approach

The management of occupational health and safety (OHS) including safety culture interventions is comprised of complex problems that are often hard to scope and define. Due to the dynamic nature and complexity of OHS management, the concept of system dynamics (SD) is used to analyze accident prevention. In this paper, a system dynamics group model building (GMB) approach is used to create a causal loop diagram of the underlying factors influencing the OHS performance of a major drilling and mining contractor in Australia. While the organization has invested considerable resources into OHS their disabling injury frequency rate (DIFR) has not been decreasing. With this in mind, rich individualistic knowledge about the dynamics influencing the DIFR was acquired from experienced employees with operations, health and safety and training background using a GMB workshop. Findings derived from the workshop were used to develop a series of causal loop diagrams that includes a wide range of dynamics that can assist in better understanding the causal influences OHS performance. The causal loop diagram provides a tool for organizations to hypothesize the dynamics influencing effectiveness of OHS management, particularly the impact on DIFR. In addition the paper demonstrates that the SD GMB approach has significant potential in understanding and improving OHS management.