Universal trajectories of scientific success

Success of a scientific entity generally undergoes myriad vicissitudes, resulting in different patterns of success trajectories. Understanding and characterizing the rise and fall of scientific success is important not only from the perspective of designing new mathematical models but also to enhance the quality of various real-world systems such as scientific article search and recommendation systems. In this paper, we present a large-scale study of the subject by analyzing the success of two major scientific entities—papers and authors—in Computer Science and Physics. We quantify “success” in terms of citations and in the process discover six distinct success trajectories which are prevalent across multidisciplinary datasets. Our results reveal that these trajectories are not fully random, but are rather generated through a complex process. We further shed light on the behavior of these trajectories and unfold many interesting facets by asking fundamental questions—which trajectory is more successful, how significant and stable are these categories, what factors trigger the rise and fall of trajectories? A few of our findings sharply contradict the well-accepted beliefs on bibliographic research such as “Preferential Attachment”, “first-mover advantage”. We believe that this study will argue in favor of revising the existing metrics used for quantifying scientific success.     

Low Cost Low Power Smart Helmet for Real-Time Remote Underground Mine Environment Monitoring

Underground mining production process is vulnerable and highly dynamic in nature. Among the various causes of accidents in underground mine, major one is presence of flammable and noxious gases. Though many existing safety gadgets are there but they could not work reliably because of the typical nature of mines structure and production variability. Wireless data and communication network is also not successful because wireless communication in underground mine is significantly more challenging than through air. This work introduces the application of mobile wireless sensor network in order to monitor a variety of parameters in underground mines which have life threatening effects towards them. Each node of the network placed over the safety gear (helmet wore statutorily by every miner) comprises of various sensors depending on the requirement with microcontroller unit and other low power accessories. The proposed work has a unique feature that it will make the personnel aware about the situation of the gases present and surrounding by automatically generating different alarms and different light indicators. Other function of this device will be to transmit the data sensed by the sensors in the device to the control room wirelessly so that the responsible person would be aware of the situation. This work is focused on the design of such a prototype model for the underground mines with the aforementioned specification.     

Extreme Two‐Phase Cooling from Laser‐Etched Diamond and Conformal,Template‐Fabricated Microporous Copper

This paper reports the first integration of laser‐etched polycrystalline diamond microchannels with template‐fabricated microporous copper for extreme convective boiling in a composite heat sink for power electronics and energy conversion. Diamond offers the highest thermal conductivity near room temperature, and enables aggressive heat spreading along triangular channel walls with 1:1 aspect ratio. Conformally coated porous copper with thickness 25 µm and 5 µm pore size optimizes fluid and heat transport for convective boiling within the diamond channels. Data reported here include 1280 W cm^?2 of heat removal from 0.7 cm² surface area with temperature rise beyond fluid saturation less than 21 K, corresponding to 6.3 × 10⁵ W m^?2 K^?1. This heat sink has the potential to dissipate much larger localized heat loads with small temperature nonuniformity (5 kW cm^?2 over 200 µm × 200 µm with <3 K temperature difference). A microfluidic manifold assures uniform distribution of liquid over the heat sink surface with negligible pumping power requirements (e.g., <1.4 × 10^?4 of the thermal power dissipated). This breakthrough integration of functional materials and the resulting experimental data set a very high bar for microfluidic heat removal.     

Electronic fingerprints of DNA bases on graphene

We calculate the electronic local density of states (LDOS) of DNA nucleotide bases (A,C,G,T), deposited on graphene. We observe significant base-dependent features in the LDOS in an energy range within a few electronvolts of the Fermi level. These features can serve as electronic fingerprints for the identification of individual bases in scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) experiments that perform image and site dependent spectroscopy on biomolecules. Thus the fingerprints of DNA-graphene hybrid structures may provide an alternative route to DNA sequencing using STS.     

The stochastic aeroelastic response analysis of helicopter rotors using deep and shallow machine learning

Neural Computing and Applications - This paper addresses the influence of manufacturing variability of a helicopter rotor blade on its aeroelastic responses. An aeroelastic analysis using finite...     

Extreme Specific Stiffness Through Interactive Cellular Networks in Bi-Level Micro-Topology Architected Metamaterials

Architected lattice materials, realized through artificial micro-structuring, have drawn tremendous attention lately due to their enhanced mechanical performances in multifunctional applications. However, the research area on the design of artificial microstructures for the modulation of mechanical properties is increasingly becoming saturated due to extensive investigations considering different possibilities of lattice geometry and beam-like network design. Thus, there exists a strong rationale for innovative design at a more elementary level. It can enhance and grow the microstructural space laterally for exploiting the potential of geometries and patterns in multiple length scales, and the mutual interactions thereof. A bi-level design is proposed, where besides having the architected cellular networks at an upper scale, the constituting beam-like members at a lower scale are further topology-engineered for most optimum material utilization. The coupled interaction of beam-level and lattice-level architectures can enhance the specific elastic properties to an extreme extent (up to ≈25 and 20 times, depending on normal and shear modes, respectively), leading to ultra-lightweight multifunctional materials for critical applications under static and dynamic environments.     

Diffusion of chemically reactive species in Casson fluid flow over an unsteady permeable stretching surface

In this paper we investigate the two-dimensional flow of a non-Newtonian fluid over an unsteady stretching permeable surface. The Casson fluid model is used to characterize the non-Newtonian fluid behavior. First-order constructive/destructive chemical reaction is considered. With the help of a shooting method, numerical solutions for a class of nonlinear coupled differential equations subject to appropriate boundary conditions are obtained. For the steady flow, the exact solution is obtained. The flow features and the mass transfer characteristics for different values of the governing parameters are analyzed and discussed in detail.     

Surface‐Functionalization‐Mediated Direct Transfer of Molybdenum Disulfide for Large‐Area Flexible Devices

The transfer of synthesized large‐area 2D materials to arbitrary substrates is expected to be a vital step for the development of flexible device fabrication processes. The currently used hazardous acid‐based wet chemical etching process for transferring large‐area MoS₂ films is deemed to be unsuitable because it significantly degrades the material and damages growth substrates. Surface energy‐assisted water‐based transfer processes do not require corrosive chemicals during the transfer process; however, the concept is not investigated at the wafer scale due to a lack of both optimization and in‐depth understanding. In this study, a wafer‐scale water‐assisted transfer process for metal–organic chemical vapor‐deposited MoS₂ films based on the hydrofluoric acid treatment of a SiO₂ surface before the growth is demonstrated. Such surface treatment enhances the strongly adhering silanol groups, which allows the direct transfer of large‐area, continuous, and defect‐free MoS₂ films; it also facilitates the reuse of growth substrate. The developed transfer method allows direct fabrication of flexible devices without the need for a polymeric supporting layer. It is believed that the proposed method can be an alternative defect‐ and residue‐free transfer method for the development of MoS₂‐based next‐generation flexible devices.     

Tuning Contact Resistance in Top‐Contact p‐Type and n‐Type Organic Field Effect Transistors by Self‐Generated Interlayers

Contact resistance significantly limits the performance of organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs). Positioning interlayers at the metal/organic interface can tune the effective work‐function and reduce contact resistance. Myriad techniques offer interlayer processing onto the metal pads in bottom‐contact OFETs. However, most methods are not suitable for deposition on organic films and incompatible with top‐contact OFET architectures. Here, a simple and versatile methodology is demonstrated for interlayer processing in both p‐ and n‐type devices that is also suitable for top‐contact OFETs. In this approach, judiciously selected interlayer molecules are co‐deposited as additives in the semiconducting polymer active layer. During top contact deposition, the additive molecules migrate from within the bulk film to the organic/metal interface due to additive‐metal interactions. Migration continues until a thin continuous interlayer is completed. Formation of the interlayer is confirmed by X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and cross‐section scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), and its effect on contact resistance by device measurements and transfer line method (TLM) analysis. It is shown that self‐generated interlayers that reduce contact resistance in p‐type devices, increase that of n‐type devices, and vice versa, confirming the role of additives as interlayer materials that modulate the effective work‐function of the organic/metal interface.     

Anti-forensics of JPEG compression detection schemes using approximation of DCT coefficients

Here we propose a unique anti-forensics method using the approximation of DCT coefficients for security analysis of forensics schemes that are dependent on the distortions produced by JPEG compression to detect forgery. Approximation process first builds a model of the AC component of DCT coefficients. Then it uses that model to restore the values of the DCT coefficients. The beauty of the proposed anti-forensics technique is that one can specify any distortion measure and it is capable of minimizing that distortion as long as the specified distortion is produced by JPEG compression or the distortion is measurable in the DCT domain. We specifically mount our anti-forensics technique on three leading JPEG compression detection schemes (Fan and de Queiroz, IEEE Trans Image Process 12(2):230–235, 2003; Lai and Böhme 2011) to highlight their weaknesses. Though these schemes are based on three different distortions metrics, still we could achieve \(100\%\) missed detection rate for JPEG images having quality factor more than equal to \(60\%\). Our analysis raises a serious question regarding the robustness and security of JPEG artifact based forgery detection schemes.