Validation study: Patent citations as indicators of science and foreign dependence

The purpose of this study was to test whether the distribution of citations from issued U.S. patents could be used to measure the science dependence and the foreign dependence of patented technologies. The citations considered were front page references from U.S. patents citing to U.S. and foreign patents, to research papers and to other publications. Rankings based on the number of citations per patent to the scientific literature were compared to peer rankings of the science dependence of the technologies. Rankings based on the number of citations to foreign origin material, including foreign origin U.S. patents, foreign patents and foreign priority statements, were compared to peer rankings of the foreign dependence of the technological areas.For the analysis a total of 24 technologies were chosen. Twelve of these were judged in advance to be science dependent and twelve were judged in advance to be foreign dependent. A peer group of 19 high level R&D managers was asked to rank all 24 technologies in terms of both their science and their foreign dependence. The bibliometric rankings of the technologies, based on their citations, were then compared with the peer rankings of the technologies.Overall, a high degree of agreement was found between the experts' opinion as to the science and foreign dependence of the areas and the corresponding bibliometric rankings. For example, the eight technologies judged most science dependent by experts averaged 0.92 cites per patent to scientific journal papers, while the eight technologies judged least science dependent had only 0.05 references per patent to journal papers. Similarly, large and statistically significant differences were found in the number of cites to foreign origin material for the eight technologies judged most foreign dependent by the experts when compared with the eight technologies judged least foreign dependent by the experts. These findings provide support for the hypothesis that patent citation data can be used in technological indicators development, and in technological policy analysis. They imply that citation-based location and analysis of science and foreign dependent technologies is a valid research tool when applied to the U.S. patent system.     

Traumatic Stress, Perceived Global Stress, and Life Events: Prospectively Predicting Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Patients.

The authors investigated the relationship between stress at initial cancer diagnosis and treatment and subsequent quality of life (QoL). Women (n = 112) randomized to the assessment-only arm of a clinical trial were initially assessed after breast cancer diagnosis and surgery and then reassessed at 4 months (during adjuvant treatment) and 12 months (postadjuvant treatment). There were 3 types of stress measured: number of stressful life events (K. A. Matthews et al., 1997), cancer-related traumatic stress symptoms (M. J. Horowitz, N. Wilner, & W. Alvarez, 1979), and perceived global stress (S. Cohen, T. Kamarck, & R. Mermelstein, 1983). Using hierarchical multiple regressions, the authors found that stress predicted both psychological and physical QoL (J. E. Ware, K. K. Snow, & M. Kosinski, 2000) at the follow-ups (all ps     

A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension.

Presents a model of reading comprehension that accounts for the allocation of eye fixations of 14 college students reading scientific passages. The model deals with processing at the level of words, clauses, and text units. Readers made longer pauses at points where processing loads were greater. Greater loads occurred while readers were accessing infrequent words, integrating information from important clauses, and making inferences at the ends of sentences. The model accounts for the gaze duration on each word of text as a function of the involvement of the various levels of processing. The model is embedded in a theoretical framework capable of accommodating the flexibility of reading. (70 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of temperature and pH on the post-mortem degradation of myofibrillar proteins

Incubation of bovine muscle at 37°C promoted a more drastic proteolytic change in myofibrillar proteins, as determined from sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gels of isolated myofibrils, than incubation at 4°C. Degradation of myosin and troponin-T were the most noticeable changes at 37°C. Loss of α-actinin was observed in the 4°C incubated muscle. Ground bovine muscle incubated at pH 5·4 and 7 revealed that alterations in myosin and troponin-T were the most noticeable changes at ph 5·4 while troponin-T and α-actinin were altered at pH7. More troponin-T degradation occurred at pH 5·4 and 37°C than at pH7 and 4°C (similar to the degradation of myosin), indicating that troponin-T degradation in post-mortem muscle may be an indicator of overall myofibrillar proteolysis and not responsible for post-mortem tenderisation per se. Myosin degradation in the ground samples incubated at pH 5·4 and in whole samples incubated at 37°C was compared with the digestion of myofibrillar myosin by papain. Both pyrophosphate and Guba-Straub extracts of the 37°C and pH 5·4 treated samples confirmed that myosin degradation did occur to a much greater extent at this temperature and pH than at 4°C and pH7, and, in addition, at pH 5·4 frequent cleavage occurred near the papain sensitive site of myosin.     

Revisiting and Extending Interface Penalties for Multi-domain Summation-by-Parts Operators

A general interface procedure is presented for multi-domain collocation methods satisfying the summation-by-parts (SBP) spatial discretization convention. Unlike more traditional operators (e.g. FEM) applied to the advection-diffusion equation, the new procedure penalizes the solution and the first p derivatives across the interface. The combined interior/interface operators are proven to be pointwise stable, and conservative, although accuracy deteriorates for p≥2. Penalties between two different sets of variables are compared (motivated by FEM primal and flux formulations), and are shown to be equivalent for certain choices of penalty parameters. Extensive validation studies are presented using two classes of high-order SBP operators: (1) central finite difference, and (2) Legendre spectral collocation.     

On thermal and vibrational properties of LaGaO3 single crystals

The thermal expansion and vibrational properties of [1 0 0] and [0 0 1] LaGaO₃ single crystals have been studied by thermal mechanical analysis and micro-Raman spectroscopy. A first-order orthorhombic to rhombohedral phase transition has been confirmed by both techniques, as well as by in situ heating using optical microscopy. The appearance of a metastable intermediate phase, tentatively assigned as monoclinic, has been detected both by optical microscopy and Raman spectroscopy upon heating of the [1 0 0] and [0 0 1] LaGaO₃ single crystals. Not only temperature, but the stress-induced orthorhombic to rhombohedral phase transition has also been detected by Raman mapping of the residual impression made by Vickers indentation. The position map of bands belonging to the lower-temperature/pressure orthorhombic and the higher-temperature/pressure rhombohedral phase show that the rhombohedral phase is located inside the impression, where the applied indentation stresses are the highest, whereas no rhombohedral phase is detected outside the impression, where the surface has not been altered by contact stresses.     

Spectral Analysis of F.M. Video and Data Signals Applicable to Interference Determination

The requirement for spectral analysis in the determination of interference levels is described. Previous analytical work is briefly considered and extensions to this work are examined in some detail. Approximate evaluation of a model for F.M. video spectra is given as an analytical solution.     

Attribution difficulty and memory for attribution-relevant information.

Compared the processing and retrieval of attribution-relevant information when the attributional inference is easy or difficult to make. Ss attributed behavioral events to the person or to the situation, based on several items of context information. Each context sentence implied either the person or the entity as causal agent. When the attributional inference was difficult to make (an equal number of context sentences implied actor and entity as the causal agent), Ss recalled more of the behavioral events, recalled more context sentences, and were less confident in their attributions than when the attributional inference was easy to make (most context sentences implied the same causal agent). Ss also recalled context information that was implicationally incongruent with the majority of the other context sentences with a higher probability than when that same information was implicationally congruent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of scale/metal interface characteristics on the oxidation behaviour of iron at elevated temperatures

The oxidation kinetics of cold-rolled Remko iron coupons in purified oxygen at atmospheric pressure in the temperature range 973–1173K and the morphologies of both oxide scales and subtrate surfaces were studied using thermogravimetric, metallographic and scanning electron-microscope techniques.Parabolic oxidation rate constants were found to decrease after initial varying periods of constancy, an effect believed to be due to void formation at the wüstite/iron interfaces by the coalescence of vacancies. The observed subsequent recoveries of the values of the rate constants were considered to be due to an increase in oxide growth stresses to values large enough to cause appreciable plastic flow of oxide, thereby decreasing the number of interfacial voids.The extent of the deviations from the initial values of the rate constants decreased as the oxidation temperature was increased and this was considered to be due to the enhanced plasticity of the scale and increased rate of stress generation which favoured the elimination of the interfacial voids.In the temperature range 973–1073K, there were periods in which logarithmic growth relationships were observed, the mechanism being similar to that suggested by Evans, and involving a continuous increase in the number of interfacial voids.