Do funded papers attract more usage?

Research funding has been seen as one of the most important resource in the reward system of science. And usage of publications denotes an interesting perspective of user behavior in scientific communication. This study aims to address the relationship between funding and Usage Count, which is a new metrics item established on the platform of Web of Science. Full records of 300,010 articles published in 2013 were downloaded in October 2015, and divided into six disciplines, including information science library science, education educational research, economics, computer science, materials science, and chemistry. Seven indicators were proposed to measure the impact, including Funding rate, Citation per paper, Usage rate, Usage per paper, Citation difference, Usage difference, and Conversion rate. It concluded funding has impact on usage and citation, and funded papers attract more usage, but varying in different disciplines. Usage Count can be used in the extension of citation metrics but with limits. This study originally engages with usage metrics and detected that there is positive correlation between usage and funding.     

A multi-criteria context-sensitive approach for social image collection summarization

Recent increase in the number of digital photos in the content sharing and social networking websites has created an endless demand for techniques to analyze, navigate, and summarize these images. In this paper, we focus on image collection summarization. Earlier methods in image collection summarization consider representativeness and diversity criteria while recent ones also consider other criteria such as image quality, aesthetic or appeal. In this paper, we propose a multi-criteria context-sensitive approach for social image collection summarization. In the proposed method, two different sets of features are combined while each one looks at different criteria for image collection summarization: social attractiveness features and semantic features. The first feature set considers different aspects that make an image appealing such as image quality, aesthetic, and emotion to create attractiveness score for input images while the second one covers semantic content of images and assigns semantic score to them. We use social network infrastructure to identify attractiveness features and domain ontology for extracting ontology features. The final summarization is provided by integrating the attractiveness and semantic features of input images. The experimental results on a collection of human generated summaries on a set of Flickr images demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed image collection summarization approach.     

Solar light-driven reduction of crystal violet by a composite of g-C3N4, β-Ag2Se, γ-Fe2O3 and graphite

Abstract

In this work, a new g-C₃N₄-based Z-scheme with γ-Fe₂O₃ and β-Ag₂Se both n-type semiconductors, and graphite to favor electron exchange is presented. The composite material was studied by XRD, FTIR, UV-Vis, TEM, XPS, TGA, DSC and TOF-SIMS, and the ability of this photocatalytic system to act as a photo-reductant was assessed using crystal violet (CV⁺) dye. Solar light driven photo-reduction of CV⁺ in the presence of tri-sodium citrate evidenced a synergistic enhancement of the activity of the composite toward reduction, with ～20 times higher conversion rates per unit of surface area than those of g-C₃N₄. Photo-oxidation experiments under Xe lamp irradiation in the presence of H₂O₂ also showed that the AgFeCN composite featured a higher activity (～8×) than g-C₃N₄. This Z-scheme may deserve further study as a photo-reductant to obtain hydrogen or hydrogenated compounds. Moreover, the use of CV⁺ may represent a facile procedure that can aid in the selection of new photocatalysts to be used in hydrogen production.     

Design and evaluation of a mobile smart home interactive system with elderly users in Brazil

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing - This article presents a study concerning the evaluation of a smart home control system for elderly people with a sample of 10 users in a city in the interior of...     

Inferring kinetic dissolution of NaCl in aqueous glycol solution using a low-cost apparatus and population balance model

An experimental methodology for inferring brine dissolution rate in monoethylene glycol (MEG) solutions at different temperatures using a webcam combined with a mathematical model is presented. The measurement system is designed to track the RGB (red, green, and blue) colour variations during the dissolution process. A dynamic model augmented with the population balance equation is applied to describe the dissolution process. Moreover, the dissolution rate is consistently related to the temperature and MEG concentration through the driving force based on the Gibbs energy and chemical affinity. The applied low-cost measurement apparatus proved to be a useful resource for tracking the dissolution dynamics in a wide range of undersaturation.     

Efficient PL Emission from p-type Porous Silicon: A Comparative Study for Selection of Effective Anodization Parameters

The physical mechanism of highly efficient photoluminescence (PL) emission from p-type silicon is described by a comparative study of the effectiveness of the etching parameters in an electrochemical anodization technique. Two series of porous silicon samples were prepared in a combination of anodization current and time, to maintain the total amount of anodic charge transfer constant. Photoluminescence studies show that irrespective of the amount of charge transfer, the samples prepared with comparatively higher current density show an efficient PL as well as stronger blueshift in the emission energy vis-à-vis the samples prepared for longer durations. An overall decrease in crystallite size, as estimated by Raman spectral analysis, was observed for both series of samples with the progress of charge transfer. Comparative analysis shows a marginal difference in crystallite size for both series of samples in the initial state of charge transfer, whereas major differences arise at higher values. This is explained with the formation of silicon suboxide on the porous surface at higher current density, leading to initiation of side wall reaction, and higher reduction rate in crystallite size as well as strong luminescence due to the carrier quantum confinement effect.     

Eu@C86 isomers: Calculated relative populations

Abstract

Relative populations of four energy-lowest IPR (isolated-pentagon-rule) isomers of Eu@C₈₆ are computed using the Gibbs energy based on characteristics from density functional theory calculations (M06-2X/3-21G?～?SDD entropy term, M06-2X/6-31G*～SDD or B2PLYP(D)/6-31G*～SDD energetics). The calculations confirm that the recently isolated Eu@C₁(7)-C₈₆ species is a major isomer in a relevant temperature region. Relationship to the empty C₈₆ cages is discussed, too.     

Formalization of Ring Theory in PVS

This paper presents a PVS development of relevant results of the theory of rings. The PVS theory includes complete proofs of the three classical isomorphism theorems for rings, and characterizations of principal, prime and maximal ideals. Algebraic concepts and properties are specified and formalized as generally as possible allowing in this manner their application to other algebraic structures. The development provides the required elements to formalize important algebraic theorems. In particular, the paper presents the formalization of the general algebraic-theoretical version of the Chinese remainder theorem (CRT) for the theory of rings, as given in abstract algebra textbooks, proved as a consequence of the first isomorphism theorem. Also, the PVS theory includes a formalization of the number-theoretical version of CRT for the structure of integers, which is the version of CRT found in formalizations. CRT for integers is obtained as a consequence of the general version of CRT for the theory of rings.