605 research outputs found
Collaboration in Iranian Scientific Publications
No full textThis study looks at international collaboration in Iranian scientific publications through the ISI Science Citation Index® (SCI) for the years 1995-1999, inclusive. These results are compared to and contrasted with the earlier findings for the periods covering 1985-1994 (Osareh & Wilson 2000). The results of Iran's increasing productivity over a 15-year period are presented. Iran doubled its output in the first two five-year periods and increased 2.8-fold from the second to the third five-year period. The rise in Iran's scientific publication output is due mainly to factors such as the ending of the war, better economic conditions, recent changes in the Iranian government's policy, basic changes in the political environment brought about by the Reformers, expansion of the Iranian presses for national publications, and the recent return of a large number of students trained overseas through government scholarships. External changes also account for the increased productivity, e.g., the acceptance of three Iranian source journals by the SCI, increased access to international databases through the Internet and better electronic communication facilities for international collaboration. One of the most important and significant factors that caused this dramatic rise seems to be the government's research policies in the last few years. Since 1999, the Iran Science, Research and Technology Ministry, has encouraged researchers to publish their non-Farsi language articles in highly ranked international scientific journals, for example, by giving prizes to researchers who publish their articles in ISI-ranked journals
Author Co-Citation Analysis (ACA): a powerful tool for representing implicit knowledge of scholar knowledge workers
No full textIn the last decade, knowledge has emerged as one of the most important and valuable organizational assets. Gradually this importance caused to emergence of new discipline entitled ―knowledge management‖. However one of the major challenges of knowledge management is conversion implicit or tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. Thus Making knowledge visible so that it can be better accessed, discussed, valued or generally managed is a long-standing objective in knowledge management. Accordingly in this paper author co- citation analysis (ACA) will be proposed as an efficient technique of knowledge visualization in academia (Scholar knowledge workers)
Algorithm for whole blood viscosity: Implication for antiplatelet bleeding risk assessment
No full textA series of evaluations on whole blood viscosity (WBV) issues tried to elucidate the sensitivity, specificity and usefulness of the laboratory parameter in clinical practice. The aim of this article is to postulate (1) how to use routine clinical laboratory tests to derive WBV, and (2) the usefulness of WBV in evidence-based practice for determination of the therapeutic risk of bleeding. The study used 10 years of archived clinical pathology data from South West Pathology. WBV was derived from calculations incorporating haematocrit and total protein and extrapolation chart and reference values were developed. Association of and/or changes in WBV level with acetylsalicylates, C-reactive protein (CRP), D-dimer, Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR), Faecal Occult Blood (FOB), homocysteine, International Normalised Ratio (INR), leucocytosis, leukapheresis, and platelet levels were determined. Whether there are differences between grades of WBV levels in the laboratory indices of diabetes, dyslipidaemia and renal function test were also investigated. A comparison with diagnostic digital method was also performed. One possible false assumption is that WBV (akin to CRP and ESR) is too sensitive and not a specific marker for the diagnosis of a pathological condition. Our findings may refute this notion. Interestingly, lower WBV levels are significantly associated with higher INR and acetylsalicylate levels. The observations from this study also elucidate the potential of WBV for evidence-based pathology to support a decision of antiplatelet medication, akin to INR in anticoagulant therapy. The clinical laboratory method postulated here can be performed in any facility that performs routine biochemistry and haematolog
Inflammation and oxidative stress markers in diabetes and hypertension
No full textChloé Pouvreau,1 Antoine Dayre,1 Eugene G Butkowski,2 Beverlie de Jong,2 Herbert F Jelinek2,3 1Faculty of Sciences, University of Poitiers, Poitiers, France; 2School of Community Health, Charles Sturt University, Albury, NSW, Australia; 3Australian School of Advanced Medicine, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia Background: Inflammation and oxidative stress are important factors associated with chronic disease such as essential hypertension (HTN) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, the association of inflammation and oxidative stress in HTN with T2DM as a comorbidity is inconclusive due to the multifactorial nature of these cardiometabolic diseases. Methodology: The influence of pathophysiological factors include genetics, age of patient, and disease progression change throughout the lifespan and require further investigation. The study population included 256 participants attending a rural health screening program who were tested for markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, and coagulation/fibrinolysis. Demographic and clinical variables included, age, gender, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, blood glucose, hemoglobin A1c, estimated glomerular filtration rate, and cholesterol profile. Data were tested for normality, and nonparametric statistics were applied to analyze the sample with significance set at p<0.05. Results: Of the inflammatory markers, interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and IL-10 were significantly different between the control and hypertensive group (p<0.03) and between the HTN+T2DM compared to the HTN group (p<0.05). Significant results for oxidative stress were observed for urinary 8-iso-PGF2α and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) between the control and the HTN+T2DM group (p<0.01). Glutathione (GSH) was also significant between the HTN and HTN+T2DM group (p<0.05). Investigation of the progression of HTN also found significant changes in the inflammatory markers IGF-1, monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1), and (MCP-1/IGF-1)*IL-6 (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that 8-iso-PGF2α and erythrocyte GSH may be clinically useful for assessing HTN and HTN with T2DM as a comorbidity, while significant changes in the inflammatory profile were also observed with HTN progression. Keywords: hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, inflammation, oxidative stress, biomarker
Evaluating Citebase, an open access Web-based citation-ranked search and impact discovery service
No full textCitebase is a new citation-ranked search and impact discovery service that measures citations of scholarly research papers which are openly accessible on the Web, i.e. papers that are assessable continuously online. Other services, such as ResearchIndex, have emerged in recent years to offer citation indexing of Web research papers. In the first detailed user evaluation of an open access Web citation indexing service, Citebase has been evaluated by nearly 200 users from different backgrounds. The paper details the procedures used in the evaluation, and analyses the results of this study, which took place between June and October 2002. It was found that within the scope of its primary components, the search interface and services available from its rich bibliographic records, Citebase can be used simply and reliably for the purpose intended, and that it compares favourably with other bibliographic services. It is shown tasks can be accomplished efficiently with Citebase regardless of the background of the user. More data need to be collected and the process refined before it is as reliable for measuring citation impact of indexed papers. Better explanations and guidance are required for first-time users. Coverage is seen as a limiting factor, even though Citebase indexes over 200,000 papers from arXiv. Non-physicists were frustrated at the lack of papers from other sciences. The principle of citation searching of open access archives has thus been demonstrated and need not be restricted to current users. Since the evaluation, Citebase has become a featured service of the ArXiv physics eprint archives
Phylogenetic relationships of the diatom genus Gomphoneis, and the taxonomy, ultrastructure, and distribution of selected species.
No full textIn the diatom genus Gomphoneis gaps exist in knowledge in the taxonomy and morphology of the cluster of taxa described from Lake Baikal, the ultrastructure of G. elegans, and the taxonomy and ultrastructure of the widely distributed species G. herculeana and G. eriense. Skvortzow indicate species allied to Gomphoneis quadripunctata are present. G. hastata (Wisl.) comb. nov. and G. tumida (Skv. in Skv. and Meyer) comb. nov., possess longitudinal lines in girdle view, while two other species, G. quadripunctata (Ostr.) Dawson ex Ross and Sims and G. olivaceoides (Hust.) Carter and Bailey-Watts, lack longitudinal lines. All four species have stigmoids around the central area and undifferentiated apical pore fields. The Type species of the genus, G. elegans, differs from others first included in the genus, and is similar to the species from Lake Baikal. Gomphoneis elegans has porelli at the footpole undifferentiated from puncta and stigmoids positioned around the base of the central nodule. Longitudinal lines visible in valve view are formed by marginal laminae which extend beneath the valve face. Ultrastructural on G. herculeana and G. eriense indicate similarities with species from western North America and from France. Differentiated apical pore field porelli, longitudinal lines formed by an axial plate, and true stigmata are shared between these two species. Several new subspecific varieties and species closely allied to G. herculeana and G. eriense are proposed. Phylogenetic relationships of Gomphoneis species were evaluated using cladistics. The genus is defined by the features of doubly punctate striae and marginal laminae, and is separated into two subgroups. The two features which define Gomphoneis are sufficient for inclusion in the genus, when the context of the phylogenetic hypothesis is considered. Species previously considered enigmatic, such as G. cantalica, G. transsilvanica, and G. olivacea, are all referred to Gomphoneis. Stratigraphic data suggest Gomphoneis originated in the Mid-Late Miocene and speciated rapidly. Species which underwent an increase in size subsequently became extinct or limited in geographic distribution, while species which underwent a size reduction and lost or reduced their internal siliceous structure became widely distributed. Correlation between these results and changing paleoecologic conditions is discussed. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)PhDBotanyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161822/1/8812928.pd
Frobenius extensions and the exotic nilCoxeter algebra for
No full textIn a previous paper of the first author, the type A affine Cartan matrix was q-deformed to produce a deformation of the reflection representation of the affine Weyl group. This deformation plays a role in the quantum geometric Satake equivalence. In this paper we introduce the study of q-deformed divided difference operators. When q is specialized to a primitive 2m-th root of unity, this affine reflection representation factors through a quotient, the complex reflection group . The divided difference operators now generate a finite-dimensional algebra we call the exotic nilCoxeter algebra. This algebra is new and has surprising features. In addition to the usual braid relations, we prove a new relation called the roundabout relation. A classic result of Demazure, for Weyl groups, states that the polynomial ring of the reflection representation is a Frobenius extension over its subring of invariant polynomials, and describes how the Frobenius trace can be constructed within the nilCoxeter algebra. We study the analogous Frobenius extension for , and identify the Frobenius trace within the exotic nilCoxeter algebra for
The rise of securities markets : what can government do?
No full textUsing U.S. securities markets as a case history, the author explores the role securities markets play in economic development, how they emerge, and how regulation can make them more effective. Why the United States? Two centuries ago, it was a small undeveloped country with serious financial problems. It confronted those problems and, guided by Alexander Hamilton, creatively reformed its financial system, which then became a foundation of the U.S. economic infrastructure and a bulwark for long-term growth. When Hamilton's program established public credit and securitiesmarkets in the 1790s, U.S. citizens were immediately able to borrow from older, richer countries. U.S. wealth then increased until, by the end of the nineteenth century, U.S. residents began to lend and invest more abroad than they borrowed. During the 1820s and 1830s, the United States (usually state governments) borrowed large sums from foreign investors to build roads, canals, and early railroads, to make other transportation improvements, and to capitalize state banks. From the 1830s to the end of the century, still larger sums from overseas went into private U.S. railway companies that provided cheap transcontinental transportation. Most of this borrowing took the form of state and corporate bond sales to overseas investors. The pristine U.S. government credit established by Hamilton thus rubbed off on U.S. state and corporate debt. The British stock market did better than the U.S. market until the United States adopted security-market regulation (including disclosuire rules) under the SEC. Then the U.S. market became a world leader. The U.S. stock market developed more slowly than the bond market, but it both aided and benefited from foreign investment in U.S. bonds. Foreign investors preferred debt securities to equities, yet equities create a safety margin for bondholders who, because of this margin, are more willing to purchase and hold bonds. Foreign investors preferred bonds; U.S. investors, after exporting bonds, held more stocks than bonds at home. Why? Because good stock markets permit the conversion of equity securities into cash.Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Housing Finance,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Financial Intermediation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research
Evaluation of systems for measuring employee exposure to ultrasonic sound at Company XYZ
No full textIncludes bibliographical references
Communication within the scientific process by Croatian journals
No full textThe scientific communication of Croatian cultural community with the worldwide one is studied in Croatian journals from the second half of the 19th century. Twelve titles among those which appeared in that period were analysed if they were published in Croatian irrespective of their geographic or political locality: Gospodarski list (1842- ), Kolo (1842-53), Zora Dalmatinska (1844-49), Pravdonoša (1851-52), Arkiv za pověstnicu jugoslavensku (1851-75), Pravnik (1853-54), Napredak (1859- ), Književnik (1864-66), Rad Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti (1867-8), Šumarski list (1877- ), Liečnički viestnik (1877- ), Glasnik hrvatskoga naravoslovnoga družtva (1886-1907). The appearance of references to works of the forerunners was chosen as the indicator among a dozen possible ones from the pertinent literature. The following questions were sought to be answered: when, and how (including the location within the papers) were the references expressed, (2) is there a full bibliographic information about the source, and (3) is the foreign literature referred to.
The historical framework is established together with the gradual introduction of the references in Croatian journals, from the first case - List měsečni horvatsko-slavonskoga Gospodarskoga Družtva from 1842, through an editorial stabilization - Arkiv za pověstnicu jugoslavensku from 1865, to the almost contemporary referencing style - Glasnik hrvatskoga naravoslovnoga družtva from 1886. The referencing initiator was Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, as the editor of and the author of many a paper in the journal Arkiv za pověstnicu jugoslavensku. The Croatian (scientific) journals came into being with a lag from the European ones by two centuries, but they caught up rather quickly
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