A review of the characteristics of 108 author-level bibliometric indicators

An increasing demand for bibliometric assessment of individuals has led to a growth of new bibliometric indicators as well as new variants or combinations of established ones. The aim of this review is to contribute with objective facts about the usefulness of bibliometric indicators of the effects of publication activity at the individual level. This paper reviews 108 indicators that can potentially be used to measure performance on the individual author level, and examines the complexity of their calculations in relation to what they are supposed to reflect and ease of end-user application.Comment: to be published in Scientometrics, 201

Science and Strategy: How Scientific and Technical Information Are Used in Disputes Over Landslide Regulations in Seattle, WA

This thesis investigates the ways in which scientific and technical information are used to challenge policies regarding development in landslide-prone areas in Seattle, Washington. It examines the values that underlie actor arguments within those challenges, using the theoretical lens of Science, Technology, and Society. Twelve case studies are selected from a set of 90 permitting appeals, court cases, and growth management hearings board appeals between the years of 1990 and 2015, and analyzed to identify the complex ways in which scientific information is used to further actor positions. A narrative analysis approach is used to analyze the case studies, archived news coverage, and interviews with geologists and planners in order to identify actor values and narratives. The results of this project suggest that, despite the science-centered arguments of developers and government, actor decisions are highly influenced by values. Neighbors who oppose development draw their arguments from aesthetic values; developers draw their arguments from values that center on property rights and right to accept risk; and all actors, including government, base arguments on potential economic gains or losses. What can be concluded is that despite hillside development policy being based upon science and technical knowledge, actor arguments and concerns are often based upon values, which cannot be articulated through science and technical information. Though well-resourced actors can influence policy through the leveraging of science and technical information, the prominence of values in debates about landslide regulation indicate that science-based policy approaches that do not consider values may encounter more challenges from the public

Geomorphometric assessment of the impacts of dam construction on river disconnectivity and flow regulation in the Yangtze basin

open4Rivers are under increasing pressure from anthropogenic impacts with incremental dam construction, experiencing global and regional alteration due to river disconnectivity, flow regulation, and sediment reduction. Assessing the cumulative impacts of dams on river disconnectivity in large river basins can help us better understand how humans disintegrate river systems and change the natural flow regimes. Using the Yangtze basin as the study area, this study employed three modified metrics (river connectivity index, RCI; basin disconnectivity index, BDI; and the degree of regulation for each river section, DOR) to evaluate the cumulative impacts on river disconnectivity over the past 50 years. The results indicated that the Yangtze had experienced strong alterations, despite varying degrees and spatial patterns. Among the major tributaries, the greatest impact (lowest RCI value) happened in the Wu tributary basin due to the construction of cascade dams on the main stem of the tributary, while the lowest impact (highest RCI value) happened in the Fu tributary basin, which still has no dams on its main stem. Collectively, rivers in the upper Yangtze reaches experienced more serious disturbances than their counterparts in the middle and lower reaches. The BDI results displayed that a substantial part of the Yangtze River, especially the Wu, Min, Jialing, and Yuan tributaries, only maintain connectivity among one to three representative river systems. No part of the Yangtze connects all the 12 representative river systems. This study also revealed that small dams can also exert significant impacts in flow regulation on regional river systems through their sheer number and density. The study results can help promote more environmentally sustainable river management policies in the Yangtze basin.openYang X.; Lu X.; Ran L.; Tarolli P.Yang, X.; Lu, X.; Ran, L.; Tarolli, P

Gender differences in the research productivity of natural and social scientists

The authors of the study present bibliometric research of WoS-indexed productivity from 1996 to 2005 of all Croatian natural and social scientists who hold a doctorate. Gender differences are significant in the natural sciences, as opposed to the social sciences (which show much smaller WoS production and visibility). When a minimal set of productivity predictors was used, there was no significant impact of gender on publications and citations in the social sciences, and a significant but small impact in the natural fields. In the latter area, the influence of gender disappears when the number of publications is added to the predictors of citations. Consequently, women’ s publications, whether in the natural or the social sciences, do not have lesser international visibility than men’ s, which - in line with some other studies – indicates women’ s scientific achievement since they, according to numerous empirical studies, do not have the same professional advantages as men

Measurement of illness perception and behaviour along a continuum of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis: a transdisciplinary approach

Objectives: A multifactorial approach is recommended for the identification/diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of pain in knee osteoarthritis (OA). One aspect of this approach includes illness perception and behaviour. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the measurement of illness perception and behaviour along a continuum of symptomatic knee OA, starting from the early symptoms of knee OA. Methods: Three studies were conducted to fulfill this purpose. The first study was a scoping review that applied an interpretative analysis to validated measures that had been used to assess people with knee pain and/or knee OA. Second was the construct validation of a measure of illness perception and behaviour in people with early symptoms of knee OA and confirmed knee OA. Third was a study of a rat model of post-traumatic knee OA that was undertaken to identify behavioural measures that were significantly different between rats with and without knee OA. Results: The scoping review identified 16 validated measures that capture components of illness perception and behaviour. Only one measure, the Questionnaire to Identify Knee Symptoms (QuIKS), capture all four components of illness perception and behaviour. In the second study, a version of the QuIKS called the QuIKS-R was found to be unidimensional and to provide interval-level scaling of illness perception and behaviour. In the third study, ipsilateral weight-bearing deficit and vertical activity limitations were identified as two behavioural measures that differed between the rat model of post-traumatic knee OA and control groups. Conclusions: The three studies in this thesis identified measures that could be important in advancing the identification and care of people with symptoms of knee OA, in terms of clinical care, clinical research with humans and preclinical research with the rat model of post-traumatic knee OA

Advanced mathematics and deductive reasoning skills: testing the Theory of Formal Discipline

This thesis investigates the Theory of Formal Discipline (TFD): the idea that studying mathematics develops general reasoning skills. This belief has been held since the time of Plato (2003/375B.C), and has been cited in recent policy reports (Smith, 2004; Walport, 2010) as an argument for why mathematics should hold a privileged place in the UK's National Curriculum. However, there is no rigorous research evidence that justifies the claim. The research presented in this thesis aims to address this shortcoming. Two questions are addressed in the investigation of the TFD: is studying advanced mathematics associated with development in reasoning skills, and if so, what might be the mechanism of this development? The primary type of reasoning measured is conditional inference validation (i.e. `if p then q; not p; therefore not q'). In two longitudinal studies it is shown that the conditional reasoning behaviour of mathematics students at AS level and undergraduate level does change over time, but that it does not become straightforwardly more normative. Instead, mathematics students reason more in line with the `defective' interpretation of the conditional, under which they assume p and reason about q. This leads to the assumption that not-p cases are irrelevant, which results in the rejection of two commonly-endorsed invalid inferences, but also in the rejection of the valid modus tollens inference. Mathematics students did not change in their reasoning behaviour on a thematic syllogisms task or a thematic version of the conditional inference task. Next, it is shown that mathematics students reason significantly less in line with a defective interpretation of the conditional when it is phrased `p only if q' compared to when it is phrased `if p then q', despite the two forms being logically equivalent. This suggests that their performance is determined by linguistic features rather than the underlying logic. The final two studies investigated the heuristic and algorithmic levels of Stanovich's (2009a) tri-process model of cognition as potential mechanisms of the change in conditional reasoning skills. It is shown that mathematicians' defective interpretation of the conditional stems in part from heuristic level processing and in part from effortful processing, and that the executive function skills of inhibition and shifting at the algorithmic level are correlated with its adoption. It is suggested that studying mathematics regularly exposes students to implicit `if then' statements where they are expected to assume p and reason about q, and that this encourages them to adopt a defective interpretation of conditionals. It is concluded that the TFD is not supported by the evidence; while mathematics does seem to develop abstract conditional reasoning skills, the result is not more normative reasoning