The Ultralight project: the network as an integrated and managed resource for data-intensive science

Looks at the UltraLight project which treats the network interconnecting globally distributed data sets as a dynamic, configurable, and closely monitored resource to construct a next-generation system that can meet the high-energy physics community's data-processing, distribution, access, and analysis needs

Identifying collaboration dynamics of bipartite author-topic networks with the influences of interest changes

Knowing driving factors and understanding researcher behaviors from the dynamics of collaborations over time offer some insights, i.e. help funding agencies in designing research grant policies. We present longitudinal network analysis on the observed collaborations through co-authorship over 15 years. Since co-authors possibly influence researchers to have interest changes, by focusing on researchers who could become the influencer, we propose a stochastic actor-oriented model of bipartite (two-mode) author-topic networks from article metadata. Information of scientific fields or topics of article contents, which could represent the interests of researchers, are often unavailable in the metadata. Topic absence issue differentiates this work with other studies on collaboration dynamics from article metadata of title-abstract and author properties. Therefore, our works also include procedures to extract and map clustered keywords as topic substitution of research interests. Then, the next step is to generate panel-waves of co-author networks and bipartite author-topic networks for the longitudinal analysis. The proposed model is used to find the driving factors of co-authoring collaboration with the focus on researcher behaviors in interest changes. This paper investigates the dynamics in an academic social network setting using selected metadata of publicly-available crawled articles in interrelated domains of "natural language processing" and "information extraction". Based on the evidence of network evolution, researchers have a conformed tendency to co-author behaviors in publishing articles and exploring topics. Our results indicate the processes of selection and influence in forming co-author ties contribute some levels of social pressure to researchers. Our findings also discussed on how the co-author pressure accelerates the changes of interests and behaviors of the researchers

A roadmap to develop dementia research capacity and capability in Pakistan: a model for low- and middle-income countries

Objective To produce a strategic roadmap for supporting the development of dementia research in Pakistan. Background While global research strategies for dementia research already exist, none is tailored to the specific needs and challenges of low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) like Pakistan. Methods We undertook an iterative consensus process with lay and professional experts to develop a Theory of Change-based strategy for dementia research in Pakistan. This included Expert Reference Groups (ERGs), strategic planning techniques, a “research question” priority survey, and consultations with Key Opinion Leaders. Results We agreed on ten principles to guide dementia research in Pakistan, emphasizing pragmatic, resource sparing, real-world approaches to support people with dementia, both locally and internationally. Goals included capacity/capability building. Priority research topics included raising awareness and understanding of dementia, and improving quality of life. Conclusion This roadmap may be a model for other LMIC health ecosystems with emerging dementia research cultures

Small World Network of Athletes: Graph Representation of the World Professional Tennis Player

The paper proposes an alternative way to observe and extract the multiple matches games of sports, i.e.: tennis tournament in the Athlete’s Historical Relative Performance Index and its representation as graph. The finding of the small world topology is elaborated along with further statistical patterns in the fashion of the weighted and directed network. The explanation of the sport tournament system as a highly optimized system is hypothetically proposed. Finally, some elaborations regarding to further directions of the usability of the proposed methodology is discussed