Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and productivity of schizophrenia trials: an ecological study

The 5000 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group's database affords an opportunity to research for variables related to the differences between nations of their output of schizophrenia trials. Ecological study – investigating the relationship between four economic/demographic variables and number of schizophrenia RCTs per country. The variable with closest correlation was used to predict the expected number of studies. GDP closely correlated with schizophrenia trial output, with 76% of the total variation about the Y explained by the regression line (r = 0.87, 95% CI 0.79 to 0.92, r2 = 0.76). Many countries have a strong tradition of schizophrenia trials, exceeding their predicted output. All nations with no identified trial output had GDPs that predicted zero trial activity. Several nations with relatively small GDPs are, nevertheless, highly productive of trials. Some wealthy countries seem either not to have produced the expected number of randomised trials or not to have disseminated them to the English-speaking world. This hypothesis-generating study could not investigate causal relationships, but suggests, that for those seeking all relevant studies, expending effort searching the scientific literature of Germany, Italy, France, Brazil and Japan may be a good investment

Trajectories of distress following the great East Japan earthquake : a multi-wave prospective study

The March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear leak were complex traumas. We examined psychological distress in the years following the earthquake using growth mixture modeling to classify responses from 2,599 linked respondents (2012–2016). We identified four classes of trajectories following the disaster: resilient (76% of respondents), delayed distress (8%), recovery (8%), and chronic distress (7%). Compared with the resilient class, other class members were less likely to be female and had less social support. Survivors in the recovery group were more likely to live in prefabricated housing. Although distress has decreased over time, specific populations continue to require targeted intervention

Origins of Modern Data Analysis Linked to the Beginnings and Early Development of Computer Science and Information Engineering

The history of data analysis that is addressed here is underpinned by two themes, -- those of tabular data analysis, and the analysis of collected heterogeneous data. "Exploratory data analysis" is taken as the heuristic approach that begins with data and information and seeks underlying explanation for what is observed or measured. I also cover some of the evolving context of research and applications, including scholarly publishing, technology transfer and the economic relationship of the university to society.Comment: 26 page

The Dawn of Open Access to Phylogenetic Data

The scientific enterprise depends critically on the preservation of and open access to published data. This basic tenet applies acutely to phylogenies (estimates of evolutionary relationships among species). Increasingly, phylogenies are estimated from increasingly large, genome-scale datasets using increasingly complex statistical methods that require increasing levels of expertise and computational investment. Moreover, the resulting phylogenetic data provide an explicit historical perspective that critically informs research in a vast and growing number of scientific disciplines. One such use is the study of changes in rates of lineage diversification (speciation - extinction) through time. As part of a meta-analysis in this area, we sought to collect phylogenetic data (comprising nucleotide sequence alignment and tree files) from 217 studies published in 46 journals over a 13-year period. We document our attempts to procure those data (from online archives and by direct request to corresponding authors), and report results of analyses (using Bayesian logistic regression) to assess the impact of various factors on the success of our efforts. Overall, complete phylogenetic data for ~60% of these studies are effectively lost to science. Our study indicates that phylogenetic data are more likely to be deposited in online archives and/or shared upon request when: (1) the publishing journal has a strong data-sharing policy; (2) the publishing journal has a higher impact factor, and; (3) the data are requested from faculty rather than students. Although the situation appears dire, our analyses suggest that it is far from hopeless: recent initiatives by the scientific community -- including policy changes by journals and funding agencies -- are improving the state of affairs

Star Scientists, Innovation and Regional and National Immigration

We follow the careers 1981-2004 of 5401 star scientists listed in ISI HighlyCitedSM as most highly cited by their peers. Their number in a US region or a top-25 science and technology (S&T) country significantly increases the probability of firm entry in the S&T field in which they are working. Stars rather than their disembodied discoveries are key for high-tech entry. Stars become more concentrated over time, moving disproportionately from areas with few peers in their discipline to many, except for a countercurrent of some foreign-born American stars returning home. High impact articles and university articles all tend to diffuse. America has 62 percent of the world’s stars as residents, primarily because of its research universities which produce them. Migration plays a significant role in some developing countries.

Homi Jehangir Bhabha as a Knowledge Generating System: A Longitudinal Cognition Study

Quantitative analysis of the events of synchronous references in the research papers followed throughout the publishing career of an individual scientist revealed interesting highlights on the knowledge-generating-system. In the case study of Homi Jehangir Bhabha first quinquennium and fifth quinquennium of his research career had low Self-references; third quinquennium and fourth quinquennium had moderate Self-references; whereas second quinquennium had highest Self-references. The two major clusters of Self-references occurring during the second and third quinquennium were indicators of active periods of knowledgegenerating and faster communications

Recent Trends on Liquid Air Energy Storage: A Bibliometric Analysis

The increasing penetration of renewable energy has led electrical energy storage systems to have a key role in balancing and increasing the e ciency of the grid. Liquid air energy storage (LAES) is a promising technology, mainly proposed for large scale applications, which uses cryogen (liquid air) as energy vector. Compared to other similar large-scale technologies such as compressed air energy storage or pumped hydroelectric energy storage, the use of liquid air as a storage medium allows a high energy density to be reached and overcomes the problem related to geological constraints. Furthermore, when integrated with high-grade waste cold/waste heat resources such as the liquefied natural gas regasification process and hot combustion gases discharged to the atmosphere, LAES has the capacity to significantly increase the round-trip efficiency. Although the first document in the literature on the topic of LAES appeared in 1974, this technology has gained the attention of many researchers around the world only in recent years, leading to a rapid increase in a scientific production and the realization of two system prototype located in the United Kingdom (UK). This study aims to report the current status of the scientific progress through a bibliometric analysis, defining the hotspots and research trends of LAES technology. The results can be used by researchers and manufacturers involved in this entering technology to understand the state of art, the trend of scientific production, the current networks of worldwide institutions, and the authors connected through the LAES. Our conclusions report useful advice for the future research, highlighting the research trend and the current gaps.This work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades de España (RTI2018-093849-B-C31—MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). This work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades - Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) (RED2018-102431-T). The authors at the University of Lleida would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group GREiA (2017 SGR 1537). GREiA is a certified agent TECNIO in the category of technology developers from the Government of Catalonia. This work was partially supported by ICREA under the ICREA Academia program

Convergence and divergence in welfare state development: an assessment of education policy in OECD countries

In this paper, we quantitatively assess education policy change in OECD countries. While research in social policy has shown that convergence in welfare provision can only partially be assessed in OECD countries, it has yet to be assessed to what extent this also concerns the sector of education. By distinguishing educational expenditures, educational governance and educational outputs, we analyze this sector for OECD countries since the 1990s. The paper is structured as follows: We first outline the importance of education and schooling in contemporary social policy. In a second step, we present concepts of convergence and divergence in welfare state development, concluding with assumptions on the state of education policy. In a third step, we present the data and methods used. Afterwards, we track changes in educational expenditures, educational governance and educational outputs. In a concluding section, we compare the findings and outline their significance for research on policy convergence and social policies, as well as for internationalization of education policy. The paper has a mainly empirical aim, contributing to the debate on policy change and convergence in social policy. -- In diesem Papier untersuchen wir den Wandel von Bildungspolitik in OECD Ländern, im besonderen Tendenzen zur Konvergenz. Vergleichbare Analysen in anderen Teilgebieten der Sozialpolitik sind zu dem Ergebnis gekommen, dass nur bedingt Konvergenzeffekte festzustellen sind, für den Bereich Bildungspolitik standen entsprechende Untersuchungen bisher jedoch nicht zur Verfügung. Um auch in diesem Politikfeld den Wandel näher zu bestimmen, unterscheiden wir Ausgaben, Governance und Ergebnisse und analysieren entsprechende Indikatoren mit quantitativen Methoden. Das Papier ist wie folgt strukturiert: Zunächst führen wir in die Rolle von Bildung im Zusammenhang mit Sozialpolitik ein, bevor wir dann näher auf die Frage von Konvergenz und Divergenz eingehen. In einem dritten Schritt stellen wir Methoden und Daten vor, bevor wir den Wandel in den Bereichen Sekundarstufe und Hochschulausbildung seit den 1990ern untersuchen. Es zeigt sich insgesamt leichte Konvergenz in Teilen der Bildungsfinanzierung und der Bildungsgovernance, sowie in den Bildungsergebnissen. Nur einige dieser Effekte sind allerdings statistisch eindeutig signifikant, so dass hier insgesamt bisher eher Tendenzen als eindeutiger Wandel in eine gemeinsame Richtung festzustellen ist.