Testing of Lotka’s law and its Suitability to research productivity of Annamalai University, A Higher Education Institution, South India

Lotka’s Law describes the frequency of publications by authors in a given subject/discipline. In the present study, an attempt has been made to study the suitability of the Lotka’s Law to the publications of a Higher Educational institution of a region consisting of academic authors and researchers in various disciplines. Annamalai University has been ranked 20th in the state level and 56th at National level by MHRD. Annamalai University is renowned for its research output performance and has been funded for many major, minor and DST research projects. It has a large network and linkages to academia, R&D organisations and industries. It covers almost all the subjects with 10 Faculties and 49 departments of study. Examines the applicability of Lotka’s Law as a general inverse power (a # 2) and as an inverse square power relationship (a = 2) to the distribution of the research productivity Annamalai University, South India. Two datasets of the research papers (936 and 3370) contributed by Annamalai University academic authors and researchers during the period of 2000-2006 and 2011-2017 were collected from Web of Science Database. A K-S Test was applied to measure the degree of agreement between the distribution of the observed set of data against the inverse general power relationship and the theoretical value of a=2. It was found that the inverse square law of Lotka does not show conformity as such

Gender Variations in Research Productivity: Insights from Scholarly Research

Abstract The variations in research productivity available in the scholarly world, between men and women, have always attracted the interest of many researchers across the globe. The present study aims to identify the differences in research productivity, patent creation, funding, collaboration, citation and impact between men and women across regions and disciplines over a period of time. After the comprehensive literature survey, results of various studies were correlated in a systematic manner for further analyses to reveal the findings and draw conclusions. The findings clearly depict that comparatively, males have a higher average productivity than females for all the performance indicators especially research productivity, patent creation, funding and collaboration across regions and disciplines; however, the gap is narrowing with the passage of time. The researchers have noted many factors, personal as well as academic, responsible for the limited productivity of women in research. Age, marriage, children and domestic workload are some personal factors badly affecting research productivity of women whereas less representation of women in higher education, low academic ranks, and fewer research funds are some of the academic factors affecting the research productivity negatively. In order to eliminate the gender differences in research productivity, some recommendations have been provided. Keywords Gender Variation; Gender Differences; Research Productivity; Research Performance; Research Output; Research Funding; Gender Bias; Research Impac

The Negative Impact of TRIPS on Gender Rights in Access to Health and Food in India: A Study of the Dynamics of Knowledge Economy and Neo-Medieval Governance

Southern developing nations are increasingly emulating the knowledge economy followed by the developed nations of the North. This paradigm is characterized by the signature feature of the regime of TRIPS or individualized legal patents, particularly bio-patents developed through biotechnology in pharmaceutical and agriculture. It is also characterized by corporate social responsibility as a market mode of governance of development and increasing state retrenchment from delivery of public welfare. This form of economy is embedded in multilayered governance of neo-medieval governance where states and corporations tussle for the right to define growth and equity. This thesis argues that such a mode of economy and governance has failed to deliver equity for the marginalized poor women in India. This is explicated through four critical factors. First, there is increasing biopiracy of tribal women\u27s traditional knowledge and denuding of uncodified knowledge of tribal women due to land deprivation which in turn severely affects their health. Second, a thriving pharmaceutical sector has failed to deliver health equity for poor women, particularly by being engaged in creation of medicines that do not have relevance for the main disease profile of the poor - communicable diseases. Third, there is rise of non-communicable diseases of the poor. Patents act as legal barriers to access to medicine and severely impact the health of the poor. Fourth, the rise of Bt seeds in cash crop agriculture has meant that traditionally saved and used food crop seeds are being marginalized and there is a growing agrarian crisis for women who do not have control over land, seeds and seed technology. Fifth, poverty is on the rise which is a sure sign that equity has not trickled down. If the international society of states provides for customized patents for women\u27s traditional knowledge, women\u27s knowledge, health and food security would be better secured

Trends in Infectious Diseases

This book gives a comprehensive overview of recent trends in infectious diseases, as well as general concepts of infections, immunopathology, diagnosis, treatment, epidemiology and etiology to current clinical recommendations in management of infectious diseases, highlighting the ongoing issues, recent advances, with future directions in diagnostic approaches and therapeutic strategies. The book focuses on various aspects and properties of infectious diseases whose deep understanding is very important for safeguarding human race from more loss of resources and economies due to pathogens

Modern Problems of Scientometric Assessment of Publication Activity

As is known, an objective assessment of scientific activity is one of the most difficult problems, in terms of the relationship within itself as well as with society. However, for many decades, the significance of scientists’ contribution to the development of the corresponding branch of science was assessed by the scientific community only by meaningful qualitative criteria, wherein the principle and mechanism of such an assessment was actually intuitive and defied quantitative description. That is why the urgent task was undertaken to create a system for evaluating scientific activity based on some objective indicators of the activity of a particular scientist; in search of such criteria, in the 1970s–1980s, the term “citation index” appeared. Although a close examination of this indicator revealed its limitations and in a number of cases even inadequacy in assessing scientific activity, it has nevertheless since the 1990s gained very wide popularity in the scientific community. This has contributed to the emergence of numerous works aimed at finding new and ideal indicators for assessing publication activity (so-called bibliometric indices). To date, several dozen such indices have been proposed, the most significant of which was the so-called Hirsch index or h-index. Nevertheless, despite the incredibly significant advances in this specific area of sociology, the above problem is still far from resolved. In this regard, the key task of this Special Issue is to familiarize its readers with the latest achievements both in the search for new, more advanced bibliometric indicators and in the improvement of existing ones

An empirical study of the entrepreneurial intentions of research scientists and engineers in South Africa

Thesis (M.M. (Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2015.Universities and public research organisations have an important role to play in enhancing regional economic development through the commercialisation of research outputs. In South Africa, little is known about the motivations behind scientists’ and engineers’ intentions to transition from academic research to entrepreneurship. Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour, this research explores the entrepreneurial intentions of research scientists and engineers and the personal, social and environmental factors influencing these intentions. Primary data was collected at a university and a science council through an online survey. The theory of planned behaviour model was found to adequately explain the entrepreneurial intentions of the sampled research scientists and engineers. The three antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions in this model are an individual’s attitude to the entrepreneurial behaviour, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. The attitude to entrepreneurial behaviour was found to be the main predictor of entrepreneurial intentions. The indirect effects of the subjective norms and the perceived behavioural control on entrepreneurial intentions were investigated using structural equation modelling. The research findings suggest that perceived barriers to, and perceived support structures for, entrepreneurship play a marginal role in influencing research scientists’ and engineers’ intentions to start a new business. Gender and age are important control variables, as they have an indirect effect on entrepreneurial intention through the three antecedents. This study is the first of its kind in South Africa where the theory of planned behaviour is used to explain the entrepreneurial intentions of research scientists and engineers. The study advances the knowledge and understanding of academic entrepreneurship in South Africa by accounting for individual attitudes, beliefs and perceptions

Intellectual Property Rights

This edited volume, Intellectual Property Rights – Patent, is a collection of reviewed and relevant research chapters, offering a comprehensive overview of recent developments in the field of patents and its issues. The book comprises chapters authored by various researchers and edited by experts active in the pharmaceutical research area. All chapters are complete in itself but united under a common research study topic. This publication aims to provide a thorough overview of the latest research efforts on patenting and the related issues for legal experts and the scientific community and open new possible research paths for further novel developments

Collaboration - changing the global landscape of science: proceedings of 10th International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics & 15th COLLNET Meeting 2014, September 3 - 5, 2014, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany

The 10th WIS encourages continued investigation into the field of applied scientometrics. The broad focus of the conference is on collaboration and communication in science and technology, science policy, quantitative aspects of science and combination and integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches in study of scientific practices. The conference thus aims to contribute to evidence-based and informed knowledge about scientific research and practices witch in turn may further provide input to institutional, regional, national and international research and innovation policy making

Study on open science: The general state of the play in Open Science principles and practices at European life sciences institutes

Nowadays, open science is a hot topic on all levels and also is one of the priorities of the European Research Area. Components that are commonly associated with open science are open access, open data, open methodology, open source, open peer review, open science policies and citizen science. Open science may a great potential to connect and influence the practices of researchers, funding institutions and the public. In this paper, we evaluate the level of openness based on public surveys at four European life sciences institute