Competition and cooperation: Libraries and publishers in the transition to electronic scholarly journals

The conversion of scholarly journals to digital format is proceeding rapidly, especially for those from large commercial and learned society publishers. This conversion offers the best hope for survival for such publishers. The infamous "journal crisis" is more of a library cost crisis than a publisher pricing problem, with internal library costs much higher than the amount spent on purchasing books and journals. Therefore publishers may be able to retain or even increase their revenues and profits, while at the same time providing a superior service. To do this, they will have to take over many of the function of libraries, and they can do that only in the digital domain. This paper examines publishers' strategies, how they are likely to evolve, and how they will affect libraries

Interactions of slow electrons with biomolecules

We report on results of computational studies of the interaction of slow electrons with the purine and pyrimidine bases of DNA, as well as with their associated nucleosides and nucleotides. The calculations focus on characterisation of the π* resonances associated with the bases and also provide general information on the scattering of slow electrons by these targets. High-level studies of the π* resonances in pyrazine, a close analogue of the pyrimidine bases, indicate that the higher-energy π* resonances in these bases may in fact contain large admixtures of core-excited character built on low-lying triplet states. Decay into such triplet states may provide a mechanism for damage to DNA

Volume and surface propellant heating in an electrothermal radio-frequency plasma micro-thruster

The temporal evolution of neutral gas temperature over the first 5 min of operation for an electrothermal radio-frequency micro-thruster with nitrogen (N2) propellant was measured using rovibrational band matching of the second positive N2 system. Three distinct periods of gas heating were identified with time constants of τ 1 = 8 × 10⁻⁵ s, τ 2 = 8 s, and τ 3 = 100 s. The fast heating (τ 1) is attributed to volumetric heating processes within the discharge driven by ion-neutral collisions. The slow heating (τ 3) is from ion neutralization and vibrational de-excitation on the walls creating wall heating. The intermediate heating mechanism (τ 2) is yet to be fully identified although some theories are suggested.This research was partially funded by the Australian Space Research Program (APT project) and the Australian Research Council Discovery Project (No. DP140100571)

ICT and Economic Growth in Spain 1985-2002

Using new sectoral data on investment and capital services we carry out a growth accounting exercise on Spain 1985-2002. We compute the contribution to output and labour productivity growth of employment, non-ICT and ICT capital, labour qualification and Total Factor Productivity. Results are given for 29 different branches; individually and grouped into four clusters according to their ICT use intensity. Three ICT assets (hardware, communications and software) are considered. We find that although the ICT intensive group appears to be the most dynamic cluster, most of the impact on productivity is still to come. There is some evidence of a reversal of the productivity slow down of the nineties starting in the year 2000.growth accounting, productivity, ICT

Harvesting for disseminating, open archives and role of academic libraries

The Scholarly communication system is in a critical stage, due to a number of factors.The Open Access movement is perhaps the most interesting response that the scientific community has tried to give to this problem. The paper examines strengths and weaknesses of the Open Access strategy in general and, more specifically, of the Open Archives Initiative, discussing experiences, criticisms and barriers. All authors that have faced the problems of implementing an OAI compliant e-print server agree that technical and practical problems are not the most difficult to overcome and that the real problem is the change in cultural attitude required. In this scenario the university library is possibly the standard bearer for the advent and implementation of e-prints archives and Open Archives services. To ensure the successful implementation of this service the Library has a number of distinct roles to play

Slow oxidation of magnetite nanoparticles elucidates the limits of the Verwey transition

Magnetite (Fe3O4) is of fundamental importance as the original magnetic material and also for the Verwey transition near T_V = 125 K, below which a complex lattice distortion and electron orders occur. The Verwey transition is suppressed by strain or chemical doping effects giving rise to well-documented first and second-order regimes, but the origin of the order change is unclear. Here, we show that slow oxidation of monodisperse Fe3O4 nanoparticles leads to an intriguing variation of the Verwey transition that elucidates the doping effects. Exposure to various fixed oxygen pressures at ambient temperature leads to an initial drop to TV minima as low as 70 K after 45-75 days, followed by recovery to a constant value of 95 K after 160 days that persists in all experiments for aging times up to 1070 days. A physical model based on both doping and doping-gradient effects accounts quantitatively for this evolution and demonstrates that the persistent 95 K value corresponds to the lower limit for homogenously doped magnetite and hence for the first order regime. In comparison, further suppression down to 70 K results from inhomogeneous strains that characterize the second-order region. This work demonstrates that slow reactions of nanoparticles can give exquisite control and separation of homogenous and inhomogeneous doping or strain effects on an nm scale and offers opportunities for similar insights into complex electronic and magnetic phase transitions in other materials.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, the manuscript is accepted for publishing at Nature Communication

Will the Open Access Movement be successful?

No doubt that from the point of view of scholars around the world, Open Access (OA) seems to be the obvious solution to the evident problems of scholarly publishing in the present age of commodi?cation. Access to the academic literature would be universally available and hence not restricted to those lucky enough to belong to wealthy institutions that are able to afford all the subscriptions necessary. Furthermore, many believe that only if we have a fully digital, openly accessible archive of the relevant literature, enhanced with overlay functions such as commenting, reviewing and intelligent quality ?ltering, we will be able to overcome restrictions of the present, paper-based scholarly communication system. Many initiatives have been launched (e. g. the Berlin Declaration1), some funding agencies have already reacted by adopting Open Access policies (notably the British Wellcome Trust2, but also the German DFG3 or the Austrian FWF4), new journal models are being tested to prove that Open Access is a viable economic model (e. g. BioMedCentral5), Open Access self-archiving servers ?ourish around the world (not least in philosophy) and even high politics has reacted (most recently the European Commission6). A few years ago, this author boldly predicted that a third phase of (re-)de-commodi?ed scholarly publishing is around the corner after the old de-commodi?ed period and the present age of almost universal commodi?cation (Nentwich 2001). But still, after a decade or so of initiatives (a well-known timeline on Open Access goes back to the 1990s, the Budapest Initiative7 dates from 2002), of testing and promoting only a fraction of the available scienti?c literature is Open Access (a rough estimate is 15 %8). It is growing, no doubt, but we are a long way from universal Open Access. So, will the Open Access Movement be successful? Or, put differently, can it be successful? What are the chances that the incumbents—the big commercial (as well as the non-pro?t, associational) publishing industry will give way to a de-commodi?ed future? Is there a middle-ground where all the players and interests could meet? This paper will contribute to this open debate by analysing recent trends and weighting the arguments put forward (this contribution, however, is not an account of the overwhelming amount of papers published on this issue, but cites them very selectively

Electronic Books in the USA - their numbers and development and a comparison to Germany.

This article will provide data to specify the problem of low e-book-supply. First the total number of commercially available English-speaking e-books in the US-market is stated. Then the growth of the title supply over the last twenty years is reviewed. Third the growth of the publishing-activities in the e-book-market is set in relation to the developments in the hardcover-market. Finally these numbers of the English-speaking market are compared to the numbers for the German-speaking market

Intellectual Property Research: From the Dustiest Law Book to the Most Far off Database

This issue of IDEA introduces a regular series of articles on intellectual property research tools and strategies based on my experience for over a decade as Intellectual Property Librarian and Research Professor at Franklin Pierce Law Center. Pierce Law is consistently ranked among the top law schools training IP professionals. I have taught IP legal research, patent, trademark and copyright searching to hundreds of students and IP professionals in Pierce Law Graduate Programs. I have tackled hundreds of reference and research questions as well as working on countless projects requiring IP information. So I have been faced with challenges and changes common to consumers of IP information. What are the types of data IP researchers seek? What are the options for access to such data? How do we evaluate the access points? What is the value added to our information access choices? The mission of this series is to present tools and strategies and answers some of these consumer questions within evaluative frameworks appropriate to the tools under consideration. Each information acquisition choice is made on a moment-by-moment basis subject to the press of business. Choices are made by the totality of the circumstances. Pressures and factors such as time and money often drive information consumption and will be acknowledged and addressed in the series. Despite the intense growth of IP as a legal specialty, the widespread focus on IP in other disciplines outside the law and the increasing use of non-legal data such as patent statistical indicators, little has been written on IP research. There are no dedicated treatises or periodicals on IP legal research. There are no comprehensive treatises on patent, trademark or copyright searching. The intent of this series is not scholarship and footnotes. The intent is to provide some helpful tools and strategies to those performing IP research on the spectrum from law to facts. So, the phrase IP research in this introduction, unless otherwise specified, refers to the acquisition all types of IP information by the full range of consumers

Open science and modified funding lotteries can impede the natural selection of bad science.

Assessing scientists using exploitable metrics can lead to the degradation of research methods even without any strategic behaviour on the part of individuals, via 'the natural selection of bad science.' Institutional incentives to maximize metrics like publication quantity and impact drive this dynamic. Removing these incentives is necessary, but institutional change is slow. However, recent developments suggest possible solutions with more rapid onsets. These include what we call open science improvements, which can reduce publication bias and improve the efficacy of peer review. In addition, there have been increasing calls for funders to move away from prestige- or innovation-based approaches in favour of lotteries. We investigated whether such changes are likely to improve the reproducibility of science even in the presence of persistent incentives for publication quantity through computational modelling. We found that modified lotteries, which allocate funding randomly among proposals that pass a threshold for methodological rigour, effectively reduce the rate of false discoveries, particularly when paired with open science improvements that increase the publication of negative results and improve the quality of peer review. In the absence of funding that targets rigour, open science improvements can still reduce false discoveries in the published literature but are less likely to improve the overall culture of research practices that underlie those publications