Relay-Linking Models for Prominence and Obsolescence in Evolving Networks

The rate at which nodes in evolving social networks acquire links (friends, citations) shows complex temporal dynamics. Preferential attachment and link copying models, while enabling elegant analysis, only capture rich-gets-richer effects, not aging and decline. Recent aging models are complex and heavily parameterized; most involve estimating 1-3 parameters per node. These parameters are intrinsic: they explain decline in terms of events in the past of the same node, and do not explain, using the network, where the linking attention might go instead. We argue that traditional characterization of linking dynamics are insufficient to judge the faithfulness of models. We propose a new temporal sketch of an evolving graph, and introduce several new characterizations of a network's temporal dynamics. Then we propose a new family of frugal aging models with no per-node parameters and only two global parameters. Our model is based on a surprising inversion or undoing of triangle completion, where an old node relays a citation to a younger follower in its immediate vicinity. Despite very few parameters, the new family of models shows remarkably better fit with real data. Before concluding, we analyze temporal signatures for various research communities yielding further insights into their comparative dynamics. To facilitate reproducible research, we shall soon make all the codes and the processed dataset available in the public domain

Comparative Study of Zinc Oxide Nanostructures Synthesized by Oxidization of Zinc Foil and Zinc Powder

ZnO is one of the most promising semiconductor material in the UV range due to its wide band gap (3.37 eV) and large exciton binding energy (60 meV). So a study of the nature of oxidation of Zn in order to synthesize ZnO is very essential. Here we have tried to study the oxidation behavior of Zinc foil and Zinc powder by oxidizing them in muffle furnace and then carrying out analysis to know if nanostructure is formed or not using SEM, EDX studies along with XRD and DSC/TG. Nanostructures of ZnO were found to grow only at temperatures above 600oC. The surface of the Zn foil is filled with nanostructures of ZnO like nanowires and nanoribbons whereas these structures are not seen in the case of ZnO powder when both the Zn foil and powder were oxidized in the furnace in air in the temperature range 500-600oC. Some indication of probable formation of nanostructure can be seen in sample oxidized at 800o C

Understanding the Impact of Early Citers on Long-Term Scientific Impact

This paper explores an interesting new dimension to the challenging problem of predicting long-term scientific impact (LTSI) usually measured by the number of citations accumulated by a paper in the long-term. It is well known that early citations (within 1-2 years after publication) acquired by a paper positively affects its LTSI. However, there is no work that investigates if the set of authors who bring in these early citations to a paper also affect its LTSI. In this paper, we demonstrate for the first time, the impact of these authors whom we call early citers (EC) on the LTSI of a paper. Note that this study of the complex dynamics of EC introduces a brand new paradigm in citation behavior analysis. Using a massive computer science bibliographic dataset we identify two distinct categories of EC - we call those authors who have high overall publication/citation count in the dataset as influential and the rest of the authors as non-influential. We investigate three characteristic properties of EC and present an extensive analysis of how each category correlates with LTSI in terms of these properties. In contrast to popular perception, we find that influential EC negatively affects LTSI possibly owing to attention stealing. To motivate this, we present several representative examples from the dataset. A closer inspection of the collaboration network reveals that this stealing effect is more profound if an EC is nearer to the authors of the paper being investigated. As an intuitive use case, we show that incorporating EC properties in the state-of-the-art supervised citation prediction models leads to high performance margins. At the closing, we present an online portal to visualize EC statistics along with the prediction results for a given query paper

Citation sentence reuse behavior of scientists: A case study on massive bibliographic text dataset of computer science

Our current knowledge of scholarly plagiarism is largely based on the similarity between full text research articles. In this paper, we propose an innovative and novel conceptualization of scholarly plagiarism in the form of reuse of explicit citation sentences in scientific research articles. Note that while full-text plagiarism is an indicator of a gross-level behavior, copying of citation sentences is a more nuanced micro-scale phenomenon observed even for well-known researchers. The current work poses several interesting questions and attempts to answer them by empirically investigating a large bibliographic text dataset from computer science containing millions of lines of citation sentences. In particular, we report evidences of massive copying behavior. We also present several striking real examples throughout the paper to showcase widespread adoption of this undesirable practice. In contrast to the popular perception, we find that copying tendency increases as an author matures. The copying behavior is reported to exist in all fields of computer science; however, the theoretical fields indicate more copying than the applied fields

Eco Beach Cleaner

Trash and litter left on beaches can endanger the life of coastal animals, like turtles and birds, and also damagetourism industries by diminishing the natural beauty of beaches. To solve this problem, most coastal areas employmanual labor, volunteer work, or large zambonini-like machines to pick of trash. However, these operations are veryexpensive and time-consuming. In order to efficiently stop the increasingly negative impact of trash debris on coastalecosystems, forms of mechanized, autonomous trash collection and disposal need to be utilized. Developing a robot that cantransverse sandy terrain, pick up small trash debris, dispose of contained trash debris, and avoid large objects and theocean all while functioning autonomously presents a variety of technical challenges. The invention is predicated upon thelater developed concept of raking or combing the sand to a degree of continuity and thoroughness that will assureremoval of not only larger sized debris, but also the bulk of smaller pieces such as broken glass, nails and the like,without necessitating or involving the removal or displacement with the debris, of any consequential quantitiesof the beach sand itself. This paper present the controlling and monitoring of the solar power device which is capable ofpicking up the miscellaneous litter which accumulates on the beach and collects all the litter after filltering the sand to aself attached trash box