Models of parenting and its effect on academic productivity:Preliminary results from an international survey

This preliminary paper investigates the cost of parenting engagement on academic productivity and impact. Instead of investigating the relationship between gender and academia, this study focuses on time invested in parenting as the lead factor underpinning productivity differences for both men and women. Survey responses from 17,519 first and last authors publishing between 2007 and 2017 yielded four distinct parenting types: Lead parents; Satellite parents; Sole parents; and Dual parents. In addition a free text box in the survey allowed for the analysis of 5976 qualitative responses about participant’s experiences balancing parenting with their partners, and academic careers. Results show a significant difference across all types of parenting relative to gender for the number of papers produced, as well as for the proportion of papers published in top journals. In addition, for men and women who take on dual parenting roles (a hypothetical 50/50 split), the productivity cost is higher for women. Conversely, there is a significant cost for men and women who take on the role of Lead parent. Further qualitative investigation highlights the incidence of an ‘invisible burden’in self-identified dual parenting families, wherein there is a significant amount of unacknowledged labor that is undertaken by females. This invisible labor may contribute to the difference in productivity between men and women in dual-parenting relationships. © 2019 17th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, ISSI 2019 - Proceedings. All rights reserved

Power Corrections to Fragmentation Functions in Flavour-Singlet Deep Inelastic Scattering

We investigate the power-suppressed corrections to fragmentation functions in flavour-singlet deep inelastic lepton scattering, to complement the previous results for the non-singlet contribution. Our method is a dispersive approach based on an analysis of Feynman graphs containing massive gluons. As in non-singlet deep inelastic scattering we find that the leading corrections are proportional to 1/Q^2.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Color Transparency versus Quantum Coherence in Electroproduction of Vector Mesons off Nuclei

So far no theoretical tool for the comprehensive description of exclusive electroproduction of vector mesons off nuclei at medium energies has been developed. We suggest a light-cone QCD formalism which is valid at any energy and incorporates formation effects (color transparency), the coherence length and the gluon shadowing. At medium energies color transparency (CT) and the onset of coherence length (CL) effects are not easily separated. Indeed, although nuclear transparency measured by the HERMES experiment rises with Q^2, it agrees with predictions of the vector dominance model (VDM) without any CT effects. Our new results and observations are: (i) the good agreement with the VDM found earlier is accidental and related to the specific correlation between Q^2 and CL for HERMES kinematics; (ii) CT effects are much larger than have been estimated earlier within the two channel approximation. They are even stronger at low than at high energies and can be easily identified by HERMES or at JLab; (iii) gluon shadowing which is important at high energies is calculated and included; (iv) our parameter-free calculations explain well available data for variation of nuclear transparency with virtuality and energy of the photon; (v) predictions for electroproduction of \rho and \phi are provided for future measurements at HERMES and JLab.Comment: Latex 57 pages and 17 figure

Hadronic properties of the S_{11}(1535) studied by electroproduction off the deuteron

Properties of excited baryonic states are investigated in the context of electroproduction of baryon resonances off the deuteron. In particular, the hadronic radii and the compositeness of baryon resonances are studied for kinematic situations in which their hadronic reinteraction is the dominant contribution. Specifically, we study the reaction $d(e,e'S_{11})N$ at $Q^2\ge 1 GeV^2$ for kinematics in which the produced hadronic state reinteracts predominantly with the spectator nucleon. A comparison of constituent quark model and effective chiral Lagrangian calculations of the $S_{11}$ shows substantial sensitivity to the structure of the produced resonance.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure

Limits on the production of scalar leptoquarks from Z (0) decays at LEP

A search has been made for pairs and for single production of scalar leptoquarks of the first and second generations using a data sample of 392000 Z0 decays from the DELPHI detector at LEP 1. No signal was found and limits on the leptoquark mass, production cross section and branching ratio were set. A mass limit at 95% confidence level of 45.5 GeV/c2 was obtained for leptoquark pair production. The search for the production of a single leptoquark probed the mass region above this limit and its results exclude first and second generation leptoquarks D0 with masses below 65 GeV/c2 and 73 GeV/c2 respectively, at 95% confidence level, assuming that the D0lq Yukawa coupling alpha(lambda) is equal to the electromagnetic one. An upper limit is also given on the coupling alpha(lambda) as a function of the leptoquark mass m(D0)

Editorial-embracing how scholarly publishing can build a new research culture, post - Covid-19:Publications

It is an absolute pleasure to be writing this, my first Editorial as Editor in Chief for Publications [...

Correction: The impact a-gender: gendered orientations towards research Impact and its evaluation (Palgrave Communications, (2020), 6, 1, (72), 10.1057/s41599-020-0438-z)

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper

When “culture trumps strategy”:higher education institutional strategic plans and their influence on international student recruitment practice

Many higher education institutions (HEIs) seek to attract international students through marketing and recruitment activity. At the same time, HEIs are developing strategic plans that suggest internationalisation strategies such as the recruitment of students are an important consideration for their institutions and these strategies and implementation differ by their individual settings and culture. This study uses an international comparison of three universities to explore how HEIs’ strategic plans shape or mediate international student recruitment practice within higher education. The activity theory is used to compare institutional strategies as an activity by considering how practitioners in different parts of the world shape the meaning, outcome and tensions of their practice. Using this approach, the study examines international student recruitment at three HEIs in Canada, Hong Kong and the UK and shows how practitioners of international student recruitment are influenced by their institutional strategic plans, and the extent of this influence on practice is mediated by institutional culture and the practitioner’s position within the institutional hierarchy. The study results indicate that considering strategy practitioners’ perceptions and interpretations of strategic plans provides HEIs with additional resources to improve strategic planning processes by creating and designing plans that address practice implementation within institutions

The Ethics Ecosystem:Personal Ethics, Network Governance and Regulating Actors Governing the Use of Social Media Research Data

This paper examines the consequences of a culture of “personal ethics” when using new methodologies, such as the use of social media (SM) sites as a source of data for research. Using SM research as an example, this paper explores the practices of a number of actors and researchers within the “Ethics Ecosystem” which as a network governs ethically responsible research behaviour. In the case of SM research, the ethical use of this data is currently in dispute, as even though it is seemingly publically available, concerns relating to privacy, vulnerability, potential harm and consent blur the lines of responsible ethical research behaviour. The findings point to the dominance of a personal, bottom-up, researcher-led, ‘ethical barometer’ for making decisions regarding the permissibility of using SM data. We show that the use of different barometers by different researchers can lead to wide disparities in ethical practice - disparities which are compounded by the lack of firm guidelines for responsible practice of SM research. This has widespread consequences on the development of shared norms and understandings at all levels, and by all actors within the Ethics Ecosystem, and risks inconsistencies in their approaches to ethical decision-making. This paper argues that this governance of ethical behaviour by individual researchers perpetuates a negative cycle of academic practice that is dependent on subjective judgements by researchers themselves, rather than governed by more formalised academic institutions such as the research ethics committee and funding council guidelines