An exploratory social network analysis of academic research networks

For several decades, academics around the world have been collaborating with the view to support the development of their research domain. Having said that, the majority of scientific and technological policies try to encourage the creation of strong inter-related research groups in order to improve the efficiency of research outcomes and subsequently research funding allocation. In this paper, we attempt to highlight and thus, to demonstrate how these collaborative networks are developing in practice. To achieve this, we have developed an automated tool for extracting data about joint article publications and analyzing them from the perspective of social network analysis. In this case study, we have limited data from works published in 2010 by England academic and research institutions. The outcomes of this work can help policy makers in realising the current status of research collaborative networks in England

The efficiency of top agents: An analysis through service strategy in tennis

We consider the question whether top tennis players in a top tournament (Wimbledon) employ an optimal (efficient) service strategy. While we show that top players do not, in general, follow an optimal strategy, our principal result is that the estimated inefficiencies are not large: the inefficiency regarding winning a point on service is on average 1.1% for men and 2.0% for women, implying that–by adopting an efficient service strategy–players can (on average) increase the probability of winning a match by 2.4%-points for men and 3.2%-points for women. While the inefficiencies may seem small, the financial consequences for the efficient player at Wimbledon can be substantial: the expected paycheck could rise by 18.7% for men and even by 32.8% for women. We use these findings to shed some light on the question of whether economic agents are successful optimizers

Single-crystal X-ray diffraction study of novel pyrazole chalcone derived from 1-phenyl-3-p-tolyl-1H-pyrazole-4-carbaldehyde

143-146Novel pyrazole chalcone has been synthesized by reaction of phenyl-3-p-tolyl-1H-pyrazole-4-carbaldehyde and acetophenone by Claisen-Schmidt reaction in ethanol by microwave assisted method. It has been characterized by elemental analysis and spectroscopic (FTIR, 1H NMR and MS) studies. Crystal structure of the compound has been determined using single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Hydrogen-bonded chain is formed by C–H···O bonding enhanced by C–H···π interaction. Adjacent chains are connected through the π∙∙∙π interactions

Cavitation Inception in Immersed Jet Shear Flows

Cavitation inception occurring in immersed jets was investigated in a purpose-built mechanical flow rig. The rig utilized custom-built cylindrical and conical nozzles to direct high-velocity jets of variable concentration n-octane-hexadecane mixtures into a fused silica optically accessible receiver. The fluid pressure upstream and down-stream of the nozzles were manually controlled. The study employed a variety of acrylic and metal nozzles. The results show that the critical upstream pressure to downstream pressure ratio for incipient cavitation decreases with increasing n-octane concentration for the cylindrical nozzles, and increases with increasing n-octane concentration for the conical nozzle

Approximation of holomorphic mappings on strongly pseudoconvex domains

Let D be a relatively compact strongly pseudoconvex domain in a Stein manifold, and let Y be a complex manifold. We prove that the set A(D,Y), consisting of all continuous maps from the closure of D to Y which are holomorphic in D, is a complex Banach manifold. When D is the unit disc in C (or any other topologically trivial strongly pseudoconvex domain in a Stein manifold), A(D,Y) is locally modeled on the Banach space A(D,C^n)=A(D)^n with n=dim Y. Analogous results hold for maps which are holomorphic in D and of class C^r up to the boundary for any positive integer r. We also establish the Oka property for sections of continuous or smooth fiber bundles over the closure of D which are holomorphic over D and whose fiber enjoys the Convex approximation property. The main analytic technique used in the paper is a method of gluing holomorphic sprays over Cartan pairs in Stein manifolds, with control up to the boundary, which was developed in our paper "Holomorphic curves in complex manifolds" (Duke Math. J. 139 (2007), no. 2, 203--253)

Electrical properties of CdTe near the melting point

A new experimental setup for the investigation of electrical conductivity (σ) in liquid and solid CdTe was built for a better understanding of the properties near the melting point (MP). The temperature dependence of σ was studied, within the interval 1,050-1,130°C, at defined Cd-partial pressures 1.3-1.6 atm, with special attention to the liquid-solid phase transition. We found that the degree of supercooling decreases with increasing Cd overpressure and reaches the lowest value at 1.6 atm without change of the melting temperature during heating

Exploration of PET and MRI radiomic features for decoding breast cancer phenotypes and prognosis.

Radiomics is an emerging technology for imaging biomarker discovery and disease-specific personalized treatment management. This paper aims to determine the benefit of using multi-modality radiomics data from PET and MR images in the characterization breast cancer phenotype and prognosis. Eighty-four features were extracted from PET and MR images of 113 breast cancer patients. Unsupervised clustering based on PET and MRI radiomic features created three subgroups. These derived subgroups were statistically significantly associated with tumor grade (p = 2.0 × 10-6), tumor overall stage (p = 0.037), breast cancer subtypes (p = 0.0085), and disease recurrence status (p = 0.0053). The PET-derived first-order statistics and gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) textural features were discriminative of breast cancer tumor grade, which was confirmed by the results of L2-regularization logistic regression (with repeated nested cross-validation) with an estimated area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.76 (95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.62, 0.83]). The results of ElasticNet logistic regression indicated that PET and MR radiomics distinguished recurrence-free survival, with a mean AUC of 0.75 (95% CI = [0.62, 0.88]) and 0.68 (95% CI = [0.58, 0.81]) for 1 and 2 years, respectively. The MRI-derived GLCM inverse difference moment normalized (IDMN) and the PET-derived GLCM cluster prominence were among the key features in the predictive models for recurrence-free survival. In conclusion, radiomic features from PET and MR images could be helpful in deciphering breast cancer phenotypes and may have potential as imaging biomarkers for prediction of breast cancer recurrence-free survival