Incidence of predatory journals in computer science literature

Purpose One of the main tasks of a researcher is to properly communicate the results he obtained. The choice of the journal in which to publish the work is therefore very important. However, not all journals have suitable characteristics for a correct dissemination of scientific knowledge. Some publishers turn out to be unreliable and, against a payment, they publish whatever researchers propose. The authors call "predatory journals" these untrustworthy journals. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the incidence of predatory journals in computer science literature and present a tool that was developed for this purpose. Design/methodology/approach The authors focused their attention on editors, universities and publishers that are involved in this kind of publishing process. The starting point of their research is the list of scholarly open-access publishers and open-access stand-alone journals created by Jeffrey Beall. Specifically, they analysed the presence of predatory journals in the search results obtained from Google Scholar in the engineering and computer science fields. They also studied the change over time of such incidence in the articles published between 2011 and 2015. Findings The analysis shows that the phenomenon of predatory journals somehow decreased in 2015, probably due to a greater awareness of the risks related to the reputation of the authors. Originality/value We focused on computer science field, using a specific sample of queries. We developed a software to automatically make queries to the search engine, and to detect predatory journals, using Beall's list

Morphology and luminescence of nanocrystalline Nb₂O₅ doped with Eu³⁺

The synthesis of nanocrystalline Nb2O5:Eu3+ has been achieved by using a Pechini procedure. The obtained materials are single-phase niobia with the orthorhombic structure, average crystallite size around 25nm and average lattice strain of about 0.002. TEM images show that the particles are rectangular and reasonably isolated. The luminescence of the Eu3+ ions in the niobia lattice is efficient and affected by a strong inhomogeneous broadening, due to an important disorder around the lanthanide ions

Fifth European Dirofilaria and Angiostrongylus Days (FiEDAD) 2016

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Effect of the dopant selection (Er, Eu, Nd or Ce) and its quantity on the formation of yttrium aluminum garnet nanopowders

Hydroxide precursors, synthesized using the co-precipitation method, were calcined for 1 h at the temperatures of 900, 1000 and 1100 °C, respectively, and heated directly to 1500 °C to produce various Y3Al5O12 (YAG) nanopowders with different doping quantities of erbium, europium, neodymium and cerium. All samples were investigated using thermo-gravimetry (TG) and differential thermal analysis (DTA), field emission gun-scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). TG and DTA experiments were performed from room temperature up to 1500 °C; the weight loss curves combined with the presence of exo- and endo-thermal events were related to phase transformation phenomena. FEG-SEM and TEM micrographs showed aggregated particles with a rounded morphology with an average size of around 50 nm. Analysis of XRD patterns confirmed the formation of YAG phase with lattice parameter dependent on the specific dopant, its amount and temperature treatment. In some cases, the YAH (YAlO3 hexagonal) and YAP (YAlO3 perovskite) crystalline phases’ formation was observed at intermediate stages of heating. A reduction of YAG cell parameter was observed after high temperature treatment, probably due to defect release in the garnet structure. The large solubility of neodymium ions that substitute for yttrium ions in the dodecahedral sites of the garnet structure was confirmed. From phase’s analysis and lattice parameter variation of YAG as a function of doping and annealing temperature, it appeared that also europium and erbium ions were soluble in the YAG nanocrystalline matrix. This behaviour was opposite to the case of cerium ions where the cubic CeO2 (cerianite) phase was observed together with YAG even for very low amount of doping

Morphology and Luminescence of Nanocrystalline Nb2O5 Doped with Eu3+

The synthesis of nanocrystalline Nb2O5:Eu3+ has been achieved by using a Pechini procedure. The obtained materials are single-phase niobia with the orthorhombic structure, average crystallite size around 25 nm and average lattice strain of about 0.002. TEM images show that the particles are rectangular and reasonably isolated. The luminescence of the Eu3+ ions in the niobia lattice is efficient and affected by a strong inhomogeneous broadening, due to an important disorder around the lanthanide ions