INVESTIGATING INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF ACADEMIC PUBLISHING PRACTICES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

Academic publishing processes and standards play a fundamental role in communicating, reviewing, and expanding scientific knowledge in wildlife conservation. However, various publishing biases privilege some research perspectives and worldviews while limiting others. These biases directly impact intellectual diversity, or differences in ontology, axiology, and epistemology. This study aims to quantify intellectual diversity in the field of wildlife conservation and identify how publishing biases affect knowledge available to researchers and decision-makers worldwide. The study employed a sample of 50,000 articles published between 2018 and 2022, collected from the Web of Science database. To analyze the vast amount of article records, natural language processing techniques, including topic modeling, were applied to article abstracts. This enabled the identification of global differences in prevalent topics, theories, and methods in wildlife conservation research. By connecting these trends with researcher social diversity, the study seeks to understand the influence of diverse perspectives on research design and knowledge production. Additionally, an intellectual diversity survey was sent to a randomized sample of international and domestic authors to gather data on differences in axiology and epistemology as well as various publishing culture dynamics. Results reveal the existence of several biases in publishing culture, aligning with previous research. Moreover, language bias emerged as a primary concern, with researchers who did not speak English as a first language experiencing publishing biases most strongly. Differences in epistemological and axiological beliefs were also observed between demographic groups and connected to current work in value orientations and knowledge dimensions. Topic modeling revealed strong geographic differences in topics of study, and natural language processing demonstrated differences in research design. The study contributes to the ongoing discourse on the importance of diversity in wildlife conservation, management, and policy. By addressing biases and fostering intellectual diversity, researchers can effectively tackle complex global challenges. The findings of this research will inform future efforts to explore intellectual diversity and feasible approaches to reducing inherent barriers and biases in academic publishing

Rationale for tau aggregation inhibitor therapy in Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies

Preprin

Measurement Of Optical Properties Of Soot Using Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy And Integrating Nephelometry

Since black carbon and brown carbon are among the greatest contributors to radiative forcing (black carbon being second only to carbon dioxide), this work focuses on the laboratory measurement of their optical properties using cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) and integrating nephelometry. Water soluble soot is collected using an impinger and cascade impactor by burning different fuel types to mimic ambient aerosols dominant in regions where biomass burning is the main source of aerosols. Using an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) as a light source, we are able to measure extinction and scattering over a wide range of wavelengths. A correction factor is calculated using a method by Anderson and Ogren to reconcile scattering from the nephelometer to extinction from the CRDS. The extinction-minus-scattering method is then used to determine absorption. Purely scattering polystyrene latex (PSL) spheres of known sizes (100 – 700 nm) are used in the lab to calibrate the system for this study. Measurements of optical properties of soot collected from different fuel sources at different stages of burning are reported

Magnesium oxide doping reduces acoustic wave attenuation in lithium metatantalate and lithium metaniobate crystals

Single crystals of lithium metatantalate and lithium metaniobate, grown from melts having different stoichiometries and different amounts of magnesium oxide, show that doping lowers temperature-independent portion of attenuation of acoustic waves. Doped crystals possess optical properties well suited for electro-optical and photoelastic applications