Sequential order as an extraneous factor in editorial decision

Academic journal editors reject a significant portion of first submissions without sending them out for peer review. This decision, desk rejection, is made to reduce the workload on associate editors and referees, to give the submitting author a head start on revision or pursuit of an alternative venue, as well as to achieve quicker turnaround time for the journal. Desk rejection is a judgement based on the manuscript's perceived quality, impact and fit with the journal's scope. Could extraneous factors, which are unrelated to the content of a manuscript, affect the editorial decision? This paper examines whether the sequential order in which manuscripts are submitted to a large academic journal affects the editorial decision. Becoming the first submission on the editor's list of manuscripts to review increases the probability of a desk rejection by up to 7% without any effect on the likelihood of a rejection after peer review

International knowledge flows and the administrative barriers to mobility

Face-to-face contact, even temporary one, helps researchers form personal ties and transfer tacit knowledge. The ability of researchers to colocate, including attendance at international conferences, workshops and seminars, is affected by the administrative barriers to international mobility. This paper uses a gravity-style empirical framework to examine the link between international knowledge flows and immigration policies. The results suggest that the paper walls erected by such policies reduce not just the mobility of individuals, but also the diffusion of knowledge. A moderately restrictive mobility barrier reduces incoming and outgoing knowledge flows by about 0.8-1.3% per year. The effect of knowledge-exporting country’s policy persists for nearly 10 years. There is also a short-term asymmetry: diffusion of recent knowledge is affected more by the immigration policy of a knowledgeexporter rather than a knowledge-importer

Diversity and Collaboration in Economics

Papers written by coauthors from different countries, on average, are published in better journals, have higher citations counts, and are evaluated more positively by peers. Similar ‘diversity premia’ exist for inter-ethnic and inter-gender collaborations. Using data on collaborations among 34 thousand economists, this paper considers possible explanations for the positive quality-diversity correlation. After controlling for a range of relevant factors, the authors’ position in the global research network plays an important role in explaining variation in the quality of collaboration, proxied by citation counts and simple impact factor of the journal in which the article is published. Access to non-redundant social ties in the global research network is associated with greater quality of the collaboration. Geographic, gender and ethnic diversity premia on collaboration quality disappear after controlling for the authors’ global network position, suggesting that diversity is important only to the extent that it correlates with non-redundancy of social ties

Systematic Approach to the Elaboration of a Structured Model of a Sulfur Production Unit under Uncertainty

The paper proposes a systematic approach to the elaboration of a structured mathematical model and modeling of chemical and technological systems under uncertainty exemplified by a sulfur production unit. The novelty of the suggested method lies in the choice of a suitable model type for each element of the system based on the systematic analysis, development of the selected model type and their merger into a unified system of models. The method was successfully implemented to construct a system of models for major units of the catalytic reforming plant at the Atyrau Oil Refinery (Republic of Kazakhstan). The study compares existing results, modeling results based on the suggested method and experimental results obtained using an LG-setup of the Atyrau Oil Refinery. The deliverables demonstrate high efficacy and excellence of the approach to the modeling of interconnected equipment (chemical and technological systems)

Essays on migration and social networks

This thesis examines the role of social networks and social interactions in three different contexts: out-migration, academic collaborations and international diffusion of knowledge. The analysis is presented in three self-contained essays. The second chapter (joint work) contains analysis of factors influencing the intention to out-migrate, with a distinction between intention to migrate locally (within a country) and internationally. We consider a broad range of factors, including variables of traditional interest to economists, such as wealth/income of an individual and their education, but also other variables, such as the satisfaction with local and country-level amenities, and, most importantly, measures of social networks at their current location and abroad. We find that social networks play an important role in explaining migration intentions, especially for international migration intention. In the third chapter, the role of social networks in providing access to nonredundant information/resources is explored using micro-level data on 35 thousand academic economists. The collaboration network of economists is used to examine how access to non-redundant information affects the quality of joint academic work. This approach can explain a number of ‘diversity premia’ observed in the literature, for example the international collaboration premium disappears once the co-authors’ access to non-redundant information is taken into account. The concluding chapter explores the importance of social interactions for international diffusion of knowledge. Specifically, the information on the administrative barriers to mobility (e.g. travel visas) is used to estimate how the increased costs of face-to-face contact affect the diffusion of knowledge. The results of an empirical, gravity-style analysis show that reduced mobility of researchers has a significant negative impact on the bilateral country-level knowledge flows. The estimated effect of an administrative barrier is twice as strong for the flows of recent knowledge. The effect is persistent, lasting for up to 7-8 years, suggesting that ‘paper walls’ can play a significant role in medium-term development of domestic scientific potential

Development of Mathematical Models and Modelling of Chemical Technological Systems using Fuzzy-Output Systems

The paper proposes a systematic approach to the development of structured mathematical model and modelling of Chemical-Technological Systems (CTSs) of refinery under fuzzy conditions. Idea and novelty of the proposed method are based on the study of each unit of chemical-technological systems, and based on obtained results, the model of separate element of chemical-technological systems unit is designed. At the next stage, separately-developed models are combined into a single system to fully model the process. The developed method has been successfully implemented during the construction of models system of the basic reforming units of catalytic reforming at Atyrau oil refinery. Comparison of the known results and modelling results based on the proposed method demonstrates the effective realization for constructing a system of models for main units of sulfur production in Atyrau oil refinery

77-GHz High-Gain Bull’s-Eye Antenna With Sinusoidal Profile

A high-gain Bull's-Eye leaky-wave horn antenna working at 77 GHz with sinusoidal profile has been designed, fabricated, and experimentally measured. The influence of the number of periods on the gain and beamwidth is numerically investigated. Experimental measurements show a high gain of 28.9 dB, with low sidelobe level and a very narrow beamwidth in good agreement with results obtained from simulations