Uncertain research country rankings. Should we continue producing uncertain rankings?

Citation based country rankings consistently categorize Japan as a developing country, even in those from the most reputed institutions. This categorization challenges the credibility of such rankings, considering Japan elevated scientific standing. In most cases, these rankings use percentile indicators and are accurate if country citations fit an ideal model of distribution, but they can be misleading in cases of deviations. The ideal model implies a lognormal citation distribution and a power law citation based double rank: in the global and country lists. This report conducts a systematic examination of deviations from the ideal model and their consequential impact on evaluations. The study evaluates six selected countries across three scientifically relevant topics and utilizes Leiden Ranking assessments of over 300 universities. The findings reveal three types of deviations from the lognormal citation distribution: i deviations in the extreme upper tail; ii inflated lower tails; and iii deflated lower part of the distributions. These deviations stem from structural differences among research systems that are prevalent and have the potential to mislead evaluations across all research levels. Consequently, reliable evaluations must consider these deviations. Otherwise, while some countries and institutions will be correctly evaluated, failure to identify deviations in each specific country or institution will render uncertain evaluations. For reliable assessments, future research evaluations of countries and institutions must identify deviations from the ideal model.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, 5 table

Wind electricity production in Germany and Spain: a dynamic relationship

In this paper, a dynamic relationship between the wind electricity production of Germany and Spain is presented. With the help of a VAR(1) model, and using the terminology of Granger Causality, it is shown that the wind electricity production of Germany Granger causes the wind electricity production of Spain. Other aspects of this dynamic relationship are presented as well

Countries pushing the boundaries of knowledge: the US dominance, China rise, and the EU stagnation

Knowing which countries contribute the most to pushing the boundaries of knowledge in science and technology has social and political importance. However, common citation metrics do not adequately measure this contribution. This measure requires more stringent metrics appropriate for the highly influential breakthrough papers that push the boundaries of knowledge, which are very highly cited but very rare. Here I used the recently described Rk index, specifically designed to address this issue. I applied this index to 25 countries and the EU across 10 key research topics, five technological and five biomedical, studying domestic and international collaborative papers independently. In technological topics, the Rk indices of domestic papers show that overall, the USA, China, and the EU are leaders; other countries are clearly behind. The USA is notably ahead of China, and the EU is far behind China. The same approach to biomedical topics shows an overwhelming dominance of the USA and that the EU is ahead of China. The analysis of internationally collaborative papers further demonstrates the US dominance. These results conflict with current country rankings based on less stringent indicators.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure, 6 table

Sistema de acciones para estimular las potencialidades físicas en niños con Síndrome de Prader Willi

This research responds to the need to introduce modifications to the Therapeutic Physical Culture process, when working with children with Prader Willi Syndrome. Theoretical-methodological shortcomings were found that limit the stimulation of physical potentialities in them. The objective is to propose a system of actions to stimulate these potentialities, containing stages, orientations and general and specific methodological indications, with procedures that make this process feasible. The essential relationships between the affective-motivational components and the stimulation of physical potentialities are revealed.Esta investigación responde a la necesidad de introducir modificaciones al proceso de la Cultura Física Terapéutica, cuando se trabaja con niños portadores del Síndrome de Prader Willi. Se constataron insuficiencias teórico-metodológicas que limitan la estimulación de las potencialidades físicas en estos. El objetivo consiste en proponer un sistema de acciones para estimular dichas potencialidades, contentivo de etapas, orientaciones e indicaciones metodológicas generales y específicas, con procedimientos que viabilizan este proceso. Se revelan las relaciones esenciales entre los componentes afectivo-motivacional y estimulación de potencialidades físicas

Distributed Correlation-Based Feature Selection in Spark

CFS (Correlation-Based Feature Selection) is an FS algorithm that has been successfully applied to classification problems in many domains. We describe Distributed CFS (DiCFS) as a completely redesigned, scalable, parallel and distributed version of the CFS algorithm, capable of dealing with the large volumes of data typical of big data applications. Two versions of the algorithm were implemented and compared using the Apache Spark cluster computing model, currently gaining popularity due to its much faster processing times than Hadoop's MapReduce model. We tested our algorithms on four publicly available datasets, each consisting of a large number of instances and two also consisting of a large number of features. The results show that our algorithms were superior in terms of both time-efficiency and scalability. In leveraging a computer cluster, they were able to handle larger datasets than the non-distributed WEKA version while maintaining the quality of the results, i.e., exactly the same features were returned by our algorithms when compared to the original algorithm available in WEKA.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure

FRATERNIDAD PARA LA VIDA DIGNA DE LOS PUEBLOS.(FRATERNITY FOR A WORTHY LIFE OF PEOPLES)

El presente texto pretende relacionar algunas líneas y rutas de análisis como aportes al debate que viene resurgiendo en Latinoamérica en torno al tercer componente no desarrollado de la modernidad: La Fraternidad. Para ello se hará referencia al concepto desde una dimensión política, propia de la modernidad y a la propuesta de la filosofía franciscana.AbstractThis text aims to connect some lines and routes of analysis as contribution to the debate which is reappearing in Latin America around the third non-developed component of modernity: Fraternity. That is why it will be approached from a political dimension, which is proper to modernity and the proposal of Franciscan philosophy

Seasonal dynamic factor analysis and bootstrap inference : application to electricity market forecasting

Year-ahead forecasting of electricity prices is an important issue in the current context of electricity markets. Nevertheless, only one-day-ahead forecasting is commonly tackled up in previous published works. Moreover, methodology developed for the short-term does not work properly for long-term forecasting. In this paper we provide a seasonal extension of the Non-Stationary Dynamic Factor Analysis, to deal with the interesting problem (both from the economic and engineering point of view) of long term forecasting of electricity prices. Seasonal Dynamic Factor Analysis (SeaDFA) allows to deal with dimensionality reduction in vectors of time series, in such a way that extracts common and specific components. Furthermore, common factors are able to capture not only regular dynamics (stationary or not) but also seasonal one, by means of common factors following a multiplicative seasonal VARIMA(p,d,q)×(P,D,Q)s model. Besides, a bootstrap procedure is proposed to be able to make inference on all the parameters involved in the model. A bootstrap scheme developed for forecasting includes uncertainty due to parameter estimation, allowing to enhance the coverage of forecast confidence intervals. Concerning the innovative and challenging application provided, bootstrap procedure developed allows to calculate not only point forecasts but also forecasting intervals for electricity prices.Dynamic factor analysis, Bootstrap, Forecasting, Confidence intervals