952 research outputs found
The third transformation of Lao industrial relations
The paper provides an account of labour relations in Laos. Contemporary labour relations under the New Economic Mechanism (1986 to the present) are compared with labour relations in Laos in earlier historical periods
Nonperturbative results for the mass dependence of the QED fermion determinant
The fermion determinant in four-dimensional quantum electrodynamics in the
presence of O(2)XO(3) symmetric background gauge fields with a nonvanishing
global chiral anomaly is considered. It is shown that the leading mass
singularity of the determinant's nonperturbative part is fixed by the anomaly.
It is also shown that for a large class of such fields there is at least one
value of the fermion mass at which the determinant's nonperturbative part
reduces to its noninteracting value.Comment: This is an extended version of the author's paper in
Phys.Rev.D81(2010)10770
QED in strong, finite-flux magnetic fields
Lower bounds are placed on the fermionic determinants of Euclidean quantum
electrodynamics in two and four dimensions in the presence of a smooth,
finite-flux, static, unidirectional magnetic field , where
or , and is a point in the xy-plane.Comment: 10 pages, postscript (in uuencoded compressed tar file
Mass zeros in the one-loop effective actions of QED in 1+1 and 3+1 dimensions
It is known that the one-loop effective action of is a quadratic in
the field strength when the fermion mass is zero: all potential higher order
contributions beyond second order vanish. For nonzero fermion mass it is shown
that this behavior persists for a general class of fields for at least one
value of the fermion mass when the external field's flux satisfies
. For the mass-shell renormalized one-loop effective
action vanishes for at least one value of the fermion mass for a class of
smooth, square integrable background gauge fields provided a plausible
zero-mass limit exists.Comment: Section IV has been amende
Imputation of missing sub-hourly precipitation data in a large sensor network : a machine learning approach
This research was supported by a UKRI-NERC Constructing a Digital Environment Strategic Priority grant âEngineering Transformation for the Integration of Sensor Networks: A Feasibility Studyâ [NE/S016236/1 & NE/S016244/1].Peer reviewedPostprin
Open-access mega-journals: The future of scholarly communication or academic dumping ground? A review
Purpose: Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as PLOS ONE, are large scale, broad scope journals that operate an open access business model (normally based on article-processing charges), and which employ a novel form of peer review, focusing on scientific âsoundnessâ and eschewing judgment of novelty or importance. This paper examines the discourses relating to OAMJs, and their place within scholarly publishing, and considers attitudes towards mega-journals within the academic community.
Design/methodology/approach: This paper presents a review of the literature of OAMJs structured around four defining characteristics: scale, disciplinary scope, peer review policy and economic model. The existing scholarly literature was augmented by searches of more informal outputs, such as blogs and email discussion lists, to capture the debate in its entirety.
Findings: While the academic literature relating specifically to OAMJs is relatively sparse, discussion in other fora is detailed and animated, with debates ranging from the sustainability and ethics of the mega-journal model, to the impact of soundness-only peer review on article quality and discoverability, and the potential for OAMJs to represent a paradigm-shifting development in scholarly publishing.
Originality/value: This article represents the first comprehensive review of the mega-journal phenomenon, drawing not only on the published academic literature, but also grey, professional and informal sources. The paper advances a number of ways in which the role of OAMJs in the scholarly communication environment can be conceptualised
Open-access mega-journals: The publisher perspective (Part 1: motivations)
This paper is the first of two Learned Publishing articles in which we report
the results of a series of interviews with senior publishers and editors
exploring open access megajournals (OAMJs). Megajournals (of which
PLoS One is the best known example) represent a relatively new approach
to scholarly communication and can be characterized as large, broadscope,
open access journals that take an innovative approach to peer
review, basing acceptance decisions solely on the technical or scientific
soundness of the article. This model is often said to support the broader
goals of the open science movement. Based on in-depth interviews with
31 publishers and editors representing 16 different organizations (10 of
which publish a megajournal), this paper reports how the term âmegajournalâ
is understood and publishersâ rationale and motivations for launching
(or not launching) an OAMJ. We find that while there is general agreement
on the common characteristics of megajournals, there is not yet a consensus
on their relative importance. We also find seven motivating factors
that were said to drive the launch of an OAMJ and link each of these factors
to potential societal and business benefits. These results suggest that
the often polarized debate surrounding OAMJs is a consequence of the
extent to which observers perceive publishers to be motivated by these
societal or business benefits
"Let the community decideâ? The vision and reality of soundness-only peer review in open-access mega-journals
Purpose: The aim of this research is to better understand the theory and practice of peer review in open-access mega-journals (OAMJs). Mega-journals typically operate a âsoundness onlyâ review policy aiming to evaluate only the rigour of an article, not the novelty or significance of the research or its relevance to a particular community, with these elements being left for âthe community to decideâ post-publication. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reports the results of interviews with 31 senior publishers and editors representing 16 different organisations, including 10 that publish an OAMJ. Thematic Analysis was carried out on the data and an analytical model developed to explicate their significance. Findings: Findings suggest that in reality criteria beyond technical or scientific soundness can and do influence editorial decisions. Deviations from the original OAMJ model are both publisher-supported (in the form of requirements for an article to be âworthyâ of publication) and practice-driven (in the form of some reviewers and editors applying traditional peer review criteria to mega-journal submissions). Also publishers believe post-publication evaluation of novelty, significance, and relevance remains problematic. Originality/value: The study is based on unprecedented access to senior publishers and editors, allowing insight into their strategic and operational priorities. The paper is the first to report in-depth qualitative data relating specifically to soundness-only peer review for OAMJs, shedding new light on the mega-journal phenomenon, and helping inform discussion on its future role in scholarly communication. The paper proposes a new model for understanding the mega-journal approach to quality assurance, and how it is different from traditional peer review
Academic communities: the role of journals and open-access mega-journals in scholarly communication
This paper provides insights into publication practices from the perspective of academics working within four disciplinary communities: Biosciences, Astronomy/Physics, Education and History. The paper explores the ways in which these multiple overlapping communities intersect with the journal landscape and the implications for the adoption and use of new players in the scholarly communication system, particularly open-access mega-journals (OAMJs). OAMJs (for example PLOS ONE and Scientific Reports) are large, broad scope, open-access journals that base editorial decisions solely on the technical/scientific soundness of the article.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Focus groups with active researchers in these fields were held in five UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) across Great Britain, and were complemented by interviews with Pro Vice-Chancellors
for Research at each institution.
Findings
A strong finding to emerge from the data is the notion of researchers belonging to multiple overlapping communities, with some inherent tensions in meeting the requirements for these different audiences. Researcher perceptions of evaluation mechanisms were found to play a major role in attitudes towards OAMJs, and interviews with the Pro-Vice-Chancellors for Research indicate that there is a difference between researchersâ perceptions and the values embedded in institutional frameworks.
Originality/Value
This is the first purely qualitative study relating to researcher perspectives on OAMJs. The findings of the paper will be of interest to publishers, policy makers, research managers and academics
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