Gender differences in citation sentiment: A case study in Life Sciences and Biomedicine

In this study we investigated whether female and male authors in the field of life sciences and biomedicine differed in their tendency for citation and citation sentiment. The data comprised two sets, cited set and citing set. Cited set comprised 17,237 articles whereas citing set comprised 115,935articles. The cited set which is from the area Life Sciences & Biomedicine and published during 2012– 2016 was retrieved from the Web of Science Medline. The citing set and its citation contexts wereretrieved using Colil database. The analysis was done using a combination of homophily analysis,regression analysis and a chi-squared test. The covariates in the regression analyses were features related to authors, journal, institution, country, and abstract readability. The homophily analysis showed a significant tendency for female (8%) and male (14%) authorship teams to cite papers by the samegender composition teams. Additionally, the results of regression analysis (Model 1) and pairwise comparisons showed that male authored papers received a significant higher positive sentiment compared to female authored papers. The results of regression analysis (Model 2) showed a smallsignificant positive association between gender similarity of cited and citing authorship teams and the sentiment score. However, further analysis using the chi-squared test showed a significant lower tendency for women to use positive terms when citing the research findings of papers with the samegender composition. Men, in contrast, used significantly more positive terms when citing papers with the same gender composition. Finally, lay summary for a cited paper, country similarity and the venue of cited publication when it was a mega journal had a positive significant association with the sentiment score received

ISC World University Ranking: Its correlation with Leiden, Nature Index, Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS)

The present study intended to examine ISC World University Ranking (ISC WUR) as an emerging ranking system. It draws on a descriptive-correlational method. First, the internal correlation held between the criteria of the ISC WUR was examined to clarify the representation of the total university score from each of its functional criteria in the ISC WUR system. Afterwards, the study assessed the extent to which the ISC WUR results diverge or converge at the general level and examined the similarities and differences between ISC WUR criteria and indicators results and those of Leiden, Nature Index, THE, and QS as complicated university rankings. The research sample included the universities ranked via the five global ranking systems in 2020. All ISC WUR’s indicators revealed significant and positive correlations with the total ranking scores of the universities. There was a significantly positive correlation between the ISC WUR and those of Leiden, Nature Index, THE, and QS.Moreover, the indicators similarly present in ISC WUR and other ranking systems were significantly and positively correlated. In conclusion, the overall performance of each university in ISC WUR reflects all the functional criteria of that university, especially the criteria of research and international activities. Besides, although the ICS WUR and the other systems have differences and similarities in methodology, the results obtained from these systems are similar to a certain extent. Nevertheless, these similarities are not strong enough to claim that the ISC WUR presents the same results as other ranking systems

A Correlation Study of Co-opinion and Co-citation Similarity Measures

Co-citation forms a relational document network. Co-citation-based measures are found to be effective in retrieving relevant documents. However, they are far from ideal and need further enhancements. Co-opinion concept was proposed and tested in previous research and found to be effective in retrieving relevant documents. The present study endeavors to explore the correlation between opinion (dis)similarity measures and the traditional co-citation-based ones including Citation Proximity Index (CPI), co-citedness and co-citation context similarity. The results show significant, though weak to medium, correlations between the variables. The correlations are direct for co-opinion measure, while being inverse for the opinion distance. Accordingly, the two groups of measures are revealed to represent some similar aspects of the document relation. Moreover, the weakness of the correlations implies that there are different dimensions represented by the two group

Process development for advanced functionally graded thermal barrier coatings

The need for advanced thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) with submicron or nano-sized morphologies, improved thermal and mechanical properties as compared to the conventional TBCs, has recently attracted interest toward suspension plasma spray (SPS) and solution precursor plasma spray (SPPS) techniques, in which replacing the typically used alcoholic solvent with water would reduce the manufacturing costs and enhance the process safety. A major challenge of SPS, addressed in this work, is development of industrially scalable well-dispersed and stable aqueous suspensions. This research was broadly aimed at advancing knowledge of processing of aqueous suspensions and solutions and subsequent plasma spraying of yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) and lanthanum zirconate (LZ). YSZ suspension and LZ solution optimization/deposition were studied in Phase 1 and Phase 2, respectively. In Phase 3, a functionally graded coating (FGC) made of SPS–YSZ and SPPS–LZ was designed to retain the desirable properties of both YSZ and LZ while avoiding their limitations. The coatings were deposited by Mettech Axial III plasma spray system. Phases 1 and 2 of this work evaluated the rheology, stability, aging, injection and atomization of aqueous suspensions and solutions. The studies of aqueous YSZ suspensions revealed that a proper combination of dispersants with pH adjustment led to a maximum stability and low viscosity. Minimizing the viscosity and surface tension of the liquid feedstocks was in favor of a successful injection, and optimum atomized droplet size, which in turn contributed to coatings with desirable microstructural features for TBC application. TBCs with columnar microstructure, and ~18 vol.% porosity, were obtained for aqueous SPS–YSZ suspensions stabilized with 0.1 wt.% α-Terpineol dispersant, at pH=2.5. The SPPS coatings deposited from dilute lanthanum nitrate–zirconium acetate aqueous precursor solutions produced columnar morphology with ~23 vol.% porosity. Composition of the five-layered YSZ–LZ FGCs varied gradually from 100% YSZ to 100% LZ. We achieved feathery columnar morphology for these coatings with total porosity of 19-25 vol.%. Overall, this work contributes both to the advancement of fundamental science of liquid plasma spray processes and to the control and optimization of the microstructure and, therefore, thermal and lifetime properties of aqueous TBCs.Applied Science, Faculty ofMaterials Engineering, Department ofGraduat

Gender differences in the use of positive and negative terms by authorship teams: a study of citation contexts

The way in which women present their research accomplishments, in comparison to men, has been regarded as one of the factors causing gender gaps in academic life sciences (Lerchenmueller, Sorenson and Jena, 2019). As the notion of ‘excellence’ within audit cultures in academia implicitly reflects images of masculinity, the promotion of research findings for women might be considered counter stereotypical behaviour. Women might be criticised for this behaviour, even sometimes by other women (Rudman, 1998; McKinnon and O’Connell, 2020).The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a difference between authorship teams, in terms of the use of positive/negative terms, when citing papers of the same gender composition teams

On the Applicability of Modified Water-Based Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia Suspensions to Produce Plasma-Sprayed Columnar Coatings

In this paper, the applicability of the modified water-based yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) suspensions, including different dispersants, to produce plasma-sprayed coatings with a “columnar microstructure” is investigated. The effects of processing parameters, like the suspension liquid-phase ethanol content, change in substrate roughness, and spray distance on the resulting coating morphologies, are investigated. The results showed that increasing the ethanol concentration, substrate surface roughness, and spray distance promotes the formation of coatings with a columnar structure. Moreover, the application of modified water-based suspensions, including the α-Terpineol dispersant, has led to the deposition of columnar coatings with comparable morphologies of coatings deposited from ethanol-based suspensions.Applied Science, Faculty ofNon UBCMaterials Engineering, Department ofReviewedFacultyResearche

The freshness of Persian Information: the case of Persian Newspapers indexed in Google, Yahoo and Bing

Aiming to study the freshness of Persian information, the study attempted to explore the indexing speed of Persian newspapers in Google, Yahoo and Bing. The present study was conducted using a webometric method. The population study comprised all the online newspapers published in Persian. The study sample was identified using a targeted method. It included those Persian newspapers listed on the Magiran database with their electronic versions regularly published on their respective websites. The results revealed that Google outperforms the two other search engines in terms of timely indexing the Persian newspapers. Furthermore, it generally enjoys a more consistent and stable indexing model. Yahoo and Bing are not only slower in indexing the newspapers, but also experience a comparably lower consistency level in their indexing models. Yahoo and Bing show to be comparable in their indexing speeds. In this study, the indexing status of Persian newspapers on different internet search engines was investigated for the first time. Results showed that those accessing these newspapers using internet search engines will have a higher chance of accessing their most updated versions using Google