What are Scientific Leaders? The Introduction of a Normalized Impact Factor

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

The topic normalized impact factor

[EN] The journal impact factor is not comparable among fields of science because of systematic differences in publication and citation behaviour across disciplines. In this work, a source normalization of the journal impact factor is proposed. We use the aggregate impact factor of the citing journals as a measure of the citation potential in the journal topic, and we employ this citation potential in the normalization of the journal impact factor. An empirical application in a set of 224 journals from four different fields shows that our normalization, using the citation potential in the journal topic, reduces the between-group variance with respect to the within-group variance in a higher proportion than the rest of indicators analysed.

Impact factor statistics and publication practice: What can we learn? (Editorial)

Peer review procedures and citation statistics are important yet often neglected components of the scientific publication process. Here I discuss fundamental consequences of such quality measures for the scientific community and propose three remedial actions: (1) use of a ''Combined Impact Estimate'' as a measure of citation statistics, (2) adoption of an open reviewing policy and (3) acceleration of the publication process in order to raise the reputation of the entire discipline (in our case: behavioural science). Authors, reviewers and editors are invited to contribute to the improvement of publication practice.

Publicar en otras revistas citando a la Revista Española de Nutrición Humana y Dietética puede ayudar a conseguir el Impact Factor: Thomson Reuters® nos observa [Editorial]

La publicación de artículos científicos en revistas con alto factor de impacto es uno de los parámetros que más se valora en la carrera de los investigadores. Aunque existen distintas instituciones que estiman diversos índices de repercusión, el único índice oficial y valorado de forma internacional es el Impact Factor (IF) de Thomson Reuters® que anualmente publica en el Journal Citation Reports (JCR). En este punto, es importante señalar que en estos momentos RENHyD está siendo observada por Thomson Reuters®, al haber sido incluida en un nuevo recurso de información de este productor, llamado ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index) y que es un nuevo índice de la colección principal de Web of ScienceT. Creemos que es necesario que todos los implicados en la revista (lectores e investigadores) sepan cómo pueden ayudar a que la revista crezca y mejore su repercusión, la única estrategia es citar los artículos publicados en RENHyD para fundamentar los nuevos trabajos que se publican en otras revistas con factor de impacto. El consumo de nuestras publicaciones es la estrategia que ayude a conseguir el factor de impacto.

Investigation of the Effect of Speed on the Dynamic Impact Factor for Bridges with Different Entrance Conditions, 2016

The dynamic interaction of vehicles and bridges results in live loads being induced into bridges that are greater than the vehicle’s static weight. To limit this dynamic effect, the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) currently requires that permitted trucks slow to five miles per hour and span the roadway centerline when crossing bridges. However, this practice has other negative consequences such as the potential for crashes, impracticality for bridges with high traffic volumes, and higher fuel consumption. The main objective of this work was to provide information and guidance on the allowable speeds for permitted vehicles and loads on bridges .A field test program was implemented on five bridges (i.e., two steel girder bridges, two pre-stressed concrete girder bridges, and one concrete slab bridge) to investigate the dynamic response of bridges due to vehicle loadings. The important factors taken into account during the field tests included vehicle speed, entrance conditions, vehicle characteristics (i.e., empty dump truck, full dump truck, and semi-truck), and bridge geometric characteristics (i.e., long span and short span). Three entrance conditions were used: As-is and also Level 1 and Level 2, which simulated rough entrance conditions with a fabricated ramp placed 10 feet from the joint between the bridge end and approach slab and directly next to the joint, respectively. The researchers analyzed and utilized the field data to derive the dynamic impact factors (DIFs) for all gauges installed on each bridge under the different loading scenarios.

Polski Współczynnik Wpływu a kultury cytowań w humanistyce

The article discusses the formula for a new Polish bibliometric indicator, i.e., the Polish Impact Factor (Polski Współczynnik Wpływu) from the point of view of the humanities. Our study examines two prestigious Polish humanities journals (Pamiętnik Literacki and Diametros – An Online Journal of Philosophy) to evaluate the underlying assumptions of the Polish Impact Factor. We have analyzed all articles published from 2004 to 2014 (N = 850, N = 555, respectively) and all references included in these articles (N = 21,805, N = 8,298, respectively). When interpreting the findings, we have assumed that different groups of sciences are characterized by different citation cultures. Our findings show that the formula for the Polish Impact Factor does not take into account the most cited sources in the humanities, i.e., books and chapters. Moreover, many citations will not be included in the formula because of the citation age: the formula for the Polish Impact Factor is provided for the citations whose age is not higher than 5 years. We have analyzed the citation age of all citations and used Price’s Index to interpret the result. We have found out that most of citations are older than 5 years (84,2 percent and 73,2 percent, respectively). Our analysis shows that the Polish Impact Factor is not an adequate tool for a bibliometric evaluation of the journals in the humanities in Poland. The article concludes with a discussion of how the Polish Impact Factor could be improved.

A discussion of the research performance evaluation in building and construction management discipline : the journal impact factors and SCI-index journals

The trend of diminished funding, demands for greater efficiency and higher public accountability have led to a rapid expansion of interest in the bibliometric assessment of research performance of universities. A pilot research is conducted to provide a preliminary overview of the research performance of the building and construction schools or departments through the analysis of bibliometric indicators including the journal impact factor (JIF) published by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). The suitability of bibliometric evaluation approaches as a measure of research quality in building and construction management research field is discussed.

Quantification of impact of a cricket ball

The cricket is one of most popular games in the Asian subcontinent and its popularity is increasing every day. The issue of replacement of the cricket ball amidst the matches is always an uncomfortable situation for teams, umpires and even supporters. At present the basis of the replacement is solely on the judgement, experience and expertise of the umpires, which is subjective, controversial and debatable. In this paper, we have attempted a new approach to quantify the number of impacts or impact factor of a 4-piece leather ball used in the Intemational one-day and test cricket matches. This gives a more objective and scientific basis/ criteria for the replacement of the ball. Here, we have used a well known and widely used Thermal Infra-Red (TIR) imaging to capture the dynamics of the thermal profice of the cricket ball, which has been heated for about 15 seconds. The idea behind this approach is the simple observation that an old ball (ball with a few impacts) has different thermal signature/profice compared to the that of a new ball. This could be due to the change in the surface profice and internal structure, minor de-shaping, opening of seam etc. The TIR video and its frames, which is inherently noisy, are restored using Hebbian learning based FIR (sic), which performs optimal smoothing in relatively less number of iteration. We have focussed on the hottest region of the ball i.e., the inner core and tracked its thermal profice dynamics. Finally we have used multi layer perceptron model (MLP) to quantify the impact factor with fairly good accuracy.

Modeling the Rossiter-McLaughlin Effect: Impact of the Convective Center-to-limb Variations in the Stellar Photosphere

bservations of the Rossiter–McLaughlin (RM) effect provide information on star–planet alignments, which can inform planetary migration and evolution theories. Here, we go beyond the classical RM modeling and explore the impact of a convective blueshift that varies across the stellar disk and non-Gaussian stellar photospheric profiles. We simulated an aligned hot Jupiter with a four-day orbit about a Sun-like star and injected center-to-limb velocity (and profile shape) variations based on radiative 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulations of solar surface convection. The residuals between our modeling and classical RM modeling were dependent on the intrinsic profile width and v sin i; the amplitude of the residuals increased with increasing v sin i and with decreasing intrinsic profile width. For slowly rotating stars the center-to-limb convective variation dominated the residuals (with amplitudes of 10 s of cm s−1 to ~1 m s−1); however, for faster rotating stars the dominant residual signature was due a non-Gaussian intrinsic profile (with amplitudes from 0.5 to 9 m s−1). When the impact factor was 0, neglecting to account for the convective center-to-limb variation led to an uncertainty in the obliquity of ~10°–20°, even though the true v sin i was known. Additionally, neglecting to properly model an asymmetric intrinsic profile had a greater impact for more rapidly rotating stars (e.g., v sin i = 6 km s−1) and caused systematic errors on the order of ~20° in the measured obliquities. Hence, neglecting the impact of stellar surface convection may bias star–planet alignment measurements and consequently theories on planetary migration and evolution.

Quantifying the impact and relevance of scientific research

Qualitative and quantitative methods are being developed to measure the impacts of research on society, but they suffer from serious drawbacks associated with linking a piece of research to its subsequent impacts. We have developed a method to derive impact scores for individual research publications according to their contribution to answering questions of quantified importance to end users of research. To demonstrate the approach, here we evaluate the impacts of research into means of conserving wild bee populations in the UK. For published papers, there is a weak positive correlation between our impact score and the impact factor of the journal. The process identifies publications that provide high quality evidence relating to issues of strong concern. It can also be used to set future research agendas.