Global Research Activity Research Articles

The application of nanoindentation for determination of cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) nanomechanical properties

Nanocellulose is a polymer which can be isolated from nature (woods, plants, bacteria, and from sea animals) through chemical or mechanical treatments, as cellulose nanofibrils (CNF), cellulose nanocrystals or bacterial celluloses. Focused global research activities have resulted in decreasing costs. A nascent industry of producers has created a huge market interest in CNF. However, there is still lack of knowledge on the nanomechanical properties of CNF, which create barriers for the scientist and producers to optimize and predict behavior of the final product. In this research, the behavior of CNF under nano compression loads were investigated through three different approaches, Oliver–Pharr (OP), fused silica (FS), and tip imaging (TI) via nanoindentation in an atomic force microscope. The CNF modulus estimates for the three approaches were 16.6 GPa, for OP, 15.8 GPa for FS, and 10.9 GPa for TI. The CNF reduced moduli estimates were consistently higher and followed the same estimate rankings by analysis technique (18.2, 17.4, and 11.9 GPa). This unique study minimizes the uncertainties related to the nanomechanical properties of CNFs and provides increased knowledge on understanding the role of CNFs as a reinforcing material in composites and also improvement in making accurate theoretical calculations and predictions.

Big Data Challenges in Climate Science.

The knowledge we gain from research in climate science depends on the generation, dissemination, and analysis of high-quality data. This work comprises technical practice as well as social practice, both of which are distinguished by their massive scale and global reach. As a result, the amount of data involved in climate research is growing at an unprecedented rate. Climate model intercomparison (CMIP) experiments, the integration of observational data and climate reanalysis data with climate model outputs, as seen in the Obs4MIPs, Ana4MIPs, and CREATE-IP activities, and the collaborative work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provide examples of the types of activities that increasingly require an improved cyberinfrastructure for dealing with large amounts of critical scientific data. This paper provides an overview of some of climate science's big data problems and the technical solutions being developed to advance data publication, climate analytics as a service, and interoperability within the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF), the primary cyberinfrastructure currently supporting global climate research activities.

A roadmap for MERS-CoV research and product development: report from a World Health Organization consultation.

As part of the World Health Organization (WHO) R&D Blueprint initiative, leading stakeholders on Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) convened to agree on strategic public-health goals and global priority research activities that are needed to combat MERS-CoV.

A critical perspective on theglobal research activity in the field of bladder cancer

Bladder cancer (BC) is one of the most common forms of cancer world-wide. This underestimated disease can cause severe morbidity and mortality in individuals. Increasing awareness can be depicted by the increasing numbers of publications since the 1990s. Hence, it is challenging for ascientist to obtain an overview of the topic. To quantify the global research activity in this field, ascientometric investigation was conducted. Using the database Web of Science, the bibliometric data of publications on the topic of BC was acquired for the period 1900-2007. According to the NewQIS protocol, different visualization techniques and scientometric methods were applied. A total of 19,651 publications were evaluated. The USA takes aleading position in terms of the overall number of publications, institutions, and collaborations. International collaboration on BC has changed considerably in terms of quantity during the past 20years. The largest number of articles and the highest number of citations regarding BC are found in the Journal of Urology. Thus, it is considered the most prolific journal. Furthermore, the productivity (i. e., publication numbers) of authors and scientific impact (i. e., citation rates) vary greatly. The field of BC continues to progress, whereby the influence of international co-operation on scientific progress is of increasing importance. New evaluation factors/tools have to be established for amore reliable evaluation of scientific work.

Hirschsprung Disease: Critical Evaluation of the Global Research Architecture Employing Scientometrics and Density-Equalizing Mapping.

Introduction Hirschsprung disease (HD) is a congenital bowel innervation disorder that involves several clinical specialties. There is an increasing interest on the topic reflected by the number of annually published items. It is therefore difficult for a single scientist to survey all published items and to gauge their scientific importance or value. Thus, tremendous efforts were made to establish sustainable parameters to evaluate scientific work within the past decades. It was the birth of scientometrics. Materials and Methods To quantify the global research activity in this field, a scientometric analysis was conducted. We analyzed the research output of countries, individual institutions, authors, and their collaborative networks by using the Web of Science database. Density-equalizing maps and network diagrams were employed as state of the art visualization techniques. Results The United States is the leading country in terms of published items (n = 685), institutions (n = 347), and cooperation (n = 112). However, although there is dominance in quantity, the most intensive international networks between authors and institutions are not linked to the United States. By contrast, most of the European countries combine the highest impact of publications. Further analysis reveal the influence of international cooperation and associated phenomena on the research field HD. Conclusion We conclude that the field of HD is constantly progressing. The importance of international cooperation in the scientific community is continuously growing.

SCOPUS reflected study of selected research and higher education institutions (HEIs) of Chandigarh: a city of education and research

SCOPUS reflected study of selected research and higher education institutions (HEIs) of Chandigarh: a city of education and research

What Do the Various Principles of Justice Mean Within the Concept of Benefit Sharing?

The concept of benefit sharing pertains to the act of giving something in return to the participants, communities, and the country that have participated in global health research or bioprospecting activities. One of the key concerns of benefit sharing is the ethical justifications or reasons to support the practice of the concept in global health research and bioprospecting. This article evaluates one of such ethical justifications and its meaning to benefit sharing, namely justice. We conducted a systematic review to map the various principles of justice that are linked to benefit sharing and analysed their meaning to the concept of benefit sharing. Five principles of justice (commutative, distributive, global, procedural, and compensatory) have been shown to be relevant in the nuances of benefit sharing in both global health research and bioprospecting. The review findings indicate that each of these principles of justice provides a different perspective for a different benefit sharing rationale. For example, commutative justice provides a benefit sharing rationale that is focused on fair exchange of benefits between research sponsors and communities. Distributive justice produces a benefit sharing rationale that is focused on improving the health needs of the vulnerable research communities. We have suggested that a good benefit sharing framework particularly in global health research would be more beneficial if it combines all the principles of justice in its formulation. Nonetheless, there is a need for empirical studies to examine the various principles of justice and their nuances in benefit sharing among stakeholders in global health research.

Sarcoidosis: A Descriptive Approach to the Global Research Network and Recent Scientific Developments

Sarcoidosis continues to be an underestimated disease that can cause severe morbidity and mortality in individuals. There has, however, been an increasing awareness of this disease as shown by the increasing number of publications since the 1990 s. The large number of available publications makes it challenging for a single scientist to provide an overview of the topic. To quantify the global research activity in this field, a scientometric investigation was conducted. The total number of publications on sarcoidosis was determined in the Web of Science to obtain their bibliometric data for the period 1900-2008. According to the NewQIS-protocol, different visualisation techniques and scientometric methods were applied. A total of 14,190 published items were evaluated. The U.S. takes a leading position in terms of the overall number of publications and collaborations. Prolific institutions and authors are of U.S. origin. Only a relatively small number of international co-operations were identified. The most intensive network is between the "University of Colorado" and the "National Jewish Medical Research Center". "Semenzato, G" has the highest citation rate of all authors. The most productive co-operative author is "du Bois, RM". The scientific interest in the topic sarcoidosis is growing steadily. The influence of international co-operation on scientific progress in this area is of increasing importance.

Global research activities on dioxins and dioxin-like compounds

A bibliometric study based on Web of Science was carried out to highlight significant or promising areas of research from 1970 to 2015. A total of 18,805 publications were examined with respect to document type, language, publication outputs, distribution of journals, subject category, countries, institutions, title words, author keywords, and keywords plus. The results showed that there have been an increasing number of annual publications, especially after 1990 and 1997, due to legislative regulations. Based on Web of Science, USA and USEPA were the most productive country and institution, respectively. Chemosphere was the journal with the most articles and 'Environmental Science and Ecology' and 'Toxicology' were the most common subject categories. Among the keywords, 'dioxin' was the most popular word and toxicological studies were dominating.

Global research activities on dioxins and dioxin-like compounds

A bibliometric study based on Web of Science was carried out to highlight significant or promising areas of research from 1970 to 2015. A total of 18,805 publications were examined with respect to document type, language, publication outputs, distribution of journals, subject category, countries, institutions, title words, author keywords, and keywords plus. The results showed that there have been an increasing number of annual publications, especially after 1990 and 1997, due to legislative regulations. Based on Web of Science, USA and USEPA were the most productive country and institution, respectively. Chemosphere was the journal with the most articles and 'Environmental Science and Ecology' and 'Toxicology' were the most common subject categories. Among the keywords, 'dioxin' was the most popular word and toxicological studies were dominating.

Congenital toxoplasmosis: an in-depth density-equalizing mapping analysis to explore its global research architecture.

BackgroundToxoplasmosis endangers the unborn child if its infectious agent - toxoplasma gondii - is transmitted transplacentally during pregnancy. Although this condition occurs in all parts of the world and represents a major public health burden, no detailed knowledge on the global research architecture of congenital toxoplasmosis is available thus far. Hence, it was the aim of this study to assess the related global research activity over the past 110 years.MethodsWe employed the NewQIS platform, which combines established scientometric and socioeconomic analysis tools with novel visualizing techniques such as density equalizing mapping projections.ResultsIn the Web of Science, 13,044 congenital toxoplasmosis-related items published between 1900 and 2012 were identified. These were issued by 26,483 authors originating from 125 countries. The US was the dominating nation (38.7 % of total scientific output), followed by France (10.9 %) and Great Britain (9.2 %). The US also led the ranking in regards to semi-qualitative parameters (total citations, country-specific h-indices and citation rates). When research activity was related to economic figures, the ratio of total toxoplasmosis publications to the total GDP listed Switzerland first with an average of 589.35 toxoplasmosis-related publications per GDP in 1000 Bio US-$, followed by France (545.16), the UK (486.13) and Brazil (431.84) and the US (311.11). The relation of toxoplasmosis-specific publications to the economic power indicator GDP per capita in 1000 US-$ revealed that the US was ranked first with 97.65 toxoplasmosis-related publications/GDP per capita in 1000 US-$, followed by Brazil (85.95). Subject area analysis indicated a relative shortage of studies that addressed pharmacological or public health aspects of congenital toxoplasmosis.ConclusionsThis study is the first in-depth approach to sketch a global picture of the congenital toxoplasmosis research architecture. In contrast to other fields of biomedical research, not only high-income countries play a major role regarding congenital toxoplasmosis research but also countries such as Brazil that have a high incidence of congenital toxoplasmosis.

Unconventional Energy Resources: 2015 Review

This paper includes 10 summaries for energy resource commodities including coal and unconventional resources, and an analysis of energy economics and technology prepared by committees of the Energy Minerals Division of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Unconventional energy resources, as used in this report, are those energy resources that do not occur in discrete oil or gas reservoirs held in structural or stratigraphic traps in sedimentary basins. Such resources include coalbed methane, oil shale, U and Th deposits and associated rare earth elements of industrial interest, geothermal, gas shale and liquids, tight gas sands, gas hydrates, and bitumen and heavy oil. Current U.S. and global research and development activities are summarized for each unconventional energy resource commodity in the topical sections of this report, followed by analysis of unconventional energy economics and technology.

The Analysis of the Use of Outsourcing Services in Logistics by Czech Manufacturing Companies

This research analyses logistics outsourcing services from the viewpoint of client companies (manufacturing companies). The main goal is to show how intensively various logistics outsourcing services are used by Czech manufacturing companies in comparison with other world regions, and which areas of logistics outsourcing should be considered more seriously in order to increase logistic efficiency. The study is based on a quantitative and qualitative investigation of Czech manufacturing companies. Firstly, the brief overview of the present situation in the Czech market is presented. It is based on survey data. The results of this quantitative study are compared with global research activities, especially with the 2013 Third-Party Logistics Study carried out by Capgemini Consulting Company. Next, results of the qualitative investigation are discussed. This part describes the experience of four selected Czech manufacturing companies with logistics outsourcing, the main problems they face in this area and their future plans and expectations. The present study is part of a more complex research currently being carried out by the authors.

International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research consensus position statement: nutritional medicine in modern psychiatry

<scp>I</scp>nternational <scp>S</scp>ociety for <scp>N</scp>utritional <scp>P</scp>sychiatry <scp>R</scp>esearch consensus position statement: nutritional medicine in modern psychiatry

Ebola and Its Global Research Architecture--Need for an Improvement.

The current Ebola outbreak poses a threat to individual and global public health. Although the disease has been of interest to the scientific community since 1976, an effective vaccination approach is still lacking. This fact questions past global public health strategies, which have not foreseen the possible impact of this infectious disease. To quantify the global research activity in this field, a scientometric investigation was conducted. We analyzed the research output of countries, individual institutions and their collaborative networks. The resulting research architecture indicated that American and European countries played a leading role regarding output activity, citations and multi- and bilateral cooperations. When related to population numbers, African countries, which usually do not dominate the global research in other medical fields, were among the most prolific nations. We conclude that the field of Ebola research is constantly progressing, and the research landscape is influenced by economical and infrastructural factors as well as historical relations between countries and outbreak events.

Integrated Coastal Management: lessons learned to address new challenges

In 1969, the Stratton Commission presented to the US Congress a keystone report in the field of coastal management, which eventually culminated in the US Coastal ZoneManagement Act of 1973 that marked commencement of coastal management programmes in the USA. Since then the subject has gone global and now is being sub-summed into the area of Marine Spatial Planning. The Rio summit in 1992 provided a large impetus for Mediterranean regions and in 1995, the revised Barcelona Convention introduced the second phase of the Mediterranean Action Plan, to be followed 1 year later by the European Union funded Demonstration Programme on Integrated Coastal Zone Management. The end result of the above has been a plethora of global research activities from which many tools and instruments varying from simple to extremely sophisticated, have evolved together with approaches, such as, ‘community/ecosystem based’, ‘satoumi,’ etc. A Global Congress on: ‘Integrated Coastal Management (ICM):Lessons learned to address new challenges,’ was held at Marmaris, Turkey, In November, 2013, organised by the Medcoast Coastal Foundation, Dalyan, Turkey and the International EMECSCentre, Kobe, Japan, co-organised with Sitki Kocman University, Mugla, Turkey. EU Projects PEGASO and MARLISCO contributed considerably to the outcome of the 186 papers presented and published. From these ten were selected for this Special Issue of the Journal of Coastal Conservation andManagement and the topics were completely rewritten to a much greater depth. The main focus is the Mediterranean and Black Seas, but three ‘outliers’ have been included, e.g. Kate Pike et al., investigated cultural ecosystem services in Canada and the UK using Q methodology to examine ‘unmeasurable’ values, converting qualitative, subjective data to quantitative information; whilst Peter Lawless gave three New Zealand case studies of sociometric and structural analyses utilised for local level consensus that could be transposed into regional and national administrative systems. A keynote presentation by Frank van der Meulen et al., concerned dune compensation issues in the Netherlands and its implications for dune areas elsewhere in the world. Gonzalo C. Malvarez, Emilia G. Pintado, Fatima Navas & Alessandro Giordano set the scene by looking at, ‘Spatial data and its importance for the implementation of UNEP MAP ICZM Protocols for the Mediterranean.’ One of the key elements of work carried out via the European Commission, Framework Programme 7, 2010, PEGASO project, was Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) development together with sustainability multiscale integrated assessments tools. The aim was to produce a model of Mediterranean and Black Sea regions that integrated data from different formats. Continuing with tools needed in ICM, Mamuka Gvilava, Tamar Bakuradze & Amiran Gigineishvili’s, ‘Easy to Use Tools for ICZM Progress Reporting and Coastal Indicators,’ looked at how Black Sea countries utilised EU ICM indicators, and particularly stressed software issues. The Georgian coast was used as an example of the application of spectrum-type visualisation to coastal issues to derive coastal sustainability indicators and recommendation were made. The environmental management modelling theme was carried on by the paper of Peter Lawless; ‘Application of SociometricMethods to Collaborative CoastalManagement.’ Three New Zealand case studies were analysed in a sociometric framework from pre-initiation research to completed * Allan T. Williams allan.williams@virgin.net

Recent research and development advances of wood science and technology in China: impacts of funding support from National Natural Science Foundation of China

In the past decades, the field of wood science and technology (WST) in the world has experienced significant changes in response to changes in resources, environments, technologies, and other emerging issues. WST in China is becoming a strong scientific discipline and has had an obvious impact on the global WST research and development (R&D) activities. In this article, a comprehensive review of the recent WST R&D advances in China is presented. Among various contributing factors, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), a state funding agency for basic research, has played a critical role in helping to shape up the Chinese R&D activities in the field. NSFC funding information in the WST field from 1988 to 2014, including the number of approved projects, funding level, and supported program categories, was retrieved and analyzed. The positive roles of NSFC in supporting free exploration, cultivating research teams and youth talents, and promoting WST R&D are demonstrated. Hot spots in some focused research areas, key advances in the field, challenges, and future prospect of the Chinese WST development are outlined.

ChemInform Abstract: Throwing New Light on the Reduction of CO2

AbstractReview: [22 refs.

Throwing new light on the reduction of CO2.

While the chemical energy in fossil fuels has enabled the rapid rise of modern civilization, their utilization and accompanying anthropogenic CO2 emissions is occurring at a rate that is outpacing nature's carbon cycle. Its effect is now considered to be irreversible and this could lead to the demise of human society. This is a complex issue without a single solution, yet from the burgeoning global research activity and development in the field of CO2 capture and utilization, there is light at the end of the tunnel. In this article a couple of recent advances are illuminated. Attention is focused on the discovery of gas-phase, light-assisted heterogeneous catalytic materials and processes for CO2 photoreduction that operate at sufficiently high rates and conversion efficiencies, and under mild conditions, to open a new pathway for an energy transition from today's "fossil fuel economy" to a new and sustainable "CO2 economy". Whichever of the competing CO2 capture and utilization approaches proves to be the best way forward for the development of a future CO2-based solar fuels economy, hopefully this can occur in a period short enough to circumvent the predicted adverse consequences of greenhouse gas climate change.

Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology for Photovoltaics

Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology for Photovoltaics