Category — General

Study shows strong association between academic collaboration and scientific publishing productivity [EurekAlert!]

I love reports like this one entitled >The Impact of Research Collaboration on Scientific Productivity. They surveyed a lot of scientists regarding several aspects of their research, such as collaboration. They found that the most productive scientists, those that publish the most, are also the most collaborative. They did all sorts of data mashing and found some nice tidbits. They found that the most productive years for a scientist are between the 19th and 28th years following the award of their doctorate. Now measuring productivity purely by publications may skew matters somewhat. It would be interesting to get some idea how important these papers were or whether these just factories chugging out material. But is a nice first start and one that indicates important aspects of how future research will be performed Because Google is such a wonderful device, and since this work is about collaboration, I was able to find a site through the lead author (Barry Bozeman at Georgia Tech) that provides a Word version of the second paper mentioned, Research Collaboration Strategies among Scientists and Engineers. So you can download and read the real thing rather than only a synopsis. I love Google. And I love researchers who are generous with their work. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

Interesting, the 19th through 28th year…. beyond that i wonder what actually accounts for productivity, i suspect it has a bit to do with publishing….. but I suspect that publishing is much more indicative of an extensive networking and mastery of the necessary skills to get published, than the actual productivity of the scientist….

what about the four horseWOMEN?. Max Sawicky is not only a leftist but a sexist leftist. I thought lefties were all about equality and such,… [A Small Victory]

i think you should prefer to be one of the muses, they always overcome the horsement anyway.

The Republic of Cascadia. The Republic of Cascadia. “The former American states of Oregon and Washington and the former Canadian province of British Columbia must join together as a sovereign nation. Only then can we have self-determination and take our rightful place in the Global Community.” [MetaFilter]

I remember the book Ecotopia do you?

Ladies, lock & load. A sufficiently provocative soundbite to warrant a link in Scripting News–though, given that Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata in 411 BC, not a startlingly original idea. The core of Tara Sue Grubb's post is devoted to a conviction that almost certainly predates the Peloponnesian War and which remains one of the most strongly held and deeply cherished beliefs of the women's movement: that a world dominated by women would be more peaceful than the world we live in–dominated as it is by men. [Jonathon Delacour]

spread the meme, if there is such a thing.

Sex and slavery. Magazine: John Gibb travels from the mountains of Moldova to the saunas of King's Cross and Chingford on the trail of the human traffickers [Guardian Unlimited]

slavery is for more prevalent than most people think…. just look on the web….

George Michael warns war could spark fundamentalism [Ananova: News]

as a general principle of foreign policy, when certain celebrities notice that something might happen, you probably should pay attention because that means everyone knows.

Online gaming growing rapidly. Online gaming appears to be a notable success story as numbers of visitors across Europe double in a year. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

we all know this is happening, why don't people begin to operate on it.

Facilitating disruptive technology development.

Hugh Blackmer, a Science Librarian at Washington & Lee University with a very wide array of interests, has written a very nice piece called “Making room for disruptive and emergent technologies“. I found the following paragraph especially evocative of the problems facing boat-rockers:

Each campus seems to have a few people whom others identify as visionaries and pioneers, but their niches are not predictable: sometimes they are professors, sometimes librarians, sometimes IT or computing people. Their penchant for experiment and innovation is often applied at the outer fringes of their nominal position or assignment. Some are lone wolves, but many pursue collaborations, often across administrative boundaries. They share a common problem: where can they turn for support for their efforts? As rogue operatives and boundary-traducers, innovators are often ineligible for resources within their administrative units, so they must either attract extraordinary support internally (from contingency funds or generous programs), or divert time into applications for external funding.

[Seb's Open Research]

nifty, this is sort of one of my main areas of interest, applying technology for institutional change..

Monk on Stereotypes. I just walked into the bedroom where Monk was reading a book. We have these old Golden Book anthologies that… [Full Bleed: Confessions of a Zine Girl]

Kids know so much, where does it all go?

Postmodern Infotainment: I Rrivolously Link – You Decide. an etymology of the word postmodern–it begins with Walter Toynbee. Who'd athunk? All of this comes from Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory and Postmodern Thought . The names lead not to essays but thorough links pages, like MetaFilter]

I have the first citattion of postmodern in the late