Trend of laser research developments in global level

An up-to-date progress of the international laser research and development is given in this article. The number of scientific publications and filed patents are considered as a figure of merit and based on these numbers the growth pace and important aspects are investigated. We have used the Science Finder Scholar search engine, which indexes more than 4000 journals, in different languages, and represents most significant published materials in laser science and engineering. The growth of the laser and related fields are described in terms of resulting scientific publications for the period of 1990–2003. The share of top nations in scientific publications, and in particular laser publications in terms of their gross domestic product (GDP) is presented. It is noted that the four countries including the USA, Japan, Germany and China have a laser publication contribution of 58.9% while the rest of the world including 189 countries contribute 41.1%. However, for the case of patent, which is a more important factor, these four countries hold a share of 90.1% while the remaining nations have a small share of 9.9%. The USA heads all the nations in the number of scientific publications, citations, and laser publications, however, in terms of accepted laser patents Japan shows a big lead. Scientific scopes of the laser systems are presented and some requirements to be met in each field are described. The key points in this field of research, which might be helpful in the future development of the laser technology are discussed.     

The USA and International Mössbauer Community

In the four decades since Rudolph L. Mössbauer's two papers launched the research community, almost 50,000 Mössbauer publications have appeared in the scientific literature. Most of the early pioneers have departed in recent years for various reasons. The Mössbauer society's international collaborations, the breadth of research topics in the field, and what has been and is being investigated are analyzed. The Mössbauer Effect Data Center's central role in the community over the years is discussed.     

Nano-energy research trends: bibliometrical analysis of nanotechnology research in the energy sector

Nano-energy, the part of nanotechnology dedicated to the study and improvement of the Energy Supply Sector, is a promising and perspective research field. A robust method to quantify international scientific activities in this field is the literature search. An evaluative bibliometric approach applied to the Science Citation Index has been done to retrieve a set of articles related to nano-energy and get knowledge of the direction and trends followed by this particular scientific topic. The resulting database showed an exponential increase of the number of publications issuing nano-based investigations in the energy sector in the last decade, accelerating to an annual growth rate of 1,100%. The most cited articles and the material-clustering protocol revealed that carbon-nanoelements and their application in solar energy harvesting and conversion, and energy storage devices have been principally investigated and represent the main focus in that continuously growing research field. The number of nanotechnology-related papers in the energy database increased monotonically for harvesting, conversion, and storage the last decade, being energy distribution and usage not affected. TiO₂ or SnO₂ nanoparticles or thin films, and nanocomposites occupied the following top positions in the investigated material ranking. This trend was constant along the decade, as confirmed by network analyses. Supported by discipline-clustering, we observed the fundamental character of the research developed between 2000 and 2009, relying mainly on material science and chemistry. Hence, further implementation of nanotechnology findings is needed to stimulate nano-based energy-focused technologies reaching widespread commercial applications.     

The Mössbauer research community: A report

The Mössbauer research community has gone through various stages of development in its 30⁺ year history. Signs of maturity of the Mössbauer effect is shown in the number of experimental applications, the number of Mössbauer transitions that are available and the large number of scientists that have been and are involved with Mössbauer research. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of publications using Mössbauer Spectroscopy to investigate both amorphous and high temperature superconductor materials. This overall growth in the Mössbauer scientific literature has been 6–7% per year since 1984, while during the preceding period there was no increase in the number of publications per year. The Mössbauer Effect Data Center continues to make use of the various developing technologies in the area of computers and communications. The Center recently completed a ten-year project of bringing together all its databases into one computer system. Also, the Center has recently completed the development of a new approach to the dissemination of information by making available subsets of the Mössbauer database on PC computer disks. The future of the Data Center will focus significant attention on networking strategies with the Mössbauer research community.     

Microstructural Characteristics of the Weighted and Directed International Crop Trade Networks

With increasing global demand for food, international food trade is playing a critical role in balancing the food supply and demand across different regions. Here, using trade datasets of four crops that provide more than 50% of the calories consumed globally, we constructed four international crop trade networks (iCTNs). We observed the increasing globalization in the international crop trade and different trade patterns in different iCTNs. The distributions of node degrees deviate from power laws, and the distributions of link weights follow power laws. We also found that the in-degree is positively correlated with the out-degree, but negatively correlated with the clustering coefficient. This indicates that the numbers of trade partners affect the tendency of economies to form clusters. In addition, each iCTN exhibits a unique topology which is different from the whole food network studied by many researchers. Our analysis on the microstructural characteristics of different iCTNs provides highly valuable insights into distinctive features of specific crop trades and has potential implications for model construction and food security.     

Calculation of the temperature in the container unit with a modified design for the production of <Superscript>99</Superscript>Mo at the VVR-Ts research reactor facility (IVV.10M)

The temperature regime is calculated for two different designs of containers with uranium-bearing material for the upgraded VVR-Ts research reactor facility (IVV.10M). The containers are to be used in the production of ⁹⁹Mo. It is demonstrated that the modification of the container design leads to a considerable temperature reduction and an increase in the near-wall boiling margin and allows one to raise the amount of material loaded into the container. The calculations were conducted using the international thermohydraulic contour code TRAC intended to analyze the technical safety of water-cooled nuclear power units.     

A scaling between Impact Factor and uncitedness

The Impact Factor has become a well-known measure of the average citation number of articles published in a scientific journal. A journal with a high Impact Factor is assumed to have a low percentage of uncited articles. We show that the scaling relation between the Impact Factor and the uncited percentage can be understood by a simple mechanism. The empirical data can be reproduced by a random mechanism with the cumulative advantage. To further explore the robustness of such a mechanism, we investigate the relation between the average citation number and the uncited percentage from different perspectives. We apply the idea of Impact Factor to the publications of an institute in addition to its general application to the publications of a journal. We find that the same scaling relation can be obtained. We also show that a static relation can be applied to describe the time evolution of a dynamical process. These results provide further justification for the same citation mechanism behind different research fields.     

Information for Authors

Chinese Physics Letters is an international journal reporting novel experimental or theoretical results in all fields of physics. Published monthly by the Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd., the journal is one of the source publications of SCIENCE CITATION INDEX by the Institute for Scientific Information of USA. Contributions from all over the world are welcome.     

Information for Authors

Chinese Physics Letters is an international journal reporting novel experimental or theoretical results in all fields of physics. Published monthly by the Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd., the journal is one of the source publications of SCIENCE CITA- TION INDEX by the Institute for Scien tific Information of USA. Contributions from all over the world are welcome.     

Information for Authors

Chinese Physics Letters is an international journal reporting novel experi- mental or theoretical results in all fields of physics. Published monthly by the Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd., the journal is one of the source publications of SCIENCE CITATION INDEX by the Institute for Scientific Information of USA. Contributions from all over the world are welcome.     

Information for Authors

Chinese Physics Letters is an international journal reporting novel experimental or theoretical results in all fields of physics. Published monthly by the Chinese Physical Society and IOP Publishing Ltd., the journal is one of the source publications of SCIENCE CITATION INDEX by the Institute for Scientific Information of USA. Contributions from all over the world are welcome.     

Research output in nanoscience and nanotechnology: Pakistan scenario

In this article, we present an overview of the research activity undertaken in Pakistan in the field of nanoscience and technology for the period 2001–2010. Starting with almost insignificant publications in this field in 2001, the number has risen steadily to 430 in 2010. A break up of organizations actively involved in research in this field suggests that most of these publications have emanated from universities. The contribution of R&D organizations that far outnumber the universities is about 10 percent of the total. Reasons for the increasing trend in publications, especially in the universities are discussed.     

Physikalische Probleme der Untersuchungen zur Kernfusion in Kondensierter Materie

An avalanche-like increase of research activities in the field was caused by the spectacular announcements and publications about the observation of nuclear fusion processes during the infusion of deuterium into metals. Though, the original claims by Fleischmann and Pons concerning the observation of macroscopic amounts of heat so far seem not to be approved in a quantitative manner by other groups, there are indications for the start of a new interesting field of research at the border between nuclear physics and solid state physics – investigations of nuclear fusion processes in condernsed matter. First conclusions drawn here about possible mechanisms of such processes have to be considered neither complete nor final.     

Trends for nanotechnology development in China, Russia, and India

China, Russia, and India are playing an increasingly important role in global nanotechnology research and development (R&D). This paper comparatively inspects the paper and patent publications by these three countries in the Thomson Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI) database and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database (1976–2007). Bibliographic, content map, and citation network analyses are used to evaluate country productivity, dominant research topics, and knowledge diffusion patterns. Significant and consistent growth in nanotechnology papers are noted in the three countries. Between 2000 and 2007, the average annual growth rate was 31.43% in China, 11.88% in Russia, and 33.51% in India. During the same time, the growth patterns were less consistent in patent publications: the corresponding average rates are 31.13, 10.41, and 5.96%. The three countries’ paper impact measured by the average number of citations has been lower than the world average. However, from 2000 to 2007, it experienced rapid increases of about 12.8 times in China, 8 times in India, and 1.6 times in Russia. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) were the most productive institutions in paper publication, with 12,334, 6,773, and 1,831 papers, respectively. The three countries emphasized some common research topics such as “Quantum dots,” “Carbon nanotubes,” “Atomic force microscopy,” and “Scanning electron microscopy,” while Russia and India reported more research on nano-devices as compared with China. CAS, RAS, and IIT played key roles in the respective domestic knowledge diffusion.     

Design and model of wideband absorber made of ultrathin metamaterial structures

A planar microwave ultrathin broadband absorber is proposed. It is composed of metallic patterns arranged on a dielectric material which is backed by a copper plate. The patterns of different dimensions allow to judiciously design absorption peaks at specific frequencies of interest. These peaks are due to the mode resonances of the cavities formed by the metallic patches, the dielectric substrate and the copper plate. In order to widen the absorption bandwidth, patterns of different dimensions are used, together with the different modes of these cavities. Numerical and experimental results are presented to validate the proposed method at microwave frequencies. It is also shown that the use of a composite air dielectric substrate supporting the metallic patterns helps to increase the absorption level.     

Sono-leather technology with ultrasound: a boon for unit operations in leather processing - review of our research work at Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI), India

Ultrasound is a sound wave with a frequency above the human audible range of 16Hz to 16kHz. In recent years, numerous unit operations involving physical as well as chemical processes are reported to have been enhanced by ultrasonic irradiation. There have been benefits such as improvement in process efficiency, process time reduction, performing the processes under milder conditions and avoiding the use of some toxic chemicals to achieve cleaner processing. These could be a better way of augmentation for the processes as an advanced technique. The important point here is that ultrasonic irradiation is physical method activation rather than using chemical entities. Detailed studies have been made in the unit operations related to leather such as diffusion rate enhancement through porous leather matrix, cleaning, degreasing, tanning, dyeing, fatliquoring, oil-water emulsification process and solid-liquid tannin extraction from vegetable tanning materials as well as in precipitation reaction in wastewater treatment. The fundamental mechanism involved in these processes is ultrasonic cavitation in liquid media. In addition to this there also exist some process specific mechanisms for the enhancement of the processes. For instance, possible real-time reversible pore-size changes during ultrasound propagation through skin/leather matrix could be a reason for diffusion rate enhancement in leather processing as reported for the first time. Exhaustive scientific research work has been carried out in this area by our group working in Chemical Engineering Division of CLRI and most of these benefits have been proven with publications in valued peer-reviewed international journals. The overall results indicate that about 2-5-fold increase in the process efficiency due to ultrasound under the given process conditions for various unit operations with additional benefits. Scale-up studies are underway for converting these concepts in to a real viable larger scale operation. In the present paper, summary of our research findings from employing this technique in various unit operations such as cleaning, diffusion, emulsification, particle-size reduction, solid-liquid leaching (tannin and natural dye extraction) as well as precipitation has been presented.     

Continuous 3-day exposure assessment of workplace manufacturing silver nanoparticles

In this study we present an overview of the research activities in nanotechnology for the period 2001?C2011 for six selected countries belonging to the Organization of Islamic cooperation (OIC). The selection has been made based on the research output of these countries. The countries are Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. The factors considered are the number of publications, citations per paper, p-index, and collaborative research output. Iran with 7,795 publications and an annual growth rate of 41?% leads the group, followed by Turkey with 3,169 publications and an annual growth rate of 29?%. Turkey however, has a much better citation per paper (8.96), and p-index (63.34) as compared to Iran (4.59 and 54.36, respectively). We can classify the six countries into two categories. Those, that have a well coordinated national program in nanotechnology, namely, Iran, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia and those that do not have any national program but are still showing a reasonable good activity in nanotechnology namely Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan. A brief account of the initiatives taken by the six selected countries of OIC in the field of nanotechnology is also presented.     

An overview of the material physics and chemistry development in the ROC since 1980

The promotion of overall national science and technology development, support for academic research, and the establishment and administration of the science-based industrial parks are the three basic missions of the National Science Council (NSC) of the Republic of China (ROC). The NSC embarked upon its first large-scale national discipline planning effort in 1985. A second discipline and resource planning effort was undertaken in 1993. To ensure that the revised research areas conformed to national needs and international trends, a full-scale review and revision of discipline and resource plans was conducted in 1995. Prior to 1980, the primary interest of material research was in metals. With the establishment of several major materials research institutions and material physics and chemistry research initiatives during the 1980s, material research in Taiwan entered a period of greater diversity. The resulting growth in academic achievement can be exemplified by the steady increase in the number of academic papers included in the prestigious international database Science Citation Index, as well as Taiwan's relative rank. In this article, we review and summarize the major initiatives undertaken by the NSC and their impacts on material physics and chemistry development in Taiwan.     

Novel interface for cultural heritage at SOLEIL

The information that can be retrieved from the study of ancient materials and studies on their conservation rely strongly on the development and application of new techniques of physical analysis. This is particularly important at a time when global changes affecting our environment and way of life impose new stresses putting heritage preservation at risk. For this purpose, synchrotron techniques are particularly suited to the non- (or micro-) destructive characterisation of such heterogeneous materials, and a steep increase in the number of publications has been noticed recently from cultural heritage works using synchrotron radiation. In 2004, an interface dedicated to archaeology and cultural heritage was launched at the SOLEIL synchrotron to allow researchers from the international scientific community to be granted specific expertise. This interface aims at easing the access of researchers to the synchrotron, facilitating contacts, providing technical support and informing the community. The very first applications of SOLEIL beamlines in the heritage field are illustrated through works recently carried out at the first beamline of SOLEIL, LUCIA, currently located at the Swiss Light Source (SLS). The setup of the beamline is succinctly described. PACS 07.85.Qe; 87.59.-e