Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Science Watch: Trends & Performance in Basic Research

ScienceWatch.com

WHAT'S HOT IN... PHYSICS , Sep/Oct 2008
- With Applications Looming, Is Graphene the New Silicon?
- Physics Top Ten Papers
INSTITUTIONS RANKED IN....
KEEP INFORMED ABOUT RESEARCH BY READING THE LATEST ON:
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Monday, October 20, 2008

Physics Resources in support to Research and Innovation

This post focus is on Physics resources:


1. Physics: Spotlighting Exceptional Research (APS) NEW!!!!

Physicists are drowning in a flood of research papers in their own fields and coping with an even larger deluge in other areas of physics. The Physical Review journals alone published over 18,000 papers last year. How can an active researcher stay informed about the most important developments in physics?
Physics highlights exceptional papers from the Physical Review journals. To accomplish this, Physics features expert commentaries written by active researchers who are asked to explain the results to physicists in other subfields. These commissioned articles are edited for clarity and readability across fields and are accompanied by explanatory illustrations.
Physics features three kinds of articles:
* Viewpoints are essays of approximately 1000–1500 words that focus on a single Physical Review paper or PRL letter and put this work into broader context.
* Trends are concise review articles (3000–4000 words in length) that survey a particular area and look for interesting developments in that field.
* Synopses (200 words) are staff-written distillations of interesting and important papers each week.
In addition, APS intend to publish selected Letters to the Editor to allow readers a chance to comment on the commentaries and summaries.
Physics provides a much-needed guide to the best in physics, and we welcome your comments (physics@aps.org).

2. Focus Physical Review (APS): Selections from “Physical Review” and “Physical Review Letters” explained to students and researchers in all fields of Physics

3. Physics Central (APS): We invite you to visit our site every week to find out how physics is part of your world. We'll answer your questions on how things work and keep you informed with daily updates on physics in the news.

4. Virtual Journals in Science & Technology
* Virtual Journal of Applications of Superconductivity
The Virtual Journal of Applications of Superconductivity (VJAS) is a semi-monthly virtual journal presenting articles that have appeared in one of the participating broad-based source journals not specializing in superconductivity. Those interested in following applications of superconductivity should regularly go to the tables of contents of specialized superconductivity journals, which contain most of the published papers on applications of superconductivity.
* Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research
This semi-monthly virtual journal contains articles that have appeared in one of the participating source journals and that fall within a number of contemporary topical areas in biological physics research. Links to other useful Web resources on biological physics are also provided.
* Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology
This weekly virtual journal contains articles that have appeared in one of the participating source journals and that fall within a number of contemporary topical areas in the science and technology of nanometer-scale structures. Links to other useful Web resources on nanoscale systems are also provided.
* Virtual Journal of Quantum Information
This monthly virtual journal contains articles that have appeared in one of the participating source journals and that fall within a number of contemporary topical areas in quantum information, including quantum computing, cryptography, error correction, and theoretical and experimental investigations of entanglement.
* Virtual Journal of Ultrafast Science
This monthly virtual journal contains articles that have appeared in one of the participating source journals and that fall within a number of contemporary topical areas as they pertain to ultrafast phenomena. Links to other useful Web resources on ultrafast phenomena are also provided.

5. An Open Access Encyclopedia for Photonics and Laser Technology (access is available through UJ Library Catalogue)
This comprehensive open-access encyclopedia, explains the physical principles and common techniques in laser technology, while also covering major areas of fiber-optic technology and nonlinear optics, and addressing supplementary topics like ultrashort pulses, optical communications, general optics, optoelectronics, and quantum optics. Many references to selected scientific articles and textbooks aid further studies.
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Friday, October 10, 2008

OPEN ACCESS DAY - 14 OCTOBER 2008

Celebrate Open Access Day on 14 October 2008.
Visit Open Access Day blog
What Is Open Access?
Open Access is a growing international movement that uses the Internet to throw open the locked doors that once hid knowledge. Encouraging the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, the Open Access movement is gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers put their weight behind it.
Why Does Open Access Matter?
"Open Access helps scientists make the discoveries we need to improve health, provides the opportunity for their work to be more easily read and cited, enables integration of research with other resources, helps funding bodies evaluate the research they have funded, and ensures that the digital record of medicine can be preserved." Mark Walport, Director of the Welcome Trust London, UK
"Universities, who support and produce research, can’t keep up with inflating journal prices and are forced to cut subscriptions. With Open Access, instead of cutting off access to information to professors and students, we are able to provide that knowledge without increasing the college’s costs." Diane J. Graves, University Librarian Trinity University (Texas)
"The critical aspect of Open Access for me is that increased discoverability and browseability will lead to greater efficiency of conducting research. Any savings in efficiency translate quite directly into savings for taxpayers and time savings for researchers. That ultimately means more discoveries, sooner, for less money." André Brown, Ph.D. Student University of Pennsylvania
- Creative Commons: Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."
- UJDigiSpace: University of Johannesburg Open Access Repository
- Directory of Open Access Repositories: OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. Each OpenDOAR repository has been visited by project staff to check the information that is recorded here. This in-depth approach does not rely on automated analysis and gives a quality-controlled list of repositories.
- Directory of Open Access Journals: Welcome to the Directory of Open Access Journals. This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. We aim to cover all subjects and languages. There are now 3651 journals in the directory.
- OA Librarian Blog
- Open Access News
- Open Students (very good)
- Open Science Directory
- Open J-Gate Journals
- PLoS Biology
- BioMedCentral
- Access my post (18/09/08) with useful articles on Open Access issues.
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Thursday, October 9, 2008

NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS 2008

The Nobel Prize season began on Monday, 6th of October 2008. These are the winners in Chemistry, Physics and Medicine:

Chemistry
Three U.S.-based scientists share Nobel chemistry prize
Roger Y. Tsien of UC San Diego, Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and researcher Osamu Shimomura developed a fluorescent protein from jellyfish that allows researchers to trace cell molecules.

Physics
Three Physicists Share Nobel Prize
An American and two Japanese physicists on Tuesday won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work exploring the hidden symmetries among elementary particles that are the deepest constituents of nature.

Medicine
Discoverers of AIDS and Cancer Viruses Win Nobel
The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded Monday to three European scientists who had discovered viruses behind two devastating illnesses, AIDS and Cervical cancer
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Monday, October 6, 2008

Online Lectures vs Traditional Classes: Study results

What do today’s undergraduate students expect from their educational experience? Online lectures are moving to the top of the list, according to a new study released by the University of Wisconsin E-Business Institute and Sonic Foundry, Inc. Set against the backdrop of a national trend for webcasting college lectures, the study was designed to understand student attitudes regarding the addition of lecture capture to existing courses. One key finding shows an overwhelming 82 percent of the undergraduates in the sample would prefer a course that records and streams lecture content online vs. courses that only feature in-room instruction. One respondent said, "I would love to have online lectures in addition to normal lectures - focusing on listening and comprehension during class is very important to me and extremely difficult if I am also simultaneously scribbling notes" (Webwire.com )


This study suggests not only a willingness but a “clear preference” among undergraduates for “lecture capture,” the technology that records, streams and stores what happens in the classroom for concurrent or later viewing. Both Campus Technology and Inside Higher Ed discuss this new study. (iLibrarian blog)
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Free Books - 50 places to find Free Books Online

Free books can be found everywhere-if you know where to look. This list shows you 50 places to find free books online. Offerings include free fiction and nonfiction books, free audio books, free reference books and free textbooks.
Free Education Books and Textbooks
Free Tech Books - This site offers a wide range of free computer science and programming textbooks, lecture notes and ebooks.
Freeload Press - A wonderful selection of free textbooks and educational materials are available for free download at Freeload Press.
Open Book Project - This site is a great place to find free textbooks and other educational materials.
Textbook Revolt - Students fight back against the high cost of textbooks on this site by offering up their used books for free.
Textbook Revolution - Textbook Revolution is one of the best sites on the web to find free textbooks and other educational materials.
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