Research Development of Food Plant Ethnobotany—Bibliometric and Mapping Knowledge Domains Analysis Based on Web of Science

This study, with the purpose of summarizing the large aggregation of Food Plant Ethnobotany studies to find research history, current status and probable future trend, is based on the following questions: (1) What have been studied on traditional food plants previously? (2) What are studying on traditional food plants at present, and how? (3) What will be studied on traditional food plants in future? To conduct this survey, we searched for papers in Web of Science databases, using combinations of keywords, and the survey was limited to the studies published before June 30th, 2014. CITESPACE software was used to analyze the cited references of these papers. Nine hundreds and fifty four papers published from 1991 to 2014 were found. Analyzing these 954 papers and their cited references, we discovered that documentation of traditional food plants uses is the main study field in past and at present. Quantitative methods, dissemination of traditional knowledge, proper management of local plants resources, and nutritional and pharmaceutical components of food plants will be studied more in future. This paper will help to get a clue of Food Plant Ethnobotany.     

Size doesn't matter! The importance of size variability in coated vesicles

Coated vesicles are key components of the machinery of vesicular transport used by eukaryotic cells. In a recent story published in Science, Faini et?al. (2012) report on the detailed 3D structure of a synthetically generated COPI vesicle coat obtained using cryoelectron tomography.     

A study on semantic web design for global national R&D status analysis

The analysis of global R&D information has become an important factor in making R&D investment strategies and global cooperation with the increased competition in the global market. The R&D analysis in Korea is based on the National Science and Technology Information Service (NTIS). However, it is limited to domestic information and the need to widen the analysis to the global market has risen recently. LOD (Linked Open Data) Cloud service, which is based on the openness and the connection of data, is being expanded recently as is the use of Mashup services through the connection with data from other institutes. In this paper, we will analyze the Linked data structure of CORDIS (Community Research and Development Information Service), which is the R&D information service adopted by the EU, and then suggest a case for utilizing the linked data format and design model for implementing the semantic web to effectively analyze the global national R&D trends by using a case where the RDF Triple data has been semantically mashed up from NTIS and NDSL (National Discovery for Science Leaders).     

How Multidisciplinary Are the Multidisciplinary Journals Science and Nature?

Interest in cross-disciplinary research knowledge interchange runs high. Review processes at funding agencies, such as the U.S. National Science Foundation, consider plans to disseminate research across disciplinary bounds. Publication in the leading multidisciplinary journals, Nature and Science, may signify the epitome of successful interdisciplinary integration of research knowledge and cross-disciplinary dissemination of findings. But how interdisciplinary are they? The journals are multidisciplinary, but do the individual articles themselves draw upon multiple fields of knowledge and does their influence span disciplines? This research compares articles in three fields (Cell Biology, Physical Chemistry, and Cognitive Science) published in a leading disciplinary journal in each field to those published in Nature and Science. We find comparable degrees of interdisciplinary integration and only modest differences in cross-disciplinary diffusion. That said, though the rate of out-of-field diffusion might be comparable, the sheer reach of Nature and Science, indicated by their potent Journal Impact Factors, means that the diffusion of knowledge therein can far exceed that of leading disciplinary journals in some fields (such as Physical Chemistry and Cognitive Science in our samples).     

Changing the science education paradigm: from teaching facts to engaging the intellect: Science Education Colloquia Series, Spring 2011

Dr. Jo Handelsman, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University, is a long-time devotee of scientific teaching, receiving this year’s Presidential Award for Science Mentoring. She gave a seminar entitled “What is Scientific Teaching? The Changing Landscape of Science Education” as a part of the Scientific Education Colloquia Series in spring 2011. After dissecting what is wrong with the status quo of American scientific education, several ideological and practical changes are proposed, including active learning, regular assessment, diversity, and mentorship.     

Thalamic coordination of cortical communication

Higher-order thalamic nuclei, like the pulvinar, have extensive connections with cortex, suggesting a role in?the coordination of cortical communication. A recent study in Science by Saalmann et?al. (2012) implicates the pulvinar in promoting cortical alpha-band synchronization that subserves communication of attended information.     

Peaceful mutualism in the gut: revealing key commensal bacteria for the creation and maintenance of immunological homeostasis

Quantitative and qualitative aspects of commensal bacteria determine the active and quiescent status of host immunity. In a recent Science paper, Atarashi et?al. (2011) identify Clostridium clusters IV and XIVa as indigenous commensal bacteria that induce regulatory T?cells for the creation and maintenance of immunological homeostasis.     

The mitochondrial pyruvate carrier: has it been unearthed at last?

The mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) is essential for several major pathways of carbohydrate, fat, and amino acid metabolism, yet its molecular identity has remained elusive. Two recent papers in Science (Herzig et?al., 2012; Bricker et?al., 2012) implicate three newly identified inner mitochondrial membrane proteins as MPC components.     

How to fine-tune an epigenetic switch

Arabidopsis does not flower in winter because FLC represses flowering genes, but prolonged cold exposure silences FLC, allowing flowering in spring. How do plants recalibrate this switch to adapt to different climates? Reporting in Science, Coustham et?al. (2012) found that tweaking a Polycomb target sequence may do the trick.     

A bibliometric investigation of life cycle assessment research in the web of science databases

Purpose

Over the past few decades, life cycle assessment (LCA) methodologies have been developed extensively, and there has been a growing interest in LCA research. However, as attested by scientific literature, few systematic, synthesizing, and visualizing studies have been found on LCA research which show how this field has evolved over time. The goal of this mainly bibliometric, empirical study is to get insight into publication performance of global LCA research, characterize its intellectual structure, and trace its evolution by using the bibliometric method with visual mapping.

Methods

Based on the data from the ISI Web of Science databases Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Conference Proceedings Citation Index—Science (CPCI-S) and Conference Proceedings Citation Index —Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH) in the period of 1998–2013, bibliometric methods are used to investigate general development profiles of LCA research, while knowledge domain visualization technologies are employed to conduct a further co-citation analysis.

Results and discussion

The results and discussions of this research mainly shed light on (1) basic statistics of significant publication performances, (2) research focuses and their intellectual base in LCA research, (3) how the streams of research evolved during the whole period of interest.

Conclusions

A new work on systematic and synthesizing study is conducted in this research to evaluate and map LCA research-related context. Some salient scholarly journals and institutions are identified that have shown a significant impact during the exponential growth of LCA research in the past 16 years. Biofuel, process design, solid waste management, and livestock production-related LCA researches are the main areas where interest is surging, confirmed by the active citers in each specialty. Furthermore, from the perspective of science mapping, evolution of LCA research is traced and some pivot publications are identified, which work as structural holes for the LCA-research development in the given time window.     

In this issue...

Hard corals as performance indicators for coral reefs

CPD for teachers

Science and public policy

How do secondary school science students interpret and construct scientific graphs?     

A metareview at the NIH

Science funding in the United States is tight, and the application process is arduous. A recent study of NIH peer-review recommends a major overhaul of the system. Will the changes prove cosmetic or curative?     

柄翅缨小蜂属一新种及一中国新记录种记述(膜翅目:缨小蜂科)

记述采自新疆的柄翅缨小蜂属Gonatocerus Nees菱胸柄翅缨小蜂种团G.SULphuripes groups 1新种:直茎柄翅缨小蜂Gonatocerus orthopennitus,sp.nov.;报道该属1中国新记录种:菱胸柄翅缨小蜂Gonatocerus sulphuripes(Fōrster),1847...     

面向21世纪的中国生态学

面向２１世纪的中国生态学陈涛（中国科学院沈阳应用生态研究所,１１００１５）ＥｃｏｌｏｇｙＴｏｗａｒｄｓ２１ｓｔＣｅｎｔｕｒｙｉｎＣｈｉｎａ．ＣｈｅｎＴａｏ（ＩｎｓｔｉｔｕｔｅｏｆＡｐｐｌｉｅｄＥｃｏｌｏｇｙ,ＣｈｉｎｅｓｅＡｃａｄｅｍｙｏｆＳｃｉｅｎ...     

Extinction of Xist improves cloning

Mammalian cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer is a notoriously inefficient process with a low birth rate. Recently in Science, Inoue et?al. (2010) report that somatic cell nuclear transfer fails to regulate Xist expression from the X chromosome.     

地衣型真菌三个中国新记录种

报道了在宁夏六盘山和贺兰山发现的3个地衣型真菌中国新记录种,分别是亚洲黄烛衣(Candelaria asiatica D.Liu&J.-SHur),黄厚膜衣[Placolecis loekoesiana(S.Y. Kondr., Farkas, J.J. Woo&Hur) An. C. Yin]和粉橙衣(Caloplaca lenae S?chting&Figueras)。对3个种的形态解剖特征进行了详细描述,并提供了形态结构照片。凭证标本保存在宁夏大学生命科学学院植物标本室。     

Location,location, location? No. Catalog number

Once you start to read this Editor’s Corner, you might wonder why I have devoted an entire article, albeit a short one, to this topic. Let me assure you there are reasons. First, I want to announce a new policy for the journal that will affect all research papers. Starting with all papers that are not currently in press, we will no longer be asking for geographical locations of research companies that follow the listing of a reagent. In Materials and Methods the authors typically refer to a reagent and then list the company and its location parenthetically. For example, “…p-nitrophenyl phosphate (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO).” Instead, we will require catalog numbers. The reason is that it is now quite easy to find a company using the internet, and in fact you rarely need to know the location because it is rare that you would send a written order. On the other hand, knowing the name of the reagent is not always sufficient to narrow down the precise item. For example, if you search for “p-nitrophenyl phosphate” at the Sigma-Aldrich site, you get seven primary choices and it is not at all obvious which one to choose. When my lab uses p-nitrophenyl phosphate for the Pho8?60 assay, we use item N9389, which narrows it down to a precise reagent. Thus, we will start requiring papers to write “…p-nitrophenyl phosphate (Sigma-Aldrich, N9389).

Second, I think this is actually a useful change, and one that many journals will start to institute once they see it being done here. The old style of listing the city and state is a relic that is no longer relevant. Furthermore, it is not even clear in the current global marketplace if this is particularly helpful. For example, if I am ordering an item from Roche Applied Science, why would anyone care where it is coming from? It is highly unlikely that a researcher in Germany or Japan is going to order from Roche Applied Science that happens to be based in Indianapolis, IN when there are much closer sites in Mannheim, Germany and Tokyo, Japan. So, do not be surprised when you start to see more and more journals adopting this approach, and remember that you saw it here first. Autophagy—the cutting edge.     

Heterogeneous profile in thermal denaturation of DNA preparation from the non-sulfur purple photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas spheroides

Thermal denaturation profiles of DNA preparations from fourstrains of Rhodopseudomonas spheroides were comparatively studied.All the melting curves in 0.1 ? SSC displayed Tm at 82 ?0.5?and a faint bimodal transition near 78?. The differential meltingrates as a function of temperature exhibited several peaks,suggesting that inter- or intra-molecular structural heterogeneitymay be present in R. spheroides DNA. ¹ Present address: Biological Institute, Faculty of Science,Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. (Received February 15, 1975; )