Interdisciplinarity and the information-seeking behavior of scientists

Adopting an intradisciplinary perspective, this article evaluates the information-seeking behavior of academics from different subfields of physics and astronomy. It investigates the effect of interdisciplinarity (reliance on the literature of other subjects) and the scatter of literature on two aspects of the information-seeking behavior: methods used for keeping up-to-date and for identifying articles. To this end a survey of 114 PhD students and staff at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University College London was carried out. The findings showed that the subfields that are more interdisciplinary or have a more scattered literature are more likely to use general search facilities for finding information. The study also showed that cross-disciplinary use of the literature is not necessarily an indicator of scattered literature. The study reveals intradisciplinary differences among physicists and astronomers in terms of their information-seeking behavior and highlights the risk of overlooking the characteristics of information-seeking behavior of specialized subject communities by focusing on very broad subject categories.     

The religious,the plural,the secular and the modern: a brief critical survey on Islam in Malaysia

Abstract

The embedization of Islam in Malaysia has gone through a long and complex process that involved an interaction with three major world civilizations (Indian, Chinese and European) and two colonial systems (Dutch and British) during which many aspects of its practices were reconfigured. This paper provides a brief critical survey of the evolution of the said embedization process during which Islam and the Muslims in Malaysia were moulded by a series of sociological realities, namely plural society, secularism and modernity. This has resulted, we argue, in the creation of 'moderate' Islam in Malaysia, one that is quite different from the fundamentalist image of Islam profiled in the contemporary worldwide discourse on global Islam     

Nephroprotective effects of Zingiber zerumbet Smith ethyl acetate extract against paracetamol-induced nephrotoxicity and oxidative stress in rats

Paracetamol (PCM) overdose can cause nephrotoxicity with oxidative stress as one of the possible mechanisms mediating the event. In this study, the effects of ethyl acetate extract of Zingiber zerumbet rhizome [200 mg per kg of body weight (mg/kg) and 400 mg/kg] on PCM-induced nephrotoxicity were examined. Rats were divided into five groups containing 10 rats each. The control group received distilled water while other groups were treated with extract alone (400 mg/kg), PCM alone (750 mg/kg), 750 mg/kg PCM+200 mg/kg extract (PCM+ 200-extract), and 750 mg/kg PCM+400 mg/kg extract (PCM+400-extract), respectively, for seven consecutive days. The Z. zerumbet extract was given intraperitoneally concurrent with oral administration of PCM. Treatment with Z. zerumbet extract at doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg prevented the PCM-induced nephrotoxicity and oxidative impairments of the kidney, as evidenced by a significantly reduced (P<0.05) level of plasma creatinine, plasma and renal malondialdehyde (MDA), plasma protein carbonyl, and renal advanced oxidation protein product (AOPP). Furthermore, both doses were also able to induce a significant increment (P<0.05) of plasma and renal levels of glutathione (GSH) and plasma superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity. The nephroprotective effects of Z. zerumbet extract were confirmed by a reduced intensity of renal cellular damage, as evidenced by histological findings. Moreover, Z. zerumbet extract administered at 400 mg/kg was found to show greater protective effects than that at 200 mg/kg. In conclusion, ethyl acetate extract of Z. zerumbet rhizome has a protective role against PCM-induced nephrotoxicity and the process is probably mediated through its antioxidant properties.     

Finite-time stability analysis and stabilization for linear discrete-time system with time-varying delay

The problem of finite-time stability for linear discrete-time systems with time-varying delay is studied in this paper. In order to deal with the time delay, the original system is firstly transformed into two interconnected subsystems. By constructing a delay-dependent Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional and using a two-term approximation of the time-varying delay, sufficient conditions of finite-time stability are derived and expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The derived stability conditions can be applied into analyzing the finite-time stability and deriving the maximally tolerable delay. Compared with the existing results on finite-time stability, the derived stability conditions are less conservative. In addition, for the stabilization problem, we design the state-feedback controller. Finally, numerical examples are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

The determinants of individuals’ perceived e-security: Evidence from Malaysia

Despite the critical role of individuals’ perceived security in an online environment, previous research has not attempted to comprehensively study the influences and interrelations between the determinants of online individuals’ perceived security. This research employs five theories to examine the interrelations that might exist between the antecedents of individuals’ perceived security in online environment in Malaysia. It is the first attempt to empirically examine the interrelations of the confidentiality related factors identified in the literature which is a significant original contribution. A questionnaire was the primary research methodology and structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest that individuals’ perceptions about security are significantly influenced by their perceived technical protection while technical protection was found to be influenced by website design features. Moreover, it was found that individuals’ perceptions toward internally provided assurances are highly influenced by externally provided assurances. However, the results found no significant relations between internally and externally provided assurances about a website's security. The findings imply that e-retailers should launch well-designed websites and communicate the technical protection capabilities of their websites to address individuals’ security concerns. The results also suggest that e-traders should consider the factors influencing individuals’ security perceptions when designing/developing their websites.     

Convection-radiation from a continuously moving fin of variable thermal conductivity

The homotopy analysis method (HAM) is applied to generate an analytic solution for heat transfer in a moving fin of variable thermal conductivity which is losing heat by simultaneous convection and radiation to its surroundings. The accuracy of the analytic solution is validated by comparing it with the direct numerical solution of the problem. The analytic solution is found to be accurate to at least three places of decimal for a wide range of values of the parameters that are commonly encountered in thermal processing application. Graphs displaying the results are interpreted in physical terms.     

Evaluating information seeking and use in the changing virtual world: the emerging role of Google Analytics

The paper identifies changes that have occurred in the Web environment over the last decade which have gradually rendered server logs, once the preeminent source of intelligence on usage and information‐seeking behaviour, an ineffective, impractical, and uneconomic resource. It also looks at the implications of these changes for information professionals and publishers who have come to rely on this data to understand the behaviour of clients and customers in the virtual environment. Ubiquitous and expanding, Google Analytics generates statistics about a website's traffic and traffic sources, albeit from a marketers' perspective, is evaluated as a possible replacement; something which might plug the user knowledge gap which is worryingly opening up, or maybe even, put us in a better position overall. The paper is built on the knowledge and experience of evaluating server logs for more than a decade, mostly for publishers and libraries, and also on two recent projects where server log analysis was supplemented with Google Analytics.     

Patterns of Iranian co-authorship networks in social sciences: A comparative study

Collaboration in science is a process in which two or more authors share their ideas, resources and data to create a joint work. This research compares coauthorship networks of Iranian articles in library and information science (LIS), psychology (PSY), management (MNG), and economics (ECO) in the ISI Web of Knowledge database during 2000–2009, and uses network analysis for the visualization of coauthorship networks. Data include all articles with at least one Iranian author and indexed in ISI's Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for the fields of LIS, PSY, MNG, and ECO. Indicators such as the Collaborative Index (CI), Degree of Collaboration (DC) and Collaboration Coefficient (CC) were calculated for each discipline. Results show that two or three authors were the most common number of authors per paper, and authors of PSY tended to have more multi-authored articles, compared to the other disciplines. LIS had the lowest rank regarding CC. MNG had the densest coauthorship network, and PSY had the sparsest. Iranian authors in the field of PSY mostly collaborated with those in the U.S., while LIS and MNG authors tended to collaborate with U.K. authors, and ECO authors tended to collaborate with Canadians.