Sameer Kumar

Mapping research collaborations in the business and management field in Malaysia, 1980---2010

This paper examines research collaborations in the field of business and management in Malaysia, a fast-developing economy in Southeast Asia. The country aims to become a developed nation by the year 2020, guided by its well-charted Wawasan 2020 or Vision 2020 program. Research and development are important agenda items within this program. Rarely, however, have studies investigated the research collaborations of researchers based in Malaysia from the network perspective. After a manual author disambiguation process, we examined the network of 285 business and management researchers at the individual, institutional, and international levels. Author collaborations per paper almost doubled between 2001 and 2010 compared to the period 1980–1990. The popularity of researchers and the strength and diversity of their ties with other researchers had significant effects on their research performance. Furthermore, geographical proximity still mattered in intra-national collaborations. Malaysian institutions more often collaborated intra-institutionally or with foreign partners than with other institutions within Malaysia. The country’s five research universities are among the top-most productive of all institutions in Malaysia. Malaysia’s top international partners are all developed countries, including the US, Australia, Japan, the UK, and Canada. Surprisingly, Malaysia has had relatively little collaboration with ASEAN nations, of which it is a prominent member and which has an important agenda of educational cooperation within its member states. Internationally co-authored articles have been cited almost three times more than locally co-authored articles. Based on these results, we suggest an effective co-authorship strategy.

Co-authorship networks: a review of the literature

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to attempt to provide a review of the growing literature on co-authorship networks and the research gaps that may be investigated for future studies in this field. Design/methodology/approach – The existing literature on co-authorship networks was identified, evaluated and interpreted. Narrative review style was followed. Findings – Co-authorship, a proxy of research collaboration, is a key mechanism that links different sets of talent to produce a research output. Co-authorship could also be seen from the perspective of social networks. An in-depth analysis of such knowledge networks provides an opportunity to investigate its structure. Patterns of these relationships could reveal, for example, the mechanism that shapes our scientific community. The study provides a review of the expanding literature on co-authorship networks. Originality/value – This is one of the first comprehensive reviews of network-based studies on co-authorship. The field is fast evolving, ope...

Research collaboration networks of two OIC nations: comparative study between Turkey and Malaysia in the field of `Energy Fuels', 2009---2011

With the world in the midst of an energy crisis, recent research has placed considerable emphasis on harnessing renewable and sustainable energy while efficiently using fossil fuels. Researchers create and sustain academic societies as a result of social interactions. This study takes a social network perspective to understand researchers’ associations using two Organisation of Islamic Co-operation nations, Turkey and Malaysia, in the fast-developing field of ‘Energy Fuels’. The study found both similarities and differences in the scholarly networks of these two countries. The mean distance between the authors in the Turkey and Malaysia networks was 8.4 and 6.5, respectively, confirming the small world nature of these networks. The popularity, position, and prestige of the authors in the network, as determined through centrality measures, had a statistically significant effect on research performance. These measures, however, were far more correlated with the research performance of the authors in the Malaysia network than in the Turkey network. PageRank centrality was found to be the most efficient topological measure when it came to correlation with research performance. We used authors’ ‘degree’ to reach to the ‘core’ (‘Deg-Core’) of the network (in contrast to the K-Core method), which was found to capture more productive authors. A method to detect academic communities of productive authors by extracting motifs (large cliques) from the network is suggested. Finally, we visualize the cognitive structure of both countries using a 2-mode network representing research focus areas (RFAs) and prominent authors working in these RFAs.

A Novel 2006 Indian Outbreak Strain of Chikungunya Virus Exhibits Different Pattern of Infection as Compared to Prototype Strain

Background The recent re-emergence of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) in India after 32 years and its worldwide epidemics with unprecedented magnitude raised a great public health concern. Methods and Findings In this study, a biological comparison was carried out between a novel 2006 Indian CHIKV outbreak strain, DRDE-06 and the prototype strain S-27 in mammalian cells in order to understand their differential infection pattern. Results showed that S-27 produced maximum number of progenies (2.43E+06 PFU/ml) at 20 to 24 hours post infection whereas DRDE-06 produced more than double number of progenies around 8 hours post infection in mammalian cells. Moreover, the observation of cytopathic effect, detection of viral proteins and viral proliferation assay confirmed the remarkably faster and significantly higher replication efficiency of DRDE-06. Moreover, our mutational analysis of whole genome of DRDE-06 revealed the presence of nineteen mutations as compared to S-27, whereas the analysis of 273 global isolates showed the consistent presence of fifteen out of nineteen mutations in almost all outbreak isolates. Further analysis revealed that ∼46% of recent outbreak strains including DRDE-06 do not contain the E1-A226V mutation which was earlier shown to be associated with the adaptation of CHIKV in a new vector species, Aedes albopictus. Conclusions A novel 2006 Indian CHIKV outbreak strain, DRDE-06 exhibits different pattern of infection as compared to prototype strain, S-27. This might be associated to some specific mutations observed in genome wide mutational analysis in DRDE-06 which emphasizes the need of future experimental investigation.

Inhibition of Chikungunya Virus Replication by 1-[(2-Methylbenzimidazol-1-yl) Methyl]-2-Oxo-Indolin-3-ylidene] Amino] Thiourea(MBZM-N-IBT)

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection is one of the most challenging human Arboviral infections with global significance and without any specific antiviral. In this investigation, 1-[(2-methylbenzimidazol-1-yl) methyl]-2-oxo-indolin-3-ylidene] amino] thiourea (MBZM-N-IBT) was synthesised as a molecular hybrid of 2-methyl benzimidazole and isatin-β-thiosemicarbazone and its anti-CHIKV property was evaluated. The release of infectious virus particles was calculated by plaque assay, expression profile of viral RNA was estimated by RT-PCR and viral protein profiles were assessed by Western blot and FACS analyses. The safety index of MBZM-N-IBT was found to be >21. The CHIKV infectious viral particle formation was abrogated around 76.02% by MBZM-N-IBT during infection in mammalian system and the viral RNA synthesis was reduced by 65.53% and 23.71% for nsP2 and E1 respectively. Surprisingly, the viral protein levels were reduced by 97% for both nsP2 and E2. In the time-of-addition experiment it abrogated viral infection at early as well as late phase of viral life cycle, which indicates about multiple mechanisms for its anti-CHIKV action. In silico analysis justified development of MBZM-N-IBT with good affinities for potential target proteins of CHIKV and related virus. With predictions of good drug-likeness property, it shows potential of a drug candidate which needs further experimental validation.

An Effective Recommender Algorithm for Cold-Start Problem in Academic Social Networks

Abundance of information in recent years has become a serious challenge for web users. Recommender systems (RSs) have been often utilized to alleviate this issue. RSs prune large information spaces to recommend the most relevant items to users by considering their preferences. Nonetheless, in situations where users or items have few opinions, the recommendations cannot be made properly. This notable shortcoming in practical RSs is called cold-start problem. In the present study, we propose a novel approach to address this problem by incorporating social networking features. Coined as enhanced content-based algorithm using social networking (ECSN), the proposed algorithm considers the submitted ratings of faculty mates and friends besides user’s own preferences. The effectiveness of ECSN algorithm was evaluated by implementing it in MyExpert, a newly designed academic social network (ASN) for academics in Malaysia. Real feedbacks from live interactions of MyExpert users with the recommended items are recorded for 12 consecutive weeks in which four different algorithms, namely, random, collaborative, content-based, and ECSN were applied every three weeks. The empirical results show significant performance of ECSN in mitigating the cold-start problem besides improving the prediction accuracy of recommendations when compared with other studied recommender algorithms.

Efficacy of a giant component in co-authorship networks

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a sparse and relatively small giant component (GC) will capture highly productive authors. Design/methodology/approach – The author used a geographically dispersed data set involving authors in the field of economics in ten countries in Southeast Asia and applied social network analysis methods to investigate the structure and dynamics of GCs. Findings – Results reveal that a GC, characterized by both low density and small size, can still capture a significant percentage (68 per cent of the top 25) of the most productive authors. There seems to be a topological backing for this occurrence. The number of direct connections (or “degree”) in the GC was correlated with research productivity, such that high-degree authors were almost twice as productive as low-degree authors. It is probable that productive authors having higher than average degrees may be the cause of the formation of the GC. The author hypothesize that irrespective of its size or s...

Perceptions of Scholars in the Field of Economics on Co-Authorship Associations: Evidence from an International Survey

Scholars (n = 580) from 69 countries who had contributed articles in the field of Economics during the year 2015 participated in a survey that gauged their perceptions of various aspects of co-authorship, including its benefits, motivations, working relationships, order of authorship and association preferences. Among the main findings, significant differences emerged in the proportion of co-authored papers based on age, gender and number of years the researchers had spent in their present institution. Female scholars had a greater proportion of co-authored papers than male scholars. Respondents considered improved quality of paper, contribution of mutual expertise, and division of labor as the biggest benefits of and motivation for co-authorship. Contrary to common perceptions that Economics researchers used a predominantly alphabetical order of authorship, our study found that a considerable percentage of respondents (34.5%) had practiced an order of authorship based on the significance of the authors’ contribution to the work. The relative importance of tasks differed significantly according to whether researchers co-authored as mentors or co-authored as colleagues. Lastly, researchers were found to associate, to varying degrees, with other researchers based on socio-academic parameters, such as nationality, ethnicity, gender, professional position and friendship. The study indicates that Economics authors perceive co-authorship as a rewarding endeavor. Nonetheless, the level of contribution and even the choice of association itself as a co-author depends to a great extent on the type of working relationship and socio-academic factors.

Relationship between authors’ structural position in the collaboration network and research productivity: Case of Indian earth scientists

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compute and analyze the topological properties of co-authorship network formed between earth scientists in India. As a case study, the authors evaluate bibliographic data of authors who have contributed research articles in the Journal of the Geological Society of India, a premier earth science journal in India. Design/methodology/approach – Research articles totaling 3,903 records from 1970 to 2011 were harvested from the ISI Web of Science SCI database and analyzed using Social Network Analysis. Findings – The author productivity in terms of number of papers published followed Lotkas law with β=2.1027. A dense giant component was detected that spanned 73 percent of the network with a density of 0.0017 and clustering coefficient of 0.631, suggesting high level of knowledge diffusion and a rapid flow of information and creativity in this network. Local metrics were calculated using degree, betweenness and closeness centralities. A strong correlation was seen betw...

Effect of gender on collaborative associations of researchers in Malaysia

This study aims to find the level of gender-based assortativity in the association of researchers and investigate if gender has influence over social capital of researchers and their research performance in the context of a multi-ethnic nation, such as Malaysia.,Social network analysis is used as a primary research method to analyse the associations between the authors. Mann-Whitney test is used for testing the significant differences in research performance and social capital based on gender.,The assortative mixing patterns of 187 researchers revealed positive assortativity, meaning that more authors preferred to co-author with authors of their gender. No influence of gender was seen on the social capital of authors. However, gender did significantly influence the research productivity of authors.,This is one of the first studies that attempts to find the influence of gender on collaborative associations of researchers in Malaysia.