Sofía Liberman

The flow of knowledge: Scientific contacts in formal meetings☆

Abstract The scientific community organizes its relations into network patterns, where the nodes are individuals and the links are acquaintance and common work. Scientific meetings are marketplaces of specialized knowledge, where new links are established by exchange of information. The flow of knowledge is modelled by information transfer that may be calibrated through polling the participants on the number of ‘contacts’ they establish at such meetings. We indicate estimates of cost and efficiency of scientific meetings which may be important for helping science and technology funding agencies in developing countries to increase their communitys impact in the world of science.

Scientific group cohesiveness at the National University of México

SummaryWe present the results on the relationship between the bonding number (the number of links among the authors of an article) and a measure of group cohesiveness on a Likert-type scale in three research areas, Biotechnology, Mathematics and Physics, at the National University of Mexico (UNAM). We found a difference between disciplines with regard to group size, and although there is little difference between disciplines in cohesiveness, results suggest that there is a direct relationship between the level of cohesiveness and the bonding number in Physics and Biotechnology, but not in Mathematics where the groups are much smaller.

Independent simultaneous discoveries visualized through network analysis: the case of linear canonical transforms

AbstractWe describe the structural dynamics of two groups of scientists in relation to the independent simultaneous discovery (i.e., definition and application) of linear canonical transforms. This mathematical construct was built as the transfer kernel of paraxial optical systems by Prof. Stuart A. Collins, working in the ElectroScience Laboratory in Ohio State University. At roughly the same time, it was established as the integral kernel that represents the preservation of uncertainty in quantum mechanics by Prof. Marcos Moshinsky and his postdoctoral associate, Dr. Christiane Quesne, at the Instituto de Física of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. We are interested in the birth and parallel development of the two follower groups that have formed around the two seminal articles, which for more than two decades did not know and acknowledge each other. Each group had different motivations, purposes and applications, and worked in distinct professional environments. As we will show, Moshinsky–Quesne had been highly cited by his associates and students in Mexico and Europe when the importance of his work started to permeate various other mostly theoretical fields; Collins’ paper took more time to be referenced, but later originated a vast following notably among Chinese applied optical scientists. Through social network analysis we visualize the structure and development of these two major coauthoring groups, whose community dynamics shows two distinct patterns of communication that illustrate the disparity in the diffusion of theoretical and technological research.

Psychological Meaning of “Coauthorship” Among Scientists Using the Natural Semantic Networks Technique

Abstract The purpose of this study is to determine the psychological meaning of coauthorship for a group of scientists, based on the assumption that the meaning of a concept is related to experience on “how a person behaves in a situation, depending on what the situation signifies to him”. The semantic meaning provides for an interpretation of action in beliefs, goals and intentions, following the idea that semantic meaning is a basis for inferring intentions to perform action. We used the Natural Semantic Networks Method. We interviewed 162 scientists in the physical and natural sciences. Results show a cluster of the semantic meaning of coauthorship in which collaboration, teamwork, work, common interest, discussion and others, are retrieved from memory and represented as a natural semantic network of the concept of coauthorship. Collaboration and teamwork are the two concepts that have the highest semantic value and this holds true for various disciplines although teamwork is the most elicited word associated to coauthorship. We propose a model in which coauthorship represents the result of the experience, attitudes and behavior of a group process concerning collaboration and teamwork in science.

The structural development of linear canonical transforms

We consider that the simultaneous development of the theory of linear canonical integral transforms among two quite distinct scientific communities, provides an interesting example of how a body of knowledge diffuses in applied—compared with theoretical—research fields.