This study examines the social media uptake of scientific journals on two different platforms - X and WeChat - by comparing the adoption of X among journals indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) with the adoption of WeChat among journals indexed in the Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD). The findings reveal substantial differences in platform adoption and user engagement, shaped by local contexts. While only 22.7% of SCIE journals maintain an X account, 84.4% of CSCD journals have a WeChat official account. Journals in Life Sciences & Biomedicine lead in uptake on both platforms, whereas those in Technology and Physical Sciences show high WeChat uptake but comparatively lower presence on X. User engagement on both platforms is dominated by low-effort interactions rather than more conversational behaviors. Correlation analyses indicate weak-to-moderate relationships between bibliometric indicators and social media metrics, confirming that online engagement reflects a distinct dimension of journal impact, whether on an international or a local platform. These findings underscore the need for broader social media metric frameworks that incorporate locally dom
This paper introduces the Unique Citing Documents Journal Impact Factor(Uniq-JIF) as a supplement to the traditional Journal Impact Factor(JIF). The Uniq-JIF counts each citing document only once, aiming to reduce the effects of citation manipulations. Analysis of 2023 Journal Citation Reports data shows that for most journals, the Uniq-JIF is less than 20% lower than the JIF, though some journals show a drop of over 75%. The Uniq-JIF also highlights significant reductions for journals suppressed due to citation issues, indicating its effectiveness in identifying problematic journals. The Uniq-JIF offers a more nuanced view of a journal's influence and can help reveal journals needing further scrutiny.
We compare the network of aggregated journal-journal citation relations provided by the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2012 of the Science and Social Science Citation Indexes (SCI and SSCI) with similar data based on Scopus 2012. First, global maps were developed for the two sets separately; sets of documents can then be compared using overlays to both maps. Using fuzzy-string matching and ISSN numbers, we were able to match 10,524 journal names between the two sets; that is, 96.4% of the 10,936 journals contained in JCR or 51.2% of the 20,554 journals covered by Scopus. Network analysis was then pursued on the set of journals shared between the two databases and the two sets of unique journals. Citations among the shared journals are more comprehensively covered in JCR than Scopus, so the network in JCR is denser and more connected than in Scopus. The ranking of shared journals in terms of indegree (that is, numbers of citing journals) or total citations is similar in both databases overall (Spearman's \r{ho} > 0.97), but some individual journals rank very differently. Journals that are unique to Scopus seem to be less important--they are citing shared journals rather than bein
This study compares publication pattern dynamics in the social sciences and humanities in five European countries. Three are Central and Eastern European countries that share a similar cultural and political heritage (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland). The other two are Flanders (Belgium) and Norway, representing Western Europe and the Nordics, respectively. We analysed 449,409 publications from 2013-2016 and found that, despite persisting differences between the two groups of countries across all disciplines, publication patterns in the Central and Eastern European countries are becoming more similar to those in their Western and Nordic counterparts. Articles from the Central and Eastern European countries are increasingly published in journals indexed in Web of Science and also in journals with the highest citation impacts. There are, however, clear differences between social science and humanities disciplines, which need to be considered in research evaluation and science policy.
The European Research and Development for Space based High Contrast Imaging II Workshop, held at MPIA in May 2025, advanced Europe strategic coordination in support of future exoplanet imaging missions such as the Habitable Worlds Observatory and the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets mission. Building on the first 2024 workshop, this meeting defined concrete priorities across eight technical areas, including wavefront sensing, coronagraphs, post processing, nulling interferometry, deformable mirrors, detectors, and telescope design. Discussions emphasized Europe strengths in adaptive optics, ground-based facilities, and interferometry, while identifying key gaps, particularly the need for a dedicated European vacuum testbed for high contrast imaging. The community highlighted near infrared or UV coronagraphy as a promising domain for European leadership and called for joint development of advanced data reduction algorithms, detectors, and cross-mission coordination with HWO and LIFE. The workshop outcomes establish a collaborative roadmap to strengthen Europe technological readiness, foster agency partnerships, and ensure its continued leadership in the next generation of space-b
This document is submitted as input to the European Strategy for Particle Physics Update (ESPPU). The U.S.-based Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) aims at understanding how the complex dynamics of confined quarks and gluons makes up nucleons, nuclei and all visible matter, and determines their macroscopic properties. In April 2024, the EIC project received approval for critical-decision 3A (CD-3A) allowing for Long-Lead Procurement, bringing its realization another step closer. The ePIC Collaboration was established in July 2022 around the realization of a general purpose detector at the EIC. The EIC is based in U.S.A. but is characterized as a genuine international project. In fact, a large group of European scientists is already involved in the EIC community: currently, about a quarter of the EIC User Group (consisting of over 1500 scientists) and 29% of the ePIC Collaboration (consisting of $\sim$1000 members) is based in Europe. This European involvement is not only an important driver of the EIC, but can also be beneficial to a number of related ongoing and planned particle physics experiments at CERN. In this document, the connections between the scientific questions addressed at C
Energy system optimization models are indispensable for planning the European energy transition. Yet their applicability is constrained by the fundamental trade-off between spatial detail and computational tractability. Modelers often tackle this by spatially aggregating electricity networks. Existing methods, however, neglect differences in voltage levels, reducing them to a single level and thereby overlooking the critical role of transformers in expansion planning. Therefore, we propose a novel voltage-aware network partitioning and aggregation methodology that preserves individual voltage levels and transformers. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach and compare it against a voltage-unaware grid aggregation by solving a network expansion problem for a European case study using PyPSA. Our findings show that the proposed methodology preserves up to 70% of the transformer expansion costs in the aggregated model compared to the full grid model, thereby significantly improving the accuracy of investment decisions for transformers in the aggregated grid.
The Proton Improvement Plan (PIP-II) to the FNAL accelerator chain and the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) will provide the world's most intense neutrino beam to the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) enabling a wide-ranging physics program. This document outlines the significant contributions made by European national laboratories and institutes towards realizing the first phase of the project with a 1.2 MW neutrino beam. Construction of this first phase is well underway. For DUNE Phase II, this will be closely followed by an upgrade of the beam power to > 2 MW, for which the European groups again have a key role and which will require the continued support of the European community for machine aspects of neutrino physics. Beyond the neutrino beam aspects, LBNF is also responsible for providing unique infrastructure to install and operate the DUNE neutrino detectors at FNAL and at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). The cryostats for the first two Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber detector modules at SURF, a contribution of CERN to LBNF, are central to the success of the ongoing execution of DUNE Phase I. Likewise, successful and timely procurem
This document represents a contribution of the United States early career collider physics community to the 2025--2026 update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics. Preferences with regard to different future collider options and R&D priorities were assessed via a survey. The early career community was defined as anyone who is a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, untenured faculty member, or research scientist under 40 years of age. In total, 105 participants responded to the survey between February and March 10th, 2025. Questions were formulated primarily to gauge the enthusiasm and preferences for different collider options in line with the recommendations of the United States' P5 report, relevant to the European Strategy Update.
Overlay journals are characterised by their articles being published on open access repositories, often already starting in their initial preprint form as a prerequisite for submission to the journal prior to initiating the peer-review process. In this study we aimed to identify currently active overlay journals and examine their characteristics. We utilised an explorative web search and contacted key service providers for additional information. The final sample consisted of 34 overlay journals. While the results show that new overlay journals have been actively established within recent years, the current presence of overlay journals remains diminutive compared to the overall number of open access journals. Most overlay journals publish articles in natural sciences, mathematics or computer sciences, and are commonly published by groups of academics rather than formal organisations. They may also rank highly within the traditional journal citation metrics. None of the investigated journals required fees from authors, which is likely related to the cost-effective aspects of the overlay publishing model. Both the growth in adoption of open access preprint repositories and researcher
In view of the European Strategy for Particle Physics process, the French HEP community has organized a national process of collecting written contributions and has pursued a series of workshops culminating with a national symposium held in Paris on January 20-21, 2025 that involved over 280 scientists https://indico.in2p3.fr/event/34662/. The present document summarises the main conclusions of this bottom-up approach centred on the physics and technology motivations.
The search for dark matter is an exciting topic that is pursued in different communities over a wide range of masses and using a variety of experimental approaches. The result is a strongly correlated matrix of activities across Europe and beyond, both on the experimental and the theoretical side. We suggest to encourage and foster the collaboration of the involved institutions on technical, scientific and organisational level, in order to realise the synergies that are required to increase the impact of dark matter research and to cope with the increasing experiment sizes. The suggested network -- loosely titled "DMInfraNet" -- could be realised as a new initiative of the European strategy or be based on existing structures like iDMEu or DRD. The network can also serve as a nucleus for future joint funding proposals.
An exploratory, descriptive analysis is presented of the national orientation of scientific, scholarly journals as reflected in the affiliations of publishing or citing authors. It calculates for journals covered in Scopus an Index of National Orientation (INO), and analyses the distribution of INO values across disciplines and countries, and the correlation between INO values and journal impact factors. The study did not find solid evidence that journal impact factors are good measures of journal internationality in terms of the geographical distribution of publishing or citing authors, as the relationship between a journal's national orientation and its citation impact is found to be inverse U-shaped. In addition, journals publishing in English are not necessarily internationally oriented in terms of the affiliations of publishing or citing authors; in social sciences and humanities also USA has their nationally oriented literatures. The paper examines the extent to which nationally oriented journals entering Scopus in earlier years, have become in recent years more international. It is found that in the study set about 40 per cent of such journals does reveal traces of internati
In his recent paper published in the European Journal of Scientific Research 44, 4, 610-611 (2010), the author, Arthur Boltcho, claims to have found a mathematical disproof of relative time dilatation of Special Relativity Theory (SRT). In this letter we show that the supposed mathematical disproof of relative time dilatation of SRT is totally wrong and that Arthur Boltcho demonstrated nothing. The errors by Boltcho arise from a strong misunderstanding and confusing the concept of "moments" and time intervals in the framework of SRT.
A number of journal classification systems have been developed in bibliometrics since the launch of the Citation Indices by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) in the 1960s. These systems are used to normalize citation counts with respect to field-specific citation patterns. The best known system is the so-called "Web-of-Science Subject Categories" (WCs). In other systems papers are classified by algorithmic solutions. Using the Journal Citation Reports 2014 of the Science Citation Index and the Social Science Citation Index (n of journals = 11,149), we examine options for developing a new system based on journal classifications into subject categories using aggregated journal-journal citation data. Combining routines in VOSviewer and Pajek, a tree-like classification is developed. At each level one can generate a map of science for all the journals subsumed under a category. Nine major fields are distinguished at the top level. Further decomposition of the social sciences is pursued for the sake of example with a focus on journals in information science (LIS) and science studies (STS). The new classification system improves on alternative options by avoiding the problem
Synergies between MAchine learning, Real-Time analysis and Hybrid architectures for efficient Event Processing and decision-making (SMARTHEP) is a European Training Network, training a new generation of Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) to advance real-time decision-making, driving data-collection and analysis towards synonymity. SMARTHEP brings together scientists from major LHC collaborations at the frontiers of real-time analysis (RTA) and key specialists from computer science and industry. By solving concrete problems as a community, SMARTHEP will further the adoption of RTA techniques, enabling future High Energy Physics (HEP) discoveries and generating impact in industry. ESRs will contribute to European growth, leveraging their hands-on experience in machine learning and accelerators towards commercial deliverables in fields that can profit most from RTA, e.g., transport, manufacturing, and finance. This contribution presents the training and outreach plan for the network, and is intended as an opportunity for further collaboration and feedback from the CHEP community.
The launch of Google Scholar Metrics as a tool for assessing scientific journals may be serious competition for Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports, and for Scopus powered Scimago Journal Rank. A review of these bibliometric journal evaluation products is performed. We compare their main characteristics from different approaches: coverage, indexing policies, search and visualization, bibliometric indicators, results analysis options, economic cost and differences in their ranking of journals. Despite its shortcomings, Google Scholar Metrics is a helpful tool for authors and editors in identifying core journals. As an increasingly useful tool for ranking scientific journals, it may also challenge established journals products
The Brazilian High-Energy Physics (HEP) community has expanded remarkably since its first involvement at CERN and Fermilab in the 1980s. Its recent organization under the Brazilian Network for High-Energy Physics (RENAFAE), since 2008, has further strengthened its scientific and technological goals, particularly in detector instrumentation, computing, and industry partnerships. In 2024, Brazil became an Associate Member State of CERN, opening new opportunities for deeper engagement in accelerator and detector R&D. This input to the 2026 update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics highlights Brazil's current participation in LHC experiments as well as ongoing developments in detector and accelerator technology, and details the community's view towards future colliders. The potential for expanded scientific and industrial collaborations between Brazil and CERN is also discussed.
Robotic technologies are becoming increasingly popular in dentistry due to the high level of precision required in delicate dental procedures. Most dental robots available today are designed for implant surgery, helping dentists to accurately place implants in the desired position and depth. In this paper, we introduce the DentiBot, the first robot specifically designed for dental endodontic treatment. The DentiBot is equipped with a force and torque sensor, as well as a string-based Patient Tracking Module, allowing for real-time monitoring of endodontic file contact and patient movement. We propose a 6-DoF hybrid position/force controller that enables autonomous adjustment of the surgical path and compensation for patient movement, while also providing protection against endodontic file fracture. In addition, a file flexibility model is incorporated to compensate for file bending. Pre-clinical evaluations performed on acrylic root canal models and resin teeth confirm the feasibility of the DentiBot in assisting endodontic treatment.
This short critical correspondence discusses the Digital News Innovation (DNI) fund orchestrated by Humpty Dumpty -- a.k.a. Google -- for helping European journalism to innovate and renew itself. Based on topic modeling and critical discourse analysis, the results indicate that the innovative projects mostly mimic the old business model of Humpty Dumpty. With these results and the accompanying critical discussion, this correspondence contributes to the ongoing battle between platforms and media.