Two articles about polyelectrolyte complexes

In the last month, I have had two articles published related to the work a BSc student did with me on polyelectrolyte complexes. The first article, published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry B, investigates the effect of the complex composition on the physical properties of the materials. We observed that complexes of two different polyelectrolytes in the ratio 20:1 showed higher proton conductivities compared to the pure materials, without compromising the structure or stability of the material. These results are of particular interest for fuel cell applications, where tough materials with high conductivities are required.

The second article, published in Soft Matter, examines the material structure upon adjusting the ratio of the two polyelectrolytes used in the complex. One component is a rigid polyelectrolyte that has shown preferential alignment in a specific direction. Complexing this material with a second, more flexible polyelectrolyte was expected to reduce the degree of ordering. However, the results indicated that the alignment was retained for polyelectrolyte ratios up to 10:1. Such behaviour may allow for tuning the structure of polymer films, which may then be applied as fuel cell membranes, filtration membranes, and sensors.

Authorship Order

When preparing a scientific article for publication, there is often the question of who are the authors, and in what order should they be listed. In some cases, it is easy - the person who conducted the research (and in many cases, this is also the person who wrote the article) is listed first, while the supervisor is listed last. When there are more than two authors, however, the additional authors are usually added in order of their contribution and/or seniority between the first and last authors. As this is generally the accepted order of authorship, it is immediately apparent to the reader who did the work and who oversaw the research. But is the order of the authors important? Within a scientific article, reference may be made to another publication, e.g. "In previous studies, Smith et al. found...", and in most cases, the citation refers to the first named author of that publication. Similarly, when discussing an article with a colleague, we often referred to it as "the so-and-so paper" according to the first named author. Furthermore, when searching for articles using a bibliographical database, the results are listed by both year and the first named author. However, it has been brought to my attention on a number of occasions that having your name last on an article is even more important. As the last author, you are assumed to be the innovator behind the research, which attests to your ability as a project leader. Consequently, it is also used as a quantifier of productivity and excellence, where not only the number of publications is important but also how many have your name last. Making the transition from first to last author can be difficult, particularly when seniority and politics come into play. But unless alphabetical ordering is adopted, this authorship hierarchy is unlikely to change.

'Piled Higher and Deeper' by Jorge Cham is the popular comic strip about life, or the lack thereof, in grad school. Check it out by going to www.phdcomics.com

Citation Etiquette

In my English class in high school, I was always told that you should never copy blocks of text from a source and use it verbatim in your own essay/article. If it was not possible to write it in another way, then the copied sentence/paragraph should be enclosed in quotation marks and the source cited appropriately. Such methodology is particularly relevant when writing scientific articles for publication in peer reviewed journals. Failure to do so is not only plagiarising, but also infringes on copyright and general scientific etiquette. Today, I noticed that someone had cited one of my publications in their article and I was curious to know what aspect of my work they had referred to. When I found a copy of the article, I immediately checked the reference list to see where in the text they had referred to my article - to my surprise I was the first reference cited in the paper! When I began reading the introduction of this article, it was clear that they hadn't referred to my research, but rather had copied word-for-word the first paragraph and a half of the introduction from my article! Upon seeing this, I wasn't sure if I should be insulted or flattered by what they had done. Although both articles are about fuel cells, the papers are otherwise unrelated. In that regard, it seems irrelevant to have referred to my article. I guess there is some consolation in the fact that they did cite my article, thereby acknowledging the source of the information. And given that there is so much emphasis on the number of publications and citations, perhaps I should be happy with any form of citation, no matter the context. Although I don't agree with what they did, I am not going to take it any further. However, a colleague did suggest that I contact this group and inform them that this was not my best article and that next time they should copy another one... :)

WISER - Measuring Excellence

What is excellence? How does one assess excellence? What criteria should be used? And who should do the assessing? The measurement of excellence is frequently discussed in relation to academia and academics, whether it be in appointing a professor, awarding a grant, or evaluating the productivity of an academic. But can one really measure ‘excellence’? At the WISER Festival, this very topic was debated. Prof. Ana Proykova, a professor of physics at the University of Sofia, discussed both the quantitative and qualitative elements of excellence. The number of publications, citations, patents, grants, students and collaborators are an objective way of quantifying excellence. The quality of the work is judged by the reviewers of the work and reflected by the international reputation of the journal in which the work is published. However, Prof. Flavia Zucco, head of research at the Institute of Neurobiology and Molecular Medicine at the National Research Council in Rome, argued that scientific excellence rewards assertiveness and single mindedness, while other skills such as flexibility, creativity, diplomacy and competence are deemed less important. She referred to Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, the physics Nobel Prize laureate, who noted that women bring specific skills to research that men often lack, including the ability to create teams in research, giving students the freedom they need and keeping egos in check. Prof. Zucco remarked that the differences between men and women should be valued in the academic arena. Ms. Marieke van den Brink, a PhD student at the Institute of Gender Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen, is addressing such issues in her research. In a recent publication, she posed the question ‘Does excellence have a gender?’ in relation to the appointment of professors at universities in the Netherlands. More than 60% of the professors recruited in the Netherlands between 1999 and 2003 were appointed by a closed application process (non-advertised positions). Although Ms. van den Brink had hypothesized that such procedures may disadvantage women, the findings did not confirm this. Thus, the so-called ‘old boys’ network appears to be equally advantageous for women in the Netherlands. However, her results did show that female applicants have a greater chance of being appointed to a position when there are more women on the selection committee. This may reflect the differences in the measurement of ‘excellence’ as perceived by men and women, as women may pay more attention to gender-specific behaviour. Should gender differences be considered when assessing excellence? Probably, but integrating gender awareness into the measurement of excellence is a whole new debate.

WISER - Shouldn't We Be?

"There are three broad hypotheses about the sources of the very substantial disparities...with respect to the presence of women in high-end scientific professions. ...the first is what I call the high-powered job hypothesis. The second is what I would call different availability of aptitude at the high end, and the third is what I would call different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search. And in my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described." Remarks from a speech given by Larry Summers, former President of Harvard University, at the NBER Conference in January 2005.

Although the above-mentioned speech ultimately led to Summers resignation, these sentiments are often shared by many people when attempting to explain the lack of women in high level positions. But rather than focusing on the reasons for the disparity, the first debate of the WISER Festival considered four possible alternatives for promoting women and subsequently increasing the percentage of women in academia. Prof. Janneke Gerards, a professor in constitutional and administrative law at Leiden University, proposed that 40% of scientific board and committee members should be women. She argued that more female representation will not only give alternative perspectives but also result in less gender bias when making decisions. Prof. Mineke Bosch, an associate professor in gender studies at the University of Maastricht, suggested that women should be made more visible by promoting them through collaborations, conferences and communication. Prof. Renate Loll, a professor of theoretical physics at Utrecht University, argued that we should raise our expectations of what women can achieve - 'believe in yourself, and all things are possible.' Prof. Yvonne Benschop, a professor of organisational behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegen, proposed that there should be a national mission for 'gender mainstreaming' by breaking down the 'ivory tower'. The festival participants were asked to vote on which proposition they preferred, with the initial count being in favour of Prof. Gerards. Many participants believed that if there was greater representation of women on boards and committees, then the other propositions would follow. This sparked further debating among the panel members and festival participants, where it was suggested that it is difficult to implement quotas. There was also strong support for 'crumbling the ivory tower' by making changes to the system. However, it was also argued that this requires one to already be in the system in order to be able to make such changes. Towards the end of the session, a second vote was cast, with the numbers then in favour of Prof. Bosch's proposal of creating visibility. This certainly requires less of a paradigm shift, but who is going to promote women? Overall, it was concluded that in one way or another, each of these propositions needs to be addressed in order to have greater representation of women in high level positions. The reasons for the lack of female academics may be multifaceted, but it is also apparent that there is no simple solution for changing the situation either.

Women in Science Education Research Festival - WISER

Last week, I attended the two day festival 'Women in Science Education and Research - WISER' in Maastricht. As mentioned in an earlier post, women hold approximately 25% of academic positions in the Netherlands, but only 10% of full professors are female. With 50% of university students being female, this begs the question 'Where did all the women go?' Over the two days, various issues were debated and discussed relating to the disproportion of women in academia and what can be done to change the status quo. Rather than trying to summarise the festival in one post, I intend to write a series of entries about some of the more interesting issues that were raised. Stay tuned for more...

H-index

Universities are continually looking for ways to quantify the research output of their academic staff. With databases such as 'Web of Science' on the Thompson Scientific ISI Web of Knowledge website, it is possible to obtain various statistics related to the number of publications for a given researcher. The factors that universities are looking for are how many articles one publishes, but also how often they are cited as a reference in another publication. The most mind-boggling statistic obtained from this analysis is the h-index. If an author's publications are ranked according to the number of citations with the most cited article listed first, the h-index is the number where the h-th article has been cited either h or more times. Huh? In other words, an h-index of 10 means that there are 10 publications that have 10 or more citations. The 'Web of Science' argues that "This metric is useful because it discounts the disproportionate weight of highly cited papers or papers that have not yet been cited." While this may be the case, it seems that it does not necessarily give an indication of the impact of the specific research or article. For example, an article that has been cited 1000 times has presumably had more of an impact on the scientific community than an article that has only been sited 100 times. So what does the h-index actually mean? Someone who has 50 articles each of which has been cited 50 times (h-index: 50) would appear to be more productive than another person who only has 5 articles that have been cited 500 times (h-index: 5), but does that mean that the first person is a better scientist? By the way, my h-index is 6.

Women in Science

Last week, I met with a woman from the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to discuss what opportunities there are for female scientists in the Netherlands and how NWO is supporting this. Although approximately 1/3 of PhD students are female, it is clear that for many women, their academic careers stop there. In the Netherlands, women hold approximately 25% of the academic staff positions in natural sciences (including biology, chemistry and physics), but less than 20% in engineering and technology departments. With a few exceptions (most notably Turkey and Portugal), the statistics are similar for other European countries and the USA.

Why are there not more women in academic positions? Having discussed this very question with friends and colleagues, there doesn’t appear to be a simple answer. It seems that many women are put off by the competitive environment and the aggressiveness that is needed to be successful in academia. Others feel that there is a lack of acceptance of female scientists, making it even harder for them to gain the recognition they deserve. Another common deterrent is the limited child-care facilities and support for women who want to have children and work full-time. For many women, there just doesn’t seem to be enough incentive to follow an academic career.

Universities are acknowledging these issues and making more of an effort to support and encourage female scientists and engineers in their education and vocation. At Delft University of Technology, the Delft Women in Science (DEWIS) network was established to provide mentoring and coaching as well as professional and personal development lectures and workshops to female students and staff members. With funding agencies such as NWO offering subsidies for female scientists and engineers, there is clearly an effort to provide more opportunities and better working conditions for female academics. It will be interesting to see if more women take advantage of such opportunities in the coming years.

Culinary Chemistry

Although I had originally intended to post about science on this blog, it wasn't long before I digressed to posting recipes. I enjoy cooking, especially desserts (as you can see), and when you think about it, there is actually a lot of science in cooking. In salad dressing, oil droplets are dispersed in water to form an emulsion. Marinating meat in an acid (fruit juice, wine or vinegar) breaks down the proteins, making the meat more tender. When boiling an egg, the protein molecules interact with one another (coagulate) to form a gel. Jan Groenewold, a physical chemist and former colleague of mine, has recently released a book with chef, Eke Marien, called 'Cook and Chemist'. They explain the scientific principles behind cooking techniques and how they influence texture and taste. Admittedly, it does take away some of the mysticism of cooking, but definitely intrigues the scientist in me. But can science help me to make the perfect souffle? Well, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!