research paper on natural science

The Science of Nature

Naturwissenschaften

The Science of Nature - Naturwissenschaften - is Springer's flagship multidisciplinary science journal. The journal is dedicated to the fast publication and global dissemination of high-quality research and invites papers, which are of interest to the broader community in the biological sciences. Contributions from the chemical, geological, and physical sciences are welcome if contributing to questions of general biological significance. Particularly welcomed are contributions that bridge between traditionally isolated areas and attempt to increase the conceptual understanding of systems and processes that demand an interdisciplinary approach.

The Science of Nature - Naturwissenschaften - is only interested in publishing the very best of research, and the selection criteria are scientific excellence, novelty, and the potential to attract the widest possible readership, reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of the journal. The journal publishes Reviews, Original Articles, Concepts & Synthesis, Short Communications, and Comments & Replies. With the Comments & Reply section, The Science of Nature - Naturwissenschaften - aims to stimulate scientific discussion or elaborate on opposing view in response to an article published in the journal.

Frequency: Publishes six times per  year. 

• Matthias Waltert

Latest articles

Effects of 6-methoxybenzoxazolinone (6-mboa) on animals: state of knowledge and open questions.

How does the life cycle of Clinodiplosis profusa (Cecidomyiidae) adjust to phenological variations of the host plant Eugenia uniflora (Myrtaceae) in sun and shade?

• Rayssa Rosa Marquesine
• Pedro Henrique Pereira Gonçalves
• Bruno Garcia Ferreira

Obstacle negotiation in female desert locust oviposition digging

• Chen Klechevski

Public perception and acceptance of coypu Myocastor coypus removal in urban areas: influences of age and education

• Andrea Viviano
• Isabella De Meo
• Alessandro Paletto

Ant-following behavior is correlated with plumage traits in African understory birds

• Janina Klug
• Marcell K. Peters

Journal updates

Editorial excellence.

Congratulations to Matthias Waltert! Science of Nature is a top rated Springer Nature journal. This exceptional editor performed in the top percentile of journals based on data collected from the Journal Author Satisfaction Survey. We're recognising extraordinary editors for their commitment and passion to their journals. Learn more about editorial excellence.

Arnold Berliner Award

About the Arnold Berliner Award

To mark the 100th anniversary of the journal in 2013, the Arnold Berliner Award was established in recognition of its founder who guided the development of the journal over the exceptionally long period of 22 years. The award is given annually for the best research article published in the journal during the previous calendar year. Criteria are excellence in science, originality and in particular interdisciplinarity, overall mirroring Berliner's motivation for initiating Naturwissenschaften.The Award is marked with the Arnold Berliner Medal, and is accompanied by a biennial subscription to the electronic edition of the journal, a 500 Euro voucher for Springer eBooks, as well as a cash prize of 250 Euro.

Social Media

Press releases, journal information.

• Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
• Biological Abstracts
• CAB Abstracts
• Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS)
• Current Contents/Life Sciences
• Current Contents/Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences
• Engineering Village – GEOBASE
• Google Scholar
• Japanese Science and Technology Agency (JST)
• Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals and Series
• OCLC WorldCat Discovery Service
• Reaction Citation Index
• Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)
• TD Net Discovery Service
• UGC-CARE List (India)
• Zoological Record

Rights and permissions

Editorial policies

© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature

• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• Español (Spanish)
• Français (French)
• Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
• Brasil (Portuguese)
• India (English)
• हिंदी (Hindi)
• Feature Stories
• Explore All
• Subscribe page
• Submissions
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Advertising
• Wild Madagascar
• Selva tropicales
• Mongabay.org
• Tropical Forest Network

Reforestation to capture carbon could be done much more cheaply, study says

Share this article

If you liked this story, share it with other people.

• New research shows that a mix of natural forest regrowth and tree planting could remove up to 10 times more carbon at $20 per metric ton than previously estimated by the IPCC, the U.N.’s climate science panel.
• The study found that natural regeneration is more cost-effective in 46% of suitable areas, while tree planting is better in 54%, suggesting a tailored approach could maximize carbon capture.
• Researchers estimate that using the most cost-effective method in each location could remove 31.4 billion metric tons of CO2 over 30 years at less than $50 per metric ton.
• While the findings are promising, experts caution that reforestation alone can’t solve the climate crisis and emphasize the need to consider biodiversity and other ecological factors alongside cost-effectiveness.

Trees are allies in the struggle against climate change, and regrowing forests to capture carbon may be cheaper than we thought. According to new research published in Nature Climate Change , a strategic mix of natural regrowth and tree planting could be the most cost-effective way to capture carbon.

Researchers analyzed reforestation projects in 138 low- and middle-income countries to compare the costs of different reforestation approaches. They found it’s possible to remove 10 times more carbon at $20 per metric ton, and almost three times more at $50, compared to what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had previously estimated .

Neither natural regeneration nor tree planting consistently outperforms the other. Instead, the most cost-effective method varies depending on local conditions. Natural regeneration, which involves letting forests regrow on their own, is cheaper in about 46% of suitable areas. Tree planting, on the other hand, is more cost-effective in 54% of areas.

“Natural regeneration is more cost-effective in areas where tree planting is expensive, regrowing forests accumulate carbon more quickly, or timber infrastructure is distant,” said lead author Jonah Busch, who conducted the study while working for Conservation International. “On the other hand, plantations outperform in areas far from natural seed sources, or where more of the carbon from harvested wood is stored in long-lasting products.”

The research team estimates that by using the cheapest method in each location, we could remove a staggering 31.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over 30 years, at a cost of less than $50 per metric ton. This is about 40% more carbon removal than if only one method was used universally.

“It’s exciting that the opportunity for low-cost reforestation appears much more plentiful than previously thought; this suggests reforestation projects are worth a second look by communities that might have prejudged them to be cost prohibitive,” said Busch. “While reforestation can’t be the only solution to climate change, our findings suggest it should be a bigger piece of the puzzle than previously thought.”

To reach these conclusions, the research team gathered data from hundreds of reforestation projects and used machine-learning techniques to map costs across different areas at a 1-kilometer (0.6-mile) resolution. This detailed approach allowed them to consider crucial factors such as tree growth rates and potential species in different regions.

Ecologist Robin Chazdon, who wasn’t involved in the research, praised the comprehensive approach but highlighted important considerations beyond cost-effectiveness.

“These eye-opening findings add nuance and complexity to our understanding of the net costs of carbon storage for naturally regenerating forests and monoculture plantations,” Chazdon said. However, she emphasized that “the relative costs of carbon storage should not be the only factor to consider regarding spatial planning of reforestation.”

Chazdon pointed out some of the ecological trade-offs involved in different reforestation methods. Monoculture tree plantations, while potentially cost-effective in certain areas, often create excessive water demand and provide poor opportunities for native biodiversity conservation. In contrast, naturally regenerating forests typically offer a wider range of ecosystem services and better support local biodiversity.

“Ultimately, these environmental costs and benefits — which can be difficult to monetize — need to be incorporated in decisions regarding how and where to grow plantations or foster natural regeneration,” Chazdon said.

The study’s authors acknowledge these limitations and suggest several directions for future research. They propose extending the analysis to high-income countries and exploring other forms of reforestation, such as agroforestry or planting patches of trees and allowing the rest of an area to regrow naturally.

Additionally, the researchers emphasize the need to integrate their findings on cost-effectiveness with data on biodiversity, livelihoods and other societal needs to guide reforestation efforts in different contexts.

While the study’s findings are promising, the researchers caution that reforestation alone won’t solve the climate crisis. Even at its maximum potential, reforestation would only remove as much carbon dioxide in 30 years as eight months of current global emissions.

Reforestation is very important, but it won’t solve climate change on its own, Busch said. Ultimately, “we still need to reduce emissions from fossil fuels.”

Banner image of two men planting trees in the Yokadouma Council Forest, Cameroon. Image courtesy WWF.

Liz Kimbrough  is a staff writer for Mongabay and holds a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University, where she studied the microbiomes of trees. View more of her reporting  here .

How to pick a tree-planting project? Mongabay launches transparency tool to help supporters decide

Busch, J., Bukoski, J. J., Cook-Patton, S. C., Griscom, B., Kaczan, D., Potts, M. D., … Vincent, J. R. (2024). Cost-effectiveness of natural forest regeneration and plantations for climate mitigation.  Nature Climate Change , 1-7. doi: 10.1038/s41558-024-02068-1

FEEDBACK :  Use this form  to send a message directly to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

To wipe or to wash? That is the question

Toilet paper: Environmentally impactful, but alternatives are rolling out

Rolling towards circularity? Tracking the trace of tires

Getting the bread: What’s the environmental impact of wheat?

Consumed traces the life cycle of a variety of common consumer products from their origins, across supply chains, and waste streams. The circular economy is an attempt to lessen the pace and impact of consumption through efforts to reduce demand for raw materials by recycling wastes, improve the reusability/durability of products to limit pollution, and […]

Free and open access to credible information

Latest articles.

In Mexico, avocado suppliers continue sourcing from illegally deforested land

Indonesian Islamic behemoth’s entry into coal mining sparks youth wing revolt

Indonesia expands IPLC land recognition — but the pace is too slow, critics say

One year after oil referendum, what’s next for Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park?

In the DRC, a government commission is taking funds owed to people relocated by mines

Conserving & restoring waterways can mitigate extreme urban heat in Bangladesh

Arctic melt ponds influence sea ice extent each summer — but how much?

3D ‘digital twin’ rainforest maps could help reforestation programs in Costa Rica

you're currently offline

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

•  We're Hiring!
•  Help Center

Natural Science

• Most Cited Papers
• Most Downloaded Papers
• Newest Papers
• Last »
• After Mayan End Times Follow Following
• Ancient Celtic Faith Follow Following
• Religious Cults Follow Following
• Creative thinking Follow Following
• Jesus Christ Follow Following
• Justice Follow Following
• Christianity Follow Following
• Psychiatry Follow Following
• Sistemas de organización social y la medición de su efectividad Follow Following
• Education Follow Following

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• Academia.edu Journals
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• Conferences

Journal of Natural Sciences Research

• Current Issue
• Back Issues

Announcements

• Full List of Journals
• Migrate a Journal
• Special Issue Service
• Conference Publishing
• Editorial Board
• OPEN ACCESS Policy

• Other Journals

Journal of Natural Sciences Research is a peer reviewed journal published by IISTE. The journal publishes original papers at the forefront of natural sciences research (life sciences, environemental and energy sciences, healthcare, animal and agriculture, etc). The journal is published in both printed and online versions. The online version is free access and download.

IISTE is a member of  CrossRef .

The DOI of the journal is:  https://doi.org/10.7176/JNSR

Vol 15, No 2 (2024)

Table of contents.

Paper submission email: [email protected]

ISSN (Paper)2224-3186 ISSN (Online)2225-0921

Please add our address "[email protected]" into your email contact list.

This journal follows ISO 9001 management standard and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Copyright © www.iiste.org

Journal of Natural Sciences

ISSN 2334-2943 (Print) 2334-2951 (Online)

DOI: 10.15640/jns

• Manuscript Preparation Guidelines
• Subscription
• Journals by Subjects
• International Multilanguage Journal of Contemporary Research
• Journal of Foreign Languages, Cultures & Civilizations
• Complete List of Journals
• Current Issue

Editor-in-Chief Dr. Zoran Pazameta, Eastern Connecticut State University, USA.

ISSN : 2334-2943 (Print Version)

ISSN : 2334-2951 (Electronic Version)

Frequency : Semi-annually (2 issues per year)

Nature : Print and Online

Submission E-mail : [email protected]

Submission E-mail : [email protected]

Language of Publication : English

Journal of Natural Sciences is an international peer-reviewed journal that focuses on every aspects of fundamental and applied sciences research. The journal seeks to publish experimental, computational and theoretical studies of fundamental and applied sciences, engineering, and technology and health sciences. The journal is devoted to related sciences and publishes articles from around the world presenting results of major research from all earth sciences. All research articles in this journal have undergone initial editorial screen and rigorous peer review.

• E-Publication First TM

E-Publication First TM is a feature offered through our journal platform. It allows PDF version of manuscripts that have been peer reviewed and accepted, to be hosted online prior to their inclusion in a final printed journal. Readers can freely access or cite the article. The accepted papers are published online within one week after the completion of all necessary publishing steps.

DOI ® number

Each paper published in Journal of Natural Sciences is assigned a DOI ® number , which appears beneath the author's affiliation in the published paper. Click HERE to know what is DOI (Digital Object Identifier)? Click HERE to retrieve Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for journal articles, books, and chapters.

Abstracted/Indexed in:

Editorial Board

Browse journals.

• View Related Journals
• Multilanguage Journals

Journal Policies

• Read the Journal's Plagiarism Policy
• Read the Journal's Copyright Policy
• Submission & Review Policy

Information

• For Contributors
• For Reviewers
• For Readers
• For Librarians

Useful Links

• Call for Papers
• Submit Your Paper
• Publish in Your Native Language
• Subscribe the Journal
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Contact the Executive Editor
• Recommend this Journal to Librarian
• View the Current Issue
• View the Previous Issues
• Recommend this Journal to Friends
• Recommend a Special Issue
• Comment on the Journal
• Publish the Conference Proceedings

Latest Activities

• Recruitment of Reviewers
• Publication Plan
• Resources for Authors
• APA Style (6th Edition)
• How to review a book
• Writing a good research paper
• Google Language Translator
• Research Guidelines

Visiting Status

Copyright © 2024 The Brooklyn Research and Publishing Institute. All Rights Reserved. Brooklyn, NY 11210, United States

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List

Social and Natural Sciences Differ in Their Research Strategies, Adapted to Work for Different Knowledge Landscapes

Klaus jaffe.

Departamento de Biología de Organismos, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, Estado Miranda, Venezuela

Conceived and designed the experiments: KJ. Performed the experiments: KJ. Analyzed the data: KJ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KJ. Wrote the paper: KJ.

Associated Data

The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Do different fields of knowledge require different research strategies? A numerical model exploring different virtual knowledge landscapes, revealed two diverging optimal search strategies. Trend following is maximized when the popularity of new discoveries determine the number of individuals researching it. This strategy works best when many researchers explore few large areas of knowledge. In contrast, individuals or small groups of researchers are better in discovering small bits of information in dispersed knowledge landscapes. Bibliometric data of scientific publications showed a continuous bipolar distribution of these strategies, ranging from natural sciences, with highly cited publications in journals containing a large number of articles, to the social sciences, with rarely cited publications in many journals containing a small number of articles. The natural sciences seem to adapt their research strategies to landscapes with large concentrated knowledge clusters, whereas social sciences seem to have adapted to search in landscapes with many small isolated knowledge clusters. Similar bipolar distributions were obtained when comparing levels of insularity estimated by indicators of international collaboration and levels of country-self citations: researchers in academic areas with many journals such as social sciences, arts and humanities, were the most isolated, and that was true in different regions of the world. The work shows that quantitative measures estimating differences between academic disciplines improve our understanding of different research strategies, eventually helping interdisciplinary research and may be also help improve science policies worldwide.

Introduction

The maturation of empirical science, as catalyzed by Galileo Galilei, was fundamental in triggering the industrial revolution, the most significant transformation of human society in the last 10000 years. A large effort is now invested in analyzing scientific productivity and its social dynamics. Entire journals are dedicated to it, such as Scientometric and the Journal of Informetrics. The dynamics of research in the natural and social sciences however diverges. This has been recognized long ago [1, for example] but pinpointing precise quantitative differences between both sciences has been an elusive endeavor. Citations are the most common tool nowadays to estimate the scientific quality of a researcher or paper, but this method that has had important limitations since its beginnings ( [2] , for example). Few efforts analyze the mechanics through which the scientific method works best. The scientific method relies on several key elements for its smooth working [3] . Among them are: 1- Humility to recognize that our mind is very limited in grasping the underlying dynamics of natural phenomena and needs the experiment or an empirical feedback to keep if from digressing into the absurd; 2- Science is not interested in absolute truth but in incremental advancements in our understanding of nature; 3- Mathematics as the best language to ask nature our questions.

How do we decide to use scarce financial resources to finance many different small projects, or to concentrate resources in a few “strategically important” projects? How do we know if criteria we use to evaluate and finance projects in the natural sciences also work adequately in the social sciences? We actually have no clear answer to these questions at the moment. Different sciences and scientific disciplines cultivate different values and attitudes and show differences in quantifiable characteristics [4] – [7] . We also know that the development of different scientific disciplines has different effects on economic growth. For example, the subject areas with the largest relative number of publication in wealthy countries today are neuroscience and psychology; investment in these areas however does not produce economic growth in less developed countries. In contrast, middle income countries that give more value to basic natural science in a given time period show faster economic growth in the following years [8] – [9] . Additionally, countries whose researchers are less provincial and cite more works from countries different to theirs (have fewer country self-citations) are also those whose scientists produce relatively lower numbers of author self-citations. These countries are the ones producing scientific papers with higher overall citation impact [10] .

To understand the underlying dynamics of this phenomena I propose to use the concept of knowledge landscapes. This concept has been developed in explaining decision making mechanisms in foraging strategies in ants [11] , in artificial intelligence, swarm intelligence, and many other settings [12] , suggesting that optimal foraging strategies address fundamental aspects of complex dynamics present in a large variety of situations. Here, the results of agent based computer simulations build to analyze the efficiency of different foraging strategies for exploring various landscapes [11] , were generalized and adapted to understand aspects of different publication strategies in scientific research. The results could be validated with empirical observations, opening a novel way to understand differences among scientific disciplines that are relevant for future science policy.

The numerical model originally coded in Fortran, was developed for studying optimal foraging strategies in ants in different resource landscapes. The results of the model were published long ago [11] , [13] and were validated experimentally by different researchers (see review in [14] ). A game written in Java-script, based on this model, can be accessed on the web ( http://atta.labb.usb.ve/SmartAnts.html ). The simulation consisted in foragers exploring different landscapes using random walks. Once a resource was discovered, they returned to the nest recruiting nestmates so as to collect the resources discovered. Two possible decision making systems used for recruitment were tested: The Democratic system or trend following, were all workers eventually perform all tasks, and were the first discovery will draw the most recrutees; and the Technocratic system, where workers specialize either in scouting or in retrieval and were the society collects several smaller resources simultaneously. Here specialized workers signal the palatability, quality, or quantity of a resource regulating the amount of recrutees for each source using simple decision rules. The results of this model [11] were generalized to study strategies exploring different knowledge landscapes. Knowledge landscapes can have different forms and have also been called “knowscapes” [12] . The study of optimal foraging and recruitment strategies of ants have helped in the past in developing heuristic programs such as “swarm intelligence” [15] “active walks” [16] – [17] , and adaptive landscapes, used to study dynamic complex systems. The approach attempted here is an extension of these efforts.

The generalization of the knowledge landscape as applied to academic research is as follows: We assume a scientific community displaying central-place foraging in a finite area with 200 researchers. In each simulation run, a fixed amount of resources were randomly distributed in the landscape. Each researcher explored independently the knowledge landscape, and was randomly assigned as an original researcher or “leader” or a less audacious researcher or “follower”, according to a fixed proportion (Ro). Each researcher was randomly assigned two thresholds which defined the decision making system for recruitment they were going to use: one for responding to high impact publications, and another which regulated the initiation of knowledge explorations according to the “quality” of the newly discovered knowledge and the number of researchers engaged in exploring it. Leaders were then left to roam the space and to recruit followers. The speed with which the total amount of resources were discovered was computed. Different patterns of resource distribution in the landscape were tested with different decision making mechanisms for recruiting.

A two-dimensional concentric space with 500 possible sites was modeled. The community of scientists was located at the center of the space. Each researcher was able to explore randomly in the knowledge space, one space at each time interval. Each knowledge cluster was located at one single site. Any number of researchers could share a single space. This simplification stress the fact that, relative to the size of the knowledge horizon of the researchers, the knowledge landscape is enormous, and that the space occupied by knowledge clusters is negligible compared to the size of the knowledge landscape. Knowledge was randomly distributed in the environment. Different densities of knowledge clusters (D) were tested; the cluster size (CS) at each locality could vary.

Numerical variables used

N =  Number of researchers in the community

Ro  =  Percent of original researcher in a community: 100-Ro  =  Rt  =  Trend Followers (%)

ORo  =  Optimum percentage of original researchers, i.e. percentage of Ro that allowed the discovery of the maximum amount of knowledge during a fixed time period.

D =  Cluster density: mean knowledge cluster density (sites occupied with knowledge clusters (%))

K =  Absolute amount of knowledge discovered during a given period

Kc  =  Knowledge cluster size: (in equivalent of number of trend following researchers required to explore it)

GS  =  Group Size for Group exploration

Searching behavior and recruitment

Researchers were programmed to have a sequence of five behaviors:

1: Random searching for knowledge

2: After finding knowledge, publishing the findings as fast as possible

3: Rt were recruiting depending on the recruitment technique simulated

4: More knowledge was discovered and the published, recruiting even more researchers

Three different recruitment techniques were modeled

1. Group recruitment (GR): Ro always recruited a fixed number of Rt

2. Technocratic recruitment (TR): Ro recruited the exact number of Rt required to research the new knowledge.

3. Democratic recruitment (DR): Ro recruited Rt by promoting their findings. The more Ro the more Rt recruited

Bibliometry

Publicly available quantitative scientometric variables were computed from 21135 journals, for 20 different subject areas, grouped by Scopus, and reported by SCImago [18] . The data extracted from SCimago was pooled and is available as data in S1 . Different statistical analysis revealed similar trends (see 8). Here we present only graphs with data whose extremes are highly statistically significantly different using non parametric analysis. The time period chosen to sample the data was the year 2011, to guarantees a more or less uniform bibliometric methodology and enough time for the data pools to have retrieved most of the corresponding data (some journal issues appear years after their listed publication year). Total Journals per subject and Total Document were obtained by totalizing data of the respective column. The total Cites for the last 3 years was divided by the total Citable Documents for the last 3 years to obtain Cites/Document. Other variables analyzed are summarized in Table 1

Simulations

Figure 1 shows a typical example of the relation between the amount of knowledge K retrieved by a scientific community during a fixed period for a given amount of researchers. We see that with small knowledge clusters (Kc  = 5), simulating landscapes with many small knowledge clusters, the curves tended to be broader and the total amount of knowledge retrieved (K) lower compared to landscapes with a few large knowledge clusters (Kc  = 125). In this last case, the total amount of knowledge discovered was much larger then in situations with many small knowledge clusters, for all proportion of leaders (Ro) simulated.

Conditions were: TR system, D = 0.7 (points indicate the actual means from the 5 "runs" of the model; standard deviations were a maximum of 20% of the means; curves were fitted by eye)

Figure 2 shows that the optimal number of original researchers in the community decreases with increasing total number of researchers. That is, original research has a larger effect on the amount of knowledge retrieved in small scientific communities than in larger ones.

Figures 3 and ​ and4 4 show the effect on knowledge retrieval (K) of different recruitment techniques. For large knowledge clusters, TR and DR retrieve the largest amounts of knowledge. Information dispersed in small knowledge clusters are better explored using GR and TR. This shows that the best recruitment technique to be used depends on the nature of knowledge to be explored: TR produces the best outcome in any situation; DR is useful if knowledge is concentrated in large clusters; and GR works nicely in dispersed knowledge landscapes.

In summary, the results show that depending on the form of distribution of knowledge in the landscape (size and number of knowledge clusters), different recruitment techniques are optimal. Few large knowledge clusters are best discovered with the Democratic decision system, where individuals discovering new knowledge will recruit followers at their maximal capacity. In contrast, the Technocratic system works best when knowledge is distributed in many small knowledge clusters. Here leaders adjust their recruitment effort according to the size of cluster discovered.

Empirical bibliographic evidence

The two strategies described above have a mirror in academic disciplines. Certain disciplines focus on a few general basic problems that are the same everywhere, whereas other disciplines have many sub-disciplines, each focusing on a specific problem that might vary locally. These strategies, if they exist in science, should show different publication patterns.

The bibliometric data of scientific publications in different fields presented in Figure 5 shows a continuous gradient between these two types of dynamics. The two extremes of the gradient are the social sciences using journals with an average of less than 60 articles per journal; and the natural sciences with journal publishing over 80 articles per journal and up to 500 articles per journal. Social sciences and arts and humanities had less than one citation per document, whereas multidisciplinary sciences, neuroscience and chemistry, all subject areas from the natural sciences, had more than 3 citations per document in average (See Figure 6 ). The two extreme cases are Mutidisiplinary science, with high citation rates from colleagues publishing in a few journals containing a large number of articles; and Social Sciences publications with few citations from colleagues publishing in many different journals containing each a low number of articles. Disciplines such as Physics, Chemistry and Material sciences resemble more the pattern of Mutidisiplinary science regarding the use of journals publishing many articles, than that of the Social Sciences. The Arts and Humanities, Economics, Psychology and Business, on the other hand, use journals with few articles each, resembling the pattern of the Social Sciences. Applied sciences and Mathematics have an intermediate ranking regarding the number of documents per journal and number of citations per article. Very closely defined areas such as Dentistry and Veterinary sciences, for example, report fewer journals than broadly defined disciplines such as Medicine which had the largest number of journal reported by Scopus in 2011. If all sub-areas of Medicine were as closely defined as Dentistry and Veterinary sciences by Scopus, it is likely that most of them would aggregate close to Dentistry and Veterinary Science in the graph.

The size of bubbles is proportional to the total number of citations for papers published 3 years earlier divided by the total number of papers published in that area as computed by SCImago for the year 2011.

The size of bubbles is proportional to Cit/Doc in 1999. The line shows the linear regression.

Other characteristics assessing the degree of isolation of researchers or research groups in different disciplines confirmed the gradients revealed in Figure 5 . The citation impact (size of the bubbles) was directly proportional to the number of documents published per journal (Spearman Rank Correlation between Cit/Doc vs Doc/Jour: 0.66, p = 0.002)), and inversely proportional to the number of journals in each subject area (Spearman Correlation between Cit/Doc vs Journals: −0.54, p = 0.02), if the data for the outlier data point Medicine was excluded. In addition, as shown in Figure 6 , subject areas with journals with high number of publications, published papers with relatively lower country-self-citation rates (Spearman Correlation between (Pub/Jour vs CSC: 0.70, p = 0.001). That is, subject areas with high average citation rates published more papers per journal, and those papers had relatively lower country-self-citations. Figure 6 shows a positive correlation between country self citation and citation impact (Spearman Correlation between CSC vs Cit/Doc: 0.51, p = 0.03), with a similar gradient of academic areas as that revealed in Figure 5 .

The same happened when we focus on International Collaboration (IC). Even if IC was heterogeneous between the geographical regions studied, the gradient of academic disciplines remained visible when comparing IC in the different regions ( Figure 7 ). Humanities had the lowest IC everywhere, whereas Multidisciplinary Sciences and Physics in Western Europe, and Economics and Psychology in Asia, were the subject areas with the highest IC. International cooperation in Asia was lower compared to Western Europe for most areas except Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences, Psychology and Economics. Figure 7 shows only the 3 most prolific regions regarding scientific publications, but similar trends could be detected in the other regions. In 2011, the Pacific region, although among the lowest producers of scientific papers, had the highest IC and the Asian Region had the worst IC record.

Journals for multidisciplinary science, as computed by Scopus, publish selected research from mainly the natural sciences, such as Chemistry, Physics and Biology, that are deemed to be of interest to a broad range of scientists. Thus, multidisciplinary science, as defined here, is part of the natural sciences. On the other hand, psychology, business and economics are handled in most universities as part of the social sciences. The bibliographic data presented shows a bipolar gradient between these two groups of disciplines, where one extreme is represented by a cluster of areas in the natural sciences, and another extreme by a cluster of areas in the social sciences. The cluster that included natural sciences was constituted by publications that had high citation rates from colleagues publishing in relatively few journals containing a large number of articles. These publications cited relatively more research from countries other than the one from the author and had a higher proportion of international collaboration. In contrast, the cluster that included publications from the social sciences, had publications with relatively few citations and were published in many different journals that had a relatively low number of articles. These publications had relatively high country self citations and showed low levels of international collaboration.

These results can be explained in the light of the optimal strategies for swarm intelligence as revealed by the simulations. That is, the natural sciences conform more to exploratory strategies focusing on a few large knowledge clusters where “following” is more important than original new explorations. This leads to the existence few journals publishing many articles each. On the other hand, the social sciences conform more to an exploratory strategy optimizing search in many small isolated knowledge clusters, were “following” is less important than novel explorations in retrieving knowledge. This strategy seems to have promoted the existence of many different journals in the social sciences, each with a relative small number of articles. In the natural sciences, trend following seems to be more rewarding than in the social sciences.

The simulation results suggest that a strategy that allocates research leaders rationally in accordance to the size of the knowledge clusters is optimal in all cases. Predicting the potential size of a knowledge cluster, however, is not easy and might be impossible in most cases. We do not know what remains to be discovered. Thus, in practice, we have to stick to less rational strategies. Policies favoring trend following over original researchers in the natural sciences and original independent researchers over trend followers in the social science would seem rational. The unconscious implementation of such policies seem to have occurred, possibly promoted by peer review, leading to different developments in different disciplines, explaining the actual bibliometric trends reported here.

It is curious to note that the 3 strategies explored in the simulations have been implemented by insect societies in their search for food [14] . Human scientists seem to have achieved the implementation of at least two of these strategies so far. Science policies, for example giving primary importance to citations [19] rather than to originality, might benefit certain areas or scientific communities more than others. More studies are needed to assess when and where this is desirable. But clearly, ways to quantify differences between the social and natural sciences are possible and should be developed further in order to gain a better understanding of their working dynamics.

The present study allowed us to get a glimpse of the knowledge landscape of different fields of knowledge. Analogous to explorations of fitness landscapes by genetic algorithms, different scientific disciplines explore different parts of our knowledge landscape and the adapted search strategy should reflect the structure of the landscape. Under this view, disciplines that have been qualified as more complex are also the ones with knowledge landscapes constituted by many small knowledge clusters. Humanities and social science, in this respect, seem to be more complex than chemistry and physics. Again, the index developed here could serve as a crude approximation to measuring these differences.

The main lesson from this exploration is that important differences in pursuing research exist and that interdisciplinary research has to understand these differences if it wants to expand successfully. The role of policymakers so far seems to be questionable. If scientific discovery is increasingly directed by policy makers (reducing our academic freedom to near zero), then we would not expect to find these differences between disciplines, or they should be converging, which they are not [20] . On the contrary, countries where policymakers avoid nudging the scientific activity in a specific direction seem to produce much better long term sustainable economic development than those favoring “strategic” areas [8] . Trail and error seem to have guided our scientific community relatively successful so far, differentiating the working of academic disciplines according to their tasks.

Supporting Information

http://atta.labb.usb.ve/Klaus/SupportingInformationPLOS2014.xls .

Acknowledgments

I thank Lui Lam, Xiau-Pu Han and Patrick Wessa for helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Funding Statement

This author has no support or funding to report.

Data Availability

• Paper Archives
• Journal Indexing
• Research Conference
• Add Journal

Searching By

• Search More ...

Journal of Natural Sciences Research (ISSN: 2224-3186)

Publisher The International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE)

ISSN-L 2224-3186

ISSN 2224-3186

E-ISSN 2225-0921

IF(Impact Factor) 2024 Evaluation Pending

Website http://www.iiste.org

Description

Last modified: 2012-08-01 23:51:20

• No Archives

Advertisement

• Library of Congress
• Research Guides
• Science & Technology

Technical Reports & Standards Collection Guide

Introduction.

• Technical Reports Collections
• Standards Collection
• American Documentation Institute (ADI)
• Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) Collection
• Synthetic Rubber Project
• Technical Translations (TT) Series
• Locating Technical Reports and Standards
• Research Assistance and Reproductions
• Online Resources and Databases
• Using the Library of Congress
• Jennifer Harbster, Head, Science Section, Researcher Engagement & General Collections Division
• Sean Bryant, Reference Librarian, Researcher Engagement & General Collections Division
• Ashley Fielder,  Librarian for Medicine and Life Science. Science Section, Researcher Engagement & General Collections
• Created:  September 22, 2023

Last Updated: May 7, 2024

Science & Technical Reports : Ask a Librarian

Have a question? Need assistance? Use our online form to ask a librarian for help.

Get connected to the Library’s large and diverse collections related to science, technology, and business through our Inside Adams Blog. This blog also features upcoming events and collection displays, classes and orientations, new research guides, and more.

The Library of Congress is completing a project to update and modernize Library reading room websites. As a part of the process, “The Technical Reports and Standards Collection” is in the process of being updated and migrated to this new platform. The process has not yet been completed and the guide remains subject to change.

Researchers with questions about the collection are encouraged to contact a science or business librarian using the Ask-a-Librarian: Science and Technical Reports or Ask a Librarian: Business online form, by phone, at (202) 707-5639, or in person, at the reference desk, in the Science and Business Reading Room, on the fifth floor of the Library's John Adams Building.

Technical Reports

Technical reports are designed to quickly alert researchers to recent findings and developments in scientific and technical research. These reports are issued for a variety of purposes:

• to communicate results or describe progress of a research project
• to convey background information on an emerging or critical research topic
• to provide lists of instructions or procedures for current practices
• to determine the feasibility of a technology and recommend if research should be continued (and how to evaluate any further progress made)
• to detail technical specifications (materials, functions, features, operation, market potential, etc.)

Technical reports first appeared in the early part of the 20th century. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) published a series of professional papers beginning in 1902, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) issued its first report in 1915. But, the format gained importance during World War II, emerged in the postwar era, and remains, to this day, a major tool for reporting progress in science and technology, as well as in education, business, and social sciences research. The names given to series of these publications vary, but are often such generic terms as "technical reports," "working papers," "research memoranda," "internal notes," "occasional papers," "discussion papers" or "gray (or grey) literature." In the physical and natural sciences, "technical report" seems to be the preferred designation. For reports dealing with business, education, and the social sciences, on the other hand, the terms "working paper," "occasional paper," and "memorandum" are often the designations of choice. Other, more specific types of technical reports include "preprints" and "reprints." Preprints generally are versions of papers issued by researchers before their final papers are published by commercial publishers. Preprints allow researchers to communicate their findings quickly, but usually have not been peer reviewed. Reprints are typically released to heighten awareness of the research being conducted in a particular field or at a single institution. The term, "technical report" encompasses all of these designations.

Since many of these publications are intended to provide just a temporary snapshot of current research in a particular field or topic, they may contain the some of following distinctions:

• Rapid communication of new research results
• Dissemination to a targeted audience.
• Detailed methodologies, in order to facilitate review of research results by others
• No peer review, though there is often another selection process for publication (grant, contract, or institutional affiliation)
• Not published by typical commercial publishers (instead reports are issued or sponsored by government agencies, professional associations, societies, councils, foundations, laboratories, universities, etc.)
• Corporate authorship, where present, is typically emphasized

Unfortunately, uncertain availability, limited print runs, and decentralized distribution patterns with little bibliographic information are also often characteristics of this literature.

The Federal Government issues many different types of technical reports. An overview of some of these can be found in a May 2001 GAO report, " Information Management: Dissemination of Technical Reports ." Government issued or sponsored reports contain an additional characteristic - they may be subject to distribution restrictions linked to their classification status. Although references to classified reports may be found in technical reports literature, the security status or limited distribution of reports may make them unavailable to the general public and to the Library as well, as the Library holds only titles in the public domain. Those interested in locating such materials can consult the U.S. Department of Justice's Freedom of Information Act  site for guidance in obtaining these reports.

To enable them to be identified and located, technical reports are assigned report codes by agencies or organizations involved in their production or distribution. These codes may be referred to as "accession numbers," "agency report series numbers," "contract numbers," "grant numbers" or by other names, and include dates and individual report numbers. Typically, reports are assigned multiple codes and these codes help to identify the sponsoring agency, the organization performing the research or the organization disseminating the report.  Most technical reports held by the Library of Congress are not cataloged, and, for these reports, one or more report codes is required for Library staff to check the collections for a report or to locate and retrieve it. For more information about the current Standard Technical Report Number format (STRN) see ANSI/NISO Z39.23- 1997 (S2015) Standard Technical Reports Number Format and Creation . 

Standards are specifications which define products, methods, processes or practices, and are known to have existed as early as 7000 B.C., when cylindrical stones were used as units of weight in Egypt. According to  Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-119 , as revised in 2016, the term "standard" or "technical standard" refers to:

• common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, and related management systems practices;
• the definition of terms; classification of components; delineation of procedures; specification of dimensions, materials, performance, designs, or operations; measurement of quality and quantity in describing materials, processes, products, systems, services, or practices; test methods and sampling procedures; or descriptions of fit and measurements of size or strength; and
• terminology, symbols, packaging, marking or labeling requirements as they apply to a product, process, or production method.

Technical standards are not "professional standards of personal conduct; or institutional codes of ethics." (p. 15).

Standards are typically generated by governments or by professional associations and organizations interested in or affected by the subject matter of particular standards. For example, U.S. government standards mandated by the  Fair Packaging & Labeling Act (FPLA)  have standardized the labeling required for packaging in which consumer commodities is sold. Standards set the basis for determining consistent and acceptable minimum levels of reliability and safety, and are adhered to either voluntarily or as mandated by law. For a more complete overview, see the NIST report  " The ABC's of Standards Activities " by Maureen A. Breitenberg (2009).

The Library of Congress standards collection includes military and other federal standards, industry standards, and a few older international standards from Russia, China, and South Africa. Material from the collection is available in various formats, including digital, print, and microform materials. The majority of the Library's standards collection held in the Science Section's Technical Reports and Standards Collection. The collection remains largely uncatalogued, and as a result, most items from this collection are not discoverable in the Library's online catalog. Inquires on Library holdings can be sent to the Science Section using the Science and Technical Reports Ask-a-Librarian form . Some standards, however, are housed in the Library's general collections and discoverable by searching the  online catalog -- the ASTM standards are one example. Other standards are in custody of appropriate specialized research centers, such as the Law Library , which maintains  OSHA standards and some building codes.

About the Science Section

Part of the  Science & Business Reading Room  at the Library of Congress, the Science Section is the starting point for conducting research at the Library of Congress in the subject areas of science, medicine and engineering. Here, reference specialists in specific subject areas of science and engineering  assist patrons in formulating search strategies and gaining access to the information and materials contained in the Library's rich collections of science, medicine, and engineering materials.

• Next: Technical Reports Collections >>
• Last Updated: Jul 3, 2024 11:51 AM
• URL: https://guides.loc.gov/technical-reports

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals

Synthetic biology articles from across Nature Portfolio

Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems, and the re-design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes.

Harnessing a brain parasite as a tool for delivery of therapeutics to the brain

Toxoplasma gondii , a eukaryotic brain parasite that infects one in three people worldwide, was engineered to deliver therapeutics to neurons in the mouse brain. This technology opens the door to deliver multiple large proteins that have been undeliverable with previous approaches. Further development, such as vector attenuation, will be necessary for many applications.

Genetically engineered synthetic cells activate cargo release upon temperature shift

We combine RNA thermometer genetic switches, cell-free protein expression and synthetic cell design to create cell-sized systems that can initiate the synthesis of soluble proteins at defined temperatures. We show that when these switches are used to control the expression of a pore-forming membrane protein, temperature-controlled cargo release is achieved, with potential future applications in biomedicine.

Latest Research and Reviews

Degradable living plastics programmed by engineered spores

Spores harboring the gene circuit for the secretory expression of Burkholderia cepacia lipase were processed with poly(caprolactone) pellets to manufacture living plastics. Spore incorporation did not compromise the properties of the materials. Damage to the plastic surface and triggering of germinated cells caused secretion of the lipase, leading to depolymerization.

• Chenwang Tang
• Zhuojun Dai

Altering traits and fates of wild populations with Mendelian DNA sequence modifying Allele Sails

Population-scale genome modification can alter the composition or fate of wild populations. Here the authors introduce Allele Sails as a method for spreading genetic changes throughout a population.

• Michelle L. Johnson
• Bruce A. Hay
• Maciej Maselko

Conditional RNA interference in mammalian cells via RNA transactivation

Conditional RNA interference allows spatiotemporal gene regulation to improve targeting accuracy and reduce toxicity. Here, the Green and Xie labs developed single-molecule RNAi switches that activate artificial microRNA biogenesis upon interaction with cognate trigger RNAs in mammalian cells.

• Peike Sheng
• Alexander A. Green

Engineered probiotic Escherichia coli elicits immediate and long-term protection against influenza A virus in mice

Influenza virus infection is a global health threat and vaccines are required that show broad protection against a range of viral subtypes. Here the authors present a universal influenza vaccine based on Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 that activates innate and adaptive humoral and mucosal immunity, providing both immediate and long-term protection against influenza A virus infection in a murine model.

Blocker-SELEX: a structure-guided strategy for developing inhibitory aptamers disrupting undruggable transcription factor interactions

Transcription factors are crucial in disease but hard to target with traditional drugs. Here, authors present BlockerSELEX, a strategy to develop inhibitory aptamers that block transcription factor interactions, which disrupts interactions between key proteins, showing potential for new nucleic acid therapies.

• Tongqing Li
• Xueying Liu
• Weihong Tan

Engineering new-to-nature biochemical conversions by combining fermentative metabolism with respiratory modules

The need for redox balancing limits the array of fermentable substrate-product combinations in anaerobic microbe-based bioproduction. Here, the authors design and engineer an E. coli strain with new-to-nature aerobic fermentative metabolism that allows tightly controlled re-balanced fermentations.

• Helena Schulz-Mirbach
• Jan Lukas Krüsemann
• Steffen N. Lindner

News and Comment

Proximity-triggered protein trans -splicing.

• Arunima Singh

Quantitative synthetic biology

Synthetic biology faces major challenges in the rational design of complex living systems, necessitating a quantitative understanding of the principles that guide the emergence of functions from biological building blocks. Here, we propose quantitative synthetic biology as a new research paradigm, integrating quantitative biology, systems biology and synthetic biology.

• Guoping Zhao

Autotrophic yeast

Yeast is a widely used cell factory for the conversion of sugar into fuels, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Establishing yeast as being autotrophic can enable it to grow solely on CO 2 and light, and hereby yeast can be used as a wider platform for transition to a sustainable society.

• Jens Nielsen

Enzymatic synthesis of RNA oligonucleotides

Research on enzymatic RNA synthesis has long been eclipsed by work on DNA—but a new method provides a leap forward for RNA.

• Marcel Hollenstein

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

References provide the information necessary for readers to identify and retrieve each work cited in the text .

Check each reference carefully against the original publication to ensure information is accurate and complete. Accurately prepared references help establish your credibility as a careful researcher and writer.

Consistency in reference formatting allows readers to focus on the content of your reference list, discerning both the types of works you consulted and the important reference elements (who, when, what, and where) with ease. When you present each reference in a consistent fashion, readers do not need to spend time determining how you organized the information. And when searching the literature yourself, you also save time and effort when reading reference lists in the works of others that are written in APA Style.

Academic Writer ®

Master academic writing with APA’s essential teaching and learning resource

Course Adoption

Teaching APA Style? Become a course adopter of the 7th edition Publication Manual

Instructional Aids

Guides, checklists, webinars, tutorials, and sample papers for anyone looking to improve their knowledge of APA Style