An Integrated Impact Indicator (I3): A New Definition of "Impact" with Policy Relevance

Allocation of research funding, as well as promotion and tenure decisions, are increasingly made using indicators and impact factors drawn from citations to published work. A debate among scientometricians about proper normalization of citation counts has resolved with the creation of an Integrated Impact Indicator (I3) that solves a number of problems found among previously used indicators. The I3 applies non-parametric statistics using percentiles, allowing highly-cited papers to be weighted more than less-cited ones. It further allows unbundling of venues (i.e., journals or databases) at the article level. Measures at the article level can be re-aggregated in terms of units of evaluation. At the venue level, the I3 creates a properly weighted alternative to the journal impact factor. I3 has the added advantage of enabling and quantifying classifications such as the six percentile rank classes used by the National Science Board's Science & Engineering Indicators.Comment: Research Evaluation (in press

Coronal lines and the warm X-ray absorber in Seyfert 1 Galaxies

The connection between the coronal lines and the warm absorber is examined systematically. In an earlier work it was found that the coronal line emitting plasma and the warm absorber gas share the same density and temperature. If there is a connection between the warm absorber gas and the forbidden high-ionization line (FHIL) plasma, one can use the profiles of coronal lines to derive the kinematics and dynamics of the warm absorber due to the high spectral resolution available in the optical range. Further support for a connection is a correlation between the equivalent width of [Fe X] 6375 and the ROSAT spectral index found for an optically selected sample. For X-ray selected objects with absorption edges observed by ASCA, we looked for a correlation between the coronal lines and the warm absorber gas. A direct correlation cannot be confirmed.Comment: Contributed talk presented at the Joint MPE,AIP,ESO workshop on NLS1s, Bad Honnef, Dec. 1999, to appear in New Astronomy Reviews; also available at http://wave.xray.mpe.mpg.de/conferences/nls1-worksho

Microfluidic detection and analysis by integration of evanescent wave sensing with thermocapillary actuation

An integrated system capable of microfluidic actuation, detection and sensing is described which combines evanescent wave sensing with thermocapillary manipulation. Liquid droplets or streams transported across the beam path of a planar thin film waveguide, which encapsulates the microheater array, induce attenuation of the propagating waveguide modes. The attenuated signal is used to monitor droplet location, dye concentration in aqueous solutions and reaction kinetics for enzymatic hydrolysis of the sugar X-galactose by beta-galactosidase