https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2021/07/o-h-index-e-os-premios-de.html

Ainda na sequência do post acima, é interessante constatar que há apenas duas semanas atrás foi publicado um artigo na revista Heliyon, respeitante à promoção académica de Professores-Auxiliares a Associados e de Associados a Professores catedráticos, numa universidade dos EUA, que se baseia no valor do h-index dos candidatos, obtido na Web of Science

Talvez por distracção ou mesmo desconhecimento, os autores do referido artigo, parecem não saber que o h-index fraccionado possui um valor superior à versão simples https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2021/11/evaluating-researchers-in-fast-and.html

É verdade que para muitas áreas cientificas (onde ainda não pegou a “moda” dos artigos com centenas ou milhares de co-autores), o valor obtido em ambos os casos não é muito diferente, porém a área científica, analisada no tal artigo recentemente publicado não se encontra entre aquelas áreas em que isso sucede.

An article in The Economist´s edition of April 30 informs that “Mr. Putin has been splashing out cash to encourage women to have babies“. But since that has been proved incapable of increasing the number of Russian children to compensate for the high mortality rate (increased by Covid-19 at a rate of 1,000 a day) and since an article published in the Financial Times three days ago states that the Ukraine war threatens to deepen Russia’s demographic crisis, so it’s just a question of how long will it take before the Russian army starts raping Russian women on a massive scale in order to increase the number of Russian children?

Be there as it may, it is perfectly clear that even this brutal tactic will not prevent an increase in the number of Russians abandoning a country that is heading towards world irrelevance. The same irrelevance that is now the watermark of its scientific production, exponentiated due to the international boycott that has already caused Russia’s scientific production to fall by more than 30%.

Yuval Noah Harari wrote that Russia is nothing more than “a gas station with nukes“. No wonder then that in the same article mentioned at the beginning of this post one can also read the following words: “Thousands of well-educated Russians have left a country which they now believe offers them no future”

The authors of the paper published in Research Integrity and Peer Review found that, in 2020, reviewers worldwide spent over 100 million hours on peer reviews—equivalent to more than 15,000 years of labor. The estimated monetary value of the time contributed by reviewers in the US, China, and the UK alone exceeded $2 billion.

Also worth examining is a ranking of 28 European countries based on the ratio of reviewers with more than 400 confirmed peer reviews (from journals indexed in Web of Science) per million inhabitants. The data reveals that researchers in Germany and France are among the least inclined to donate their time. At the top of the list, however, is my own country, Portugal, where researchers show the greatest willingness to engage in pro bono peer review activities, with a ratio significantly higher than that of the UK, US, or China.

Declaration of competing interests – I declare that, to date, I have reviewed over 1,200 papers. Last year, Web of Science highlighted my personal profile as an exemplary case of peer review contributions. https://publons.com/announcement/#your-review-contributions-in-web-of-science

Informou ontem o jornal Público que o famoso juiz negacionista voltou a ser ouvido pelo Conselho Superior da Magistratura, mas embora não seja minha intenção comentar as enormidades que ele proferiu, pois é evidente que pelo menos na parte em que apelidou de verme viscoso e verme pançudo, dois membros da policia, afirmações essas que sem dúvida lhe valerão processos por injúrias e difamação, tenho porém que lamentar e condenar que durante essa audição, um dos membros desse Conselho, tenha dito que ele era “apenas um gajo a ladrar”, pois a lei deste país criminaliza essas afirmações, exactamente da mesma forma como também criminaliza que se chame cabra a uma mulher, vide Acórdão do Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa Nº10790/2007-8. Resta por isso saber se o Conselho Superior da Magistratura é consequente e da mesma forma que puniu o magistrado negacionista, também irá agir disciplinarmente contra o magistrado Conselheiro que agora o qualificou como sendo apenas um cão.

Declaração de interesses – Em 16 de Outubro de 2021 já tinha comparado as acções do supracitado juiz negacionista com as do juiz Ivo Rosa https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2021/10/quel-e-pior-para-imagem-da-justica-o.html

The evil genius who love Joseph Stalin and who´s ashamed of his father’s legacy (the very same who recently said Adolph Hitler had Jewish blood) just decided to share his cynical perspectives on how the Western countries are allegedly imposing oppression on the global stage https://tass.com/politics/1445755

And, undoubtedly, a compelling illustration of this “oppression” lies in the fact that every Syrian escaping their homeland and every African attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean harbor a singular dream – to reside in Russia. In their eyes, Russia stands as the sole nation in the world where oppression has never existed.

The real truth is that the country of Orc Putin wants every piece of land it can grab. And if he could he would no doubt also invade China, just like when Russia invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1894, and again in 1945, when more than a million Russian soldiers engage in a special military operation to liberate Manchuria from the oppression of the West (also known as special operation to denazify China). And they also tried (unsuccessfully) once again in 1969 in the Sino-Soviet border conflict.

Regrettably for Russia, China has now emerged as a bona fide global power. Consequently, Russia’s options for expansion are limited, with the primary focus shifting westward towards Ukraine and the Baltic countries (if only they were not under the protection of evil NATO).

Ironically, the prospect of China invading Russia would be quite a twist of fate. However, such a scenario seems unlikely, given that China may not need to resort to invasion. Instead, Russia could find itself in a vulnerable position, eventually turning to China, cap in hand, to purchase its gas and oil. For China, this approach could prove more advantageous than an invasion, aligning with the wisdom imparted by Sun Tzu “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting“

PS – Contrary to the childish (and even moronic) opinions of the “genius” Sergei Lavrov, we do not inhabit a world characterized by multiple powers. True powers, akin to Black Holes, possess a remarkable ability to attract talent. In our current reality, only the EU, USA, and China exhibit such magnetic prowess, standing as the foremost talent attractors. Regrettably, Russia and other nations display a lackluster performance in this regard, trailing even behind my own country, Russia finds itself unable to retain its own talents, witnessing a mass exodus to Turkey and Western countries over the past two months. This deficiency contributes to Russia’s evident frustration, manifesting in behavior reminiscent of a discontented and petulant child

https://pachecotorgal.com/2022/04/21/deixa-de-leccionar-na-fdul-o-docente-que-nao-sabia-que-chamar-cabra-a-uma-mulher-e-crime/

Afinal parece que na FDUL não querem parar de me dar material para a escrita de posts, vide o último no link acima, pois entretanto soube-se que naquela instituição, foi aberto um  processo disciplinar contra o professor que propôs o canal para receber queixas de assédio. https://expresso.pt/sociedade/2022-04-29-Faculdade-de-Direito-de-Lisboa-abre-processo-disciplinar-contra-professor-que-propos-canal-para-receber-queixas-de-assedio-424f8fbb

Ao novel processado da FDUL, Miguel Lemos, deixo a seguinte e muito esclarecedora mensagem: 

quem nunca teve um processo disciplinar na vida, nunca fez nada na vida, pois neste miserável país, onde aqueles que cometem crimes são promovidos, e aqueles que nos canais próprios procedem à denúncia de situações irregulares vêem o seu contrato não renovado, ter direito a um processo disciplinar constitui uma medalha de honra. 

Declaração de interesses – No passado dia 9 de Fevereiro escrevi o seguinte: “é evidente que se António Oliveira Salazar governasse nos dias de hoje nada teria a temer por parte desta mansa Academia” 

It’s true that as Tiffany Watt Smith wrote in her book schadenfreude is not just a German word because in many countries and cultures there are also words to describe satisfaction in the suffering of other people: “The Japanese have a saying: “The misfortunes of others taste like honey.” The French speak of joie maligne, a diabolical delight in other people’s suffering. The Danish talk of skadefryd, and the Dutch of leedvermaak. In Hebrew enjoying other people’s catastrophes is simcha la‑ed, in Mandarin xìng‑zāi‑lè‑huò, in Serbo-Croat it is zlùradōst and in Russian zloradstvo. More than 2,000 years ago, Romans spoke of malevolentia. Earlier still, the Greeks described epichairekakia (literally epi, over, chairo, rejoice, kakia, disgrace).

Be there as it may, the fact is that recently Germany’s Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck has urged Germans to save energy in order to “annoy Putin“. But why didn´t he urge Germans to save energy to save Ukrainian lives? Are Germans driven less by generosity than by schadenfreude?

PS – The sadistic Russian army has been raping and killing Ukrainians for more than 2 months but only now are German politicians (like Finance Minister Christian Lindner) asking for an end to public payments to the motherfucking Gerhard Schroder. Still speaking of the different traditions that do exist in the different countries it’s really a shame that Germans do not have the Japanese tradition of honorable suicide.

https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2022/04/o-contra-ataque-mortal-da-omicron.html

Ainda na sequência do post acima, onde se comentou o elevado número de mortos provocados pelo Covid-19 na Rússia e onde se divulgou uma esclarecedora imagem publicada na revista The Economist, que deu conta de uma aumento de casos de Covid-19 em países asiáticos, é pertinente mencionar o facto da tal epidemia de hepatite em crianças, que embora possua maior incidência em crianças do Reino Unido, mas rapidamente se estendeu a vários países, incluindo o Japão (que além de obrigar a transplante de figado em 17 crianças, também já provocou mortos), possa afinal ser uma combinação entre um adenovírus e o Covid-19, hipótese essa que foi recentemente suscitada aqui https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-children-s-hepatitis-has-now-spread-to-11-countries-here-s-what-we-know

Entretanto e sem qualquer surpresa Portugal apresenta novamente um crecimento do Covid-19, muito por conta da pressa em abandonar as máscaras em espaços fechados, esquecendo que há países onde tiveram de voltar a um confinamento, pelo que utilizar máscaras em espaços fechados é um pequeno preço a pagar face a essa grave alternativa. Aliás, de acordo com o New York Times, hoje a Califórnia passou a exigir novamente máscaras em transportes públicos, pelo menos até 18 de Julho. Sobre este tema é importante frisar que, também ontem a Bloomberg apresentou um ranking sobre a resiliência à Covid-19, que informa quais os melhores e os piores países e onde Portugal aparece somente na 20ª posição https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/

PS – Muito mais grave é o artigo que acaba de ser publicado, na famosa revista Science, que dá conta que as alterações climáticas estão a criar condições para haver lugar a uma monstruosa transmissão de milhares de vírus entre diferentes espécies de mamíferos: “The modelers calculate there are some 21 million possible pairings of mammalian species, and only 7% of those duos currently share a geographic range, which means there’s a tremendous opportunity for new encounters” que é o mesmo que dizer que, colhemos aquilo que semeamos, como também já o tinha dito, embora por outras palavras, um responsável de uma universidade, a propósito do Covid-19 https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-is-pandemic-we-deservenot.html

https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2020/11/can-salvation-of-planet-be-achieved.html

Still following the post in the link above about a previous article published in 2020 in The Economist its refreshing to read once again about that same subject in a recent article titled “Lawsuits aimed at greenhouse-gas emissions are a growing trend”

According to the article climate litigation has become such a liability that “Several big fossil-fuel companies…have been systematically including climate lawsuits as a potential material risk”. Moreover, following a case presented by a Dutch environmental organization a Dutch court has ordered Shell to reduce its emission by 45% in 2030. Its truth Shell has appealed but the fact is that “Pending a new decision, though, it must comply“.

The article becomes much more “juicy” when it describes the case of a Peruvian farmer whose property “is at risk of being damaged by a dwindling glacier in the mountains above it“. The farmer´s lawyers filed a case against RWE (Europe largest carbon emitter) in a German court, using a report of the Climate Accountability Institute that concluded 0.47% of all emissions were caused by RWE so this company should be forced to pay 0.47% of the costs required to protect the farmer property. The case was initially dismissed but afterward, a German appeals court deemed it admissible!

PS – The last number of the TIME is also dedicated to climate but it has the wrong approach when it claims that “The fight against climate change is now in corporate hands“. It’s not in corporate hands but instead in corporate pockets through climate litigation!

https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2021/10/simple-recipe-to-earn-more-funding-and.html

Still following the post in the link above where two studies were cited about what mistakes to avoid in order to earn more citations its also important to remember the advice of Antonakis et al. (based on a study of 776 papers) that recommended collaborations with scientists of top universities and also to include highly cited papers in the reference list.

And last but not least it’s also very important to have at least a few papers as a single author just because a study based on 100,000 authors showed that “the citations received as the single author of a paper elevates the academic impact the most“.

PS – Of course collaborations with scientists in top universities alone is not a guarantee of citations because my own country has had institutional collaborations with the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology-MIT since 2006 (last month a Call was open for 40 PhD research grants with MIT, under the responsibility of “my” university, the University of Minho) which involved 70 faculty members and researchers at MIT and i know for a fact that many papers that came out of that collaboration received just a few citations.