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It is essential to establish a multi-dimensional postgraduate quality evaluation system for student assessment and training. This study aimed to explore the construction of the multiindex and hierarchical comprehensive evaluation system for postgraduate training in science and engineering based on the Context, Input, Process, Product (CIPP) model using Analytic Hierarchy Process. It involved 756 postgraduates in physics and engineering who were randomly selected via the Internet. Data were collected from the questionnaire about postgraduates' basic information. After collection, Factor Analysis was used to verify the rationality of the design of second-level and third-level indicators, and adjust the corresponding weights. On this basis, Cluster Analysis was used to classify the training quality of the postgraduates based on their scores on academic ability, basic quality, and social ability indicators. The results revealed that the index system includes 4 first-level indicators,12 second-level indicators and 36 third-level indicators, and different weights being assigned to the indicators according to their influence on the training quality of postgraduates in science and engineering. This study also provides some reference for the quality of science and engineering postgraduate training in Chinese universities by proposing relevant measures, which could be interesting also for international audience.

Awards can propel academic careers. They also reflect the culture and values of the scientific community. But do awards incentivize greater transparency, inclusivity, and openness in science? Our cross-disciplinary survey of 222 awards for the "best" journal articles across all 27 SCImago subject areas revealed that journals and learned societies administering such awards generally publish little detail on their procedures and criteria. Award descriptions were brief, rarely including contact details or information on the nominations pool. Nominations of underrepresented groups were not explicitly encouraged, and concepts that align with Open Science were almost absent from the assessment criteria. At the same time, 10% of awards, especially the recently established ones, tended to use article-level impact metrics. USA-affiliated researchers dominated the winner's pool (48%), while researchers from the Global South were uncommon (11%). Sixty-one percent of individual winners were men. Overall, Best Paper awards miss the global calls for greater transparency and equitable access to academic recognition. We provide concrete and implementable recommendations for scientific awards to improve the scientific recognition system and incentives for better scientific practice. Research awards are an integral part of the universal "prestige economy" in science, but do they incentivize greater transparency, inclusivity, and openness? This study uses cross-disciplinary data to explore the level of transparency of publicly available award descriptions and assessment criteria, asking whether such awards contribute to or propagate existing reproducibility crises and inequities in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the winners of the Best Paper Award sponsored by Tsinghua University Press for papers published in Computational Visual Media. The winning paper is titled "Visual attention network," and two other papers received honorable mentions: "Full-duplex strategy for video object segmentation" and "Specificity-preserving RGB-D saliency detection." The authors of the winning paper will share a cash prize of US$1000, while the authors of the honorable mention papers will share US$500. The article encourages the submission of excellent papers for next year's Best Paper Award. [Extracted from the article]

Two middle school educators earned a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching fellowship. A Fulbright Finland Foundation inter-country travel grant provided the grantees with a unique opportunity to connect and collaborate at the University of Helsinki. Within this research, they described their inquiry experiences. The research included examining authentic student-centered learning continuums and phenomenon-based learning in Finland and teachers' adaptability in relation to meeting the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse math classrooms in the Netherlands. This paper summarizes how cross-cultural dialogues, classroom observations, and informal interviews with educators, students, and thought leaders informed each grantee's discovery of how student-centered learning is structured, delivered, and valued in Finland and the Netherlands. This article (1) describes how communication empowers middle school mathematics students, (2) analyzes the learning-to-learn framework, and (3) provides insights into how to utilize language diversity in a mathematics classroom.

The Journal of Materials Science awards the annual Robert W. Cahn Prize to recognize the best paper published in the journal each year. The winner of the 2023 Cahn Prize is a research paper titled "Molecular modelling of graphene nanoribbons on the effect of porosity and oxidation on the mechanical and thermal properties." The paper presents molecular simulation models of graphene nanoribbons and examines the impact of porosity and oxidation on their mechanical and thermal conductivity properties. The paper is well-written and provides valuable insights for researchers in this field. Two other papers were selected as runners-up for the prize. All the monthly finalists for the Cahn Prize can be downloaded for free on the journal's website. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Every year the scientific sessions of Annual National Conference of Indian Psychiatric Society (ANCIPS) are marked by presentation of free papers, posters, and award paper sessions, which are usually meant for presentation of new research which is not yet published. Hence, it is expected that these papers will be published in near future so that the scientific literature is distributed and shared with wider audience. Aim: This paper aims to evaluate the abstract to publication rate of papers presented during ANCIPS in the years 2012–2014. Materials and Methods: For this study, all the free papers, posters, and award papers presented during the ANCIPS of 2012–2014 were listed, and electronic searches were carried out to search for published articles. In addition, one of the authors of papers not found in the electronic searches were contacted through E-mail. Results: A total of 1081 papers were presented during the ANCIPS in the 3 year period under study. Of these, 64 were award papers, 622 were free papers, and 395 were posters. Majority (n = 807; 74.6%) of these could be categorized as research data-based presentations; this was followed by case reports/series (203; 18.8%), review of literature (n = 35; 3.3%), and others (n = 36; 3.3%). Overall, only 27% of the papers were published after at least 5 years of the presentation. Of all the award papers, 69.6% of papers were published, whereas only 26.8% of free oral papers and 22.5% of free posters were published. About half (45.6%) of the papers were published in national journals. In terms of indexing, among those which were published, 62.8% were published in Medline-indexed (PubMed-listed) Journals with a mean impact factor of 1. Conclusion: The present study shows that only 27% of the abstracts presented during the ANCIPS are ultimately published as full text articles in the next 5 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B I Richard L.D. Morse Applied Consumer Economics Award, National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) Paper Award i b I Enhancing trust in the Social Security Administration i Author(s): Cliff Robb, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Marti Deliema, Assistant Professor and Gerontologist, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; Steve Wendel, Applied Behavioral Scientist One of the insidious effects of government imposter scams is the potential erosion of trust among those who are targeted. This study analyzes how individuals targeted by government imposter scams respond to communications from the SSA and how the SSA can reinforce public trust and willingness to engage. According to a Gallup survey conducted in August 2022, about a quarter of lower-income households (annual income below $48,000) reported severe financial hardship. [Extracted from the article]

We are pleased to announce that the 16th Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Best Paper Award (JRM Best Paper Award 2023) has been decided by the JRM editorial committee. The following paper won the JRM Best Paper Award 2023, severely selected from among all 113 papers published in Vol.34 (2022). The Best Paper Award ceremony was held on December 26, 2023 in hybrid style (both on-site and online; venue: Gakushi-Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan), attended by the authors and JRM editorial committee members who took part in the selection process. The award winners were given certificates and a JPY100,000 honorarium. Editorial committee members who participated online also congratulated them through Zoom. We congratulate the winners and sincerely wish them success in the future. Teppei Tsujita, Yuto Inoue, Yutaka Takagi, Atsushi Konno, Satoko Abiko, Xin Jiang, Atsuhiro Nakagawa, and Masaru Uchiyama Development of Haptic Interface for Neurosurgical Simulators with Micro Scissors Module for Displaying the Cutting Force Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics, Vol.34, No.6, pp. 1284-1296, December 2022 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the winners of the BPPB paper awards for 2023. The Biophysical Society of Japan (BSJ) gives two types of awards: the Award for Outstanding BPPB Paper and the BPPB Editors' Choice Award. This year, the committee selected two articles for the Outstanding BPPB Paper award, one by Dr. Hideki Kandori et al. and the other by Dr. Shoji Takada. The BPPB Editors' Choice Award was given to six authors who made unique contributions to the field of biophysics. The winners were announced at the 61st Annual Meeting of the BSJ. [Extracted from the article]

In the 19th century, the concept of experimental physiology originated in France with Claude Bernard, evolved in Germany stimulated by the teaching of Carl Ludwig, and later spread to Britain and then to the United States. The goal was to develop a physicochemical understanding of physiological phenomena. The first International Physiological Congress occurred in 1889 in Switzerland with an emphasis on experimental demonstrations. The XIIIth Congress, the first to be held outside of Europe, took place in Boston, MA, in 1929. It was a watershed meeting and indicated that American physiology had come of age. Meticulously organized, it was the largest congress to date, with over 1,200 participants from more than 40 countries. Getting to the congress was a cultural adventure, especially for the 400 scientists and their families from over 20 European countries, who sailed for 10 days on the "S.S. Minnekahda". Many of the great physiologists of the world were in attendance, including 22 scientists who were either or would become Nobel Laureates. There were hundreds of platform presentations and many experimental demonstrations. The meeting was not without controversy as a conflict, still not completely settled, arose over the discovery of ATP. After the meeting, hundreds of participants made a memorable trip to the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, MA, which culminated in a "good old fashioned Cape Cod Clambake." Although not as spectacular as the 1929 congress, the physiological congresses have continued with goals similar to those established more than a century ago.

Education, either formal or informal, plays an important role to help the masses. As such, educators, especially trainees, are entrusted to teach young generations all important elements, principles, or concepts in a wide range of disciplines. Surely, such an undertaking, especially for early childhood care and education, requires quality teachers. In this regard, existing early childhood care and education modules or curricula should be periodically reviewed and revamped (if necessary) to help produce competent teachers who are excellent in all aspects encompassing content, pedagogical, and technological knowledge. This paper discusses the professional growth and development of trainees in early childhood care and education (ECCE) in terms of short- and long-term goals, missions, and career path-planning. The paper also elaborates on the relevant training workshops, courses, modules, and curricula that can be implemented to help improve their practical skills. The discussion also highlights the importance of incentives, such as attractive salaries, bonuses, acknowledgments, and awards, from employers that can not only motivate trainees but also advance their professional growth and development. Certainty, strong development knowledge, practical skills, and experiences can help such trainees to be become highly competent, which can significantly contribute to nation-building efforts in Malaysia.

The Journal of Plant Ecology (JPE) established the JPE Best Paper awards in 2022 to recognize papers with high impacts in the field of plant ecology. The awards are given annually to two to five papers selected by the editors based on novelty and contributions to the field. Emphasis is placed on authors who have completed their graduate studies within five years prior to submission. The winners receive a certificate and a prize of Chinese RMB 5000. This year, three papers were selected as the winners, covering topics such as sexual differences in plant responses to stress, changes in soil microbial communities following degradation in grasslands, and the effects of nitrogen addition on plant biomass allocation. The authors of these papers are Miao Liu, Yang Yu, and Kai Yue, who are all researchers in the field of plant ecology. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the use of Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) in electronic systems for secret key generation and device authentication. Specifically, it focuses on the use of SRAM PUFs, which are popular due to the randomness they possess during power-on. The authors propose two methods that utilize both stable and unstable SRAM bits as PUF bits to increase the usage rate of SRAM bits and resist PUF clone attacks. Extensive experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods. The article also provides brief biographies of the authors. [Extracted from the article]

Since we wrote "Crowdsourcing as a solution to distant search" a decade ago, enthusiasm for crowdsourcing's capacity to produce remarkable solutions to some problems has continued to grow, and profiting from crowdsourced solutions has become a strategic goal for more and more firms. Crowdsourcing research has progressed impressively, with more progress made in researching the phenomenon than in theorizing about it. We are deeply honored by the 2022 Decade Award. In this manuscript, we reflect on the factors that led to this progress in crowdsourcing research, and how the theoretical insights from our paper––e.g., markets in the hierarchies-markets dichotomy are made up of markets with ex ante contracts and crowdsourcing (markets with no ex ante contracts)––may have influenced that progress. Also, because profits have become the ultimate goal of a large number of the seekers of solutions through crowdsourcing, we present an outline of a framework for exploring the impact of crowdsourcing on a seeker's profitability. The framework builds on insights from the paper and new constructs in crowdsourcing such as artificial intelligence (AI), the crowdsourcing process, revenue models, complementary assets, and organizing to minimize crowdsourcing disadvantages that we have added. We conclude with suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Journal of Construction Engineering & Management has announced the recipients of the 2023 Best Paper Award. The winning paper, titled "Deep Learning Image Captioning in Construction Management: A Feasibility Study," explores the automation of deep learning for image captioning in the construction management field. The authors present a systematic approach that includes developing a linguistic schema, creating a dataset of manually captioned images, and evaluating six deep-learning methods using eight metrics. The paper concludes that a method combining two advanced deep learning processes performed the best, and that automatic captioning in construction management is feasible. The article provides valuable insights and suggestions for future development in this area. [Extracted from the article]

The article announces the recipients of the Best Paper Awards for 2022 in the journal Circuits, Systems & Signal Processing. The awards were established in 2013 and nominations were invited from Associate Editors and readers of the journal. A Selection Committee was formed to choose the best papers in different categories. The recipients of the Armen H. Zemanian Best Paper Award for Circuits and Systems are Sudip Ghosh, Yuvam Bateja, Joshua Roy Palathinkal, and Hafizur Rahaman. The recipients of the Sydney R. Parker Best Paper Award for Signal Processing are N. Ramesh Babu, K. Sanjay, and P. Balasubraminam. The paper by Babu et al. was also chosen for the M.N.S. Swamy Best Paper Award. Each awardee will receive a certificate and cash prize. The Editor-in-Chief congratulates the winners and thanks the nominators and Selection Committee for their contributions. [Extracted from the article]

Micro-credentials research, which includes digital badges, is a relatively new field of study that seeks to inform the implementation, portability and sustainability of the ecology of meaningful delivery. This paper reviews literature relevant to understanding connections between universities' intent to offer micro-credentials and the environment that is needed to do so. From this integrated study, the paper distils a number of core concerns and identifies some gaps in the literature. One of its primary goals is to clear the ground for the construction of a technical model of micro-credentialing implementation that can be used by the various stakeholders involved in the design and evaluation of new micro-awards. A closely related goal is to help those participating in micro-credentialing research to locate and understand each other's contributions, as fragmentation in research related to micro-credentials makes progress in the field slow. Hence, this review draws together research in the field to identify research foci and gaps, and then also capture some work by micro-credentialing researchers that directly attempts to model the main relationships in the field. The paper ends with a summary of implications for practice, especially for the Australasian higher education context.

The article announces that Gabriele Minatti, received the Sergei A. Schelkunoff Transactions Prize Paper Award.

B Abstract b Fin Field-Effect Transistor (FinFET) technology enables the continuous downscaling of Integrated Circuits (ICs), using the Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology in accordance with the More Moore domain. In the year 2004 she received her M.Sc. Degree in Electrical Engineering at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) and in 2008 her Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino (Italy). Graph B Tiago Roberto Balen b received the Electrical Engineering degree, MSc and PhD degrees from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2004, 2006, and 2010, respectively. [Extracted from the article]

The National Graduate Education Comprehensive Fees Policy has been in operation for more than five years since the fall semester of 2014, which is long enough to evaluate the effectiveness of the policy. Base on the existing research results, this paper proposes to adopt the core index of graduate students' scientific research ability--the level and quantity of published papers to evaluate the implementation effect of this policy, take GF University as an example to analyze the construction of the university's award and scholarship system, and make quantitative analysis of the academic graduate students' published papers. It finds that the implementation effect of scholarship system is not obvious. Therefore, this paper analyzes the reasons and puts forward the relevant countermeasures.

Digital Badge design and practice at a national level is a relatively new field of scrutiny and this study reports on a sector-wide initiative for building digital capacity with the design, and implementation of an ecosystem of 15 open courses in teaching and learning with digital badges to recognise the professional development of teachers in Irish higher education. Each course is provided in three delivery modes and mapped to Ireland's National Professional Development Framework for teachers. This enables multiple access points for teachers to engage in professional development via the Framework and recognize their engagement through peer triads and a digital badge ecosystem. The paper critically discusses and reflects on the study of the complex phenomena of the application of the open courses within professional contexts. A novel dimension is the implementation of a peer triad system for recognition of PD. Implementing the open courses digital badges ecosystem was challenging as this different form of assessment required a clear understanding of all stakeholder expectations, the language of recognition and how the learning outcomes could be met and validated using a peer triad assessment. This paper concludes with sectoral learning on nationally recognized open course development, including success factors for building digital capacity, challenges encountered and transferability to other contexts.

Dr. Ondrej Tyc is currently a postdoctoral researcher at IoP and his specialization is in the area of mechanical characterization of NiTi samples. The Coatings Editorial Board and Editorial Team would like to congratulate the winner of the Coatings 2023 Best Paper Award (Article). This paper is the outcome of a joint collaboration of two groups from the Institute of Physics (IoP) and the Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP), Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, Czech Republic. [Extracted from the article]

Though women increasingly make up the majority of medical-school and other science graduates, they remain a minority in academic biomedical settings, where they are less likely to hold leadership positions or be awarded research funding. A major factor is the career breaks that women disproportionately take to see to familial duties. They experience a related, but overlooked, hurdle upon their return: they are often too old to be eligible for 'early-career researcher' grants and 'career-development' awards, which are stepping stones to leadership positions in many institutions and which determine the demographics of their hierarchies for decades to come. Though age limits are imposed to protect young applicants from more experienced seniors, they have an unintended side effect of excluding returning workers, still disproportionately women, from the running. In this joint effort by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, the Federation of European Microbiological Societies, the Infectious Disease Society of America, the International Society for Infectious Diseases and the Swiss Society for Infectious Diseases, we invited all European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases-affiliated medical societies and funding bodies to participate in a survey on current 'early-career' application restrictions and measures taken to provide protections for career breaks. The following simple consensus recommendations are geared to funding bodies, academic societies and other organizations for the fair handling of eligibility for early-career awards: 1. Apply a professional, not physiological, age limit to applicants. 2. State clearly in the award announcement that career breaks will be factored into applicants' evaluations such that: • Time absent is time extended : for every full-time equivalent of career break taken, the same full-time equivalent will be extended to the professional age limit. • Opportunity costs will also be taken into account : people who take career breaks risk additional opportunity costs, with work that they did before the career break often being forgotten or poorly documented, particularly in bibliometric accounting. Although there is no standardized metric to measure additional opportunity costs, organizations should (a) keep in mind their existence when judging applicants' submissions, and (b) note clearly in the award announcement that opportunity costs of career breaks are also taken into account. 3. State clearly that further considerations can be undertaken, using more individualized criteria that are specific to the applicant population and the award in question. The working group welcomes feedback so that these recommendations can be improved and updated as needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the winner of the 2023 Clemen-Kleinmuntz Decision Analysis Best Paper Award, which comes with a $2,000 prize. The winning paper, titled "Information Density in Decision Analysis," introduces the concept of "information density" as a new approach to sensitivity analysis in decision analysis. The paper provides a technical grounding of information density and offers examples for real-world implementation. Another paper, titled "An Empirical Comparison of Rank-Based Surrogate Weights in Additive Multiattribute Decision Analysis," was identified as a finalist for the award and provides valuable insights into converting ordinal rankings into attribute weights. The article encourages authors to continue submitting high-quality manuscripts for future consideration. [Extracted from the article]

Professor Grimes summarizes the winning paper and the two runners-up:"Machine learning is certainly of great current interest to address the multivariable materials design challenge. 10.1007/s10853-022-07499-9 5 Wang Z, Lai A, Schuh CA, Radovitzky R. Phase transformation and incompatibility at grain boundaries in zirconia-based shape memory ceramics: a micromechanics-based simulation study. The winner of the 2022 Robert W. Cahn Best Paper award is "Machine learning guided alloy design of high-temperature NiTiHf shape memory alloys" by Udesh M.H.U. Kankanamge, Johannes Reiner, Xingjun Ma, Santiago Corujeira Gallo, and Wei Xu. [Extracted from the article]

A call for nominations for these awards was sent out to all the Associate Editors inviting them to nominate those papers published in 2020 or 2021 in CSSP, which should be considered for these awards. This call was also posted on the CSSP Website inviting nominations from CSSP readers. During 2013, Birkhäuser (Springer) instituted three Best Paper Awards for papers published in Circuits, Systems and Signal Processing (see the announcement in the October 2013 issue of CSSP). [Extracted from the article]

In India, where not many psychiatrists pursue PhD and few opportunities exist for funded research in psychiatry, most research in the specialty is conducted as postgraduate theses. Only IPS-NZ says that if most of the judges feel that no paper is of high enough merit, there will be no award that year. The Indian Academy of Pediatrics (https://iapindia.org/pdf/8297-IAP-AWARD-RULES-2020.pdf) specifies that the papers will be judged by a panel of four judges, of which two members will be experts in the particular field. [Extracted from the article]

Teachers are at the heart of the education process; in attempts to improve teacher quality there has been a trend in the US and elsewhere to incentivize teachers to put in more effort. This paper presents a theoretical framework for analyzing and designing different incentive schemes informed by the structure and quality of tasks constituting the K-12 teaching profession. It focuses on the question of how policy makers and education leaders can improve teacher effort towards the outcome of interest, specifically improving student achievement. It draws on literature on incentives, goal setting theory, norms and work significance to identify three main types of incentives: (1) monetary incentives, (2) social incentives, and (3) vision-based incentive. Each of the types of incentives in this paper are analyzed in light of Vroom's (1964) expectancy theory--its "expectancy," "valence" and "instrumentality"--to build a theoretical framework for analyzing the potential mediating factors of each of the incentive schemes and their impact.

Following deliberation by the Bart Rispens Research Award Committee, it is our pleasure to announce that the winner of the Bart Rispens Research Award for 2023, representing the best paper published in I Avian Pathology i in the years 2021 and 2022, is B Cameron Ellington b for the paper " B Characterization of Md5-BAC-REV-LTR virus as Marek's disease vaccine in commercial meat type chickens: protection and immunosuppression b " (Ellington I et al. i , [1]). Characterization of Md5-BAC-REV-LTR virus as Marek's disease vaccine in commercial meat-type chickens: protection and immunosuppression. The topic of the 2023 winning paper is especially relevant given Bart Rispens' development of the Marek's disease vaccine strain CVI-988 (or "Rispen(s) vaccine"). [Extracted from the article]