Late retirement, early careers, and the aging of U.S. science and engineering professors

Evaluating individual scientific output normalized to publication age and academic field through the Scientometrics.org project

When evaluating the publication performance of a scientist one has to consider not only the difference in publication norms in different scientific fields, but also the length of the academic career of the investigated researcher. Here, our goal was to establish a database suitable as a reference for the ranking of scientific performance by normalizing the researchers output to those with the same academic career length and active in same scientific field. By using the complete publication and citation data of 17,072 Hungarian researchers, we established a framework enabling the quick assessment of a researcher’s scientific output by comparing four parameters (h-index, yearly independent citations received, number of publications, and number of high impact publications), to the age-matched values of all other researchers active in the same scientific discipline. The established online tool available at www.scientometrics.org could be an invaluable help for faster and more evidence-based grant review processes.

Dynamics of stress generation and reduction in the nursing team at an oncology center

OBJECTIVE

to represent the dynamics of stress generation, accumulation and reduction in the nursing team at an oncology therapy center.

METHOD

a mathematical simulation model of system dynamics was developed based on data collection in loco. The model served to test the impact of three policies aimed at reducing stress in the team, namely i) increase in the service load; ii) increase in the size of shift teams and iii) reduction of service hours per bed.

RESULTS

the model showed that the policy of increasing the size of the team obtained the best results, with the absenteeism index stabilizing at 8%; staff at leave also stabilizing at 4-5 people per month, as well as accumulated stress reduced to baseline levels.

CONCLUSION

measures to monitor physical and emotional demands, hiring staff, better technical training for so-called stressful activities, and a better distribution of tasks can be effective in reducing absenteeism rates and improving the quality of life of these workers.