Promoting Public Understanding in the Science of Geology

Geology is perhaps the most fascinating of the natural sciences, due to its all-encompassing nature. Virtually all human activities that occur on planet Earth--including agriculture, energy and mineral resource exploration and extraction; environmental and public policy on natural resources management and protection; land use planning; infrastructure development; and ecological tourism--all depend on various aspects of geology and its sub-disciplines. Due to the importance of geology in the daily lives of human beings, it is imperative that all persons develop at least a basic understanding of the science. In this paper, the current efforts for promoting public understanding in geology will be examined, with offerings of alternatives and supplements to these efforts. Information from the science education sub-disciplines of HPS （history, philosophy and sociology） of science, and informal/free-choice learning will be woven into the framework of the geology-public understanding idea.

Quantitative Characteristics of Patentable Applications in Japan： An Analysis Using Bibliographic Information of Application Documents

This study examined Japanese patents in terms of the quantitative characteristics of application documents that resulted in the acquisition of rights in order to clarify the relationship between the features and patentability of applications. The groups of approved applications and those that had not been approved were compared for 12 variables： publication time lag; numbers of inventors, classifications, pages, figures, tables, claims, priority claims, countries for priority claims, cited patents, and cited non-patent documents; and median of citation age. Furthermore, the authors carried out the experiments in which patent applications were automatically classified into two groups by the machine learning method, random forests. As a result, statistically significant differences between the two groups were observed for the following variables （p 〈 .001）： the numbers of inventors, pages, figures, claims, priority claims, and countries for priority claims were significantly larger in the group of approved applications, while the time lag until publication was smaller. In particular, the publication time lag and the numbers of inventors, pages, and figures were variables representing the features that largely contribute to discriminating approved applications in the classification using random forests, which implies that these have relatively strong relationships with patentability.

Why do we need causal inference in scientometric research?

This paper reviewed the fruitful achievements in the science of science,sociology of science and economics of science,and their benefits to scientometric research.Then,the causal inference was introduced,which has the potential to shape scientometric research by determining the cause and effect among variables.In the end,we proposed two detailed reasons why we need causal inference in scientometric research:(1)correlation-based scientometric research is not sufficient to support science&technology policy;(2)Scientometrics needs to go beyond metrics by explaining the mechanisms in science.