scientific paper researchgate

Reference management. Clean and simple.

The top list of academic search engines

1. Google Scholar

4. science.gov, 5. semantic scholar, 6. baidu scholar, get the most out of academic search engines, frequently asked questions about academic search engines, related articles.

Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.

Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.

Coverage: approx. 200 million articles
Abstracts: only a snippet of the abstract is available
Related articles: ✔
References: ✔
Cited by: ✔
Links to full text: ✔
Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, RIS, BibTeX

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany. That is also where its name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

Coverage: approx. 136 million articles (contains duplicates)
Abstracts: ✔
Related articles: ✘
References: ✘
Cited by: ✘
Export formats: RIS, BibTeX

Search interface of Bielefeld Academic Search Engine aka BASE

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open-access research papers. For each search result, a link to the full-text PDF or full-text web page is provided.

Coverage: approx. 136 million articles
Links to full text: ✔ (all articles in CORE are open access)
Export formats: BibTeX

Search interface of the CORE academic search engine

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need anymore to query all those resources separately!

Coverage: approx. 200 million articles and reports
Links to full text: ✔ (available for some databases)
Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX (available for some databases)

Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. Its mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

Coverage: approx. 40 million articles
Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX

Although Baidu Scholar's interface is in Chinese, its index contains research papers in English as well as Chinese.

Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 100 million articles
Abstracts: only snippets of the abstract are available
Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX

RefSeek searches more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Its clean interface makes it especially easy to use for students and new researchers.

Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 1 billion documents
Abstracts: only snippets of the article are available
Export formats: not available

Consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Google Scholar is an academic search engine, and it is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only let's you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free, but also often provides links to full text PDF file.

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature developed at the Allen Institute for AI. Sematic Scholar was publicly released in 2015 and uses advances in natural language processing to provide summaries for scholarly papers.

BASE , as its name suggest is an academic search engine. It is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that's where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers. For each search result a link to the full text PDF or full text web page is provided.

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

ResearchGate and Google Scholar: how much do they differ in publications, citations and different metrics and why?

Published: 27 January 2022
Volume 127 , pages 1515–1542, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

Vivek Kumar Singh ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7348-6545 1 ,
Satya Swarup Srichandan 1 &
Hiran H. Lathabai 1

3102 Accesses

17 Citations

34 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

ResearchGate has emerged as a popular professional network for scientists and researchers in a very short span. Similar to Google Scholar, the ResearchGate indexing uses an automatic crawling algorithm that extracts bibliographic data, citations, and other information about scholarly articles from various sources. However, it has been observed that the two platforms often show different publication and citation data for the same institutions, journals, and authors. While several previous studies analysed different aspects of ResearchGate and Google Scholar, the quantum of differences in publications, citations, and metrics between the two and the probable reasons for the same are not explored much. This article, therefore, attempts to bridge this research gap by analysing and measuring the differences in publications, citations, and different metrics of the two platforms for a large data set of highly cited authors. The results indicate that there are significantly high differences in publications and citations for the same authors captured by the two platforms, with Google Scholar having higher counts for a vast majority of the cases. The different metrics computed by the two platforms also differ in their values, showing different degrees of correlation. The coverage policy, indexing errors, author attribution mechanism, and strategy to deal with predatory publishing are found to be the main probable reasons for the differences in the two platforms.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save.

Get 10 units per month
Download Article/Chapter or eBook
1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
Cancel anytime

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Acknowledgements

This work is partly supported by the extramural research grant no: MTR/2020/000625 from Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), India, to the first author. The authors would also like to acknowledge that a pre-print version of this article is available on arXiv at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.13602 (Singh, Srichandan & Lathabai, 2021 ).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Computer Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India

Vivek Kumar Singh, Satya Swarup Srichandan & Hiran H. Lathabai

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vivek Kumar Singh .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Singh, V.K., Srichandan, S.S. & Lathabai, H.H. ResearchGate and Google Scholar: how much do they differ in publications, citations and different metrics and why?. Scientometrics 127 , 1515–1542 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04264-2

Download citation

Received : 28 May 2021

Accepted : 03 January 2022

Published : 27 January 2022

Issue Date : March 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04264-2

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Academic social networks
Bibliographic data sources
Google Scholar
ResearchGate
Scholarly databases
Scientometrics
Find a journal
Publish with us
Track your research

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Publications
Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

Advanced Search
Journal List
v.75(5); 2021 Oct

Predatory Journals and Publishers – Dilemmas: How to Assess it and How to Avoid it?

1 Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

2 World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), 4225 Solano Avenue, Suite 631, Napa, CA 94558, USA

3 European Academy of Sciences and Arts, (EASA), Salzburg, Austria

1. WHY IS WRITTEN AND TO WHOM THIS EDITORIAL TARGETED?

A few days ago authors of the papers deposited on the ResearchGate platform informed us by a letter from the ResearchGate team titled: "A note on recent content takedowns" where has been noticed that ResearchGate recently received demands from two publishers: Elsevier and the American Chemical Society (ACS) - "to remove certain content that they alleged infringed their copyrights" ( 1 ).

The main statement of the ResearchGate (RG) is: "These types of requests are not new: we have received many similar requests from them in the past, and, in accordance with applicable law, have complied with them. But these most recent requests were notable because of the number of articles involved. Although privately stored files were not affected, the demands by Elsevier and ACS resulted in the removal of around 200,000 public files. In the context of a community of over 20 million researchers, this is unfortunate, rather than existential, but it has sparked an acute reaction from many of our members who believe in the importance of open science" ( 1 ). Further RG explains: "Some of you have commented on the serious nature of our communications with you regarding the removal of content. We appreciate that the tone of our messaging was rather direct. International laws require that we implement a policy regarding repeat takedown requests from publishers, and we felt duty-bound to communicate these policies to you in no uncertain terms. This is done for the protection of users and the benefit of the ResearchGate community" ( 1 ).

Concerning the future work (perspectives) RG stated: "Finally, we are mindful of recent changes in European copyright law in some countries, particularly relating to Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market ( 2 ). While we believe we are not subject to such laws due to the nature of our business, we decided to nonetheless take advantage of advancements in technology which we believe will be beneficial for researchers. In particular, we have started implementing a new system - called "Jarvis" - which matches publisher rights information with user content at the time of upload. Where a publisher has provided the required information, Jarvis can prevent a researcher from unintentionally uploading content that is not allowed to be public. As always, it remains the responsibility of researchers to know and confirm their rights before uploading any content" ( 1 ).

The final message of the RG team sent to its users’ is: "The future of academic publishing is open. Let’s work together to unlock its true potential" ( 1 ).

According to this letter and content of the message from the RG team, as an experienced former and current Editor of a few indexed journals and prolific contributor and author of a lot of papers, especially in the Science Editing field and Scientometrics ( 3 - 9 ), let me expressed some views and comments regarding important facts and problems within Science Editing area and concerns of the scientific and academic community.

Two extremely important problems in scientific publishing represent plagiarism and predation. More and more authors of articles in this scientific field, in the absence of other opportunities to engage in science, in this period of the Corona pandemic crisis imposed as a devastating consequence, began to deal with these topics, write about plagiarism and predation, conduct meta-analyze, and recommend what and how authors, especially who are not close to the fields of Science Editing and Publishing, to deal (prevent and avoid) these issues.

So, it would be interesting to make a serious study and reveal to which fields do all the authors, who have written articles on these topics, so far belong, and what are their essential intentions in order to make advancement in science or produce something else?

This is the main reason why I wrote possible assumptions about both, in this Editorial.

Namely, from 2012 to 2015, I was a member of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) Council. At my first meeting with a large number of editors of journals from several scientific fields from Europe and worldwide, held in Tallinn (Estonia) in December 2012, I publicly discussed the problem of plagiarism and unethical behavior in the field of Science Editing.

From then until today, I have published several articles on this issue ( 10 - 20 ), but also organized several scientific conferences in this area ( 21 , 22 ). Finally, with a group of like-minded people and fellow editors of biomedical journals in the Balkans, we have prepared several strategic documents ( 23 , 24 ) to try to prevent and reduce the problems in editing and publishing journals to a minimum, because these problems cannot be eradicated by any known methods and mechanisms. And there are many reasons for that.

Then, in 2013, at the meeting of EASE Council and journal's editors in Split (Croatia), I made one statement: that the job of an editor is difficult, stressful, arduous, and expensive. If you are a journal editor, your loved ones protest and hate you (because you steal the time you need to devote to them), some authors of articles (because we often do not accept their articles for publication), some of our contributors (because they hate this type of work), etc. The practice has caused me this feelings and impressions for attitude of others.

Let me elaborate and comment the mentioned two main problems in science and publishing, with main focus (emphasis) to predatory publishers and journals:

a) Plagiarism is probably the greatest problem in the academic community, especially in the Balkan region, which is not possible to solve it by Editors of the journals and academic institutions which are responsible for avoiding it in the practice as recommended by the Committee of Publishing Ethics (COPE) and other associations and bodies. In the Chapter 19 I authored in the book "A Guide to the Scientific Career" ( 25 ) I concluded that even we can check and detect online every submitted paper via computer system (by Plagiarism Checker(s) and a few other ICT types of equipment as help to us during editing papers, this problem is fully unsolvable.

Plagiarism is the most common way to compromise the academic integrity of the author. It is defined as illegal trespassing spiritual property that includes any use of other people's ideas, opinions or theories, either literally, or paraphrased, which does not mention the author and source of information ( 26 - 31 ). It is assumed that the most cited person in the academic community, scholars, and experts who have published their research results in one of the journals indexed in the references of the world-renowned databases and whose articles are available for assessment of their scientific validity through their representation in the form of abstracts or full article on the website of these on-line databases ( 3 - 6 ).

COPE Guidelines for prevention and dealing with plagiarism ( 32 ) are based on the ICMJE criteria ( 33 ), as well as guidelines and recommendations of other associations and documents, such as EASE ( 34 ), Council of Science Editors ( 35 ), "Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Journals" ( 23 ), etc.

b) Predatory in publishing is also very serious and somehow neglected problem in the scientific community worldwide without proper guidelines and approach for preventing and solving it ( 36 - 40 ). A special case for analysis is the role and significance of the effects of the List of Predatory Journals by American librarian Jeffrey Beall, whose "List of Potential Predatory journals" is cited by many authors, "based on his criteria that none of the world's scientific and academic institutions have analyzed or accredited, but which could be officially used" ( 41 , 42 ).

The Beall’s list has provoked a storm of outrage among thousands of publishers and editors of journals, who have been put in a position to be scientifically belittled by his criteria and list, and many authors to avoid them as potential journals in which to publish their articles. The authors which are quoting Beall and his list did not use a scientific method of meta-analyzing articles from his list in which they could confirm Beall's assessments and the content and quality of articles from the list of predatory journals ( 9 , 39 , 41 ).

An illustrative article by Refat Aljumili on a serious and critical approach has revealed what we have stated in this article: "The story of „Beall's List" started probably in early or late 2010 when a guy called Jeffrey Beall – a librarian at Auraria Library, University of Colorado, in Denver, Colorado – came up with a blog „Scholarly Open Access", as well as a list of questionable journals and publishers, or as Jeffrey Beall likes to call it „Potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers", and gave himself the right to ward academic scholarly publication" ( 41 ).

Shortly after this list was established, Jeffrey Beall added many open-access publishers to it and continued to update it regularly – by adding to the list and removing from it - and introduced many authors and researchers to the assumption that Open Access Journals (OAJ) are essentially "Predatory publishers and low-quality journals" ( 9 , 41 ).

Beall's background and intentions in particular came away believing that "Beall's list" is a recognized authority in evaluating scholarly journals ( 9 , 42 ). "Well, the truth is "Beall's list" has no affiliation to any governing body or organization accredited to scholarly publishing, and has no legal or academic value. If you follow some of Beall's work on his blog, and it makes no sense whatsoever!

His official web blog exposed the truth about Jeffrey Beall, particularly Walt Crawford's 2014 article "The Sad Case of Jeffrey Beall - Case and Insights", which provides a very detailed history about OAJs and directly addresses some of the broader issues with "Beall's list" ( 9 , 42 ).

Additionally, as an example and argument, we can present a few cases in our practice, who can prove my statement: A case of Hatixhe-Latifi Pupovci and Taulant Muka (both cases presented in power presentation and deposited on www.avicenapublisher.org ( 43 ), were publisher explained the un-ethical behavior of them, but who causes Beall's decision about putting Avicena's name on his list ( Figure 1 ).

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is medarch-75-328-g001.jpg

Another case is presented in Figure 2 , where the falsified Memo of Medical Archives journal by somebody without reasons why and for what purpose. We still research reasons and who have done it.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is medarch-75-328-g002.jpg

Additional examples are a few another cases - the journals from Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) accepted for indexing in the Scopus database as unprofessional and unethical examples. The journal "Folia Medica Facultatis Medicinae Universitatis Saraeviensis" ( 44 ), which was also accepted to Scopus several years ago without serious evaluation (re-established after more than 20 years of break). It is stated that its last issue is printed in March 2019, and the journal is signed as a Croatian journal that belongs to the University of Zagreb (Croatia). But the journal is published in Sarajevo (B&H), and its h-index is 1 ( 45 ). Other examples of mistakes of Scopus are two journals from Bosnia and Herzegovina: Acta Medica Academica (AMA) ( http://ama.ba/index.php/ama/about ) and Medicina Academica Mostariensia (MAM) ( https://lnss-bosnia-herzegovina.libguides.com/c.php?g=669777&p=4819669 )), which Scopus accepted for indexing without checking when they have been founded, what was the name when journal started with printing, when stopped to print it and when re-started with a new name without mentioning breaking continuity of printing. AMA was printed almost 40 years as an Annual of Academy of Sciences and Arts of BiH and MAM is printing as a supplement of Psychiatria Danubina (the publisher is Medicinska Naklada, Zagreb, founded in 2013). The same case is new established Journal of Science, Arts and Religion (founded in 2021), which is published as a supplement of Psychiatria Danubina journal (Medicinska naklada, Zagreb, and in Impressum of the journal is written that journal is indexed in the same databases as Psychiatria Danubina ( https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=toc&id_broj=20451&lang=en ). Both of mentioned journals are out of scope of Psychiatria Danubina journal. There are a lot of similar examples in other countries, but nobody analyzed the current problems.

But, the Scopus expert's evaluation team rejected Medical Archives and Materia Socio-Medica journals to include them in the Scopus database because Publisher Avicena is on Beall's list. The same situation is with the WoS evaluation team. A lot of other journal's cases "suffering" as consequences of following opinion/assessment of bibliographer's expert Beall's standards about the state of him - who is the predator.

2. THE REAL AND FINAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT VARIOUS CONSEQUENCES PREDATORY CAN PRODUCE

Furthermore, in the last 10 years, with exponential progression, both invited and uninvited, informed and uninformed, those with experience and those without it in this scientific sphere, have embarked on various debates about predation - about the problem that reminds us by e-mail messages from predatory publishers and journals in our inboxes we are receiving almost every day. We get PDF versions of the published publications of various authors around the world, who think about predation and give their criticisms and "judgments", very often unsubstantiated and inaccurate, and rely on the now well-known "Beall's list" of predator's publishers and journals.

I have taken it upon myself to express my opinion and judgment in this Editorial on the occasion of a recent debate initiated by a group of authors.

I believe, as well as my close associates in this journal, that both in the previously cited articles, are somewhat right, but above all their debate pointed to a key problem - that Beal's list is not transparent enough. Jeffrey Beall, the librarian by academic basic activity (Ph.D. in the field of librarianship), has taken upon himself the responsibility to (and only it/he) to make a list of predators of journal publishers according to some of his criteria and standards. In his superficial opinion and without proper analysis and evidence, he put publishers on some kind of "black list", not thinking about consequences, that these publishers do other jobs and make a living from those jobs. And the harm he caused in manner ruined those jobs by tarnishing their name. And he has not been adequately sanctioned for such behavior so far. On the contrary, quoting his views and actions, the mentioned authors give him formality as if they were in order and, by God (Beall), allow the public to settle accounts with publishers and editors based on them. On the other hand, it is clear that Springer, as a publisher, is trying to hide the fact that it is a predatory organization, at least when it comes to Frontiers.

An open debate is going on in 2021 about a published paper by two Polish authors in the following dynamics:

On Feb. 7, 2021, Vít Macháček và Martin Srholec from Charles University published this paper "Predatory publishing in Scopus: evidence on cross-country differences" in Scientometrics ( 46 );
A day later, Nature comments about this news that Scopus has stopped adding content from most of the flagged titles, but the analysis highlights how poor-quality science is infiltrating literature ( 47 );
On 6/5, Fred Fenter, Editor of Frontiers publisher requested Scientometrics to retract that paper due to mention about 29 journals of Frontiers ( 48 );
On 19/5, the authors of the paper, Martin Srholec and Vít Macháček, sent a letter of response to the Editor-in-Chief of Scientometrics, Wolfgang Glänzel ( 49 );
After that, Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of Scientometrics send this paper for post-publication review.
On 12/7, the authors of the paper, Vít Macháček và Martin Srholec, replied to reviewer's comments ( 50 );
On 17/8, EIC of Scientometrics decided to retract this paper ( 51 );
The Editor of Scientometrics is Ismael Rafols, from Leiden University, The Netherlands, decided to resign against this EIC's decision;
On 9/9, another editor of Scientometrics, Cassidy Sugimoto, from Georgia University (USA), (President of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics) requested to withdraw the decision of retraction as this paper was corrected;
The EIC of Scientometrics Fred Fenter kept silent and did not reply to any comment;
Many comments related to this paper are favoring authors. They doubted that Springer hold the stock of Frontiers and they needed to retract this paper to save Frontiers. Both of the authors strongly disagree with the retraction, because there is no credible academic justification for it ( 52 ).

We think that – to take a side with any of them in this debate will not contribute anything, on the contrary, it can do more harm. Such zealots are ready for any lawsuits and other methods of inflicting harm on anyone who tells them something that does not suit them.

As the ResearchGate team stated, the decision by Elsevier and ACS to simply remove content "is disappointing to the entire research community, not just because of the loss to science and researchers, but because there is a better way. Publishers such as Springer Nature and Wiley are working with us to explore the opportunities that openness unlocks for all actors in the scholarly publishing ecosystem, with the researcher at the center. Specifically, through ( 1 ) content syndication program, these publishers have placed their content on ResearchGate (not taken it away) and made it seamlessly available to eligible researchers". "This drives the consumption of content, reaches new audiences, and makes discovery and access easier for the researcher. This is the path for a brighter future in science" ( 1 ).

3. PREDATORY IN SCIENCE EDITING - FROM MY POINT OF VIEW

Namely, predation in publishing is mostly a consequence, not a cause. Predation arose because there was a complete formalization in official science, or only points of published papers are important for getting a job at universities and elsewhere. Few people wonder what is written in these articles. Since this is the case, and a job at a university or institute means a good salary and social influence, through which additional money can be earned, every year more and more cunning and immoral people, with published papers by predatory publishers and journals, go to universities and institutes, who do not choose the means to achieve that goal (money and influence). They are not interested in science or profession, only money, and influence, in a word, the POWER. To achieve that as soon as possible, they are ready for anything, and to invest (especially other people's money, for example in college) just to get to the credits, which they will later charge heavily. Predatory journals have only emerged due to high demand, or a large number of such authors described in this text.

Publishing, which is not predatory officially, is present in the Balkans, and some previously known publishers failed only because they traded publications, and in much darker ways than paying with money. There are many (which are just the tip of the iceberg) predatory practices, false reviews, "friendly" reviews, commissioned works from the pharmaceutical industry, etc., just as in reputable journals.

One of perhaps the most realistic and key solutions could be a GLOBAL appeal to the only possible thing that can save science from this horde of cunning liars and thieves IS its their complete separation from money and social influence.

How to achieve this perhaps utopian goal is neither easy nor a job for one individual or institution, but an invitation to all well-meaning scientists, especially those with editorial experience, to create standards and guidelines on how this problem can be solved or even aleviated globally - perhaps step by step.

4. CONCLUSION

The story of "Beall's List" induced and spoiled a lot of matters in the science editing area. Since 2010, this list has disavowed many authors and discouraged them from possibly applying their article to a journal to which they would potentially send an article for publication, but the "Beall's List" discourages them from deciding yes or no.

Many under-informed authors on predation in scientific publishing - who have probably never edited or published journals in their careers, scientific, academic or otherwise, with their analyzes, very often unfounded on real facts, which was one of the reasons for some journal or publisher found on the "Beall's List", undermine the author's doubts about their decisions, when it comes to where, when and to whom to send an article with the results of their study.

The most important fact is that Editors and reviewers of the submitted papers to some journals need to approach the evaluation of manuscripts submitted to journals with higher responsibility. Editors and reviewers should not reject articles without arguments, nor accept articles without checking that the submitted articles are written following the appropriate elements of the methodology that guarantee impartiality and proper application of statistics, all in order to reach the scientific truth in medicine. Besides, looking/checking is journal potentially deposited on Beall's list.

Regarding Copyright rules and necessary documents which every author and co-authors need to signed and deposit during the submission of their papers on the websites of the journals, publishers and authors have different opinions: that their upload does not qualify as infringement. Some have variously stated that their content was the subject of a rights buyout and is now open access, the content has passed its embargo period, or the content cannot be restricted because it is a government-created work. Others have an opinion that they never signed copyright transfer agreements and that therefore they still own their works. But, if we want to miss problems like it was described in this text, the author must strictly follow rules of IJCME, EASE, COPE, Sarajevo Declaration on Integrity and Visibility of Scholarly Journals and sign all necessary documents which will prove that the presented content and results written in the submitted paper are legal and fully protected with appropriate bodies in academic or scientific institutions were author work and executed their investigation and research.

Acknowledgments:

I thank academicians Doncho Donev, Slobodan Jankovic and Muharem Zildzic for critical review of the text before sending it to the print.

Author’s contribution:

Author was involved in all steps of preparation this article, including final proofreading:

Conflict of interest:

None declared.

Financial support and sponsorship:

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is medarch-75-328-g003.jpg

Find scientific papers by searching here or download the Chrome extension

Unlocking knowledge: your gateway to open access scientific papers and research data, introduction.

In the digital era, the quest for knowledge and scientific discovery is no longer confined to the walls of academia and research institutions. Welcome to [Your Website Name] , a dedicated platform for finding and downloading open access scientific papers and other research data. Our mission is to democratize access to scientific information, making it freely available to researchers, students, and curious minds across the globe.

What is Open Access?

Open Access (OA) refers to the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly research. OA content is available to all, without the usual financial or legal barriers. We believe that open access is crucial in fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration, thereby accelerating innovation and discovery.

Types of Open Access:

Gold Open Access: Papers are published in open access journals that provide immediate open access to all of their articles.
Green Open Access (Self-Archiving): Authors publish in any journal and then self-archive a version of the article for free public use in their institutional repository or on a website.
Hybrid Open Access: Some articles in a subscription journal are made open access upon the payment of an additional charge.

Downloading Resources

Direct Downloads: Once you find a paper or dataset, download it directly.
Citation Tools: Easily export citations in various formats to incorporate them into your research.

Open Access

Open access in scientific publishing represents a transformative approach that breaks down traditional barriers to knowledge dissemination. It is a movement dedicated to making scientific research freely available to all, fostering a more inclusive and collaborative scientific community. At its core, open access allows for the unrestricted sharing of research findings, enabling scientists, academicians, and the general public to access and utilize scientific papers without the constraints of subscription fees or licensing restrictions. This paradigm shift in scholarly communication is driven by the belief that knowledge, particularly that which is publicly funded, should be a communal resource, accessible to everyone for the greater good of society.

In the realm of scientific research, open access has numerous advantages. It accelerates the pace of discovery by allowing researchers to build upon existing work without delay, facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas across various fields. This is particularly crucial in addressing global challenges, where rapid and unencumbered access to research can lead to faster solutions. Furthermore, open access democratizes knowledge by making it available to researchers in developing countries who may not have the resources for expensive journal subscriptions, thereby narrowing the research gap between high and low-income countries.

The open access model also aligns with the digital age's ethos of openness and transparency. It enables a more efficient validation and critique process, as a larger audience can scrutinize and contribute to the research. This can lead to higher quality and more reliable scientific work. Moreover, it provides an equal platform for emerging researchers and institutions to share their findings, ensuring that the visibility and impact of research are not confined to those within well-funded, prestigious entities.

However, the transition to open access is not without challenges. The sustainability of publishing models, quality assurance, and equitable distribution of costs are ongoing concerns. Despite these hurdles, the open access movement is gaining momentum, driven by the global scientific community's commitment to an open, accessible, and collaborative future in research. As we move forward, open access stands as a beacon of progress, symbolizing a world where knowledge is a shared and freely accessible asset, driving innovation and societal advancement.

Advanced search
Peer review

Discover relevant research today

Advance your research field in the open

Reach new audiences and maximize your readership

ScienceOpen puts your research in the context of

Publications

For Publishers

ScienceOpen offers content hosting, context building and marketing services for publishers. See our tailored offerings

For academic publishers to promote journals and interdisciplinary collections
For open access journals to host journal content in an interactive environment
For university library publishing to develop new open access paradigms for their scholars
For scholarly societies to promote content with interactive features

For Institutions

ScienceOpen offers state-of-the-art technology and a range of solutions and services

For faculties and research groups to promote and share your work
For research institutes to build up your own branding for OA publications
For funders to develop new open access publishing paradigms
For university libraries to create an independent OA publishing environment

For Researchers

Make an impact and build your research profile in the open with ScienceOpen

Search and discover relevant research in over 95 million Open Access articles and article records
Share your expertise and get credit by publicly reviewing any article
Publish your poster or preprint and track usage and impact with article- and author-level metrics
Create a topical Collection to advance your research field

Create a Journal powered by ScienceOpen

Launching a new open access journal or an open access press? ScienceOpen now provides full end-to-end open access publishing solutions – embedded within our smart interactive discovery environment. A modular approach allows open access publishers to pick and choose among a range of services and design the platform that fits their goals and budget.

Continue reading “Create a Journal powered by ScienceOpen”

What can a Researcher do on ScienceOpen?

ScienceOpen provides researchers with a wide range of tools to support their research – all for free. Here is a short checklist to make sure you are getting the most of the technological infrastructure and content that we have to offer. What can a researcher do on ScienceOpen? Continue reading “What can a Researcher do on ScienceOpen?”

ScienceOpen on the Road

Upcoming events.

15 June – Scheduled Server Maintenance, 13:00 – 01:00 CEST

Past Events

20 – 22 February – ResearcherToReader Conference
09 November – Webinar for the Discoverability of African Research
26 – 27 October – Attending the Workshop on Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata
18 – 22 October – ScienceOpen at Frankfurt Book Fair.
27 – 29 September – Attending OA Tage, Berlin .
25 – 27 September – ScienceOpen at Open Science Fair
19 – 21 September – OASPA 2023 Annual Conference .
22 – 24 May – ScienceOpen sponsoring Pint of Science, Berlin.
16-17 May – ScienceOpen at 3rd AEUP Conference.
20 – 21 April – ScienceOpen attending Scaling Small: Community-Owned Futures for Open Access Books .

What is ScienceOpen?

Smart search and discovery within an interactive interface
Researcher promotion and ORCID integration
Open evaluation with article reviews and Collections
Business model based on providing services to publishers

Live Twitter stream

Some of our partners:.

Detail of a painting depicting the landscape of New Mexico with mountains in the distance

Explore millions of high-quality primary sources and images from around the world, including artworks, maps, photographs, and more.

Explore migration issues through a variety of media types

Part of The Streets are Talking: Public Forms of Creative Expression from Around the World
Part of The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Winter 2020)
Part of Cato Institute (Aug. 3, 2021)
Part of University of California Press
Part of Open: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture
Part of Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 2012)
Part of R Street Institute (Nov. 1, 2020)
Part of Leuven University Press
Part of UN Secretary-General Papers: Ban Ki-moon (2007-2016)
Part of Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 12, No. 4 (August 2018)
Part of Leveraging Lives: Serbia and Illegal Tunisian Migration to Europe, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Mar. 1, 2023)
Part of UCL Press

Harness the power of visual materials—explore more than 3 million images now on JSTOR.

Enhance your scholarly research with underground newspapers, magazines, and journals.

Explore collections in the arts, sciences, and literature from the world’s leading museums, archives, and scholars.

Unfortunately we don't fully support your browser. If you have the option to, please upgrade to a newer version or use Mozilla Firefox , Microsoft Edge , Google Chrome , or Safari 14 or newer. If you are unable to, and need support, please send us your feedback .

We'd appreciate your feedback. Tell us what you think! opens in new tab/window

Sharing and hosting policy FAQs

Introduction.

These FAQs are based on feedback from researchers and the wider academic community. If you have further questions or feedback, please contact us via the Permissions Helpdesk Support Center opens in new tab/window .

Download our policy handout opens in new tab/window

Sharing policy

How is elsevier supporting the stm principles on article sharing.

Elsevier supports the STM Article Sharing Principles opens in new tab/window , alongside other publishers, and we are keen to provide additional clarity for researchers, libraries and also to other hosting platforms about how to share and reuse research published by Elsevier. We have put in place a sharing policy and a hosting policy to make it easier to understand what researchers can and cannot do in different situations. We are committed to addressing some of the shared challenges the industry faces, for example, by developing technology solutions to facilitate sharing across different platforms.

Is Elsevier listed as a green publisher on SHERPA/Romeo?

Yes, we are listed as a "green" publisher.

How does sharing relate to green open access?

Green open access is the result of making a version of a subscription article available to everyone, following a time delay called an embargo period. Our sharing policy gives authors guidelines about how they can do this and also how to share their articles in other ways. For example, they may want to share their latest paper with colleagues, students or other members of an online working group.

How does the sharing policy relate to the rights authors have in the license agreements?

Every author who publishes with us retains important rights , including the right to share their paper for personal use , for example, through e-mail to known research colleagues for internal use at their institution. The sharing policy is aligned with these author rights and provides additional explanations around ways authors can share their research, for example, on their institutional repository.

What does private sharing mean?

Private sharing is about the audience, for example, sharing with a colleague or with an invitation-only online group. Mendeley, for example, is one platform that provides support for both private group sharing and public sharing. Visit the Mendeley Support Center opens in new tab/window for more details.

What is the difference between the various versions of an article?

Preprint : Author's own write-up of research results and analysis that has not been peer reviewed, nor had any other value added to it by a publisher (such as formatting, copy-editing, technical enhancements, etc.).

Accepted manuscript : The version of an article that has been accepted for publication and which typically includes author-incorporated changes suggested during submission, peer review and editor-author communications. They do not include other publisher value-added contributions such as copy-editing, formatting, machine-readable linking, technical enhancements and, if relevant, pagination.

Published journal article : This is the definitive final record of published research that appears in the journal and embodies all value-adding publisher activities including peer review co-ordination, copy-editing, formatting, pagination (if relevant) and online enrichment.

For information on sharing other article versions, please see below under ‘Can I share Articles in Press?'

Are you asserting copyright over preprints?

No, preprints can be used anytime and anywhere by authors. We encourage authors seeking to publish in Cell Press, The Lancet and some society-owned titles to check the author section on the journal homepage for additional information.

Can I share my manuscript on a preprint server?

In line with our sharing policy, authors can share their preprints anytime and anywhere, and we encourage them to do so. We are also working to automate this process for authors on our own pre-print server, SSRN opens in new tab/window , through programs such as First Look opens in new tab/window . Preprint servers typically provide guidance to authors encouraging them to post non-peer reviewed items, rather than accepted manuscripts.

If I want to share the Accepted Manuscript via green open access, how do I find the embargo period information?

You can find the embargo period information for all Elsevier journals on the journal homepage or, alternatively, use our list of embargo periods opens in new tab/window . The embargo period begins from the date the article is formally published online in its final and fully citable form (i.e., online publication date).

Elsevier has a number of funding body agreements in place to help authors publishing in our journals to comply with their funder or institutional open access policies. Please find more details on specific open access agreements .

Can an author self-archive (i.e., share their accepted manuscript) in their institutional repository?

Yes. We have removed the need for an institution to have an agreement with us before any systematic posting can take place in its institutional repository. Authors may share accepted manuscripts immediately on their personal websites and blogs, and they can immediately self-archive in their institutional repository, too. We also allow for repositories to use these accepted manuscripts immediately for internal use and to support private sharing. After the embargo period opens in new tab/window passes, manuscripts can be shared publicly, as well.

Do Elsevier’s green open access embargo periods align with many funders' open access policies?

Our journal specific embargo periods are evidence-based and typically range from 12-24 months. There are, however, exceptions which can be both longer and shorter than 12-24 months. Ideally, embargo periods should be set on a title-by-title basis by publishers. We recognize, however, that other stakeholders — in particular, funders — would prefer adjusted embargo lengths. We have worked in partnership with funding bodies for many years on open access, and are committed to continued collaboration.

Can I share an Article in Press?

Articles in Press should be treated the same as published journal articles, as per our sharing and hosting policies. Articles in Press are made available on ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window as we finalize the publication process. Articles in Press are not accepted manuscripts and, instead, more closely resemble the final published article.

What are the three stages of Articles in Press?

There are three stages opens in new tab/window of Articles in Press:

Journal pre-proofs : Versions of an article that have undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability. These versions will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before being published in final form.

Uncorrected proofs : Articles that have been copy edited and formatted. They still need to be proof-read and corrected by the author(s).

Corrected proofs : Articles that contain the author(s)' corrections. Final citation details, for example, volume and/or issue number, publication year and page numbers, still need to be added and the text might change before final publication.

When the final published article is made available online, it replaces the Article in Press version, which no longer appears.

Article version labeling clarification

Prior to July 2019, the 'journal pre-proof' was referred to as ‘accepted manuscript’. Since then, the labeling of this version of the article was changed as it was confusing. These versions were not intended to be used for author self-archiving as they are not accepted manuscripts.

We understand the concern that we are perceived to be closing down a route to institutional archiving that previously existed. This was never our intention, as the journal pre-proof was never intended to support institutional archiving — it was a simply a way to surface findings before the final version was posted. We regret that our mislabeling has created this confusion.

We recognize the challenge librarians face in being able to gather accepted manuscripts from their authors. As we continue to develop our own systems to store accepted manuscripts, something that we haven’t done previously, we will continue to reflect on the value-added services we may be able to provide to our customers in this regard.

How do authors apply a user license when posting full text articles?

A Creative Commons non-commercial license opens in new tab/window is applied to publicly posted accepted manuscripts to ensure that readers understand how they can reuse the version of article they are accessing. We have provided some easy guidance on how to attach a license .

What is a 'CC license'?

A Creative Commons opens in new tab/window (CC) license is an end-user license that provides a simple, standardized way for researchers to give their permission for their work to be shared and used. A license tells readers what they can and can’t do with an article and ensures authors get credit for their work.

Authors publishing gold open access have a choice between two Creative Commons (CC) licenses: CC-BY (“Attribution”) and CC-BY-NC-ND (“Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives”). Find out more about the CC licenses opens in new tab/window . Our licensing page also provides more details.

Why not let authors choose which CC license to use on their accepted manuscript?

Authors who choose to publish gold open access with Elsevier are offered their choice of two CC licenses . We don’t offer this choice on self-archived subscription manuscripts and instead use a non-commercial CC-BY-NC-ND license.

Green open access must work in harmony with the pay-to-read (subscription) business model and subscriptions are important for the sustainability of many journals, so the use of a non-commercial CC license is in place as an important safeguard. Surveys show opens in new tab/window that authors often choose NC ND of their own volition.

What does a CC-BY-NC-ND license allow others to do with my work?

This Creative Commons license allows anyone to reuse your accepted manuscript for non-commercial purposes. In general the license permits users to read, print and download it, and redistribute or display it, such as in a repository. Readers can download your article for text and data mining purposes, translate it and reuse unaltered portions or extracts (including tables) in other works. Users must give appropriate credit opens in new tab/window , provide a link to the CC BY-NC-ND opens in new tab/window license and indicate if any changes were made, but may not do so in a way that suggests you or the publisher have endorsed the user or their use of your work.

As reuse under this license is only permitted for non-commercial purposes (including non-commercial teaching). Uses such as posting on commercial websites or selling the manuscript are not allowed. Further, since this is a no derivatives (ND) license, adaptations of the original work (e.g., translations) cannot be shared with others. If you are unsure, contact the Permissions Helpdesk opens in new tab/window .

Full details about this license can be found from the Creative Commons website opens in new tab/window and also on our licensing page .

Are authors able to add a CC-BY-NC-ND to their manuscripts on arXiv?

To submit a manuscript in arXiv, the author can either grant arXiv the non-exclusive right to distribute the article or use a CC-BY or CC-BY-NC-SA license ( https://arxiv.org/help/license opens in new tab/window ). Since with CC-BY-NC-ND user license, authors can grant arXiv the right to distribute the paper, accepted articles from Elsevier’s journals can be posted on arXiv within their policy.

What is the contractual language that authors are expected to sign (the publishing agreement) under this policy?

View a sample agreement (PDF) for authors choosing a non-commercial license opens in new tab/window .

How do I link to the published journal article?

It is important to make sure that readers and users can find and cite the final version of your article from ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window . The way to do this is to include the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) link in your posted article. A DOI is a standardized method for identifying an electronic object, and you can easily find your DOI under the title of your article.

To convert a DOI to a Web address, add the following URL to the DOI: https://dx.doi.org/ followed by your DOI number. We recommend you include this information to your title page or header/footer.

Is a dissertation that is deposited in an institutional repository considered a ‘published article’ and therefore a form of 'prior publication'?

No, Elsevier does not view publication as an academic thesis as prior publication. Please note that Cell Press, The Lancet and some society-owned titles have different policies on prior publication.

For further information on Elsevier’s prior publication policy please see: Policies and Ethics for Journal Authors (Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication) .

What are the platforms I can use to share subscription articles in private work groups?

Elsevier supports sharing of articles in private work groups such as the following applications:

Does the sharing policy apply to researchers employed by a commercial company?

Yes. Corporate researchers may share articles they have written in line with the sharing policy . Corporate researchers should check the terms of their organization’s license agreements for guidance on how to share other articles access via ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window (and other Elsevier platforms).

Hosting policy

Why do you have a hosting policy.

We believe we should be working with other platforms that host content to build best practices and industry standards, so that researchers can share in simple and seamless ways. We support the STM Article Sharing Principles opens in new tab/window and have introduced a hosting policy, with the aim to give clear guidelines for platforms that wish to aggregate content self-archived by researchers and make it available.

What types of platforms are considered commercial?

In the context of our hosting policy , commercial use or posting of articles can be defined as follows:

For commercial gain. For example, to receive advertising revenue from the use of the full-text of the article, by providing hosting services to other repositories or to other organizations (including where an otherwise non-commercial site or repository provides a service to other organizations or agencies), or by charging fees for document delivery or access.

To substitute for the services provided directly by the journal. For example: article aggregation, systematic distribution via e-mail lists or share buttons, posting, indexing or linking for promotional/marketing activities by commercial companies for use by customers and/or intended target audience of such companies (e.g., pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals/physician-prescribers).

What is internal institutional use?

This means:

Use by the author's institution for classroom teaching at the institution and for internal training purposes (including distribution of copies, paper or electronic, and use in course-packs and courseware programs, but not in Massive Open Online Courses)

Inclusion of the Article in applications for grant funding

For authors employed by companies, the use by that company for internal training purposes

How can institutional repositories (IRs) host Elsevier-published content?

Our new hosting guidelines make it clear that IRs can host their researchers’:

Gold open access articles

Accepted manuscripts immediately for internal use and for private sharing

Accepted manuscripts publicly, after the journal-specific embargo opens in new tab/window and with a CC-BY-NC-ND license

Metadata and links

Subscription articles for private sharing as per their ScienceDirect agreement

We also have a number of hosting services available for institutional repositories opens in new tab/window .

Is an agreement needed for institutions to use embargoed accepted manuscripts for internal purposes and private sharing?

No. This is one of the ways in which our new policy is more flexible for all repositories than our prior policy.

What do your API-based institutional repository services cost?

The ScienceDirect APIs are free for non-commercial platforms to use — register your interest opens in new tab/window .

How will non-commercial platforms know whether a user is entitled to access the full-text article on Elsevier platforms?

Millions of researchers already have access to ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window . We have an API which has this information and we are willing to share this with hosting platforms so that they can display the best available version to their users. The process is simple, the platform would need to include the Crossref DOI or the Elsevier article identifier, called PII in the API request. For non-commercial platforms, please contact us via the Support Hub opens in new tab/window .

ResearchGate

How do copyright checks on researchgate work.

Elsevier and ResearchGate have agreed on a technical solution that enables authors who have published research articles with Elsevier to share their work on the ResearchGate platform in a copyright-compliant way. Automated checks occur instantly at the point of upload, helping researchers to save time. ResearchGate’s copyright check system is a tool that identifies copyrighted content and notifies authors what sharing options are available to them. As authors create publication pages and upload files for their work, their content is automatically checked against ResearchGate’s database of copyright information. If the system finds a match, authors are notified about what sharing options are available to them.

How can I check whether I can share my article publicly on ResearchGate?

What you can share on ResearchGate depends on the selection made by the corresponding author, on behalf of all the authors, about how to publish your article.

If your article was published open access, then you can publicly share the published journal article on ResearchGate. You can check whether your article is open access by searching for it on ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window and checking if it is tagged ‘Open access’ above the article title on the search results or, alternatively, next to the DOI on the article page.

If your article was not published open access, you cannot publicly share the published journal article on ResearchGate. However, you can still upload the published journal article privately . This can be shared with your co-authors and other researchers who specifically request that article on ResearchGate. If you wish to share publicly, you need to use the preprint (the version that was submitted to the journal, before peer review took place).

Further explanation on the difference between the published journal article, accepted manuscript, and preprint can be found here .

I believe my article has been published open access, but it isn’t showing as open access on ScienceDirect. What should I do?

Please first check with the corresponding author about the option they selected for the publication of your article. For an article to be published open access, the corresponding author will typically either need to pay an Article Publishing Charge, or have their charge already covered via an agreement with their institution. If the corresponding author also believes the article should be open access, please email us opens in new tab/window and explain your specific case.

Am I allowed to post the accepted manuscript version on ResearchGate?

If your article was published open access, then you can publicly share the published journal article on ResearchGate, so there is no need to use the accepted manuscript version. You can check whether your article is open access by searching for it on ScienceDirect opens in new tab/window and checking if it is tagged ‘Open access’ above the article title on the search results or, alternatively, next to the DOI on the article page. If your article was not published open access, you cannot publicly share the accepted manuscript version on ResearchGate. However, you can still upload the published journal article or accepted manuscript privately . This can be shared with your co-authors and other researchers who specifically request that article on ResearchGate. If you wish to share publicly on ResearchGate, you need to use the preprint (the version that was submitted to the journal, before peer review took place). If you wish to share the accepted manuscript version publicly, it can be posted immediately on your non-commercial personal homepage or blog, or after an embargo period on a non-commercial hosting platform, such as your institutional repository. The embargo period can be found here opens in new tab/window . You can also share it immediately in your research institute or institutional repository for internal institutional uses. Further explanation on the difference between the published journal article, accepted manuscript, and preprint can be found here .

I believe my article is subject to special copyright conditions. What should I do?

A small number of authors may have circumstances where special copyright conditions apply. If you believe this is the case for your article, please email us opens in new tab/window and explain your specific case.

NASA, ESA Missions Help Scientists Uncover How Solar Wind Gets Energy

Since the 1960s, astronomers have wondered how the Sun’s supersonic “solar wind,” a stream of energetic particles that flows out into the solar system, continues to receive energy once it leaves the Sun. Now, thanks to a lucky lineup of a NASA and an ESA (European Space Agency)/NASA spacecraft both currently studying the Sun, they may have discovered the answer — knowledge that is a crucial piece of the puzzle to help scientists better forecast solar activity between the Sun and Earth.

A paper published in the Aug. 30, 2024, issue of the journal Science provides persuasive evidence that the fastest solar winds are powered by magnetic “switchbacks,” or large kinks in the magnetic field, near the Sun.

“Our study addresses a huge open question about how the solar wind is energized and helps us understand how the Sun affects its environment and, ultimately, the Earth,” said Yeimy Rivera, co-leader of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, part of Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. “If this process happens in our local star, it’s highly likely that this powers winds from other stars across the Milky Way galaxy and beyond and could have implications for the habitability of exoplanets.”

Previously, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe found that these switchbacks were common throughout the solar wind. Parker, which became the first craft to enter the Sun's magnetic atmosphere in 2021, allowed scientists to determine that switchbacks become more distinct and more powerful close to the Sun. Up to now, however, scientists lacked experimental evidence that this interesting phenomenon actually deposits enough energy to be important in the solar wind.

“About three years ago, I was giving a talk about how fascinating these waves are,” said co-author Mike Stevens, astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics. “At the end, an astronomy professor stood up and said, ‘that's neat, but do they actually matter?’”

To answer this, the team of scientists had to use two different spacecraft. Parker is built to fly through the Sun’s atmosphere, or “corona.” ESA's and NASA’s Solar Orbiter mission is also on an orbit that takes it relatively close to the Sun, and it measures solar wind at larger distances.

The discovery was made possible because of a coincidental alignment in February 2022 that allowed both Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter to measure the same solar wind stream within two days of each other. Solar Orbiter was almost halfway to the Sun while Parker was skirting the edge of the Sun's magnetic atmosphere.

A large portion of the Sun fills most of the image, with a peak of black space on the top right corner. Surrounding the Sun is waves of the solar atmosphere, appearing net-like. The Parker Solar Probe spacecraft is small and flying into the atmosphere.

“We didn't initially realize that Parker and Solar Orbiter were measuring the same thing at all. Parker saw this slower plasma near the Sun that was full of switchback waves, and then Solar Orbiter recorded a fast stream which had received heat and with very little wave activity,” said Samuel Badman, astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics and the other co-lead of the study. “When we connected the two, that was a real eureka moment.”

Scientists have long known that energy is moved throughout the Sun‘s corona and the solar wind, at least in part, through what are known as "Alfvén waves.” These waves transport energy through a plasma, the superheated state of matter that makes up the solar wind.

However, how much the Alfvén waves evolve and interact with the solar wind between the Sun and Earth couldn't be measured — until these two missions were sent closer to the Sun than ever before, at the same time. Now, scientists can directly determine how much energy is stored in the magnetic and velocity fluctuations of these waves near the corona, and how much less energy is carried by the waves farther from the Sun.

The new research shows that the Alfvén waves in the form of switchbacks provide enough energy to account for the heating and acceleration documented in the faster stream of the solar wind as it flows away from the Sun.

“It took over half a century to confirm that Alfvenic wave acceleration and heating are important processes, and they happen in approximately the way we think they do,” said John Belcher, emeritus professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who co-discovered Alfvén waves in the solar wind but was not involved in this study.

In addition to helping scientists better forecast solar activity and space weather, such information helps us understand mysteries of the universe elsewhere and how Sun-like stars and stellar winds operate everywhere.

“This discovery is one of the key puzzle pieces to answer the 50-year-old question of how the solar wind is accelerated and heated in the innermost portions of the heliosphere, bringing us closer to closure to one of the main science objectives of the Parker Solar Probe mission,” said Adam Szabo, Parker Solar Probe mission science lead at NASA.

By Megan Watzke Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Related Terms

Goddard Space Flight Center
Heliophysics
Heliophysics Division
Parker Solar Probe (PSP)
Science & Research
Science Mission Directorate
Solar Flares
Solar Orbiter
Solar Science
Space Weather
The Sun & Solar Physics

Explore More

Thousands of distant stars crowd the view against black space. A rosy, bloomlike tendril of red nebulosity shines near the center-top.

Hubble Zooms into the Rosy Tendrils of Andromeda

NASA G-IV Plane Will Carry Next-Generation Science Instrument

In June 2024, a new tail number swept the sky above NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Pilots conducted flights of a Gulfstream IV (G-IV) to evaluate its handling characteristics and to familiarize pilots with it before it begins structural modifications. The research plane is joining the center’s fleet serving NASA’s Airborne Science […]

Aaron Vigil Helps Give SASS to Roman Space Telescope

The stars in the big Wyoming skies inspired Aaron Vigil as a child to dream big. Today, he’s a mechanical engineer working on the Solar Array Sun Shield (SASS) for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at Goddard. Name: Aaron VigilTitle: Mechanical EngineerFormal Job Classification: Aerospace Technology, Flight StructuresOrganization: Mechanical Engineering, Engineering and Technology Directorate (Code […]

arXiv's Accessibility Forum starts next month!

Help | Advanced Search

Computer Science > Neural and Evolutionary Computing

Title: spiking diffusion models.

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) gaining attention for their ultra-low energy consumption and high biological plausibility compared with traditional Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). Despite their distinguished properties, the application of SNNs in the computationally intensive field of image generation is still under exploration. In this paper, we propose the Spiking Diffusion Models (SDMs), an innovative family of SNN-based generative models that excel in producing high-quality samples with significantly reduced energy consumption. In particular, we propose a Temporal-wise Spiking Mechanism (TSM) that allows SNNs to capture more temporal features from a bio-plasticity perspective. In addition, we propose a threshold-guided strategy that can further improve the performances by up to 16.7% without any additional training. We also make the first attempt to use the ANN-SNN approach for SNN-based generation tasks. Extensive experimental results reveal that our approach not only exhibits comparable performance to its ANN counterpart with few spiking time steps, but also outperforms previous SNN-based generative models by a large margin. Moreover, we also demonstrate the high-quality generation ability of SDM on large-scale datasets, e.g., LSUN bedroom. This development marks a pivotal advancement in the capabilities of SNN-based generation, paving the way for future research avenues to realize low-energy and low-latency generative applications. Our code is available at this https URL .

Comments:	Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence
Subjects:	Neural and Evolutionary Computing (cs.NE); Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV)
Cite as:	[cs.NE]
	(or [cs.NE] for this version)
	Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Submission history

Access paper:.

HTML (experimental)
Other Formats

References & Citations

Google Scholar
Semantic Scholar

BibTeX formatted citation

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Code, data and media associated with this article, recommenders and search tools.

Institution

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .

COMMENTS

Search
Find the research you need | With 160+ million publication pages, 1+ million questions, and 25+ million researchers, this is where everyone can access science
ResearchGate
Access 160+ million publications and connect with 25+ million researchers. Join for free and gain visibility by uploading your research.
110553 PDFs
Research Papers - Science topic. Explore the latest publications in Research Papers, and find Research Papers experts. Questions (2,163) Publications (110,553) Filters.
ResearchGate
ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers [ 2] to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. [ 3] According to a 2014 study by Nature and a 2016 article in Times Higher Education, it is the largest academic social network in terms of active users, [ 4][ 5] although other ...
533984 PDFs
Explore the latest full-text research PDFs, articles, conference papers, preprints and more on COMPUTER SCIENCE. Find methods information, sources, references or conduct a literature review on ...
Computer Science and Engineering
Explore the latest full-text research PDFs, articles, conference papers, preprints and more on COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. Find methods information, sources, references or conduct a ...
578339 PDFs
Artificial Intelligence | Explore the latest full-text research PDFs, articles, conference papers, preprints and more on ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Find methods information, sources, references or ...
Writing an Effective Abstract for a Scientific Paper
Weil (1970), an abstract is an abbreviated, accurate representation of a document. Abstracts of scientific. papers are occasionally poorly written, lack important information, and present a skewed ...
What is ResearchGate?
Visit ResearchGate and click Join for free to start signing up. Learn more ; Note: Please be aware that membership is limited to active researchers. 2. Complete your profile. Add a profile photo: Profiles with photos get 150% more views. Add your skills and expertise: This helps others understand your work and helps us show you relevant content.
Discovering and requesting research
How do I search for research items on ResearchGate? Simply type the name of the researcher, research item, or question you're looking for in the search bar at the top of any ResearchGate page and press Enter.If the item you're looking for doesn't immediately appear in the search results list, try using the filters across the top of the page (e.g. Research, People, Questions).
ResearchGate
Contemporary scholarly scientific research and publishing are characterized by a large number of journals, the fast tempo of publication, and the competitiveness of the funding process. ... One example of a platform that has emerged in recent years in response to this demand is ResearchGate, a for-profit, social media-like scientific ...
How to add research
To add a publication page to your profile: Click the Add new button at the top right-hand corner of any ResearchGate page. For published work, select Published research and then the publication type. For unpublished work, select the most applicable type of research from the options shown. Follow the steps for the specific type of research you ...
ScienceDirect.com
3.3 million articles on ScienceDirect are open access. Articles published open access are peer-reviewed and made freely available for everyone to read, download and reuse in line with the user license displayed on the article. ScienceDirect is the world's leading source for scientific, technical, and medical research.
Preprints
In general, a preprint is an author's own original or draft version of their paper before any peer review has taken place and before they publish it - sometimes in a peer-reviewed journal. Adding your preprints gives you a great opportunity to start gaining visibility for your work early on and lets you get valuable feedback from your peers.
Connected Papers
Get a visual overview of a new academic field. Enter a typical paper and we'll build you a graph of similar papers in the field. Explore and build more graphs for interesting papers that you find - soon you'll have a real, visual understanding of the trends, popular works and dynamics of the field you're interested in.
The best academic search engines [Update 2024]
Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.
ResearchGate and Google Scholar: how much do they differ in ...
ResearchGate has emerged as a popular professional network for scientists and researchers in a very short span. Similar to Google Scholar, the ResearchGate indexing uses an automatic crawling algorithm that extracts bibliographic data, citations, and other information about scholarly articles from various sources. However, it has been observed that the two platforms often show different ...
Predatory Journals and Publishers
As the ResearchGate team stated, the decision by Elsevier and ACS to simply remove content "is disappointing to the entire research community, not just because of the loss to science and researchers, but because there is a better way. ... Writing and Publishing of the Scientific Papers in the Biomedical Journals. Acta Inform Med. 2012; 20 (3 ...
Find and Download Scientific Papers
Welcome to , a dedicated platform for finding and downloading open access scientific papers and other research data. Our mission is to democratize access to scientific information, making it freely available to researchers, students, and curious minds across the globe. Open Access (OA) refers to the practice of providing unrestricted access via ...
ScienceOpen
Make an impact and build your research profile in the open with ScienceOpen. Search and discover relevant research in over 95 million Open Access articles and article records; Share your expertise and get credit by publicly reviewing any article; Publish your poster or preprint and track usage and impact with article- and author-level metrics; Create a topical Collection to advance your ...
Unpaywall
"Unpaywall is transforming Open Science" —Nature feature article, August 2018 Used and trusted by top organizations. We're integrated into thousands of library systems, search platforms, and other information products worldwide. In fact, if you're involved in scholarly communication, there's a good chance you've already used Unpaywall data.
JSTOR Home
Harness the power of visual materials—explore more than 3 million images now on JSTOR. Enhance your scholarly research with underground newspapers, magazines, and journals. Take your research further with Artstor's 3+ million images. Explore collections in the arts, sciences, and literature from the world's leading museums, archives, and ...
Article sharing and hosting FAQs
Elsevier supports the STM Article Sharing Principles opens in new tab/window, alongside other publishers, and we are keen to provide additional clarity for researchers, libraries and also to other hosting platforms about how to share and reuse research published by Elsevier.We have put in place a sharing policy and a hosting policy to make it easier to understand what researchers can and ...
Stock assessment models overstate sustainability of the world ...
Best practice methods for assessing fisheries involve complex models integrating past catch data with biological and other information ().Complex stock models can include more than 40 different parameters and settings related to fish life history (e.g., natural mortality, length and age at maturity, and growth rate), catch (e.g., landings, gear selectivity, and discards), effort (e.g., days ...
Early science and colossal stone engineering in Menga, a Neolithic
Here, we examine a great Neolithic engineering feat: the Menga dolmen, Iberia's largest megalithic monument. As listed by UNESCO, the Antequera megalithic site includes two natural formations, La Peña de los Enamorados and El Torcal karstic massif, and four major megalithic monuments: Menga, Viera, El Romeral, and the one recently discovered at Piedras Blancas, at the foot of La Peña de ...
NASA, ESA Missions Help Scientists Uncover How Solar ...
A paper published in the journal Science provides persuasive evidence that the fastest solar winds are powered by magnetic "switchbacks," or large kinks in the magnetic field, near the Sun. ... bringing us closer to closure to one of the main science objectives of the Parker Solar Probe mission," said Adam Szabo, Parker Solar Probe ...
[2408.16467v1] Spiking Diffusion Models
Recent years have witnessed Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) gaining attention for their ultra-low energy consumption and high biological plausibility compared with traditional Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). Despite their distinguished properties, the application of SNNs in the computationally intensive field of image generation is still under exploration. In this paper, we propose the ...