International Collaboration in Science

Anant Marahatta
Doctoral Student (Chemistry)
Tohoku University
Japan
(ananta037@gmail.com)
(Relevant to my collaboration with Germany)

The general meaning of an “international collaboration in science” is explained by these advanced words: global science, global networks, global co-authorships, global interaction, global conference, global sharing, and spreading global hand for helping on different disciplines of science and technologies etc.

Though there is no political institution organizing the sciences on an international level, a self-organized, global network had formed in the late 20th century. It has been found that international collaborations are being doubled from 1990 to 2005. While collaborative authorships within nations have also risen.

This is the century of getting revolution in the world due to the different fields of sciences. If the researchers and scientists of any well developed countries have proudly announced that they are eligible enough to carry out any sorts of revolutionary changes in the field of science, they have initiated to deteriorate their countries themselves. So for getting several supports and ideas, all the countries if possible must be the member of the international collaboration. Any one can analyze that, international collaboration improves all the countries of the world by applying a range of tools including social network analysis and factor analysis, to expose the network.

There has been a rapidly growing literature discussing the increase in international linkages in science. Authors have been approaching the questions from three perspectives: 1) scientific analysis of the increase in the interconnectedness. 2) Social sciences analysis of collaboration in general and international linkages in particular and 3) policy analysis of the implications of linkages for funding and outcomes. The increase in investment in research and development from governments and non-governmental organizations (such as the World Bank) is for using science as a tool to aid development and for contributing to the diffusion of capacity into the collaborating countries. Scientific collaboration may lead to a range of outcomes such as publication of co-authored articles is one of these outputs.

Collaboration in the technology sector refers to a wide variety of tools that enable groups of people to work together. Collaboration encompasses both asynchronous and synchronous methods of communication and serves as an umbrella-term for a wide variety of software packages. Perhaps the most commonly associated form of synchronous collaboration is web conference using tools such as WebEX or Microsoft Live Meeting but the term can easily be applied to instant messaging as well.

According to the available information, at the global level, the network of interactions is shown to be very strong and highly interconnected. Above figure illustrates the association of all the countries of the world in 2000. The main point is that science is a highly interconnected network, with a dense core and a number of periphery countries.

Thus international collaboration seems one of the important tools for making revolutionary change in the world by developing and introducing the multidisciplinary fields.

An argue with CalTech. Chemistry Grad.

Anant Babu Marahatta
Ph.D. student
Tohoku University
(ananta037@gmail.com)

Theme of this article is: “Knowing English is not enough to present Chemistry but one must know Chemistry in English.”
(some thing about Amphidynamic Crystal)

In order to strengthen and enhance the education and research functions of graduate schools of Japanese universities, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) introduced the “Global COE (Centers of Excellence) Program in some of the top universities of Japan on 2002. Another main objective is to foster highly creative young researchers who will become world’s leaders in their respective fields through experiencing and practicing research of the highest world standard.Molecular complex Chemistry is one of the fields covered by the GCOE.

Being one of the Chemistry doctoral students of the nation’s high tech. university [Tohoku University] with the nation’s largest chemistry department, I also belong to the network of GCOE program. One of the annual events of the Tohoku Univ. sponsored by this program is to provide a chance for the doctoral students to lead a week long Int’l conference. Including the key speakers and the chairpersons of each section, every participant must be the Ph.D. candidate of Chemistry. The professors only act as a facilitator. He/she never interferes the students’ leadership.

One of the key speakers of the program was from California institute of Technology (CalTech). He was presenting his research work related to coordination chemistry and was chanting the effects of ligands to synthesize the Supramolecules with the metal ions. He was also claiming that his research output is fabulous and praiseworthy. One of the major parts of that molecule was the phenylene ring encapsulated into the cage that can create enough free space for undergoing smooth rotation. He was calling this ring as a “spacer” because the surrounding spokes can control the space around the phenylene. Any way, we around 200 students were listening his interesting speech. Being a chair person of this section, I was feeling that he was pretending some hidden facts behind his research area even though he was very bold and smart guy. He presented well and wrapped his talk by thanking his collaborators.

Then, it’s my time to open the floor for the discussion. I asked the participants for the comments and the queries. Some students asked about the effects of the coordinating efficiency of ligands’ and some other related stuffs. A Tohoku professor was suggesting him about the possibility of changing properties of that supramolecule by changing central metal ions.

Before announcing the next speaker, I raised my query about that spacer so called phenylene ring. I am/ was very much familiar with such molecules having central rotating part encased into the static part. I also knew that such type of molecular crystals with rotating part and static part in a same molecule are called Amphidynamic crystal, but this is a very new type which I encountered while reading a paper published on 2002. My question was “does your molecular crystal belong to Amphidynamic crystal?” But that guy did not understand the last term and instead asked me for the clarification. I just clarified him by reminding the term “Amphibia” and then called the next speaker.

Immediately after this session, the same guy approached and said to me “Knowing English is not enough to present chemistry but one must know chemistry in English.” Excellent understanding!!!! isn’t it?

Small Science Vs. Large Science

Anant　Babu Marahatta
Ph.D. student in chemistry
Tohoku University, Japan

Science carried out by individuals or small teams of investigators is said to be “small science” and the science carried out for large scientific data gathering programs is said to be “large science”.

Research done by individuals or small teams of investigators has been crucial for many of the important discoveries made in all branches of science. The individual or small group research work has been the first step for bringing up the revolutionary changes in the world. Such type of research facilitates the researcher to concentrate in the particular problem and hence increases the thinking level of the researchers as well. It has been found that the research work performed by the individuals or by the small teams is more accurate and reproducible. Since every branch of science needs accuracy which in fact catalyses the rate of tailoring and building up the new inventions and discoveries. These discoveries provide the fundamental basis for the application of scientific knowledge to national economic and societal goals.

Small science helps to define the goals and directions of large scientific data gathering projects [so called large science]. In turn, these data feed and are often best synthesized and interpreted by the long-term efforts of the small science community. In small science, the rate of manipulation of data is almost nil due to the accuracy which perfectly orients into the solutions of the problems.

Are Carbon Nanotubes the Future of VLSI Interconnections?

Original paper is published by-
K. Banerjee and N. Srivastava
University of California


Summarised by Anant

What is VLSI?
• Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistor-based circuits into a single chip.
• VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device.
New wiring solutions…!
• Metallic carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are promising candidates that can potentially address the challenges faced by copper and thereby extend the lifetime of electrical interconnects.
• carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have aroused a tremendous amount of interest in their use as building blocks of future integrated circuits due to their outstanding electrical properties

CNT based interconnects can potentially offer significant advantages over copper.
• CNTs exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties are efficient conductors of heat and are metallic in nature.
•SWCNTs are a very important variety of CNT because they exhibit important electric properties that are not shared by MWCNTs. The remarkable properties of SWCNTs stem from the symmetry and unusual electronic structure of grapheme [one atom thick sheet of graphite].

∙An isolated CNT can carry current densities in excess of 1010 A/cm2 without any signs of
damage even at an elevated temperature of 250 0C. However, the high resistance associated with an isolated CNT (greater than 6.45 KΩ) necessitates the use of a bundle (rope) of CNTs conducting current in parallel to form an interconnection. CNT bundle interconnects have superior performance compared to Cu.

∙For short CNT bundle with small length (L), [especially for L < λCNT], resistance is higher than that of a Cu interconnect because the large contact resistance dominates the overall CNT resistance. However, for long interconnect lengths; i.e. long CNT bundle interconnects have smaller resistance than their Cu counterparts [ L>λCNT].
∙The interconnect delay can be reduced considerably by using densely packed CNT bundle interconnects, so that large power savings can be achieved. CNT bundle interconnects can reduce intermediate level interconnect delay by more than 60% due to their lower resistance.

Reliability and Thermal Analysis
∙Due to strong sp2 bonding, carbon nanotubes are much less susceptible to electro-migration (EM) problems [that plague copper interconnects] and can carry very high current densities. Metallic single-walled CNT bundles have been shown to be able to carry extremely high current densities of the order of 109 A/cm2. Cu interconnects = 106 A/cm2 due to EM.
∙A 100 x 50 nm2 cross-section Cu interconnect can carry current up to 50 μA, whereas a 1 nm diameter CNT can carry upto 20-25 uA current. Hence, from a reliability perspective, a few CNTs are enough to match the current carrying capacity of a typical Cu interconnect.
However, the need to reduce interconnect resistance (and hence delay) makes it necessary to pack several thousands of CNTs in a bundle.
Conclusion
∙There is no any experimental work or theoretical analysis yet about the nature of electromagnetic interactions between non-isolated (or tangled) nanotubes. So the authors have not considered their mutual effect during conduction, however they highlighted that this challengeable investigation should be done before using them in a circuit though these challenges are not expected to cause any fundamental problems.

Setting up Computational Chemistry (Quantum Chemistry) laboratory? Technical stuffs [Part II].

Anant　Babu Marahatta
Ph.D. student in chemistry
Tohoku University
Japan

(Interested fellows are suggested to read the first part [Part 1] of this article archived herewith before proceeding it).

The designation of the molecular model is another mandatory step before performing any sorts of computer calculations. Several model making software (molecule model builder) are available free of charge. Mercury, RasMol, CHIME, SwissPDB Viewer, Avogadro etc. are some of them. How to handle them is the matter of their practice. It is very essential to know that some of the molecular builders do not support the calculating software. Let’s say in this step that we could model the sample system of our interest and get the Cartesian co-ordinates or Z-matrix of it (generated by the molecular builder) which will be our input for exploring the chemistry behind it.

Let’s move to the calculating software, one of the very well-known is GAUSSIAN (currently Gaussian-09 version for the windows G09W is available) owned by the Gaussian Inc., USA. It is very flexible software developed by the quantum chemists of all around the world. It is very trustworthy for the most accurate calculations especially ab initio, MD simulation and some semi-empirical calculations. Thus, for having the copy of this software, the university must be the member of it and get the license. The normal cost for the single computer license (single CPU version) is $1150 and for the multiprocessor /core version is $1725 (excluding shipping charge). The detail information is available here. http://www.gaussian.com/g_prod/g09.htm
Here is the sample video of "Gaussian in action" to analyze the frequency.

Similarly, individual person can get the license but he or she needs to pay some additional amount provided that Gaussian Inc. trusts him or her.

It is recommended that “GaussView” (currently, GaussView5 for windows GVW5 is available) is very useful molecular builder that supports the Gaussian software windows version. One must get the copy of it too from the Gaussian Inc. The new license costs $875 for the single windows computer and $4025 for the unlimited windows computer provided that Gaussian software has already been installed.

So far, we have installed the very essential software and our computer is ready to compute the chemistry of the input (of the interested molecular system) prepared by using molecular builder. Now, it’s time to know how to handle above installed software, prepare and route proper inputs, submit for the calculations, route the outputs, visualize the outputs and analyze them. The real chemistry starts from here and for it one must be perfect on computational/quantum chemistry.

Setting up Computational Chemistry (Quantum Chemistry) laboratory? Technical stuffs [Part I]

Anant　Babu Marahatta
Ph.D. student in chemistry
Tohoku University
Japan

[Being a 4th year Doctoral student majoring Quantum chemistry, “Nepa Chem’s-facebook-status” on 11th April 2011 motivated me to write this article. It is solely dedicated to our energetic seniors/colleagues who are planning to introduce the Computational Chemistry lab in Nepal.]

[ This informative article is intended to provide some pre-requisites needed to set up very basic computational chemistry (Quantum Chemistry) laboratory. It is not valid to those who want to establish the high-tech lab by installing the supercomputing calculators into the networks which is a very common way in the renowned research institutions. Even though “LINUX” computer operating system with “Emacs”, world's most powerful text editor, is very common to be installed into the computer, the basic computational laboratory can be set up in the absence of them.

Thus, the person who is master on handling the networking systems of the supercomputers (calculators) with the personal computer (local machine) having installed LINUX is assigned as an administrator of the computational chemistry laboratory. Therefore, nominating a technical staff with such assignments is the crucial point to set up the advanced computational laboratory. ]

Let me start by defining computational chemistry, a branch of chemistry that uses principles of computer science to assist in solving chemical problems. Thus the computers with good memory are the very fundamental tools of it.

Now think yourself that how can computers generate a chemistry of the matter? It does suggest that without using any chemistry related software developed by utilizing the results of the theoretical chemistry (quantum and statistical chemistry), computing chemical and physical properties of the matter are impossible. Thus saying “Computers alone don’t calculate chemistry of the matter” is very usual fact. The most essential tool is the chemical software developed by implementing the results of the quantum and statistical chemistry. Just for making quantum chemistry in action, computer is essential. That’s the reason, why computational chemistry most of the time refers to the quantum chemistry as it is governed by the solution of the Schrödinger equations in order to know everything about the system.

On account of setting very simple computational laboratory for conducting normal level calculation of the small molecular system, the general computers which we use in our daily purpose is more than enough. Thus, even the very poor research institutes can afford such computers. Now the problem is about the chemical software to be installed into each assigned computer. As the molecular synthesis is very needful step in experimental chemistry, in computational chemistry too, one must engineer/model the molecule by using computer. This movie is an example of model making processes and the appearance while running the computational calculations.



The software for designing the molecule and computing the calculations will be discussed in part II.

Japan and US: You must construct “Onkalo”- Fukushima Issue

Anant Babu Marahatta
Sendai, Japan
(News analysis)

Being one of the eyewitnesses from Sendai, Japan, I should proudly say that it was not so big issue about the ~9 M mega-quake that shook some of the major cities of northeast-Japan including Sendai of Miyagi prefecture on March 11, 2011, as all the skyscrapers are still standing unlike the case in Haiti few months ago. Even the mechanical damage caused by the big Tsunami, the consequence of that tremor, has been stopped broadcasting by the world’s leading news networks as well as covering by the front pages of the leading newspapers.

However, the major technical damage of the Tsunami which is being faced by the Fukushima based nuclear power plants, each has the capacity of storing 100s of tons of nuclear fuel, has been publishing with the greatest priority. It is reminded that the storage of all the crippled power plants had contained tons of nuclear fuel and were fully operated during the time of Tsunami. Thus, it is not surprising to mention “Japan is having a big nuclear disaster and crisis” which has presented the crucial question to the world “what to do with nuclear energy?” and I believe (& you too) the world has seriously begun thinking about it.

The current situation of the nuclear disaster in the world after receiving ‘Fukushima-nuclear plants threats’, can be envisioned by this news headline “In search of a nuclear disposal site” published by the “Japan Times” on 7th April 2011. It's every nation's responsibility to construct permanent nuclear waste repositories on its own territory. It is a praiseworthy work that around 300 km northwest of Finland's capital, an island named “Helsinki” houses the potential site for one of the world's first permanent underground high-level nuclear waste repositories “Onkalo” (Finnish language for “hiding place”).The repository is hundreds of meters deep and is designed to store high-level nuclear waste for at least 100,000 years. Research is still under way, but the dumping of the spent fuel is scheduled to begin around 2020.

Even though, Aomori prefecture of Japan is housing “Rokkasho reprocessing plant” for low-level as well as a temporary storage space for high-level radioactive waste, it is not enough at all for the final repository. It must be appreciated that US had spent much time and money in order to develop a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the project was scrapped by the Obama administration amid local opposition.
Come on Japan & US !! You are the leaders of the world but why are you still operating massive nuclear power plants without installing proper safety measures? It's too late but for the safe future, you have to construct the final repository for the nuclear waste.