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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the challenges and benefits that arose from the implementation of an innovative example of employer responsive provision, i.e. of a postgraduate programme that is work‐based and designed specifically to meet the needs of the organisation.

The approach is to outline the principles and challenges involved in designing a postgraduate programme that combines both scientific and personal/professional development in a way that is extremely unusual. In order to achieve this, in addition to assessment of technical scientific skills, it was necessary to integrate pedagogy that would support critical reflection on wider professional practice into the programme. The use of reflection on practice adopted an approach which is not familiar to the scientific community.

Adoption of reflection on practice introduced particular challenges for programme design and delivery that required those involved to review their own practice critically. This provided particular challenges in the context of a scientific community, due to the required change in perspective. However, now the programme is established, it appears that the inclusion of critical reflection has provided the organisation with some additional benefits and unexpected observations.

The originality value of the paper derives from two elements. One is the consideration of a programme that integrates a technical scientific perspective together with reflective practice. The other is in the indication from the outcomes that such a combination may be of demonstrable organisational benefit. Evaluation of the organisational benefits of work‐based learning (as opposed to the individual benefits) has in the past proved challenging.

Chemical databases have had a significant impact on the way scientists search for and use information. The purpose of this paper is to spark informed discussion and fuel debate on the issue of citations to chemical databases.

A citation analysis to four major chemical databases was undertaken to examine resource coverage and impact in the scientific literature. Two commercial databases (SciFinder and Reaxys) and two public databases (PubChem and ChemSpider) were analyzed using the “Cited Reference Search” in the Science Citation Index Expanded from the Web of Science (WoS) database. Citations to these databases between 2000 and 2016 (inclusive) were evaluated by document types and publication growth curves. A review of the distribution trends of chemical databases in peer-reviewed articles was conducted through a citation count analysis by country, organization, journal and WoS category.

In total, 862 scholarly articles containing a citation to one or more of the four databases were identified as only steadily increasing since 2000. The study determined that authors at academic institutions worldwide reference chemical databases in high-impact journals from notable publishers and mainly in the field of chemistry.

The research is a first attempt to evaluate the practice of citation to major chemical databases in the scientific literature. This paper proposes that citing chemical databases gives merit and recognition to the resources as well as credibility and validity to the scholarly communication process and also further discusses recommendations for citing and referencing databases.

Information transfer among scientists can be regarded as analoguous to a complex rate process highly dependent on the characteristics of the information forms. A general model is presented and an attempt made to quantify certain pathways. Time values are presented for the major stages and certain transmission losses, arising from the condensation of information as it passes from primary to secondary sources, have been calculated. In particular the roles of theses, alerting services and reviews are discussed. A significant fraction of chemical information appears in a thesis before it is republished in a journal paper.

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have aroused focus in medicinal chemistry in recent decades, especially for biomedical applications. Considering the exceptional abilities to immobilize any guest of medical interest (antibodies, enzymes, etc.), MIPs is attractive to substantial research efforts in complementing the quest of biomimetic recognition systems. This study aims to review the key-concepts of molecular imprinting, particularly emphasizes on the conformational adaptability of MIPs beyond the usual description of molecular recognition. The optimal morphological integrity was also outlined in this review to acknowledge the successful sensing activities by MIPs.

This review highlighted the fundamental mechanisms and underlying challenges of MIPs from the preparation stage to sensor applications. The progress of electrochemical and optical sensing using molecularly imprinted assays has also been furnished, with the evolvement of molecular imprinting as a research hotspot.

The lack of standard synthesis protocol has brought about an intriguing open question in the selection of building blocks that are biocompatible to the imprint species of medical interest. Thus, in this paper, the shortcomings associated with the applications of MIPs in electrochemical and optical sensing were addressed using the existing literature besides pointing out possible solutions. Future perspectives in the vast development of MIPs also been postulated in this paper.

The present review intends to furnish the underlying mechanisms of MIPs in biomedical diagnostics, with the aim in electrochemical and optical sensing while hypothesizing on future possibilities.

The paper discusses broadly electronic publishing and types of electronic publications. An attempt has been made to group the select electronic resources of chemical information into portals, patents and dissertations, full‐text files with backfiles and e‐books, abstracting and indexing services, encyclopaedias and handbooks, periodic tables, property databases and specialty databases. The paper concludes that in delivering electronic information two major developments are gaining momentum as archives from major publishers and preprints from academic circles are used as alternative methods of accessing research information. Also, scholarly publication of chemical information in electronic form will continue to grow, adapting to meet changing needs of authors and readers alike.

This study aims to apply some concepts of actuarial statistics to the authorship of Iranian ISI papers in the field of chemistry based on Price’s model. The study determines scientific birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate, natural increase rate and life expectancy.

Price maintained that authors in each given period in any field fall into four categories including newcomers, transients, continuants and terminators. He suggested that actuarial statistics could be applied to authorship to calculate death rate and birth rate in scientific fields. A total 25,573 papers written by 59,661 Iranian chemistry authors between 1973 and 2012 were downloaded from Web of Science (WoS) and were subjected to statistical analysis.

The average birth rate was 66.7 per cent, the average death rate was 19.4 per cent, infant mortality rate was 51.2 per cent, average natural increase was 47.3 per cent, the average life expectancy was 1.98 years and the longest scientific age was 22 years. The results show that although a large number of people start their scientific activity, the number of those who terminate their activity in the same year as they start (infant mortality rate) is also large and little continuity exists in the publishing activities of Iranian chemists.

The findings have implications for the planning of human resources in science. They could help maintain a stable scientific labor force and decide for instance whether a larger number of scientists should be trained and hired, or the barriers should be removed so the existing scientists can work for more years. The limitation is that the study is restricted to ISI articles, although they are not the only kind of scientific output.

This is the first study of its kind on Iranian scientific output. It shows that the overall labor force in the field of chemistry in Iran was not satisfactory, as the majority of authors in each period are transients. There is a need for better planning for the labor force.

The progress of life science and social science research is contingent on effective modes of data storage, data sharing and data reproducibility. In the present digital era, data storage and data sharing play a vital role. For productive data-centric tasks, findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) principles have been developed as a standard convention. However, FAIR principles have specific challenges from computational implementation perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges related to computational implementations of FAIR principles. After identification of challenges, this paper aims to solve the identified challenges.

This paper deploys Petri net-based formal model and Petri net algebra to implement and analyze FAIR principles. The proposed Petri net-based model, theorems and corollaries may assist computer system architects in implementing and analyzing FAIR principles.

To demonstrate the use of derived petri net-based theorems and corollaries, existing data stewardship platforms – FAIRDOM and Dataverse – have been analyzed in this paper. Moreover, a data stewardship model – “Datalection” has been developed and conversed about in the present paper. Datalection has been designed based on the petri net-based theorems and corollaries.

This paper aims to bridge information science and life science using the formalism of data stewardship principles. This paper not only provides new dimensions to data stewardship but also systematically analyzes two existing data stewardship platforms FAIRDOM and Dataverse.

The purpose of this paper is to test absorption characteristics of some newly synthesised 4‐hidroxycoumarins, containing phenyl‐prop‐2‐enoyl group at the 3‐position. Change in spectral characteristics in solvents of different polarity (chloroform and acetonitrile) was followed in regard to the influence of the substitution at the phenyl ring and influence of concentration H⁺ ions. Effectiveness of tested substances was compared with well‐known UV absorbers such as benzophenone‐3 and butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane (BMDM).

All the tested substances were dissolved in chloroform and acetonitrile, with 10‐3 mmol concentration range. The pH was adjusted using 0.1 mol/l HCl, glacial acetic acid, 0.1 mol/l NaOH (aqueous solution) and 0.1 mol/l NaOH (methanolic solution). Spectrophotometric measurement was recorded in the range of 200‐800 nm, using 1‐cm quartz cells.

The tested 4‐hydroxycoumarin derivatives showed good UV absorption properties in the range 280‐380 nm. Substitution on the phenyl ring changes the shape of the absorption maxima. The changes depend on the properties of the substituent as well as the acidity of the solution.

Introducing an electron‐donating substituent on the phenyl‐prop‐2‐enoyl group can shift absorption maximums to longer wavelength. In addition, the variation in substituents on the synthesised substances and pH of the solution could also be studied.

The new compounds showed good UV absorption, making them potential candidates for many applications. The practical importance of the tested substances are derived from their stability, relatively easy synthesis and good UV absorption properties.

The paper shows that the tested coumarins derivatives were new compounds with good UV absorption properties, making them good UV absorbers of commercial potential. The tested coumarins showed good UV absorption properties in the range 280‐380 nm, making them potential candidates for many applications.

Based on a single case approach, this chapter empirically explores the triple helix configuration of Centurion University of Technology and Management (CUTM) and its social innovation programme. The study uses case files and web available material to consider the nature of the university’s relationship with industry and government. The findings show that triple helix social innovation has yet to be studied in an Indian context. Also, CUTM’s human and social orientation is a driver of its triple helix interaction. The university’s pursuit and trust in employers’ participation in the curriculum and campus experience is the hallmark of its social and pedagogic success. To advance the literature, this chapter draws attention to a much-overlooked Indian context and, for practitioners, it demonstrates the inner-workings of a functioning triple helix system.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extract of Moringa stenopetala seed oil, by organic solvents (methanol and hexane), for its efficacy against microbial activity on cotton fabrics. The selected microbes for the study were two types of bacteria which are Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli).

Two types of bacteria, Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli) were used. The extract was applied on fabrics at a concentration of 5, 10 and 15 g/L using the pad-dry-cure method and antibacterial activities verified by the bacterial-growth reduction method. The treated fabrics were evaluated for antimicrobial activity against the bacteria before and after 15 washing cycles. The extract was examined for molecular structural change using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and physical properties of the fabric; tensile strength, elongation, air permeability, stiffness and wettability were evaluated.

Results showed treated fabrics reduces the growth of Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli) bacteria from 77.6%–100% before wash and 45.8%–85.2% after wash for both extract concentrations. Comparing extracts, hexane extract reduces all bacteria growth than methanol extract for both extract concentrations while S. aureus was more susceptible to antimicrobial agents than E. coli at a lower concentration. As result, the tensile strength and air permeability were relatively lower than untreated ones without affecting the comfort properties of the fabric.

This study indicates that the Moringa stenopetala seed oil extract has a strong antimicrobial activity.