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Top 10 Science Superpowers of the Modern World: An Analysis

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German Transrapid TR 09 Maglev
German Transrapid TR 09, photo by Állatka
A nation which has the capacity to project dominating power and influence anywhere in the world, and sometimes, in more than one region of the globe at a time, and so may plausibly attain the status of global hegemony. Besides the requirement of a strong militarily, a power to become a super power needs a strong diplomatic and stable government, strong economy, a focused foreign policy, strong pool of scientists and strong base of research and education, and sufficiency in food and resources. 
We researched and analysed the potential super power of the world in one of our previous article “Top 10 Superpowers of The World” which is also one of the most read article on our journal. In this article we are going to analyse and list Top 10 science super powers who are growing bigger and may challenge the conventional science superpowers in the near future. 
Research Papers Published by Countries
Research Papers Published by Countries, 2009. Click to Enlarge.

United States of America

United States has been the lone super power since the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991. It remains the unchallenged global leader in science, research and innovation whose foundation has been set up by the high quality universities and educational institutes. Having seven universities in the list of top 10 universities in the world, and forty seven universities in top 100. United States of America is able to attract the creamiest layer of students from all around the world. A robust research environment, facilities, scholarships and high salaried jobs makes United States one of the best destinations for higher education.
Not only universities, a large number of public and private companies like NASA and IBM, are making differences in the society by their state of the art pioneering researches in almost every field. Strongest research area of US is biotechnology.

China

Largest in terms of population and second largest in terms of research papers published, China is the potential threat to United States’ supreme position in the world of science. China has been able to establish 11 universities in the list of top 400 universities in the world. Among which two are in the top 100 universities in the world. Number of research paper published in 2009 has seen a massive 400% growth when compared to year 2000. China’s main strength is material science. China has also seen growth in almost all the areas of research since 2003. China is leading the “space race” in Asia challenging Japan and India. China is also proud to have fastest train in the world CRH380A with its top speed of 302 mph (486.02 Km/hr) breaking the 300 mph barrier. 
However, the quality of research has been the issue in China. The country is also struggling with the attribute of innovation specially in the electronics, auto and military research fields. China has been accused by a number of organisations and companies around the world for copying their products be it vehicles, combat air crafts, electronic devices or other sensitive technologies. 
China's share of world publications by sectors.
China’s share of world publications by sectors. Click to enlarge

United Kingdom

Another country which has a vast presence in the pool of top universities in the world after United States is United Kingdom. United States and United Kingdom have been dominating the list of top 10 universities in the world almost unchallenged for ages. Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College of London are the names which have become classic over the centuries. UK has made extensive contribution towards early science and setup the foundation of various chapters of science creating opportunities for further research. Today United Kingdom is the leader in Europe when it comes to the number of publications, which is followed by Germany, France, Italy and Spain in the respective order. 
UK’s scientific collaboration with other countries and European Union will ensure its position safe as one of the leaders in the world of science. UK’s impressive 25% growth in the number of publication shows it still has an active scientific resources. 

India

One of the fastest growing economy, largest democracy, and many such facts makes India a potential superpower. With every analyst in this world having higher expectation with this nation, India has been relatively slow. However, being slow in the field of science did not prevent this country to astonish the billions in the world time to time with its scientific achievements. Which includes India attaining self sufficiency in food grains, becoming one of the largest exporter of food, developing a highly sophisticated space program which enabled India to find water on the moon’s surface, indigenously developing nuclear program and military hardware, and high quality exports in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and information-technology services.
Indian institutes and universities are dedicated almost equally among all the major fields, still India’s one of the strongest area of research is Chemistry. If we compare India’s share of world’s publication from 1999-2003 with India’s share of world’s publication from 2004-2008 then we see almost all the sectors of research have experienced growth except Agricultural science, which is one of India’s spine. 
India's share of world publications by sectors.
India’s share of world publications by sectors. Click to enlarge
India’s contribution towards science and to the fields of mathematics, astrophysics, chemistry and life sciences dates at least two millenniums back. Later we saw contributions from Aryabhatta, Bhaskara and Brahmagupta who laid the foundation of the modern physics much before widely believed Europeans.
India once again with its one of the largest pool of scientists in the world is tying to excel in the world of science by catching up with leaders. India’s recent contribution to science is rising steeply in contrast with the other nations if we compare each nations relative year-by-year growth since 1981 at a volume of publications standard of 100. 
India's Scientific Year by Year Growth
Year by Year growth of India compared to G8 nations, Thomson Reuters
The behaviour of the India’s curve shows why some analysts have referred to India as a “sleeping giant”. India with its great capacity was sleeping till 1990s as soon as it got up, its brilliant system almost immediately started giving the output almost on par with other nations of G8. If this trend continues then India’s productivity will overtake G8 nations in another 5 to 7 years.

Brazil

Brazil is another important member of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China). With its economy on the rise, Brazil also contributed towards science and technology with its one of the major focus on improving environment. Brazil’s strength has been recognised in biological sciences, including bio fuel production. In the year of 2005, Brazil launched “Empresa Brasiliera de Aeronáutica’s Ipanema” world’s first commercial aircraft to run exclusively on bio fuels.
The world at present is not much aware of the science and technology base in Latin America. Mexico’s proximity to Unites States and Brazil’s rising economy has caused this region to develop a solid science base. Another giant in the South, Argentina is also in the race and catching up with Mexico and Brazil. 
From the year 2000 to 2009, Brazil has experienced a 210% increase in the number of research papers published. Such an enormous growth does indicate young pool of scientists, new force of resources adding up, better efficiency in output from universities and institutions. Brazil’s year by year growth is much better than other countries in BRIC namely, India and Russia. 
Culturally and traditionally close to west Europe mainly Portugal, having land connection with United States and almost being at the same time zone as of US brings Brazil on a advantageous position to collaborate with the world leaders of science and technology. Brazil has become the representative of science and technology power from Latin America.

Russia

If India was the “sleeping giant” which recently got awaken, Russia was an active and awakened giant which is going to sleep. After the collapse of Soviet Union, Russia experienced catastrophe and its contribution towards science seems to decline. Russia as Soviet Union is the one who began the new era of science and technology by surprising the world in 1957 by the launch of Sputnik satellite. In the “space race” Soviet Union had successfully outplayed United States. 
Russia has become the victim of critical brain drain, where a large number of talented resources left their country in search of better facilities, salary and funding. After the collapse of Soviet Union, science and technology has become less preferred destination for the younger generation compared to petroleum industry, language, and politics. This dynamic shift has resulted into the ageing of the Soviet scientists who are  in Russia as young generation is not able to reinforce their science power. In 2009, Russia experienced only 3.57% growth in the number of papers published when compared to 2000.
Russia has proved its supremacy once, and most probably it will once again jump back on the track of scientific research. Russia’s main strengths have been the core physics and space science, whereas the current trend is of life sciences, nano technology and environment where Russia needs to do a lot of catching up. Russia understands its lacking and has been collaborating in research mainly with Germany, US, France and East European nations to gain momentum.
Russia has been doing really good in military science and technology and have been developing state of the art weapons still giving tough competition to United States. Russia is the largest exporter of its weapons to India compared to any other country, and India is the largest importer of weapons in the world. Which shows the quality and superiority of Russian weapons. As Russia’s economy improves and undergoes constructive reforms with its wider integration in the world trade, its highly enthusiastic public who has a sense of competition with the west specially with United States will definitely help boost its research programs bringing it back on the track. 

Japan

Japan is a G7 economy and enjoyed the status of being world’s second largest economy for a long period of time until it was overtaken by China and India recently by GDP (PPP). Japan has been traditionally the innovation centre and brought surprising and attractive products both in automobile and electronic sectors. Japanese companies till date have been bringing out their innovative hybrid cars which exhibit higher fuel efficiency.  Japan also boasts third fastest rail in the world Shinkansen with a top speed of 275 mph (442.57 Km/h). Scientifically Japan had been the super power of Asia for a long time until it gave that position to China with India and South Korea almost catching up. 
Japan’s economy peaked in 1980s and since then there hasn’t been any appreciable increase or decrease in its volume of papers published. Just like Russia, Japan also experienced only a single digit growth in the number of papers published. From the year 2000 to the year 2009, there was only 8.3% growth. However, unlike Russia, Japan had always been ahead in modern science, be it nanotechnology or electronics. It already has an established base of high quality education and pioneer research labs. Its 13 universities are in top 400 in the world. With 2 in top 100 and 5 in top 200 universities in the world. All what Japan needs is human resources and encouraged young scientists. India and China produces one of the largest first class high quality resources in the world every year. All that said about Japan, it has a potential to become a favourite destinations for young Chinese and Indians who usually head towards US which is quite far. Japan can also collaborate with losing Russia, South Korea and rising South East Asia.

Germany, France, and Italy (and Spain)

These have been the traditional European power and were the super powers along with United Kingdom before second world war. Germany was a highly industrialized nation, unfortunately after the war, most of its sophisticated industries were taken over by west and Soviet Union for their benefits. 
Out of the three countries, Germany is leading in science and technology followed by France and Italy, with its volume of papers published in 2009 almost reaching close to that of United Kingdom. Germany had stunned the western powers and Soviet Union by its sophisticated weapons, air crafts and V2 rockets during the second world war. 
Today these countries within European Union have formed much collaborative educational system welcoming other prospective students from European Union. Universities from these countries invites students from countries like India and China in high number and fund their education. This way these universities are able to function with its full capacity.
Germany’s strength has been mechanical engineering in its various forms like aerospace and automobile, German cars like BMW and second fastest train in the world Transrapid TR-09 with the top speed of 279 mph (449 Km/h), which is faster than the fastest train in Japan, makes it one of the advanced developed country, and the region as a whole, in science.

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Sanskar Shrivastava is the founder of international students' journal, The World Reporter. Passionate about dynamic occurrence in geopolitics, Sanskar has been studying and analyzing geopolitcal events from early life. At present, Sanskar is a student at the Russian Centre of Science and Culture and will be moving to Duke University.

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Health

The technological advances in physical and occupational physiotherapy that you should know about

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Technology has reached all areas of human life to help us carry out various tasks and to make everyone’s lives easier in different ways. These advances are also in medicine and in the different therapeutic treatments that are used to improve various ailments. Learn what the most advanced methods are and how you can use them.

Health is the most precious thing for every person; extreme care must be taken to ensure the correct functioning of the body. There are many ways and procedures aimed at treating various conditions and helping to stay healthy, which have been significantly enhanced thanks to advances in technology.

The area of physiotherapy is one of those that has taken the best advantage of technological advances, and it has raised the quality and effectiveness of its therapies and procedures to levels never before experienced. Thanks to them, physical and occupational physiotherapy has improved substantially and is increasingly valued for the treatment of various health cases.

Physiotherapy programs for physical rehabilitation

Currently, there are various physical therapy software programs that help patients recover and improve their physical functionality quite efficiently. There is advanced software, with a wide range of physical exercises based on virtual reality, which are designed to promote the progressive and effective recovery of those who find themselves in the need to use them.

Digital physical rehabilitation software includes analytical and functional exercises, which can be used in the rehabilitation of neurological patients, in the recovery of musculoskeletal injuries, in the prevention of falls, in programs against premature ageing and even with children that suffer these types of ailments.

Advantages of using software in physiotherapy

Physiotherapy computer programs are health products, specially designed by professionals, specifically for clinical use. They offer many advantages, among which the following stand out:

  • Enjoy the therapy sessions: the gamification that can be achieved with new technologies applied to physiotherapy turns the sessions into truly fun moments, which increases the patient’s motivation and their active participation in performing the corresponding exercises.
  • Rehabilitation quantification: all kinematic parameters, such as joint ranges, measurement of the base of support, centre of gravity, number, and characteristics of steps, among others, can be consulted in detail at any time during the therapy. Additionally, they can generate detailed clinical reports on each patient, which can be printed or exported in PDF format.
  • Remote sessions: technological advances have reached such high levels that they now open the possibility of applying remote sessions to the patient, thanks to the corresponding home exercise program software for physical therapy designed for this purpose. In this way, treatment can be reinforced with home sessions, which are also monitored and allow remote management, even from the centre itself. This has greatly benefited patients that have mobility problems.

Physical therapy home exercise programs are digital tools that help therapists and patients develop personalised exercise plans from the comfort of their homes. They provide a wide variety of benefits and features that improve rehabilitation and accelerate recovery.

Physiotherapists can decide with which patients and how to develop the digital physical rehabilitation exercises available to them, which can be personalised and adapted according to the needs of each patient.

Occupational therapy software programs

The occupational therapy software programs offer a multitude of resources and tools for therapists and patients, including simulations of everyday tasks, virtual activities to improve fine motor skills, time management strategies, and hand-eye coordination exercises, among others.

One of the main resources used is related to immersive virtual rehabilitation, which allows training various functions of the hand and different movements of the upper extremities that workers perform in their corresponding tasks. To do this, virtual reality and specialised programs are used that simulate environments similar to those they face on a daily basis in their jobs.

These occupational therapy software programs also include patient progress monitoring and assessment tools. They are digital solutions that improve the efficiency of occupational therapy by providing interactive virtual environments and resources tailored to the individual needs of each patient.

Personalization of rehabilitation programs

An important advantage offered by technological advances in this area is the possibility of having personalized rehabilitation programs, which therapists can use to adapt treatments to each patient’s purposes and abilities.

The personalization of rehabilitation programs substantially improves the effectiveness of treatments by addressing the unique needs of each patient. Additionally, this rehabilitation software provides useful resources to monitor and adjust as patients progress in their recovery.

This capacity for adaptation and personalization favours a firmer rehabilitation and speeds up the return to normal functionality of the treated people.

It is a feature that offers various benefits, such as the possibility of applying more individualised approaches, which guarantees that the exercises are safe, effective, and appropriate to promote recovery, and the optimization of results, as they are exercises designed specifically to meet each patient’s needs. .

They also generate greater motivation and adherence, by considering the interests, preferences, and goals of each individual treated, and help prevent additional injuries, since the exercises are adapted to the individual capabilities and limitations of each person.

In conclusion, physical and occupational therapy software has transformed the way rehabilitation is performed on people today. They are digital tools with a wide variety of features that improve the efficiency and personalization of treatments, tailoring the perfect exercise routine for each patient’s needs.

They cover various areas, from home exercise programs to creating personalized exercise plans, facilitating faster and more effective recovery for patients. But, these advances do not stop and aim to continue towards levels that cannot even be imagined, so we can count on an even more promising future in this important area of health.

Do not think about it anymore, if you are suffering from any ailment that could benefit from remote therapy, or know of someone that does, check this software today and see how your life can easily improve thanks to the help of the experts behind them. Your health will thank you.

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What are spamtraps and how to get them off your mailing list for good?

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There is a silent enemy that many companies face and that focuses directly on the contact list. It is spamtraps. These are emails that are meant to catch spammers, but negatively influence mass mailings. Today we are going to find out why, and we are going to assess some actions that are easy to do to get them out of the way.

Mailing lists are generally formed by people who are interested in using a product or service of a company and who subscribe voluntarily. However, it can happen that an email appears normal-looking, but it is a spammer detector. When an email is sent to these addresses, they block it, causing a negative impact on the reputation of the brand that sent it.

Spamtraps are traps for emails, in short. They do not belong to any real person, and their only function is to block the sender of the email and mark him or her as a spammer. In this way, the brand is affected, even if the content sent has nothing to do with spam. These exist on all existing email platforms, such as Gmail or Yahoo.

Characteristics of spam traps

Although there is no simple way to find out which of the emails on your list are spamtraps, you can assess some characteristics that lead to the most frequent spamtraps. Here we can see elements such as:

  • No direct relation to a person: people generally put their names when creating their emails. Although this does not happen in 100% of cases, it could be an important factor to consider if you see some emails made up of meaningless letters and numbers, for example.
  • Emails with generic names: Generic names are not a good sign, even though many companies use them as a means of communication. To separate those that are real from those that are not, it is possible to check the domain of which the emails are part. For example, there may be emails in a list that start with the word sales@XXXXXX. What completes the part of the X’s will tell us what the chances are that it is a spamtrap. In any case, be aware that it is very unlikely that a company will subscribe to a newsletter using this type of email.
  • Abandoned emails: Technology has come a long way in recent times, and this has led to the use of new ways of communicating. Nowadays, it is very unlikely that there are people who subscribe to a list with a Hotmail email address. It is therefore essential to check, if you have one, that it is not an abandoned email that can be used with ISPs because they are no longer in use.
  • Misspelled emails: This is a very common situation that occurs, especially when double confirmation is not used. In this case, it is possible that a person enters the mailing list with a misspelled entry and then the result is an email that ends, for example, in @gml.com. You have to be very careful with these. The recommendation is to always run the confirmation to ensure that it is a real and operational address.

Actions to take to verify spamtraps on the mailing list

Now that we have an idea of what we can look for in the list and target what looks the most suspicious, we can define a series of actions to take in order to detect whether the list is clean or whether there are any harmful elements present.

The first thing to do is to review your entire contact list. This can be a tedious task when you have a large number of subscribers, but it is worth the effort. If in this first step you got several suspicious emails, you should flag them to check their behaviour in the following points.

Then, it will be time to evaluate the results of the email marketing campaigns sent previously. In these campaigns, you will get a history of very interesting data that will tell you how many people generally open the emails, those who do not, etc. The important thing here is to assess whether the values shown in the history are more or less constant or have suffered a significant decrease in recent days. If this is the case, it could be due to spamtraps.

It is common for these problems to become apparent when a number of new users join the list. It is possible that among them there is an email that works as a spam trap. The simplest solution to recognize if this is the problem is to perform a segmentation and send an email to the members of this new list and verify the results.

Finally, you will need to check if the domain you are using is on the block list. This is an essential step to know if you really have a problem or not. Doing this on a regular basis is key to avoiding problems.

Segmentation as a working strategy

Working with email marketing software that allows the segmentation of the mailing list is a benefit that will remove problems later and, of course, spamtrap detection is one of them. Thanks to segmentation, it will be possible to create groups of users to whom certain campaigns are sent and evaluate the response they have.

Mailrelay is the best option in this regard because it offers the possibility to segment and also to validate the statistics. With the statistics you can measure the percentage of clicks that were made and that can give us an important guide, since this is an action that can only be performed by real people.

Nowadays, there are already robots capable of opening emails that arrive at your server, so the open rate is no longer a valuable statistic in this regard.

After you are clear about which contact segments are performing well, you can continue to work with them as normal and separate those that are not performing well to validate them later. It is better to keep fewer subscribers than to risk having your domain blocked and losing your entire list.

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Business

9 Ways to Keep Technology from Slowing Down Your Business

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There’s no doubt that technology has made our lives easier. We can now do things we never thought possible, like communicating with people all over the world in an instant or order items from the comfort of our own homes. However, with great power comes great responsibility- and for business owners, this means making sure that technology doesn’t slow you down. Here are nine ways to keep your business running at full speed.

Make a Plan

Technology can be unpredictable, so it’s important to have a plan in place in case of any malfunctions. This includes having backups of your data and creating disaster recovery plans in case of emergencies.

Stay Updated

Keep your software up-to-date, as well as your operating system and hardware. Outdated software can cause compatibility issues and make your devices run slower.

Use the Right Tools

Using the right tools for the job is essential when it comes to technology. If you’re using an outdated program or device, chances are there’s a better, faster option out there that will suit your needs. Even shortcuts are important tools, like automatic cache cleaner for Mac users in your company. 

Create Standards

Creating standards for how employees use technology can help keep things running smoothly. This means establishing guidelines on passwords, data storage, backups, and any other procedures related to technology usage at work. 

Get Help

If you don’t have the resources internally then, it’s crucial to get help from someone who knows what they’re doing. This can be a tech-savvy friend or coworker, an IT professional if your budget allows for it, or even just reading articles online about how best to use specific devices/software programs.

Invest in New Equipment

Upgrading equipment regularly will help keep things running smoothly and make sure that there aren’t any compatibility issues with new software releases. It also ensures employees always know what tools are available when needed without having them search through piles of old files looking for something specific like an outdated version of Microsoft Word or Excel that won’t work with the latest operating system they’re trying to install on their computer.

Create a Backup Plan

Having multiple backups of your data makes it easy to recover files after an emergency situation like a power outage, hard drive crash, or (heaven forbid) a hacking, so you can get back up and running as soon as possible without losing any valuable information.

Train Employees

It’s vital for employees who use technology regularly at work, such as those in IT departments, customer service positions, etcetera – to have training sessions on how best to utilize whatever type of device/software program they’ll be using daily. This will help them avoid making mistakes which could lead to major problems down the line if left unchecked by management personnel. Allowing users time off from duties during these training sessions will also ensure they’re not distracted while learning new skills that may be required on some projects within their company.

Keep Your Data Secure

 Keeping your data secure is essential to any business, and this means more than just backing it up regularly or installing antivirus software. For example, it’s important for companies who deal with sensitive information about clients/customers, etcetera – take steps such as encrypting emails containing personal details before sending them out across networks which can sometimes have vulnerabilities (e.g., open Wi-Fi). You should also train employees on how best to utilize whatever type of device/software program they’ll be using daily so there will never again be confusion over what needs doing when dealing with confidential files work.

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