Not that it matters too much, but it's generally not per capita.
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News on China's scientific and technological development.
- Thread starter Quickie
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Doesn't explicitly say how it was calculated but it's only good for a broad overview since it counts various indicators and weighs them rather arbitrarily. There has to be some per capita basis in their calculations otherwise USA should top the list (definitely in front of Singapore) while Luxembourg and Ireland should be much lower down. So it's not exactly per capita for everything and this ranking list is not really indicative of nominal "overall output" because they consider things like education spending. Best indication of technological ability is perhaps just number of credible research institutes and universities ranked and weighed by typical organisations that have been doing this for years, number of PHDs/ researchers, patent filing (although this indicator is iffy), and funding. None of which are really transparent or accurately weighed.
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vesicles
Colonel
The Nature Index has been calculated using a short list of, what Nature considers as "high-impact", journals. And they look at how many publications coming out of each country.
The impact factor system is seriously flawed. Being able to publish in a "high-impact" journal does not mean your work is "impactful".
A more appropriate metrics should be the h-index, which looks at each individual researcher and see how many times his/her work has been cited. The more citation suggests higher impact.
I myself have published many times in the traditionally considered "high-impact" journals. Some of those works have been well-cited (i.e. impactful work), while others have been poorly cited (i.e. not so impactful work). On the other hand, some of my work has been published in mediocre journals, impact factor-wise, but have been highly cited and well-respected in the field.
The impact factor system is seriously flawed. Being able to publish in a "high-impact" journal does not mean your work is "impactful".
A more appropriate metrics should be the h-index, which looks at each individual researcher and see how many times his/her work has been cited. The more citation suggests higher impact.
I myself have published many times in the traditionally considered "high-impact" journals. Some of those works have been well-cited (i.e. impactful work), while others have been poorly cited (i.e. not so impactful work). On the other hand, some of my work has been published in mediocre journals, impact factor-wise, but have been highly cited and well-respected in the field.
I somewhat regret making that comment, since it is all largely irrelevant. Like you say, there's some that's per capita and some that's not, but it includes various things, both inputs and outputs.
Many outputs are weighed per billion PPP$ GDP; in other words, per capita and per GDP per capita, giving China two to five times the numbers (compared to developed countries) it would have if it were strictly per capita.
I don't think there's any questionable weighing involved (apparently they discontinued the weighted fractional count). Like vesicles says, the only controversial aspect might be the selection of the journals. Newer data is available .
I think "per capita" is only useful in measuring the living standard, not much useful in measuring impact of innovation on overall national strength and the influence of that country to the rest of world.
Let's say country C has 5 times population of country A. Same invention is made by scientists in C and A, if everything else is equal for simplistic reason, C can build a factory 5 times of A can, producing 5 times of products of the same technological level. Now if both C and A decide to flood the rest of the world with the products for dominance, who do you think will be the standing one? Simple, it is the one who can out-produce, pressing the price down.
In real life, there is a saying in my company, "you just need one genius in the department, the rests are just willing hard workers to do the simple broken down tasks".
Let's say country C has 5 times population of country A. Same invention is made by scientists in C and A, if everything else is equal for simplistic reason, C can build a factory 5 times of A can, producing 5 times of products of the same technological level. Now if both C and A decide to flood the rest of the world with the products for dominance, who do you think will be the standing one? Simple, it is the one who can out-produce, pressing the price down.
In real life, there is a saying in my company, "you just need one genius in the department, the rests are just willing hard workers to do the simple broken down tasks".
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
This new episode of "across China" The use of supercomputer in designing a better and safer car. It also help Ophthalmologist with better diagnosis of eye disease.
Supercomputer is no longer the realm of egg head But it entered the everyday life of people
Supercomputer is no longer the realm of egg head But it entered the everyday life of people
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
The use of supercomputer in weather prediction . Chinese designed weave forecasting software win the prize for most accurate application software
Quickie
Colonel
I don't know what exactly you meant here. Measuring the output in per capita PPP$ GDP would result in a lesser number than it would be the case when measured in per capita $GDP, since China's PPP$ GDP is a number times the $GDP.
In other words, weighing the output in per capita PPP$ GDP would result in a lesser number if the output is purely a qualitative measure like the number of scientific papers etc.
Compared to a per capita measure (for example, scientific papers divided by population), they divide by GDP (papers divided by GDP, that is papers/(population*(GDP/population)), which is the per capita measure divided by GDP per capita, resulting in that 2 to 5 times difference I mentioned). (GDP here being of the PPP variety.)