Mapping Anthropology Departments and Citation Analyses

As a lark, last spring I created an interactive map of all of the anthropology departments in the world. This map makes use of Google Maps and their API. You can view the AnthroMap here:   http://mendel.cla.csulb.edu/anthromap/ The main page looks something like this.

There are two kinds of departments shown: Departments with PhD programs (Red) and those with just M.A. Programs (blue). Click on an icon will show you the Department URL, the University URL, and a list of faculty who teach in that Department (accurate up to June 2009). When possible it lists the email addresses of each of the faculty.    

You can also do a citation analysis for the departments. On the pop up window, you can click on "Citation Analyses." This runs a query through Google Scholar for each of the faculty and sums up the number of citations for each published article for which the individual was an author. The data are displayed in bar chart form to allow comparisons. The window also has a list of each of the faculty that links to the articles and the raw citation data.

Note that you might get a baffling HTTP Error 503. As far as I can tell, there are some limits placed on the application as to how often it can query Google Scholar. I suppose I could make this a 'canned search' running every day, but it would take more coding and I'm lazy. If you get this error and know how to fix it, let me know. If not, wait a while and try again. Someday I'll figure it out.

For an example, here is a graph of the citations for the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa.   

If you are looking for references to CSULB's department (and you know who you are... Nancy) you can try this link or possibly this one. Draw your own conclusions about impact to the discipline, productivity and contributions to the University.

Questioning Collapse

The marketing folks at Cambridge have set up a web site for the Questioning Collapse edited volume. The website is basically a blog (built on wordpress) that allows students/reviewers to interact and pose questions -- as well as provide information about the authors and their research. It's a good way to promote a book, I think, since some of the aspects of reading the book are going to generate questions and challenges. Exactly how individuals will find out about the web site is a little more mysterious (thus, my link here.). I wonder if books have facebook pages. Although there isn't much in the way of content at the site now, it should grow pretty quickly.

Questioning Collapse Web Site

Escaping the Dark Labyrinth

Philosophy is written in this grand book the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and to read the alphabet of which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one wonders about in a dark labyrinth.

- Galileo 1623.

Cats and Witches

Evolution and the Levels of Selection: Samir Okasha

For anyone interested in the "levels of selection" dimension of evolutionary theory, you should definitely acquire Samir Okasha's book -- Evolution and the Levels of Selection-- 2006, Oxford University Press. Okahsa covers the topic from a philosophic point of view and in a way that gets to the heart of the matter. For me, his coverage of MLS1 and MLS2 models is particularly useful as is the discussion of the Price Equation.

  

If science were a band, it would be TMBG.

They Might Be Giants has released their new album Here Comes Science. I guess this one also comes with a DVD which must have videos and the like. With songs like "Science is Real" to "Meet the Elements" to "Cells" this is a must have for any well-stocked laboratory. A number of these songs are also available on YouTube:

Meet the Elements

I am a Paleontologist

Science is Real

The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas or Why does the Sun shine?

Put it to the test.

Electric Car

Roy G. Biv

Computer Aided Design

The Ballad of Davy Crockett (in Outer Space)

On Writing

TheDepartment of Anthropology at Durham University has put together a series of short pieces on the process and task of writing. These pieces were submitted in response to invitations put out by Durham University to a wide range of faculty working in the social sciences. As they state on their web page: