Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2020 November 24

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 24

Level of UV required for disinfection

What are the parameters of the UV radiation lamps required to r(d)eactivate certain viruses on surfaces?--86.124.193.84 (talk) 00:59, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I'll assume you meant "deactivate", in which case the information on that can be found here. {{u|Squeeps10}} {Talk} Please ping when replying. 01:01, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it was a typo. Can I correct?--86.124.193.84 (talk) 01:05, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Certainly, though I see you already have. {{u|Squeeps10}} {Talk} Please ping when replying. 04:34, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I see in the mentioned link the "limited published data" statement. How can this data be accessed?--86.124.193.84 (talk) 13:30, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

IRIS, retina biometrics

Will development of cataract and post cataract surgery have any effect on IRIS, Retina biometric details?

https://towardsdatascience.com/biometric-authentication-methods-61c96666883a

• Iris recognition, almost certainly not. Retinal recognition, almost certainly not in the case of cataract surgery, but maybe in cases of retinal detachment with laser re-attachment surgery. Abductive (reasoning) 10:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

The lens of the eye is behind the iris. The most common cataract surgery is pretty simple and involves only a small incision in the "white" of the eye (the sclera), leaving the iris unaffected. Some conditions may require more complex surgery with a potential to affect the iris. --47.152.93.24 (talk) 23:46, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Using Google Scholar or other resources to determine total body of work

Apologies if this is a stupid question or if I am in the wrong place, but the kind folks at the Teahouse thought the Reference desk might be able to help.

On the article for the engineer Jennie Hwang, it was claimed that she has authored over 600 publications, and I tried to verify this using Google Scholar. To repeat my question on the Talk page:

Google scholar returns a lot of work where Hwang has contributed, but is there a reliable repository we can use to establish which ones she authored? I feel like adding in the link to the results for her name on Google Scholar is not super helpful as it lists 1,750 results and there's no good way to check for repetition. What sources do we trust to establish research contributions?

Can anyone provide any guidance on this? It seems bizarre that Google is returning over twice the claimed body of work, even with her middle initial in the search. Thank you! A wizard did it (talk) 18:27, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

I saw your question at the teahouse and did a small piece of investigation, since I use Google scholar often. The problem seems to be that Hwang is a pretty common surname and using initials doesn't really help as there are still too many other authors. The nearest search that I could get to work was "author:Jennie author:Hwang" which gave 169 hits — so 600 seems wrong — but even that list still seems to have some surplus references. There is, for example, a Jennie M. Hwang. If I understand the reason for your search correctly (e.g. to see which of her papers has been often cited) you may be able to manually go through the list and make progress, especially as her own website gives a list of her publications, so you can check the hits were actually by her. It is really difficult to use Google scholar to uniquely get a full author's publication list, unless they have an unusual name. Mike Turnbull (talk) 18:39, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

If the author has set up their own Google Scholar page, that can be helpful. For example, the late Dr Richard Van Duyne had such a page, and the 637 listed articles are likely all his. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 18:45, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers! so it really has to be manual? That sounds ... painful haha. I'm interested that a list from her own website, or a Google Scholar page curated by the individual might be considered sufficient? I thought you weren't supposed to link to primary sources, but in the interests of improving the article it would be nice to have something to direct readers to that confirms what the article claims, even if it's just from the subject's own website.A wizard did it (talk) 18:55, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Isn't this straying into original research? If there isn't a source saying how many articles she wrote, perhaps it shouldn't be in Wikipedia? Alansplodge (talk) 09:04, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

There is no bar to using primary sources for certain facts. WP:PRIMARY says A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source. In the case of an academic, I think that WP:AGF applies to their website for factual data such as a list of publications, which in principle we could verify by checking each claim against the ISBN, DOI or whatever. Hence I believe is reasonable to include in an article such simple statements as "she has authored x books, over y peer-reviewed articles and z patents" with reference to the website — bearing in mind that these figures may get out of date quite quickly. There are now a number of independent, curated, sources of lists of publications for academics, of which the most useful one I have found is "The Academic Family Tree".. This is an interesting source as it allows people to "self-certify" but also allows others to add entries on behalf of third parties. It uses clever software to expand lists of people's publications using their affiliation to institutions and to co-authors and it allows anyone to point out that an attribution is wrong. Sadly, in the case of Dr Hwang, it has no entry (yet!). Incidentally, I think that we can be sure that the current claim in the WP article that she has over 600 publications is clearly nonsense. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:09, 25 November 2020 (UTC)