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    Rahul Gaur
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    how much time will it take for a median scholar of India to be as good as a median scholar of a developed nation?

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    the academic fellowship problem

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    how much time will it take for a median scholar of India to be as good as a median scholar of a developed nation?

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    11 views2 pages

    The Academic Fellowship Problem

    Uploaded by

    Rahul Gaur
    how much time will it take for a median scholar of India to be as good as a median scholar of a developed nation?

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    herbarium {0 allow subsequent re- searchers to evaluate statements made in the literature about the characteristics of a given taxon. The editors of various scientific journals should also ensure that all authors exte the accession num- ber/numbers of their voucher specimens and the herbaria where deposited. While this enhances the value of scientific findings, at the same time it strengthens the justification of the importance of the herbarva ‘Thus, herbaria are helpful to both ‘classical and experimental biologists not only for obtaining the basic data on plants but in also serving as a caretaker ‘of the voucher specimens on which tee- ‘mendous amount of literature accumu- lates. In view of this, are we unjustified im demanding for allocation of some percentage of funds from all research projects as service charge for develop- ‘ment and maintenance of herbaria? It is also certainly unwise to score out the herbaria and taxonomic researches as establishments of no economic gains as the present trend goes. National herbaria like the Central National Herbarium, Herbarium of the Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun, and the Herbanum of the National Bo tanical Research Institute, Lucknow are critically endangered due to lack of suf- ficient trained manpower, facility and even due recognition by the so-called experimentalists. With the overgrowth of several modern disciplines the impor tance of herbaria has faded, resulting in such a damage that would be felt in the immediate coming years. Khoshoo' has rightly pointed out that taxonomists are a ‘vanishing tribe’ among the bi- ologists and are greatly overshadowed by the so-called and more often second- rate biotechnologists and envisonmen- talists. Herbaria requite large buildings and staff for curation of vast collections, laboratories for assoctated researches and funds for continuous explorations for enriching the herbaria, particularly in a developing country like India where the coverage of holdings is incomplete ‘The knowledge of variation within spe- cies is another aspect which 18 very lim- ited. But the increasing financial squeeze and thoughtless prioritization of research programmes have greatly affected the overall health of the her- baria in the country. Often comments from scientists state that the massive collections in the herbaria be dispensed with and only few sample collections and type specimens be maintained” ‘There is therefore, an urgent need to educate the policy makers, the experi- ‘mental biologists, and other key persons who matter much for development of herbaria in the country about the “essentiality’ of a herbarium, COMMENTARY A rational economic basis for maint nance and furtherance of herbarium research must consider the fact that botanists with all their concerted efforts have known only 1/10th of what exists in our tropical forests and still less is known of the economic unity of those species which are recorded, Infras- pecific biodiversity and population variation of the rich tropical flora ace little understood. But certainly ma taining and enriching a herbarium is expensive. A strict monitoring of the quality of the incoming collections and Zones from where they come is essential in order to maintaia the quality and not the size of the herbarium. More than fone herbaria if any, within a city or town (e.g, Dehra Dun, Lucknow) can be considered for merging in view of the increasing cost of maintenance, man- power, space on buildings, ete, rather than ‘killing’ a herbarium due to wrong policies and apathy towards such classi- cal subjects upon which many future solutions depend, 4, Khoshoo, 7.N,, Care Sex, 195, 69, 19-17 2 Cifford, 1H. "T, Roger, R. W. and Dettmann, M. E, Wane, 1990, 346, 02. RR. Rao is in the National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow 226 001, India, SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE The academy fellowship problem The problem ‘A science academy elects new fellows every year. In order 10 improve the ‘overall quality of as fellowship, it de- cides to impose a new criterion that every new fellow elected shall be better than the median level of the existing population of fellows*, How fast will the quality of the fellowship im- prove? Tins criterion as proposed for the Indian Academy of Suienes by Professor ¥ Radhakrishnan tn the mid-seventies, A toy model ‘The above problem needs to be recast in a quantitative form, It is difficult (0 {quantify “qualuty’ of a scientist but sup- ose in a toy model we use a variable x to measure at on a scale ranging trom 0 to I, with 1 being the mark of perfee~ tion, Let us measure the time an years with = 0 denoting a starting year when this cruterion is announced (0 be imple mented in all subsequent years. Let fy (2) denote the cumulative quality dis Itibution of fellowship in the year F= m, 20,1, 2,0 In the starting year the CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL, 69, NO. 12, 25 DECEMBER 1995 total number of fellows was No, say and suppose that by statutes, every year fellows must be elected Denote by My the median of the dis- teibutwon f, (2). Thus, Sh My) =A fell= (Ng +m), 1) and while electing in year m eure is taken that all new addvions shall have the ‘quality parawter a> Alyy. tae proverment an quality will then be ind tated by how the median AL, steadily Increases in vale yeas by Your. We sil aed to spect the qualty disinbution of the pool oF sciemtits 39 SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDE! from which the new fellows are chosen, We denote by e(1) the cumulative prob- abuliy that a sctentist selected at ran. Jom trom this poo! wall not have the quality parameter exceeding x. Thus «0 eo In this toy model we have ignored the reduction in the total population of fel- lows due to death or resignation (or even eviction) ‘Wah these specifications we ean now pose the question more precisely: Given the functions fo(x) and g(x), how does -M, tncrease with 2? eet. Solution Frrst note that for f=, the median ert= terion implies Fld, @ For x2 Mg, there will be addition of N fellows whose distribution will be as sumed to be proportional to the function a2) over M1 SxS 1, Therefore, we hove for x2 Mya 10) for F< Mate g()= 8 My) Si) = fost) oN SEED. 4) Since for the distribution falx) there are + (Ny+ AN) members with x< My, these comprise of the #(No+ (n= 1)N) members with x< Mpa t0- gether with the number fu.(M,)~ Sei(Mys) from the earher distribution tnd the new addition as per (4) above. Carrying out this book-keeping we have Sol My) ~ f(Mas) Next we consider the number f(y) ~ ‘Foa(My-a) which has ansen from steady addition to fi(M,) ~ foMy-) over all the preceding years following the rule (4). ‘Therefore, Scat Ma) ~ f-(Mys) + fa(Ma) = ful Mu) ©) From (8) and (6) we have the final relation CE Sol ,) ~ fl Myas) + Ne) ~ 8(Me 01 o This iterative selation determines she sequence {M,} in a step by step feshion starung with Mg, since for determining 1M, we have all other quanties known from the preceding application of this relation A simple example We will illustrate the above solution with a simple example in which both the initial distribution and the general population distnbution are uniform with respect f0 the attribute x. In this Lele) = Nox, eo) @) and the relation (7) gives M, = My + o Even with this simple example we can- not find a solution in closed form, but Figure 1 illustrates the march of M, for O

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