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Agroecology is recognised as a socio-political and agricultural praxis and as a scientific domain. However, the dominant anthropocentric narrative that views nature as an exploitable resource is st...

espanolJose Felipe Flores es uno de los cientificos del siglo XVIII mas olvidados hoy en dia. Sin embargo, siempre estuvo muy activo en varios ramos de las ciencias. Obro ademas por el desarrollo del conocimiento cientifico en Guatemala. Por eso quiso viajar por Europa. De este periplo quedan algunas cartas y un diario, inedito y desconocido hasta hoy, debido a una equivocada identificacion de su autor. En este articulo, es este diario el que vamos a glosar y analizar. Trataremos la cuestion de su autor y de su historia y estudiaremos su dimension cientifica, con la mencion que en el se hace de los avances cientificos y de los sabios con los cuales se encuentra el doctor Flores. EnglishJose Felipe Flores is one of the scientists of the eighteenth century who is totally forgotten by now. However, he always was very active in several sections of the scientific domain. Moreover, he always did what he could for the development of the scientific knowledge in Guatemala. That is why he travelled through Europe. Of this travel, he left letters and a diary, unpublished and unknown until today, because of a wrong identification of its author. With this article, we intend to study this particular diary. After the evocation of its author and its history, we will observe its scientific dimension, with the mentions of the scientific development and of the contacts between the Guatemalan doctor and the European scientists.

Philosophical discussions of disagreement typically focus on cases in which the disagreeing agents are aware that they are disagreeing and can pinpoint the proposition that they are disagreeing about. Scientific disagreements are not, in general, like this. Here we consider several case studies of disagreements that do not concern first-order factual claims about the scientific domain in question, but rather boil down to disputes regarding methodology. In such cases, it is often difficult to identify the point of contention in the dispute. Philosophers of science have a useful role to play in pinpointing the source of such disagreements, but must resist the temptation to trace scientific debates to disputes over higher-level philosophical accounts.

In recent decades the use of forensic science in investigations and therefore its subsequent presentation within the courts has increased exponentially, fuelled by an increase in scientific advances, development of databases and greater access to scientists and their expertise. This explosion in the use of forensic evidence has not been limited to one single scientific domain, as there are a broad range of scientific disciplines, encompassed by the general umbrella term' forensic science'. Many of these involve commonly applied methodologies and are accepted by the courts with limited scrutiny. Where tensions exist concerning the use of science in the courtroom is when novel or emerging sciences and scientific techniques are introduced. This may be particularly evident when the demands of the investigatory phase, where those working want to apply all possible tools at their disposal to gather as much evidence as possible and the needs of the courts, where the evidence must scientifically robust and admissible for it to be presented before a jury, come together. This paper examines the implications for the court for emerging or novel sciences and scientific techniques. In such cases, the potential rewards of implementing the scientific process and the information these may contribute to an investigation provides a temptation to investigators to push for their operational use, with the unintended consequence of posing an issue to the court when considering whether to admit the evidence into the judicial process.

This paper studies the combined effect of affiliation with prestigious universities, underwriters, and venture capitalists on the valuation of biotech ventures at IPO and their post-IPO performance. We argue that affiliation to a prestigious university provides the affiliated firm with a quality signal in the scientific domain. The pure quality signaling effect of the affiliation is isolated from the substantive benefits it provides by performing a difference-in-difference approach based on the scientific reputation of scientists in firms' upper echelons. The signal is stronger the weaker is the scientific reputation of scientists of the focal IPO-firm and is additive to those provided by prestigious venture capitalists and underwriters. Results for a sample of 254 European biotech ventures that went through an IPO between 1990 and 2009 confirm our predictions.

Terrestrial ecosystem services (ES) are vulnerable to land use and land cover changes (LULCC). These changes are triggered by different drivers of change (e.g., economic, social, political, environmental - climate change). Understanding the potential future LULCC is an effective way to anticipate the impacts on ES supply. In recent years, some researchers applied different spatial modelling methods to assess the potential LULCC future impacts on ES supply, but so far, no systematic review was carried out. This work aims to do a bibliographic review about future LULCC and their implications on ES supply (provisioning, regulating, and cultural services). After a rigorous bibliographic review, we identified 957 papers. However, only 79 papers meet the criteria to be used in the review. The results showed that (i) the studies have been mainly focused on Asia (55.70%) and Europe (17,72%); (ii) the most common and extensively used models to project future LULCC were cellular automata (30.86%), CLUE-S model (8.64%) and Land Change Modeler (8.64%); and (iii) the most used methods to assess future impacts on ES were the InVEST model (24.04%), and equations used in previous works (12.5%). These studies were mainly focused on measuring future impacts on provisioning (44.11%) and regulating services (43.59%). Also, most of the works lack external validation. The diversity of studies evaluated allowed to recognise gaps and outline insights into the current scientific research on this scientific domain, representing an essential contribution to the current state of knowledge by supporting both practitioners and scientists.

Correspondence; International audience; We question whether analytical tools such as Common Workflow Language, which aim to make computational methods “reproducible and shareable”, can stand the test of time (see Nature 573, 149–150; 2019). The long-term validity of computational results will not be testable if the original code cannot be run many years later. Considering the rapidity of transformations in operating systems and programming languages, it is hard to predict the lifetime reproducibility of a particular code. We have therefore organized the Ten Years Reproducibility Challenge (see go.nature.com/2bwcukq). Researchers are invited to test code reproducibility by trying to rerun a code created for a scientific paper they published more than ten years ago. The codes can address any scientific domain (statistical analysis, numerical simulation or data processing, for example) and be written in any language.The challenge closes in April 2020. Our hope is that the results will offer insights into long-term causes of non-reproducibility.

Exploration of document collections is a complex task. One way to do this is to cluster the initial collection hierarchically and then label each cluster with a set of extracted terms. Good labelling should help exploration. We focus on the scientific domain and particularly on collections of abstracts of articles. Abstract is commonly a brief of a paper that outlines the research area, the challenge, the proposed solution and the results; so it could be used instead of a full article despite the difficulties related to its shortness. In this paper, we propose a new method HCBasic for labelling hierarchical clusters. It is particularly tuned for articles' abstracts and compared to three other methods: MTWL, hierMTWL and ComboBasic. To evaluate the quality of the labelling algorithms we did A/B testing in which eight volunteers searched for the articles that they were familiar with in the labelled cluster tree. We show that there is no single winner in terms of quality, and different methods are preferable in different cases.

O corpo docente dos cursos de Tecnologia em Radiologia é formado majoritariamente por Bacharéis e Tecnólogos, estes professores não têm em sua graduação, disciplinas voltadas à docência, portanto não são, profissionalmente, preparados para atuarem como professor na sua formação inicial. Dessa forma, é comum que dificuldades surjam no processo ensino-aprendizagem, especialmente no início da atividade docente. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo identificar as necessidades formativas para desenvolvimento de práticas didático-pedagógicas de professores dos cursos de Tecnologia em Radiologia, analisando e refletindo sobre o perfil destes docentes relacionando ao processo ensino-aprendizagem emergentes das suas práticas em sala de aula. Trata-se de uma revisão bibliográfica, onde procurou-se entender o perfil dos docentes dos cursos de Tecnologia em Radiologia e associar às suas práticas docentes e necessidades formativas. Foi realizado um estudo a partir de artigos publicados nas bases de dados Scielo, Lilacs e Pubmed no período 1998 a 2020 no idioma português, a partir da combinação dos descritores: Docente, Formação Inicial, Formação Pedagógica, Práticas Didático-pedagógicas, Processo Ensino-aprendizagem. Observou-se que o conhecimento pedagógico isoladamente não consegue tornar o processo ensino-aprendizado eficaz, uma vez que o domínio técnico e científico colabora ativamente com a construção das bases tecnológicas repassadas aos discentes. O professor do curso de Tecnologia em Radiologia precisará contemplar conhecimento científico, técnico, prático e pedagógico para aprimorar o desempenho em seu trabalho docente. É importante que o professor prossiga na formação continuada e faça um aprofundamento teórico-metodológico dos conhecimentos em sua formação profissional além da aquisição de conhecimentos pedagógicos.

The politics of conception in India can be traced back to the birth of the world's first test-tube baby in 1978. This article focuses on an incident where scientists and clinicians were involved in a heated contest over ascription of intellectual credit for the birth of the first test-tube baby in India. It traces the controversy surrounding claims and counter-claims within the medical domain that appear to have emerged as a corollary to the rapid expansion of assisted conception in India. The article emphasizes the fact that this contentious issue played out largely in the media and shows that the generation of scientific credibility and reward is produced and ascribed both inside and outside the scientific domain. In so doing the article offers a glimpse into the unique ability of cultural activity to shape and recast the perception of science and scientific outcomes.

In the post-SOX era, research on audit committees (AC) has evolved into a distinct scientific domain devoted to the analysis of corporate oversight and its effect on financial reporting and internal control quality. Numerous studies have contributed to the identification of potential determinants of AC effectiveness and possible performance effects associated with the AC oversight process. Nevertheless, the scarcity of studies that offer a holistic view on AC research impedes a profound understanding of the antecedent elements and emerging themes in this field within recent decades. Applying a combination of citation, co-citation, and social network analysis to 92 articles published in six leading accounting journals, we comprehensively map the intellectual structure of AC research. Thus, we contribute to the literature by offering insights on major publication trends, chronological developments, and underlying relationships between different strands of the AC literature as part of the accounting discipline. Our findings reveal a high level of homogeneity in AC-related studies published in the leading accounting journals, especially when it comes to sample selection and methodological approaches.

Synthesising arguments motivate changes to the conceptual tools, theoretical structure, and evaluatory framework employed in a given scientific domain. Recently, a broad coalition of researchers has put forward a synthesising argument in favour of an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (‘EES’). Often this synthesising argument is evaluated using a virtue-based approach, which construes the EES as a wholesale alternative to prevailing practice. Here I argue this virtue-based approach is not fit for purpose. Taking the central concept of niche construction as a case study, I show that an agenda-based approach better captures the pragmatic and epistemological goals of the EES synthesising argument and diagnoses areas of empirical disagreement with prevailing practice.

Al inicio de este siglo XXI comenzó a desarrollarse un nuevo dominio científico, la Ciencia de la Sostenibilidad, con el objetivo explícito de hacer frente a la actual situación de emergencia planetaria e impulsar la transición a sociedades sostenibles. Una nueva forma de hacer ciencia para un nuevo período de la historia de la humanidad, el Antropoceno, en el que el planeta está experimentando grandes cambios, debidos principalmente a la acción de los seres humanos, que amenazan la supervivencia de la propia especie humana. Nuestro propósito en este trabajo ha sido analizar en qué medida esta Ciencia de la Sostenibilidad puede realmente contribuir a la necesaria transición a la Sostenibilidad. Con ese objeto hemos estudiado su desarrollo desde sus orígenes hasta la actualidad. Por otra parte hemos estudiado si las características de la Ciencia de la Sostenibilidad suponen una mejora real respecto a las contribuciones que numerosas disciplinas (desde la Educación Ambiental a la Química Verde o la Economía baja en carbono) venían haciendo a la resolución de problemas socioambientales. Los resultados de estos análisis permiten, en primer lugar, reconocer un planteamiento radicalmente novedoso, con las características de una auténtica revolución científica, susceptible de contribuir muy significativamente a la transición a la Sostenibilidad. En segundo lugar, los criterios cuantitativos manejados llevan a constatar el extraordinario vigor de la nueva disciplina. Sin embargo, nuestros análisis han permitido también confirmar que la constitución de la Ciencia de la Sostenibilidad como disciplina académica encierra riesgos a los que debemos y podemos hacer frente.

The problem of epistemic competence—the inability of courts to effectively interpret and apply scientific expert testimony to the resolution of legal disputes—has been a vexing one for nearly as long as expert witnesses have been routine fixtures in litigation. This Article argues that the intractability of the problem is the result of the epistemological paradigm by which the discussion has been framed. The existing literature makes an impossible demand: that individual legal decision makers possess substantive expertise in all scientific domains in which expert witnesses testify. Because judges and jurors are not omniscient, this demand can never be satisfied, and reform proposals have therefore been limited to mitigating the problem rather than solving it. This Article proposes a new solution to the problem of epistemic competence. First, it traces the converging accounts of classical epistemology and the sociology of scientific knowledge to show that warranted judgments in matters of scientific fact can be made only by judges who possess expertise in the relevant scientific domain. Second, the Article draws on insights from social epistemology to advocate a collectivist epistemological paradigm wherein the institution of the court, rather than the individual judge and jurors, is the epistemic agent of interest. The Article describes a system of distributed cognition that would vest scientific expertise and legal authority in courts as institutional epistemic agents, thus solving the problem of epistemic competence. Finally, the Article describes one method by which the social epistemological solution might be implemented, by creating a new office of scientific experts within the federal judiciary., Science and Technology Law Review, Vol 19 No 2: 2017-2018

El proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje en el aula, es fundamental y requiere de prácticas educativas apropiadas y eficaces, convirtiéndose en un reto difícil para el docente de hoy, porque exige un conjunto de requerimientos específicos como el dominio científico, actitudes, estrategias y acciones que deben conjugarse en un marco de interacción entre los actores. Con el propósito de buscar alternativas en la construcción del conocimiento y aprendizaje de las ciencias naturales, especialmente en el papel que juegan los laboratorios, al innovar, construir conocimientos, procedimientos y adquirir competencias que nos lleven a un aprendizaje significativo, la investigación incursiona a partir de la observación, descripción y de la experimentación que se realiza en el laboratorio de Ciencias Naturales del tercer ciclo del nivel básico, desde una perspectiva tradicional y una innovadora con la presentación del diagrama UVE de Gowin; explorando cuál de las dos trae consigo mayor aprendizaje significativo, funcionalidad, creatividad e innovación. DOI: http://doi.dx.org/10.5377/paradigma.v21i34.1696 - Revista de Investigación Educativa. Año 21. No. 34: 133-159

This paper examines some of the debates over maternal instinct in France under the Third Republic. It focuses on the work of three naturalists (Fabre, Perrier, and Giard) and shows how these scientists shaped, reinforced, or challenged feminine identities as well as a number of sexual social conventions making constant reference to the natural as their authority. This paper highlights these scientists' views on womanhood and maternity and their stances on contemporary feminist discourses as well as seeking to establish the extent to which these views and stances influenced their scientific discourses and practices. It also aims to demonstrate the interpenetration of science and policy, not only in terms of the transfer of political concepts into the scientific domain (and back again), but also as a joint construction process, which produced a new political and natural order in nineteenth century France.

Environmental engineering is moving briskly and steadily from one challenging phase to another. The world of challenges are immense as well as far-reaching. Advanced oxidation processes today stands in the midst of immense scientific vision, scientific understanding and invincible scientific challenges. The effectivity of degradation quality of ozone and hydroxyl radicals is outstanding and path-breaking. Environmental concerns and subsequent environmental regulations are the burning issues of our present day civilization. Novel separation processes as well advanced oxidation techniques are the plausible solutions for zero-discharge norms and effective environmental engineering paradigm. The question of effective environmental engineering techniques comes into the horizon of a scientist’s mind. Amongst the advanced oxidation techniques, ozonation or ozone-oxidation stands today in the new millennium as the most effective environmental engineering techniques. Wastewater treatment and provision of clean drinking water are unquestionably the primordial issues of present day mankind and the ever-alert civil society. The visionary challenges are moving from one avenue of environmental disaster to another. Environmental disaster – both manmade as well as natural has plunged our civilization to unending catastrophe. These environmental calamities are harbingers of more immense and impending environmental disasters. The scientific paradigm and the scientific domain needs rethought and needs to be restructured. In the face of these immense environmental calamities, the thrust areas of novel separation processes and advanced oxidation needs immense retrospection. In such a critical juncture of history and time, this treatise effectively addresses the questions of zero-discharge norms with respect to new discoveries in the field of advanced oxidation processes particularly the field of ozonation.

Using the case of European Union Cooperation in Science and Technology Actions, this paper investigates why despite the small scale of funding provided and substantial scientific and management workload, researchers are increasingly interested in formal networking research funded by the European Union. This paper empirically examines this motivation while controlling for researcher scientific domain, country of work and previous experience of such funding. We find that most researchers are primarily driven by a need to meet peers and that over time researchers view such funding scheme significantly less as additional funding and more as a venue for meeting peers and for disseminating research results., JRC.J.2-Knowledge for Growth

The adaptive approach to thermal comfort has gained unprecedented exposure and rising status recently among the thermal comfort community at the apparent expense of the heat balance approach for the evaluation of naturally ventilated buildings. The main appeal of this adaptive approach lies in its simplicity whereby the comfort temperature is expressed as a function of the outdoor air temperature only. The main responsibility for attaining thermal comfort is given to the individual, who is supposed to have some degree of control over the personal thermal environment. The adjustment of expectation enables a wider comfort temperature range in which occupants feel comfortable. Arguments in favor of the adaptive approach have been based on the results from a large number of field studies conducted across the globe involving the occupants of various types of buildings. It is not surprising, therefore, to watch proliferation of papers on the adaptive approach in the scientific domain and the incorporation of adaptive findings into standards and guidelines. However, there are a number of issues in the advancement of this approach, which have had little exposure in the literature. This paper looks critically at the foundation and underlying assumptions of the adaptive model approach and its findings.

Radioecology is defined as the study of the behaviour and effects of ionising radiations and radionuclides in the environment. Until recently, ecosystems were only considered in radioecology as an intermediate compartment between the source of radiation and man.Interest in the effects of ionising radiation and radionuclides on the environment has recently increased because of the surge in the public awareness concerning the different sources of pollution of the environment and their effects on human health, the evolution of paradigm by the ICRP concerning the radiation protection of the environment, and the increase in our knowledge in that specific field of research. Radioecology is now a mature scientific domain which is standing on its own feet. Its maturity can be assessed in different domains: (i) Education: with the appearance and development of masters in Radioecology worldwide, it is becoming a proper teaching domain in Higher Education; (ii) networks of excellence: international collaboration are initiated all over the world; (iii) Regulation: radiation protection of the environment is becoming a major point of concern along with the radiation protection of the public worldwide (ICRP, IAEA, IUR,…) and more specifically in the European Union; (iv) Public concern: the public mind is now open for and in an urgent need for more information about the implications of human activities, and among them those producing and releasing ionising radiations and radionuclides, on his own environment and health, i.e. on his personal feeling of well-being.

With modernity, the medieval imagery, populated by the marvelous, by supernatural forces, monsters and aberrations, will be little absorbed by the scientific domain, constituting, from the medical and judicial point of view, the field of anomalies. Having Brazilian fictional narratives as corpus, the article discusses the changes that occurred from the second half of the twentieth century in the technoscientific imaginary, considering the revalidations of the body/spirit dichotomy carried out in the midst of the decline of ancient sense matrices. --- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.2018n47a1177

In her PhD thesis Reading Fleck: Questions on Philosophy and Science (Hedfors, 2006) and her papers based on it, Eva Hedfors proposes a sci entifically informed reading of Ludwik Fleck that aims to contest the (puta tive) mythology of Fleck. According to Hedfors, Fleck is believed to have been an important scientist. However, a careful reading of his scientific papers, she claims, reveals that Fleck's studies were poorly done, often meaningless and of doubtful ethical value. Hedfors also hints that one of Fleck's aims in promoting his views on science as a social endeavour was to legitimate his own scientifically weak and ethically suspicious research. Hedfors has also a very low opinion of Fleck's epistemological thought. In the preface to her thesis she explains that when she first read Fleck, she viewed him as a 'Sokal before Sokal on a rather local level', and found a widespread interest in his writings, 'one of those inscrutable facts we often face'.1 This is surely a legitimate point of view. Hedfors' efforts to deflate the Fleck myth can be seen, however, as a somewhat misguided endeavour. Researchers interested in Fleck's life and science provided many years ago a realistic assessment of his scientific achievements. They stressed that in the 1920s and 1930s, when he wrote his important epistemological studies, that Fleck worked in a peripheral 'service' discipline (serology), in a periph eral country (Poland) and a non-academic setting (he headed a routine analysis laboratory). Historians of science and medicine also are aware of the fact that Fleck's scientific papers were as good or as bad as other average studies in his scientific domain.

This article presents one approach to addressing the important issue of interdisciplinarity in the primary school mathematics curriculum, namely, through realistic mathematical modelling problems. Such problems draw upon other disciplines for their contexts and data. The article initially considers the nature of modelling with complex systems and discusses how such experiences differ from existing problem-solving activities in the primary mathematics curriculum. Principles for designing interdisciplinary modelling problems are then addressed, with reference to two mathematical modelling problems—one based in the scientific domain and the other in the literary domain. Examples of the models children have created in solving these problems follow. A reflection on the differences in the diversity and sophistication of these models raises issues regarding the design of interdisciplinary modelling problems. The article concludes with suggested opportunities for generating multidisciplinary projects within the regular mathematics curriculum.

Haemophilia was recognized early on as an ideal candidate for a gene transfer approach to therapy. In the past decade, gene transfer experimentation in the haemophilias has indeed played an integral role in furthering the science in the global field of gene therapy. However, these expectations have placed haemophilia gene transfer researchers under pressure to succeed in a scientific domain in which successes are infrequent and progress is necessarily slow. These same expectations have also fueled the perception of gene therapy as the inevitable therapeutic goal for the youngest children with haemophilia. In this paper, we will discuss the ethical implications of this perception in light of anticipated benefits, acceptable risk, perceived consumer need and the unknown cost of this intervention. A framework for the future study and therapeutic implementation of gene transfer technology in this specific population is proposed. Public debate on this issue that includes the voices of the intended beneficiaries, especially the parents of the youngest children with haemophilia and the children themselves, is encouraged.

Figueiredo, C.; Pinheiro, M. R; Huet, I. 2015. "Desenvolvimento Epistemológico e Avaliação de Crenças Pessoais relativas ao Conhecimento e ao processo de Conhecer: estudo de validação da Escala de Posicionamento Epistemológico para estudantes de doutoramento. ", Revista Portuguesa de Pedagogia 49, 1: 105 - 130. Constituindo‑se atualmente como um vasto domínio científico, as teorias do desenvolvimento epistemológico ou da epistemologia pessoal enfrentam ainda numerosos desafios ao nível da sistematização conceptual dos seus constructos e das estratégias metodológicas. É objetivo deste trabalho, contribuir para a discussão desta problemática, realizando uma proposta de avaliação quantitativa do desenvolvimento epistemológico, acedido através de crenças relativas ao conhecimento e ao processo de conhecer. Neste estudo desenvolveu‑se a Escala de Posicionamento Epistemológico (EPE) que foi aplicada a uma amostra de 429 estudantes de doutoramento de universidades portuguesas, em diferentes etapas do seu percurso. As análises de dimensionalidade realizadas revelaram estruturas fatoriais teoricamente interpretáveis considerando duas formas alternativas de análise dos itens. Na sua versão final o EPE é composto por 25 itens, distribuídos numa estrutura de quatro fatores (35.5% da variância total explicada) denominados: (1) sofisticação epistemológica; (2) Ingenuidade epistemológica; (3) imutabilidade do conhecimento e (4) aprender com rapidez.

The aim of this article is to address the issues of impact factor and circulation with reference to dental and orthodontic journals by discussing various parameters including language, citations, nature of published articles, and scientific domain. Examples from the literature are provided to illustrate the variability of impact factors among periodicals, based on the publicity and scientific area covered, and the impact factor scores are presented together with the circulation of orthodontic periodicals.

Psychoneuroendocrinology (PNE) has been a method used in the past to investigate brain biochemical functions in normal and pathological mentation. These studies have subsequently uncovered variations in normal biochemical functioning. It is still being debated, however, how these variations correlate with well-defined psychopathologies.Future studies in PNE shows promise in many areas of contemporary neurospychiatry. For example, research focusing on variations in neurotransmitter, neuropeptide, and neurohormone secretory tonus might enhance our understanding of specific personality characteristics and behavior. PNE may also be essential in investigating the correlation between hormonal variations and symptoms observed across various psychiatric disorders. PNE might likewise be important for new therapeutic approaches. Finally, PNE can be used to investigate psychoneuroimmunoendocrine relationships.New PNE methodologies must be developed to make this branch of neuroscience more appropriate for the study of localized brain functions.

Throughout the centuries, the concept of element has undergone a clear evolution from a strictly philosophical area to the scientific domain, although the conceptual progress has not always gone along with a terminological evolution. Some inconsistencies in the definition of element can be found in several precollege and university-level textbooks, which creates confusion about the concepts of element and of simple substance and raises a teaching problem. In this paper, a survey of the historical evolution of the idea of element is followed by the critical review of some definitions of element found in the scientific literature and in textbooks. We discuss a definition of element consistent with current scientific knowledge that overcomes the ambiguity between the concepts of element and simple substance at the level of instruction.

Are scientific disciplines really different? This question often crystallizes into the old debate: Are Physics and Biology different? If Physics and Biology worked on highly different entities (objects), or if they had highly different methods, it would be straightforward to close the debate by a negative answer. However, if we cannot identify any differences, we should explore more deeply the status of the laws found in Physics and questioned in Biology. By slightly modifying the definition of what is a law, I argue here that both disciplines possess some laws exhibiting various “degrees of confirmation”. I finally propose explanations for why P and B give the illusion differing radically, although they both belong to the same continuum of a unified scientific domain.

Every year, the 12 scientific sections of the American Physiological Society each select a physiologist prominent in their scientific domain to deliver a distinguished, named lecture at the Society's annual meeting (Experimental Biology). In 2011, the Environmental and Exercise Physiology section chose Michael Joyner, MD, from the Mayo Clinic for this honour, named the Edward Adolph Lecture. Joyner's lecture appears in the Journal of Applied Physiology (Joyner, 2011) complementing his related narrative that recently appeared in The Journal of Physiology (Joyner & Pedersen, 2011). He used this occasion to continue to promote the importance of the discipline of physiology, not just as a discipline that has delivered huge advances in understanding, diagnosing, and treating human and other animal disease, but as the cornerstone of what is currently the major biomedical research push – translational research. Simply put, physiology and physiological research remain the essential links between genes and clinical care. Translational research just cannot be accomplished without physiology. Joyner provocatively contrasted the relative failure (to date at least) of the molecular revolution of the past 30 or so years to deliver on its own promises of cures, against the successes of physiology. Whether you buy Joyner's stance or not, there is no question that the genomic revolution has had a major effect on the discipline of physiology. In many ways it has been a double-edged sword. The enormous impact of two editorials in 1987 (by the then Director of the NHLBI, Dr Claude Lenfant, and Director of the NHBLI Lung Division, Dr Suzanne Hurd) in the American Review of Respiratory Disease (Hurd & Lenfant, 1987a,b), technically still promoting a balance between physiology and molecular biology, but clearly suggesting that investigators wishing for research support through NHLBI had better get molecular, was but one blow to physiology that has since led to the disappearance, reorganization, and/or renaming of many former departments of physiology around the world, especially in the USA and UK. We have come dangerously close to losing the foundations of physiology, as the masters who built those foundations have been lost. It was then ironic, to say the least, when Lenfant himself later complained that the molecular revolution had not so far produced adequate results, when he concluded (Lenfant, 2003): ‘Enthusiasm for gene-centered medicine is contagious, and I am certainly not immune to it. In my view, however, the fundamental issue remains the same. Enormous amounts of new knowledge are barreling down the information highway, but they are not arriving at the doorsteps of our patients.’ There is, however, light at the end of the physiological tunnel that is not from the headlamp of an onrushing train: The molecular revolutionaries have started to recognize the need for a partnership with physiology. Increasingly, they are coming to those few physiologists left and asking for help in studying the significance of their genetic and genomic discoveries. They have even invented a new discipline ‘Systems Biology’– which of course is physiology. To this point, systems biology mostly addresses the interactions among genes to produce functional effects within cells. This will eventually build into larger and larger units of structure and function, and one day, we will proudly know that handshaking between molecular biology and physiology was the key research community transformation that advanced our ability to diagnose and treat disease. Physiology cannot do it alone, and molecular biology cannot do it alone. While there is light at the end of our tunnel, remaining passive about our discipline and waiting for reductionists to knock on our doors may not get us to the end of that tunnel. We think we are in a period of incredible opportunity for physiology, precisely because of the genomic revolution and the resulting push for translational research – but we have to get the word out beyond our own ranks. We just have to become individually and collectively much more active in explaining the importance of our discipline to the rest of the world. As we all know, that is better done with data than with table banging. This has been recognized for some time, and both the American Physiological Society in North America and the Physiological Society in the UK have been and will continue to be active in meeting with funding agencies and political decision-making bodies to explain the importance of the discipline through examples. Equally importantly, we have, and will continue to, put a lot of societal energy and resources into what we call the ‘pipeline’– the physiologists of the future who are currently in primary school, secondary school, college, or university. They and their teachers need to be exposed to more physiology and thereby become excited by it. In this way, we can play a major role in ensuring the future of the discipline and, as a result, in translating basic discoveries into clinical care. We just cannot let this unique opportunity slip by and thank Dr Joyner for his provocative thoughts and timely encouragement. This should be a great springboard to a call for action to all physiologists, wherever you live and work. We need you to promote your discipline, not hide it. We urge you to speak to your local and national politicians and funding agencies about how physiology is essential to successful translation of molecular discoveries. We urge you to visit schools and colleges to promote and maybe even help teach physiology. We urge you to rebadge your Departments of Everything-But-Physiology back to Departments of Physiology. And most of all, we urge you to partner with those molecular biologists (and systems biologists) who are now in need of your scientific expertise, without which translation will not happen.

One of the most important biological properties of consumer products, and also of many raw materials, is the local compatibility to mucous membranes. Until now standardized in vivo tests are accepted by public health authorities as valid to estimate the irritation potential of chemicals and suitable for the risk assessment. Nevertheless, the controversial discussion on animal tests, and particularly on the Draize rabbit eye test, is increasing in the public and scientific domain. Efforts have been made to validate proper and suitable in vitro tests in international cosmetics industries during the last decade. One of the most important in vitro tests is the HET-CAM, the h en's e gg t est on the c horioa llantoic m embrane of fertilized chicken eggs. In this paper, the efforts to establish the HET-CAM protocol and the defined prediction model (PM) used in the COLIPA (The European Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association) study on alternatives to the Draize rabbit eye test are described. Furthermore, the HET-CAM test results of the finalized phase I of the above-mentioned study are discussed in detail. Prior to the COLIPA validation study, the HET-CAM was prevalidated with about 100 test substances covering a broad spectrum of chemical structures and physical appearances and representing the range of chemicals in the cosmetics industry. This prevalidation was performed with a stringent in-house agreement in one company to test each chemical in the HET-CAM before any requested animal test was done. There was a high concordance of the HET-CAM results with in vivo data of the Draize test, especially for slightly irritating test articles. Based on these promising data, the HET-CAM protocol was taken as the final standard operating procedure (SOP) in the international COLIPA validation study, testing 55 coded chemicals in four different laboratories. The HET-CAM has been established and proven to be a robust test with a good prediction of irritation potential. According to strict associations of well-defined irritation categories (in vivo and in vitro), and with the concrete PM, the in vivo irritation potential of 29 out of 55 test articles (about 52%) were correctly predicted with the HET-CAM in at least three laboratories. This quality of prediction was of different success in the four categories of irritation severity. 90% of the slightly irritating chemicals but only 53% of the severely irritating articles were correctly predicted. The necessity to define a "gold standard" for validation purposes and the conflict with heterogeneous in vivo data were also pronounced this article. Here it is discussed, whether the evaluation of such heterogeneous responses and especially of persistent slight effects on the cornea can be done properly with additional data such as physicochemical data and biological information of the test substance.

Our technological environment is the silent basis for the many activities that implement the goals of daily life. Yet, in our daily environment, technology is taken for granted; so much so that the purposes of later life, such as optimal health and independence, may seem distant from technology. But if we wish to enhance the quality of later life, we must direct our efforts also toward improving and extending products, services, and infrastructure of the rapidly changing technological society in which we are aging. Human ageing is the scientific domain of gerontology and geriatrics (GG). Using innovative technology to prevent or repair the challenges of aging requires collaboration between the disciplines of human ageing and the disciplines of technology. An earlier matrix representation of this gerontechnology (GT) shows what methodology and insights are already available in such crossfertilization. An example is the concept of ‘technology generation’, a combined fruit of sociology and technology. The classic approach of disciplines is to focus on the own development with less attention to the environment in society in which fruits are to be reaped. But already there is enormous advancement in available technology options for supporting health, compensating for functional and social restrictions, and supporting care. Examples include multiple applications of distance communication through the Internet, most of which are recent and still extending. In order to accelerate advantages and diminish mismatches, advances should be controlled rather than left to chance. An impact matrix will illuminate innovative technologies that serve well-defined purposes in the domains of daily life. The combined efforts of GG and innovative technology have immense promise for our ageing society.

We present in this paper the development of a specialized comparable corpora compilation tool, for which quality would be close to a manually compiled corpus. The comparability is based on three levels: domain, topic and type of discourse. Domain and topic can be filtered with the keywords used through web search. But the detection of the type of discourse needs a wide linguistic analysis. The first step of our work is to automate the detection of the type of discourse that can be found in a scientific domain (science and popular science) in French and Japanese languages. First, a contrastive stylistic analysis of the two types of discourse is done on both languages. This analysis leads to the creation of a reusable, generic and robust typology. Machine learning algorithms are then applied to the typology, using shallow parsing. We obtain good results, with an average precision of 80% and an average recall of 70% that demonstrate the efficiency of this typology. This classification tool is then inserted in a corpus compilation tool which is a text collection treatment chain realized through IBM UIMA system. Starting from two specialized web documents collection in French and Japanese, this tool creates the corresponding corpus.

Expert system techniques have been rapidly disseminating into every scientific domain, with many applications being reported within the last decade. Expert system is bringing a new perspective. This paper introduces the towed watersaving irrigation mechanization technology firstly. Then, an emphasis is made on development of the expert system for towed water-saving irrigation mechanization technology. The architecture, components and function are described.

This article analyses the evolution of the Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica (ITQ), a joint research centre between the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (UPV), since its creation in 1990. The Institute was founded as the result of a joint institutional and individual researcher’s involvement effort. We describe the current features of the institute and the process that led to the present situation, including pro and against factors. The assessment shows that the initiative has been successful beyond the initial expectations of the parent organisations. Today ITQ is internationally recognized in its scientific domain, both for the excellence of its scientific and technological results and for the impact of those contributions to the industrial practice. The article concludes with a consideration of the lessons that can be learnt from this experience.

PurposeThe article aims to investigate the customers for the document supply of print serials.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on data from INIST‐CNRS for document supply requests in pharmacology. Data were collected from 1998 to 2005 (10,000+ customer accounts with 4.6m orders).FindingsThe article provides information about the distribution of orders per customer type, about the geographical origin of customers, about the ordering trends among pharmaceutical customers and of pharmaceutical journals.Originality/valueThis is the last of three articles on a longitudinal study over 13 years on different aspects of the relationship between document supply and impact factor (citations) in pharmacology, a scientific domain with a high use of scientific information.

PurposeThe article aims to investigate the correlation between citations and the document supply of print serials.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on data from INIST‐CNRS for document supply requests and from ISI for citations from 89 serials with JCR impact factors in pharmacology. Data were collected from 1992 to 2004.FindingsThe results distinguish four groups of serials with different relationships between document supply requests and citations. The characteristics of the serials of the four groups are described (year of creation, price, etc.). The evolution of the correlation between document supply and citations is analysed.Originality/valueThis is the second of three articles on a longitudinal study over 13 years on different aspects of the relationship between document supply and impact factor (citations) in pharmacology, a scientific domain with a high use of scientific information.

PurposeThe article seeks to investigate the evolution of document supply of print serials.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on data from INIST‐CNRS – document supply requests and access to electronic resources – of 95 serials with JCR impact factors in pharmacology. Data were collected from 1992 to 2003.FindingsThe results distinguish four groups of serials each with a different evolution of document supply requests. Nevertheless, the overall decline from 1999 is a global phenomenon linked to growing access to online journals and there seems little likelihood of a slowdown for the next few years.Originality/valueThis is the first of three articles on a longitudinal study over 12 years on different aspects of the relationship between document supply and impact factor (citations) in pharmacology, a scientific domain with a high use of scientific information.

O texto busca, a partir de conceitos teóricos da Biologia do Conhecer, discutir a pesquisa-intervenção como uma ação que cria possibilidades de interconexão entre a pesquisa e a extensão no viver universitário. A condição de observador-dependente, produzido a partir de uma rede de conversações que constitui o domínio explicativo científico é tomada para compreender as possibilidades de exercício da função de autoria, bem como as implicações éticas decorrentes. Postula-se que a pesquisa-intervenção possa - ela mesma - constituir-se como inovação ao propor perspectivas metodológicas de ação capazes de sustentar trabalhos de intervenção para além da pesquisa propriamente dita. This text discusses intervention-research as an action that creates possibilities of interconnections between research and extension in universitarian daily life from the basic theoretical concepts of Biology of Knowledge. Produced from a network of conversations which constitutes the explanatory scientific domain, the condition of dependent-observer is taken in order to understand the possibilities of exercising authorial function, as well as the resultant ethical implications. It's postulated that intervention-research methodology can constitute itself as an inovation when proposing methodological perspectives of action capable of sustaining interventions that sustain themselves beyond the research in itself.

This is the second time in three years that you have honoured a Canadian by inviting him to present the William Smith Lecture. From this I conclude that Tuzo Wilson gave you such a stimulating and enthusiastic address that you felt that perhaps another Canadian might be able to do the same. I hope, at the end, you will feel that the reasoning was sound. I warn you, however, that I shall make no attempt to emulate what he has done. Wilson, Gilluly, Stormer, and other distinguished William Smith Lecturers gave you reviews of some of the stimulating international scientific developments in geological sciences, whereas I propose to deal rather with some of the more bureaucratic relationships, which, of course, help the scientific domain to develop. After all, I am a professional bureaucrat! Because William Smith prepared the first reasonable geological map, I take it that the geological map is considered fundamental by the Geological Society. Certainly, I consider a geological map as fundamental for geological science. Without it geology cannot exist, but because of it geology has encountered 150 years of difficulties. To be most useful a geological map must be an expression of carefully thought out conclusions based on examinations made by a field geologist, supplemented by whatever laboratory improvements can be provided, and whatever philosophical speculation he may find necessary to include on the map. This highly subjective result of his activities looks like a completely objective portrayal of facts as they exist, and hence the controversy.

The practice of justifying scientific explanations generates argumentative patterns in which several types of arguments may play a role. This paper is aimed at identifying these patterns on the basis of an exploration of the institutional conventions regarding the nature, the shape and the quality of scientific explanations as reflected in the writings of influential philosophers of science. First, a basic pattern for justifying scientific explanations is described. Then, two types of extensions of this pattern are presented. These extensions are derived from philosophical accounts of requirements for the quality of explanations and the choice of the best explanation from a number of candidate explanations respectively. The description of the second extension will make clear how pragmatic argumentation plays a role in argumentative patterns within the scientific domain.

Bioart can cross the line between the scientific domain and that of arts and may touch the boundary between the living and the nonliving. This study addresses how visitors to a bioart exhibition experienced the hybrid aspects of this form of art. Semi-structured interviews were held with 119 visitors to the synth-ethic exhibition in Vienna, Austria, in May and June 2011. Analysis shows that for a majority of visitors the use of bacteria and lower organisms does not pose an ethical problem, whereas integration of higher animals or even humans into the artwork is not readily accepted.

[Delivered before the American Medical Association, Cleveland, June,1883] Mr. President and Members of the AssociationYour by-laws require of the Chairman of each. Section a paper on the “advances and discoveries1 of the past year, in the branches of science included in his Section. The somewhat undefined boundaries of the Section of “State Medicine,” and the purely practical nature of that part of its scientific domain which is defined, make the task of the Chairman, as declared by the by-law, not a little embarrassing. “ Discoveries” which influence and advance State medicine are made and claimed by workers nominally identified with other departments. Physiology, pathology and chemistry, as a rule, make the “discoveries,” and the right to report them in all their details and bearings belongs to other Sections. Practical sanitation, the principal aim of “ State medicine,” makes no “ discoveries.” It is not permitted to indulge even