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In the focus of the paper there are some basic insights and ideas of rational choice theory, that is the "core" of contemporary economic theory. Also, rational choice theory is the "center" of modern political science and is used in various other scientific disciplines, such as: sociology, philosophy, political science, psychology, and the like. There are two main goals of this paper. One is to point out the limitations of rational choice theory as one of the theories of economic behavior (and decision making). The second goal is to analyze certain problems detected during the application of the rational choice theory in economics and to adequately consider the importance of alternative concepts, models, and theories from the point of view of improving the understanding of economic, social, political, and other processes in the economy and society as a whole.

Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding have been successfully used in a range of scientific disciplines and present opportunities for forensic researchers to draw on the power of large numbers of people to contribute to research projects through participation or by providing an alternative source of funding. This review aimed to examine whether contributors to crowd science and crowdfunding for scientific research are motivated to participate or provide financial support by the same factors, and to examine recruitment strategies in an attempt to identify a potential crowd for forensic researchers to approach. There was found to be limited research into crowdfunding for scientific research that addressed the motivations of contributors or recruitment strategies used, and no conclusions could be made. There is a need to overcome low response rates and high attrition over the lifetime of a crowd science project or crowdfunding appeal. It is necessary to target a large number of people who are interested in the subject studied and who want to make a difference in some way and contribute to science. True crime podcast audiences are proposed as they present large numbers of listeners who are interested in forensic science, criminal investigation or law enforcement. These audiences have been targeted for successful fundraising efforts and invitations to participate in crowd activities previously. They should be considered by forensic researchers who are looking to venture into crowdsourcing or crowdfunding for research projects.

Since their publication in 2016 we have seen a rapid adoption of the FAIR principles in many scientific disciplines where the inherent value of research data and, therefore, the importance of good data management and data stewardship, is recognized. This has led to many communities asking “What is FAIR?” and “How FAIR are we currently?”, questions which were addressed respectively by a publication revisiting the principles and the emergence of FAIR metrics. However, early adopters of the FAIR principles have already run into the next question: “How can we become (more) FAIR?” This question is more difficult to answer, as the principles do not prescribe any specific standard or implementation. Moreover, there does not yet exist a mature ecosystem of tools, platforms and standards to support human and machine agents to manage, produce, publish and consume FAIR data in a user-friendly and efficient (i.e., “easy”) way. In this paper we will show, however, that there are already many emerging examples of FAIR tools under development. This paper puts forward the position that we are likely already in a creolization phase where FAIR tools and technologies are merging and combining, before converging in a subsequent phase to solutions that make FAIR feasible in daily practice.

About half of graduate and postgraduate students and one-third of faculty in the field of neuroscience are women The proportion of women neuroscientists tend to decrease as they progress through the career ladder Their responsibilities and their opportunities to secure research funding also tend to be lower compared to men, as in most scientific disciplines and professions The multiple factors contributing to the under-representation of women in higher-level roles have historical, social, and cultural roots A process of forgetfulness of pioneer women from the last century prevented the field from having role models in which upcoming generations of women neuroscientists could have identified Maria Manasseina, Cecile Vogt, Augusta Dejerine Klumpke are only some early pioneers who have recently been rediscovered The available data show that the profiles of women neuroscientists are overlooked and their remarkable findings receive less recognition Conscious and unconscious gender biases also affect the evaluation and recruitment process The presence of cultural and institutional barriers continues to hinder equal opportunities in all aspects of the scientific and academic career The initiatives launched so far to increase awareness of such barriers and diversity in the workplace have produced a slight improvement but further action should be taken and supported to improve the condition of women in neuroscience

The three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteous aculeatus) is a common laboratory fish used across many scientific disciplines. However, little guidance is available on its housing and care in the scientific literature. Here we outline the methods to maintain a colony of sticklebacks based upon >20 years of experience at the Cefas Weymouth Laboratory. We also provide details on the application of common scientific procedures to the species. We believe that due to the stickleback’s inherent features, its use as a laboratory animal will continue and expand. There is a need to standardize care of fish in general (as with all laboratory species) to refine scientific use: production and maintenance in standardized conditions should reduce variability in responses to experimental treatments. Although the stickleback is robust and readily amenable to laboratory culture, we also identify areas where animal welfare could potentially be improved.

The paper explores an Islamic institution in contemporary Malaysia. It studies the roles of the Mufti and the State mufti office as actors in issuing and informing religious edicts (fatwas) in Perlis, a northern state of Peninsular Malaysia. As an autonomous state institution coupled with the official state’s subscription to Ahlul Sunna wal Jama’ah as a principle in interpreting Islam, the state has issued fatwas that are perceived to embrace the religious nuances of contemporary realities. The paper examines the fatwas issued by Perlis’s Mufti Office on establishing paternity claim, unilateral conversion and child custody, child vaccination, and woman leaving marital home. The fatwas unveil a meticulous process that involves consulting relevant experts in both the religious scholarly fields and the modern scientific disciplines. The fatwas indicate deep appreciation and use of centuries old Islamic religious body. The fatwas also reflect the state’s religious institution’s commitment to and understanding of protecting the basic rights of individuals as much as serving the public good. Keywords: fatwa, State Administration of Islam, Perlis, Malaysia, Mufti Office. Abstrak Artikel ini meneroka Institusi Keislaman dalam konteks Malaysia masa kini. Artikel ini meneliti peranan Mufti dan Pejabat Mufti sebagai pihak bertanggungjawab penting dalam mengeluarkan dan memaklumkan fatwa di Perlis, sebuah negeri di utara Semenanjung Malaysia. Sebagai institusi yang berautonomi, dan disokong oleh pegangan rasmi kerajaan negeri Perlis dengan fahaman Ahlul Sunna wal Jama’ah, Pejabat Mufti telah mengeluarkan fatwa yang dilihat mencakupi nuansa realiti masyarakat masa kini. Artikel ini meneliti teks fatwa yang dikeluarkan oleh Pajabat Mufti Perlis tentang isu-isu berkaitan dengan penentuan paterniti, pertukaran agama sebelah pihak dan penjagaan anak, pemvaksinan anak, dan isteri yang meninggalkan rumah. Berdasarkan penelitian, fatwa-fatwa telah disepakati melalui proses teliti dan cermat dengan merujuk kepada pakar-pakar dalam bidang agama dan saintifik. Selain itu, fatwa-fatwa ini mendedahkan tentang penghargaan mendalam terhadap legasi keilmuan Islam. Tambahan, fatwa-fatwa ini juga mencerminkan iltizam institusi keIslaman negeri dalam melindungi hak-hak individu serta melindungi kebaikan umum. Kata Kunci: fatwa, pentadbiran Islam negeri, Perlis, Malaysia, Pejabat Mufti.

Objective – Recapitulation of the specific nature of information science and information research undertaken in the conditions of the reorganization of academic life in Poland after the introduction of a new classification of fields and scientific and artistic discipline by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Methods – A method of analysis and criticism of the literature was used. Results and conclusions – (1) actions are necessary to strengthen the status of information and book studies as a sub-discipline of media and social communication studies; (2) There is a need to open all parties to conscious and critical search for new common areas and research problems. Originality and cognitive value – Discussion about the status and future of the sciences of social communication and media and their components is now an urgent and inalienable need of the academic community if we want to improve the quality of research and strengthen our position within the Polish system of sciences and in a new discipline.

Objective - The aim of the article is to discuss the individual components of book studies communication and show its place in contemporary communication systems and changes occurring in this area of research. Research methods – A method of analysis and criticism of the literature was used. Results and conclusions – The subject of book studies communication is not often the subject of theoretical considerations. The directions of the development of book studies communication from the mid-twentieth century, when it was based on print, to the changes brought about by the digital revolution were followed. Existing models of book science communication are discussed, links to the literary communication system and its place in the social and media communication system are shown. The communication role of book studies was highlighted through the prism of subdisciplines related to book production (editing, digital publishing), its individual and collective circulation (bookselling, librarianship), and to its use and reading behaviour (reading). Originality and cognitive value – The article organizes knowledge about the current development of book science communication and defines its place within various communication models. It shows the duality of the book studies field, situating this science both in the humanities and social sciences, and resulting from its historical connections with various scientific disciplines and various communication models.

A complication of academic research, the emergence of new subject areas at the intersection of different scientific disciplines, increase in international collaboration are accompanied by an increase in the number of co-authors resulting in the problem of author attribution requiring the development of new approaches to detecting authors’ roles and formation of new authorship criteria. The solution of the problem of authorship attribution should specify actual contribution of the scientist to preparing research and the paper, distinguish areas of responsibility of co-authors, and enable certain researchers to accumulate their own reputation capital. The current study presents a review of Russian and foreign approaches for solving this problem including the development of new sections in articles for naming persons who do not match authorship criteria and introduction of models of sequence order of authors. The paper also traces the main stages in the development of authorship criteria, describes the advantages and disadvantages of authorship model as compared to new contributorship model. Transition to the fractional calculation of the contribution of each participant of a research paper is believed to be promising implying significance of the author’s position in the byline and an increased role of paper sections describing the specific contribution of each author.

The use of the concept of a mental image includes several knowledge fields and different scientific disciplines. Its use in contemporary social research has become more apparent in communicative and media studies in general, as well as its abundance in the fields of philosophy, psychology, social psychology and other Knowledge.

Los avances tecnológicos modernos son una necesidad inherente al funcionamiento óptimo de la sociedad del siglo XXI, obligando a las personas a constantes cambios, acorde con las nuevas herramientas de trabajo y socialización. El presente estudio tiene como objetivo describir las implicaciones de la tecnología moderna en el pensamiento social. Este estudio, sustentado en la observación natural, documentado partiendo de la experiencia y fundamentado en investigaciones anteriores, intenta explicar cómo evoluciona la forma de pensar conforme avanza la tecnología, aumentando la productividad, flexibilizando la socialización y desencadenando temas de estudio constantes por las diferentes disciplinas científicas modernas. Se concluye sobre los efectos nocivos del avance acelerado de la tecnología sobre la salud física y mental, resaltando las consecuencias e impacto negativo en el desarrollo psicosocial y llamando la atención de las ciencias sociales, a fin de resaltar la importancia de desarrollar técnicas y procedimientos de abordaje que permitan responder de manera óptima y acorde a la nueva era de la información.

Blockchain technology, and more specifically Bitcoin (one of its foremost applications), have been receiving increasing attention in the scientific community. The first publications with Bitcoin as a topic, can be traced back to 2012. In spite of this short time span, the production magnitude (1162 papers) makes it necessary to make a bibliometric study in order to observe research clusters, emerging topics, and leading scholars. Our paper is aimed at studying the scientific production only around bitcoin, excluding other blockchain applications. Thus, we restricted our search to papers indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, whose topic is "bitcoin". This database is suitable for such diverse disciplines such as economics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science. This bibliometric study draws the landscape of the current state and trends of Bitcoin-related research in different scientific disciplines.

There are a total of several million lakes in the world, which includes only approximately 30 crater lakes. Due to this extreme global rarity, they are the subject of research in many scientific disciplines. In spite of the widespread interest in them, however, many issues still require detailed investigation. In the case of the Morasko crater lake (Poland), hydrological research has been weakly developed so far. The undertaken analysis, which employed a complex research procedure involving the use of georadar, geological corings and bathymetric measurements, aimed to determine the primary bottom of the lake, and further to determine the scale and rate of its evolution. The modern water level suggests that the lake basin is currently approximately 55% filled in with organic matter, and the rate of its sedimentation in the deepest place can be estimated at approximately 0.8 mm·y−1.

Issues related to the evolving role of citizen science and open science are reviewed and discussed in this article. We focus on the changing approaches to science, research and development related to the turn to openness and transparency, which has made science more open and inclusive, even for non-researchers. Reproducible and collaborative research, which is driven by the open access principles, involves citizens in many research fields. The article shows how international support is pushing citizen science forward, and how citizens’ involvement is becoming more important. A basic scientometric analysis (based on the Web of Science Core Collection as the source of peer reviewed articles) provides a first insight into the diffusion of the citizen science concept in the field of Geography, mapping the growth of citizen science articles over time, the spectrum of geographical journals that publish them, and their citation rate compared to other scientific disciplines. The authors also discuss future challenges of citizen science and its potential, which for the time being seems to be not fully utilized in some fields, including geographical research.

Resumen Este artículo realiza una caracterización y sistematización general de las principales investigaciones académicas que tratan sobre los procesos históricos y su relación con el surgimiento y desarrollo de los fenómenos en ciencia, tecnología y medio ambiente en Costa Rica. Se determinan las principales problemáticas que analizan dichos autores, así como las temáticas generales de sus investigaciones y algunos vínculos y colaboraciones académicas entre ellos, lo que permite acercarse a un diagnóstico general del estado del conocimiento en estos campos de estudio. Para realizar este artículo, se emplearon métodos gráficos para analizar las asociaciones entre los investigadores, lo que permite determinar los componentes más generales de la estructura intelectual de los participantes de esta producción académica. La investigación considera tres componentes principales en dicho proceso: 1) los trabajos que tratan la historia de la institucionalización de las disciplinas científicas; 2) aquellos que llevan a cabo un análisis histórico de las relaciones entre el ser humano y la naturaleza en Costa Rica y, vinculado a este, 3) los trabajos que analizan la técnica, la tecnología y el medio ambiente en la historia agraria costarricense. Abstract This article realizes a general characterization and systematization of the main academic research that deals with historical processes and their relationship with the emergence and development of scientific, technological, environmental phenomena in Costa Rica. This paper discusses the main problems raised by these authors, the general themes of their research, and some academic links and collaborations between them, which allows us to approach a general diagnosis of the state of knowledge in these fields of study. To carry out this article, some graphic methods were used to analyze the associations between the researchers, which allows to determine the more general components of the intellectual structure of the participants of the academic production. The research considers three main components in this process: 1) the research studies that deals with the history of the institutionalization of scientific disciplines; 2) those who carry out a historical analysis of the relationship between human beings and nature in Costa Rica, and 3) the works that analyze technique, technology, and the environment in Costa Rican agrarian history.

Editorial decision-making is a fundamental element of the scientific enterprise. We examined whether contributions to editorial decisions at various stages of the publication process is subject to gender disparity, based on analytics collected by the biomedical researcher-led journal eLife. Despite efforts to increase women representation, the board of reviewing editors (BRE) was men-dominant (69%). Moreover, authors suggested more men from the BRE pool, even after correcting for men’s numerical over-representation. Although women editors were proportionally involved in the initial editorial process, they were under-engaged in editorial activities involving reviewers and authors. Additionally, converging evidence showed gender homophily in manuscripts assignment, such that men Senior Editors over-engaged men Reviewing Editors. This tendency was stronger in more gender-balanced scientific disciplines. Together, our findings confirm that gender disparities exist along the editorial process and suggest that merely increasing the proportion of women might not be sufficient to eliminate this bias.

ObjectivesTo help people make decisions about the most effective mitigation measures against SARS-CoV-2 transmission in different scenarios, the likelihoods of transmission by different routes need to be quantified to some degree (however uncertain). These likelihoods need to be communicated in an appropriate way to illustrate the relative importance of different routes in different scenarios, the likely effectiveness of different mitigation measures along those routes, and the level of uncertainty in those estimates. In this study, a pragmatic expert elicitation was undertaken to supply the underlying quantitative values to produce such a communication tool.ParticipantsTwenty-seven individual experts from five countries and many scientific disciplines provided estimates.Outcome measuresEstimates of transmission parameters, assessments of the quality of the evidence, references to relevant literature, rationales for their estimates and sources of uncertainty.Results and conclusionThe participants’ responses showed that there is still considerable disagreement among experts about the relative importance of different transmission pathways and the effectiveness of different mitigation measures due to a lack of empirical evidence. Despite these disagreements, when pooled, the majority views on each parameter formed an internally consistent set of estimates (for example, that transmission was more likely indoors than outdoors, and at closer range), which formed the basis of a visualisation to help individuals and organisations understand the factors that influence transmission and the potential benefits of different mitigation measures.

The objective of this investigation was to analyze scientific production assessed by indexed doctoral theses in the Ordered Spanish Theses (TESEO) database, on the topic of the sport of handball in Spain. Productivity was analyzed on the basis of variables grouped by contextual information, methodologies and procedures. Seventy-two indexed theses from between 1976 and 2021 were analyzed. A progressive increase was identified in scientific production based on these theses during this period. The scientific disciplines that presented the highest number of theses were Sport Sciences (n = 33) and Sport Pedagogy (n = 19). The main results show that quantitative approaches are the most common (n = 49), doctoral theses using descriptive studies based on systematic observation represent the majority (73%), the predominant type of data collection was the use of cross-sectional studies (70.8%) versus longitudinal studies (26.4%), and the most used sampling method was that of convenience (n = 65). The results make it possible to ascertain the reality of this research topic, the methodological positioning and research tendencies, and to draw the basic lines for development.

International audience; The European Federation for Medicinal chemistry and Chemical biology (EFMC) is a federation of learned societies. It groups organizations of European scientists working in a dynamic field spanning chemical biology and medicinal chemistry. New ideas, tools, and technologies emerging from a wide array of scientific disciplines continuously energize this rapidly evolving area. Medicinal chemistry is the design, synthesis, and optimization of biologically active molecules aimed at discovering new drug candidatesa mission that in many ways overlaps with the scope of chemical biology. Chemical biology is by now a mature field of science for which a more precise definition of what it englobes, in the frame of EFMC, is timely. This article discusses chemical biology as currently understood by EFMC, including all activities dealing with the design and synthesis of biologically active chemical tools and their use to probe, characterize, or influence biological systems.

The number of datasets is steadily rising, making it increasingly difficult for researchers and practitioners in the various scientific disciplines to be aware of all datasets, particularly of the most relevant datasets for a given research problem. To this end, dataset search engines have been proposed. However, they are based on the users’ keywords and thus have difficulties in determining precisely fitting datasets for complex research problems. In this paper, we propose the system at http://data-hunter.io that recommends suitable datasets to users based on given research problem descriptions. It is based on fastText for the text representation and text classification, the Data Set Knowledge Graph (DSKG) with metadata about almost 1,700 unique datasets, as well as 88,000 paper abstracts as research problem descriptions for training the model. Overall, our system demonstrates that recommending datasets facilitates data provisioning and reuse according to the FAIR principles and that dataset recommendation is a promising future research direction.

COVID-19 disease is an infectious disease caused by Coronavirus. Studying COVID-19 influencing factors has become essential by many researchers in various scientific disciplines. This study analyzes factors that may impact the total COVID-19 infection and death cases in selected countries. The factors we study are population density, age, healthcare factors, temperature, humidity, wind speed, and government responses. We utilize exploratory data analysis techniques and statistical measures to understand the relationships between variables. The results show that the population density factor, age, and government measures are strongly correlated with the total infection and death cases, whereas, temperature, humidity, and wind speed factors are not correlated with cases. This study may help in containing the disease and limiting its spread.

Most scientific investigators conduct well-designed and controlled preclinical experiments generating data that are difficult to explain, contrast with existing scientific dogma, or represent a perceived negative result. It is common for these findings to remain hidden away in a drawer from the greater scientific community. However, these unseen results can lead to publication bias, have the potential to significantly advance scientific disciplines if they are published, and can help investigators avoid repeating experiments that have already been done, thus saving money and time. Moreover, these unexpected data may actually have significance if re-interpreted leading to new hypotheses. This editorial commentary highlights a novel user-friendly tool developed by Bernard and colleagues (Clin Sci (Lond) (2020) 134 (20): 2729–2739) to help investigators determine appropriate options for disseminating unpublished data in order to make them available to the broader scientific community. In addition, this commentary serves as an announcement for an upcoming special call for papers on meta-research to be published in Clinical Science. Meta-research is the evaluation and study of existing scientific literature and data. It is an evolving field dedicated to improving rigor and reproducibility in science, an endeavor to which Clinical Science and Portland Press are committed.

To determine author and journal self-citation rates in a sample of original emergency medicine (EM) research articles.We undertook a retrospective observational study of original research articles published in 2019 in the top six English language general EM journals. Data comprised the total numbers of articles, citations, authors and self-citations for each author (author self-citations) as well as the number of articles in the reference list that had been previously published in the same journal (journal self-citations).3213 individual authors and 581 articles were examined. Most authors did not self-cite at all although 62 self-cited five or more times in a single article. The mean (SD) and median (IQR) numbers of individual author self-citations/article/year were 0.6 (1.3) and 0 (0-1), respectively. Overall, author self-citations accounted for 2.4% of all cited articles. There was a weak positive but significant correlation between the number of individual author self-citations/article/year and the number of articles published by the author (r = 0.38, p 0.001). There was no correlation between the journal impact factor (IF) and the author self-citation rate (r = 0.14, p = 0.79). The journals differed significantly in their author self-citation rates (p 0.001). Annals of Emergency Medicine had the highest journal self-citation rate at 8.1% (95%CI 7.0%-9.2%) self-citations/100 citations/year, almost twice that of some other journals. There was a large but non-significant positive correlation between the journal IF and journal self-citation rates (r = 0.78, p = 0.07).Both author and journal self-citation rates in the articles examined are relatively low compared to other medical and scientific disciplines.

Acquiring computing skills is essential not only to work in computer science but also because many impactful discoveries occur at the interface between traditional scientific disciplines and computing and data science. Time-bounded events such as hackathons can provide an opportunity for newcomers to experience programming firsthand in a collaborative environment. Just providing access to computational resources, however, is not sufficient because newcomers will likely require guidance and support in order for them to perceive their participation in a hackathon as a positive experience propelling them to future success in the subject. We have developed a hackathon format for this purpose that we have successfully applied during in-person events for two years. The global pandemic of 2020, however, forced us to move towards a virtual format. In this paper, we report on our experience making this transition. We will specifically elaborate on two online events, discuss successes and failures and provide suggestions for hackathon organizers.

Principal component analysis (PCA) has been applied to analyze random fields in various scientific disciplines. However, the explainability of PCA remains elusive unless strong domain-specific knowledge is available. This paper provides a theoretical framework that builds a duality between the PCA eigenmodes of a random field and eigenstates of a Schrödinger equation. Based on the duality we propose the Schrödinger PCA algorithm to replace the expensive PCA solver with a more sample-efficient Schrödinger equation solver. We verify the validity of the theory and the effectiveness of the algorithm with numerical experiments.

Evolution algebras are currently widely studied due to their importance not only “per se” but also for their many applications to different scientific disciplines, such as Physics or Engineering, for instance. This paper deals with these types of algebras and their applications. A criterion for classifying those satisfying certain conditions is given and an algorithm to obtain degenerate evolution algebras starting from those of smaller dimensions is also analyzed and constructed.

The coronavirus became a phenomenon in 2020, which is making an unwanted but wide space for the study of various scientific disciplines. The COVID-19 pandemic situation which has reached almost the whole civilized world by its consequences thus offers a unique possibility to analyze the graphic space and the human activities inside it. The aim of this study is to predict and identify the potential rate of threat on the example of COVID-19 in Slovakia through an established model. This model consisted of an assessment of the partial phenomena of exposure, vulnerability, and overall risk. The statistical data used to evaluate these phenomena concerned individual cities in Slovakia. These represent the smallest administrative unit. Indirect methods based on the point method were applied in the paper. The spreading and transfer of the disease was influenced much more by the exposure presented by traffic availability, especially, but also the concentration of inhabitants in the selected locations (shops, cemeteries, and others). In the results, our modeling confirmed the regions with the highest intensity, especially in the districts (Bratislava, Košice, Prešov, and Nitra). The selection of the data and method used in this study together with the results reached and presented may serve as an appropriate tool for the support of decision-making of other measures for the future.

Within the past few decades, the application of light scattering techniques to a broad range of scientific disciplines has increased significantly, especially in the field of analytical chemistry. The resulting interest in and use of light scattering methods suggests the need for an easily understood introduction and review of material for those new to the method as well as for current users in need of a refresher. In many respects, the theory and its applications may appear so overwhelming for many studying the field for the first time, that they rarely can spend the time just needed to understand the basic measurements and their interpretations. A variety of applications in analytical chemistry especially have resulted in a greater understanding of many of the macromolecular processes themselves from molar mass distributions, to the macromolecular interactions responsible for aggregation processes, to determinations of structure and function. The use of such analytical processes to obtain a better understanding of nanoparticle structure and function has become almost universal., Graphical abstract Image 1, Highlights • Deriving the distribution of fractionated macromolecules by light scattering. • Deriving the distribution of fractionated nanoparticles by light scattering. • Deriving the masses of fractionated macromolecules from their scattered light. • Deriving the size of nanoparticles from the angular variation of scattered light. • Deriving bacterial size and structure by light scattering.

Background A minimum dataset (MDS) can be determined ad hoc by an investigator or small team; by a metadata expert; or by using a consensus method to take advantage of the global knowledge and expertise of a large group of experts. The first method is the most commonly applied. Objective Here, we describe a use of the third approach using a modified Delphi method to determine the optimal MDS for a dataset of full body computed tomography scans. The scans are of decedents whose deaths were investigated at the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator and constitute the New Mexico Decedent Image Database (NMDID). Methods The authors initiated the consensus process by suggesting 50 original variables to elicit expert reactions. Experts were recruited from a variety of scientific disciplines and from around the world. Three rounds of variable selection showed high rates of consensus. Results In total, 59 variables were selected, only 52% of which the original resource authors selected. Using a snowball method, a second set of experts was recruited to validate the variables chosen in the design phase. During the validation phase, no variables were selected for deletion. Conclusion NMDID is likely to remain more “future proof” than if a single metadata expert or only the original team of investigators designed the metadata.

En el presente artículo se analiza el proceso de licenciamiento para la utilización y cultivo de la planta de cannabis en Colombia a la luz de la legislación vigente, y los retos en cuanto a la elaboración de productos terminados derivados del cannabis y a la regulación de productos de cannabis diferentes a los empleados para fines medicinales o de investigación. Todo avance en materia de cannabis es resultado del trabajo mancomunado de diferentes disciplinas de la ciencia dirigido a lograr una mejor caracterización de esta planta domesticada. Sin embargo, estos avances solo tendrán una real aplicación práctica que beneficie a la sociedad si la regulación así lo permite.

Neurons are highly polarized cells that critically depend on long-range, bidirectional transport between the cell body and synapse for their function. This continual and highly coordinated trafficking process, which takes place via the axon, has fascinated researchers since the early 20th century. Ramon y Cajal first proposed the existence of axonal trafficking of biological material after observing that dissociation of the axon from the cell body led to neuronal degeneration. Since these first indirect observations, the field has come a long way in its understanding of this fundamental process. However, these advances in our knowledge have been aided by breakthroughs in other scientific disciplines, as well as the parallel development of novel tools, techniques and model systems. In this review, we summarize the evolution of tools used to study axonal transport and discuss how their deployment has refined our understanding of this process. We also highlight innovative tools currently being developed and how their addition to the available axonal transport toolkit might help to address key outstanding questions.

Thoracic injuries, specifically rib fractures, are of significant clinical and forensic interest and occur in high frequencies in homicides, accidents, and motor vehicle crashes. However, current analysis of rib fractures lacks a systematic method for characterizing and interpreting these injuries. The goal of the present research is to provide a standardized classification system dedicated to describing and quantifying fractures for utilization across scientific disciplines. The novel system was designed around identifying rib fracture characteristics (location, pattern of propagation, number, and severity) and using these characteristics to describe, quantify, and classify fractures using a three-part hierarchical method. For validation, mid-thoracic ribs (n = 347) were subjected to dynamic anterior-posterior blunt force loading (i.e., a bending mechanism), and the resulting fractures were analyzed using our rib fracture classification system. Fracture locations, defined as a percentage of the total curve length of each rib, ranged from 11–89% (mean = 63%), and six different fracture groups were observed. The number of fractures observed per rib ranged from one to three, and injury severities—based on the hierarchical severityof each fracture group and the number of fractures present—of each rib ranged from minor to severe. The success rate in classifying fractures was 99.2%. This novel fracture classification system provides additional detail and clarity for defining features of rib fractures compared to previous methods. By establishing common language and specific fracture characteristics to include in all rib fracture analyses,this classification system has the potential to be utilized across disciplines (i.e., clinical, forensic, and biomechanical settings).

The academic world is developing rapidly with many new countries becoming significant contributors to research. One important strategic issue is to ensure that the collaboration network develops at least in the same pace as the academic world is developing. This study proposes a new method to compare countries’ growth in research, thus highlighting that Indonesia, Iran and Pakistan are the countries with the highest growth among all countries with more than 10,000 Scopus publications in 2018. A new indicator for collaboration intensity is also proposed, which makes it easy to check to what extent the collaboration pattern incorporates countries with rapid growth. Using Sweden and Indonesia as examples, the study shows differences on national level as well as between different scientific disciplines. Whereas Sweden’s collaboration is very much focusing on other mature research countries with low growth, Indonesia’s collaboration is including other countries with rapid growth. In terms of policy, the study and the proposed methodology support better-informed strategy decisions as regards the prioritisation of countries for research collaboration. It argues that there is a need for strategies and policy support at different levels, if a more balanced mix of research collaboration is to be obtained. To manage rapid changes, it might be necessary to shift from a mainly reactive development of the collaborations to a more proactive one that fosters links to the rapidly developing research countries.

We examined the long-term impact of coauthorship with established, highly-cited scientists on the careers of junior researchers in four scientific disciplines. Here, using matched pair analysis, we find that junior researchers who coauthor work with top scientists enjoy a persistent competitive advantage throughout the rest of their careers, compared to peers with similar early career profiles but without top coauthors. Such early coauthorship predicts a higher probability of repeatedly coauthoring work with top-cited scientists, and, ultimately, a higher probability of becoming one. Junior researchers affiliated with less prestigious institutions show the most benefits from coauthorship with a top scientist. As a consequence, we argue that such institutions may hold vast amounts of untapped potential, which may be realised by improving access to top scientists., By examining publication records of scientists from four disciplines, the authors show that coauthoring a paper with a top-cited scientist early in one's career predicts lasting increases in career success, especially for researchers affiliated with less prestigious institutions.

There has been demonstrated a sharp increase of chemical pressing on the environment and human health, detection of hundreds of chemical compounds in different environmental objects, most of such chemicals have no hygienic standards. There are presented main disadvantages oKikuworks on the risks assessment of the impact ofpolluted environment on human health. There are indicated priority directions of the improvement of the analysis methodology and risk management, based on modern international achievements, as well as evaluation of detriments to the environment and human health with taking into account world systems as follows: AirQ (WHO), IEHIA and APHEIS (EU), FERET and EPA (USA), EAHEAP and COMEAP (GreatBritain), ECOSENSE (Germany), AirPack (EU, France), AQVM (Canada), and also domestic of TERA 2,5 (module EpidRisk). The integral evaluation of the scientific disciplines “Human Ecology”, “EnvironmentalHealth” and “EnvironmentalMedicine” is given. Comparative conceptual considertion of the terms “Environment”, “Habitat” and their international application is given.

A journalist competence as intended in the Press Council Regulation is interpreted as knowledge capability without affirmation for journalists who have knowledge of certain scientific disciplines. The meaning is all journalists from any discipline may be recognized as journalists who have the competence to apply the presumption of innocence in reporting. This arrangement in journalistic practice, the press often appears' 'judgmental' in the news because the use of the terms is often interpreted the same, even though the law holds very different meanings, such as the suspect is written as the perpetrator, released is written as free, not accepted is written as rejected, sentenced to trial is written as the judge free it. To prevent the violation of the presumption of innocence principle in reporting, the regulation of journalists' competencies must be emphasized from intellectual abilities and general knowledge to legal knowledge. The affirmation is directly correlated with the news object which is in the realm of law as a function of the press that is obliged to respect the presumption of innocence principle.

The Mid-Atlantic Twin Registry (MATR) is a population-based registry of more than 60,000 twins primarily born or living in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Researchers may utilize the MATR for administration of research services, including study recruitment, data or sample (e.g., DNA) collection, archival dataset creation, as well as data collection through mailed, phone or online surveys. In addition, the MATR houses the MATR Repository, with over 1700 DNA samples primarily from whole blood available for researchers interested in DNA genotyping. For over 40 years MATR twins have participated in research studies with investigators from a range of scientific disciplines and institutions. These studies, which have resulted in numerous publications, explored diverse topics, including substance use, smoking behaviors, developmental psychopathology, bullying, children’s health, cardiovascular disease, cancer, the human microbiome, epigenetics of aging, children of twins and sleep homeostasis. Researchers interested in utilizing twins are encouraged to contact the MATR to discuss potential research opportunities.

The movement for open access publishing (OA) is often said to have its roots in the scientific disciplines, having been popularized by scientific publishers and formalized through a range of top‐down policy interventions. But there is an often‐neglected prehistory of OA that can be found in the early DIY publishers of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Managed entirely by working academics, these journals published research in the humanities and social sciences and stand out for their unique set of motivations and practices. This article explores this separate lineage in the history of the OA movement through a critical‐theoretical analysis of the motivations and practices of the early scholar‐led publishers. Alongside showing the involvement of the humanities and social sciences in the formation of OA, the analysis reveals the importance that these journals placed on experimental practices, critique of commercial publishing, and the desire to reach new audiences. Understood in today's context, this research is significant for adding complexity to the history of OA, which policymakers, advocates, and publishing scholars should keep in mind as OA goes mainstream.

Thomas Kuhn suggested that symbolic generalizations are applied to concrete systems by a process involving exemplars and analogical reasoning. Using the related concepts of theoretical and formal templates, I argue that the process of applying templates can in some cases be made explicit and that we do not need to rely on similarity relations and tacit knowledge. In so doing I show how some formal models can be transferred from one scientific field to another. Examples include scale-free networks, the Lotka-Volterra model from biology, and the Goodwin model in economics. I also argue that this explicit approach has advantages over the more psychologically oriented approach of Kuhn and explain the sense in which templates do and do not produce unification.

In the last 30 yr, basin and petroleum system modeling (BPSM) has evolved into a large and diverse field encompassing a broad range of scientific disciplines. As BPSM is applied to an increasingly wide range of problems, what are, or should be, the future directions in the evolution of BPSM comes into question. To address this question, a survey was conducted at the AAPG Hedberg Research Conference on “The Future of Basin and Petroleum Systems Modeling,” held in Santa Barbara, California, April 3–8, 2016. To capture the full range of thoughts, participants were asked to list in priority order what they think are the three most important future directions in BPSM. The responses were collated into six general categories for analysis. The categorization process involved some qualitative judgements because some areas spanned several of the general areas. The results show that the most frequently cited directions are related to BPSM workflows, organizations, and processes. This category includes how modelers are used in an organization, how projects are executed, and how the results are interpreted and integrated. Migration modeling (primary and secondary) is the most frequently cited technical need. The results indicate that migration processes are not well understood and there are still substantial differences of thought about the processes involved and the best ways to model them. Some subjects, such as uncertainty and unconventionals, were mentioned in several of the general categories, whereas other subjects, such as increased functionality in the models, were only seldom mentioned.

The article describes thirteen folk (unscientific) etymologies of eleven place names included in Romuald Fryderowicz’s 2013 book Podania i legendy pomorskie zebrane w latach 1914–1922 [Pomeranian legends collected in the years 1914–1922]. A folk etymology is defined as ‘scientifically incorrect explanation of the origins of a word based on the similarity of its form to other words or other casual associations’.The analysed pseudo‑etymologies concern the following place names: Borkowo, Górzno, Osie, Przechowo, Rudki, Tleń, Tuchola, Warzno, Wysin, Zawory and Zblewo; the book devotes two pseudo-etymologies to Tuchola and Wysin each. Some of these pseudo etymologies come from a field exploration, but as much as seven of them occur to be pseudo-scientific. The author uses this term for unprofessional (contrary to onomastic methodology) explanations of the structure and meaning of a word using the research results of various scientific disciplines, especially history.

Anticipating the need to evaluate and integrate scientific evidence to inform new risk assessments or to update existing risk assessments, the Formaldehyde Panel of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), in collaboration with the University of North Carolina, convened a workshop: “Understanding Potential Human Health Cancer Risk - From Data Integration to Risk Evaluation” in October 2017. Twenty-four (24)invited-experts participated with expertise in epidemiology, toxicology, science integration and risk evaluation. Including members of the organizing committee, there were 29 participants. The meeting included eleven presentations encompassing an introduction and three sessions: (1)“integrating the formaldehyde science on nasal/nasopharyngeal carcinogenicity and potential for causality”; (2)“integrating the formaldehyde science on lymphohematopoietic cancer and potential for causality; and, (3)“formaldehyde research-data suitable for risk assessment”. Here we describe key points from the presentations on epidemiology, toxicology and mechanistic studies that should inform decisions about the potential carcinogenicity of formaldehyde in humans and the discussions about approaches for structuring an integrated, comprehensive risk assessment for formaldehyde. We also note challenges expected when attempting to reconcile divergent results observed from research conducted within and across different scientific disciplines - especially toxicology and epidemiology - and in integrating diverse, multi-disciplinary mechanistic evidence.