Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Science Community (science + community)
Selected AbstractsPrinciples and Practices of Knowledge Creation: On the Organization of "Buzz" and "Pipelines" in Life Science CommunitiesECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Issue 4 2008Jerker Moodysson abstract This article links up with the debate in economic geography on "local buzz" and "global pipelines" as two distinct forms of interactive knowledge creation among firms and related actors and argues for a rethinking of the way social scientists should approach interactive knowledge creation. It highlights the importance of combining the insights from studies of clusters and innovation systems with an activity-oriented approach in which more attention is paid to the specific characteristics of the innovation processes and the conditions underpinning their organization. To illustrate the applicability and added value of such an alternative approach, the notion of embeddedness is linked with some basic ideas adopted from the literature on knowledge communities. The framework is then applied to a study of innovation activities conducted by firms and academic research groups working with biotechnology-related applications in the Swedish part of the Medicon Valley life science region. The findings reveal that local buzz is largely absent in these types of activities. Most interactive knowledge creation, which appears to be spontaneous and unregulated, is, on closer examination, found safely embedded in globally configured professional knowledge communities and attainable only by those who qualify. [source] Portal-based Knowledge Environment for Collaborative ScienceCONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 12 2007Karen Schuchardt Abstract The Knowledge Environment for Collaborative Science (KnECS) is an open-source informatics toolkit designed to enable knowledge Grids that interconnect science communities, unique facilities, data, and tools. KnECS features a Web portal with team and data collaboration tools, lightweight federation of data, provenance tracking, and multi-level support for application integration. We identify the capabilities of KnECS and discuss extensions from the Collaboratory for Multi-Scale Chemical Sciences (CMCS) which enable diverse combustion science communities to create and share verified, documented data sets and reference data, thereby demonstrating new methods of community interaction and data interoperability required by systems science approaches. Finally, we summarize the challenges we encountered and foresee for knowledge environments. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Quantitative Raman spectroscopy: speciation of cesium silicate glassesJOURNAL OF RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY, Issue 12 2009Wim J. Malfait Abstract The silicate speciation forms an important aspect of the structure of silicate melts, a subject of interest to both the earth- and materials science communities. In this study, the Qn speciation of binary cesium silicate glasses was studied by Raman spectroscopy. A method to extract the equilibrium constant from a set of Raman spectra is presented, and the least-squares optimization algorithm is given (in Supporting Information). Log(K), the equilibrium constant of the speciation reaction, 2Q3 = Q4 + Q2, equals ,2.72 ± 0.11 at the glass transition. This extends the previously established correlation between log(K) and the inverse of the ionic radius of the network modifier to cesium. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Cover Picture: Electrophoresis 8/2008ELECTROPHORESIS, Issue 8 2008Article first published online: 17 APR 200 Regular issues provide a wide range of research and review articles covering all aspects of electrophoresis. Here you will find cutting-edge articles on methods and theory, instrumentation, nucleic acids, CE and CEC, miniaturization and microfluidics, proteomics and two-dimensional electrophoresis. On April 2 Professor Hjertén celebrated his 80th birthday, and it is an honor to take this opportunity to congratulate him on this special occasion and at the same time on his fruitful work. Stellan Hjertén's distinguished personality in research and life makes this celebration very special. It is therefore appropriate to devote a separate laudation in ELECTROPHORESIS to his achievements through which he has attained renown within the separation science community: indeed, he is considered undoubtedly to be the "Father of Capillary Electrophoresis". Professor Hjertén's preliminary work with Arne Tiselius motivated him to commit his career to electrophoresis: the development of free zone electrophoresis certainly revolutionized separation science, and since the construction of the first "capillary electrophoresis" equipment, one of the most cited works in this field carries his name. His friends were very keen to contribute manuscripts to this Issue, covering almost all areas in which Professor Hjertén has worked in his distinguished career. [source] A view of extraterrestrial soilsEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOIL SCIENCE, Issue 6 2009G. Certini Summary The nature of soils on celestial bodies other than Earth is a growing area of research in planetary geology. However, disagreement over the significance of these deposits arises, in part, through the lack of a unified concept and definition of soil in the literature. The pragmatic definition ,medium for plant growth' is taken by some to imply the necessity of biota for soil to exist, and has been commonly adopted in the planetary science community. In contrast, a more complex and informative definition is based on scientific theory: soil is the (bio)geochemically/physically altered material at the surface of a planetary body that encompasses surficial extraterrestrial telluric deposits. This definition is based on the premise that soil is a body that retains information about its environmental history and that it does not need the presence of life to form. Four decades of missions have gathered geochemical information regarding the surface of planets and bodies within the Solar System, and information is quickly increasing. Reviewing the current knowledge on properties of extraterrestrial regoliths, we conclude that the surficial deposits of Venus, Mars and our moon should be considered to be soils in a pedological sense, and that Mercury and some large asteroids are covered in mantles that are soil candidates. A key environmental distinction between Earth and other Solar System bodies is the presence of life, and because of this dissimilarity in soil-forming processes, it is reasonable to distinguish these (presently) abiotic soils as Astrosols. Attempts to provide detailed classifications of extraterrestrial soils are premature, given our poor current knowledge of the Universe, but they highlight the fact that Earth possesses almost-abiotic environments that lend themselves to providing more understanding about telluric bodies of the Solar System. "He found himself in the neighbourhood of the asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, and 330. He began, therefore, by visiting them, in order to add to his knowledge." (Excerpt from the The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) [source] Development of fire-retarded materials,Interpretation of cone calorimeter dataFIRE AND MATERIALS, Issue 5 2007B. Schartel Abstract There is little consensus within the fire science community on interpretation of cone calorimeter data, but there is a significant need to screen new flammability modified materials using the cone calorimeter. This article is the result of several discussions aiming to provide guidance in the use and interpretation of cone calorimetry for those directly involved with such measurements. This guidance is essentially empirical, and is not intended to replace the comprehensive scientific studies that already exist. The guidance discusses the fire scenario with respect to applied heat flux, length scale, temperature, ventilation, anaerobic pyrolysis and set-up represented by the cone calorimeter. The fire properties measured in the cone calorimeter are discussed, including heat release rate and its peak, the mass loss and char yield, effective heat of combustion and combustion efficiency, time to ignition and CO and smoke production together with deduced quantities such as FIGRA and MARHE. Special comments are made on the use of the cone calorimeter relating to sample thickness, textiles, foams and intumescent materials, and the distance of the cone heater from the sample surface. Finally, the relationship between cone calorimetry data and other tests is discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Stacking the Nanochemistry Deck: Structural and Compositional Diversity in One-Dimensional Photonic CrystalsADVANCED MATERIALS, Issue 16 2009Leonardo D. Bonifacio Abstract One-dimensional photonic structures, known as Bragg stacks or Bragg reflectors or Bragg mirrors, represent a well-developed subject in the field of optical science. However, because of a lack of dynamic tunability and their dependence on complex top-down techniques for their fabrication, they have received little attention from the materials science community. Herein, we present recent and ongoing developments on the way to functional one-dimensional photonic structures obtained from simple bottom-up techniques. We focus on the versatility of this new approach, which allows the incorporation of a wide range of materials into photonic structures. [source] Applying aggregation operators for information access systems: An application in digital librariesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, Issue 12 2008Enrique Herrera-Viedma Nowadays, the information access on the Web is a main problem in the computer science community. Any major advance in the field of information access on the Web requires the collaboration of different methodologies and research areas. In this paper, the concept of aggregation operator playing a role for information access on the Web is analyzed. We present some Web methodologies, as search engines, recommender systems, and Web quality evaluation models and analyze the way aggregation operators help toward the success of their activities. We also show an application of the aggregation operators in digital libraries. In particular, we introduce a Web information system to analyze the quality of digital libraries that implements an important panel of aggregation operators to obtain the quality assessments. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Science versus Human Welfare?JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES, Issue 3 2009Understanding Attitudes toward Animal Use Scientists have been portrayed as having an uncaring attitude toward the use of animals and being inclined to reject the possibility of animal mind (Baldwin, 1993; Blumberg & Wasserman, 1995), yet there is little empirical research to support these claims. We examined why disparate attitudes toward animal use are held. Scientists, animal welfarists, and laypersons (N = 372) were compared on questionnaire responses that measured attitudes toward four types of animal use, and factors that might underlie these views (including belief in animal mind). As expected, scientists and animal welfarists held polarized views on all measures, whereas laypersons fell between the two. Animal welfarists were consistently opposed to all types of animal use, whereas scientists expressed support for the use of animals for medical research, but not for dissection, personal decoration, and entertainment. Animal welfarists showed high levels of belief in animal mind for 13 animal types, and scientists believed some of the 13 animals to have at least a moderate capacity for cognition and most to have at least a moderate capacity for sentience. Hence, the negative image of the science community that is often portrayed was not supported by our data. Findings were discussed in relation to external (group membership) and internal (belief systems) factors, and it is concluded that some people hold fixed attitudes toward animal use, whereas others are more influenced by context. [source] Bayesian change-point analysis for atomic force microscopy and soft material indentationJOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES C (APPLIED STATISTICS), Issue 4 2010Daniel Rudoy Summary., Material indentation studies, in which a probe is brought into controlled physical contact with an experimental sample, have long been a primary means by which scientists characterize the mechanical properties of materials. More recently, the advent of atomic force microscopy, which operates on the same fundamental principle, has in turn revolutionized the nanoscale analysis of soft biomaterials such as cells and tissues. The paper addresses the inferential problems that are associated with material indentation and atomic force microscopy, through a framework for the change-point analysis of pre-contact and post-contact data that is applicable to experiments across a variety of physical scales. A hierarchical Bayesian model is proposed to account for experimentally observed change-point smoothness constraints and measurement error variability, with efficient Monte Carlo methods developed and employed to realize inference via posterior sampling for parameters such as Young's modulus, which is a key quantifier of material stiffness. These results are the first to provide the materials science community with rigorous inference procedures and quantification of uncertainty, via optimized and fully automated high throughput algorithms, implemented as the publicly available software package BayesCP. To demonstrate the consistent accuracy and wide applicability of this approach, results are shown for a variety of data sets from both macromaterials and micromaterials experiments,including silicone, neurons and red blood cells,conducted by the authors and others. [source] Learning as Problem Design Versus Problem Solving: Making the Connection Between Cognitive Neuroscience Research and Educational PracticeMIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION, Issue 2 2008Jason L. Ablin ABSTRACT, How can current findings in neuroscience help educators identify particular cognitive strengths in students? In this commentary on Immordino-Yang's research regarding Nico and Brooke, I make 3 primary assertions: (a) the cognitive science community needs to develop an accessible language and mode of communicating applicable research to educators, (b) educators need proper professional development in order to understand and relate current research findings to practice in the classroom, and (c) the specific research on Nico and Brooke clearly suggests that educators need to rethink the classroom as a place not of problem solving but rather problem design in order to further understand and use the cognitive strengths of each individual student. [source] Curing the Atomic Bomb Within: The Relationship of American Social Scientists to Nuclear Weapons in the Early Cold WarPEACE & CHANGE, Issue 3 2010Robert A. Jacobs This article looks at the initial response of the social science community to the advent of nuclear weapons and their use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The idea that human society as a whole was not sophisticated enough to responsibly steward nuclear weapons was widespread among American sociologists and psychologists: if society needed to change, many social scientists felt compelled to engineer that transformation. Fundamental to this effort was an analysis of the roots of human violence. I argue that this was a fundamental misdiagnosis that placed the blame in individuated human violence rather than in the organized social violence of militarism. The final section of the article explores the role of social scientists in planning for nuclear war and in creating and assessing the indoctrination of U.S. troops participating in nuclear weapons testing. This indoctrination would form the model for later indoctrinations aimed at easing general public distress over nuclear weapons testing. [source] Considerations for the next generation of solar telescopes: A systems approach to solar physicsASTRONOMISCHE NACHRICHTEN, Issue 6 2010A. TitleArticle first published online: 18 JUN 2010 The exciting new high resolution images from the one meter Sunrise balloon telescope and the first images from the 1.6 meter Big Bear telescope together with the continuing data from the 1 meter Swedish Solar Observatory demonstrate the promise of the new generation of multimeter solar telescopes. While the promise of the new generation of telescopes is great the technical challenges to build them will require the efforts of a significant fraction of the solar community. In this talk I will emphasize the need for an integrated systems approach to the development of the telescope, its instruments, its software, and its operations and management structures. The experience of several decades of space mission has taught us a great deal about the value of planning mission development from the definition of the primary scientific objectives to the delivery of the data to the science community. Much of these lessons learned, often painfully, should provide guidance to those in developing the new telescope systems (© 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source] New faces at UK Planetary ForumASTRONOMY & GEOPHYSICS, Issue 3 2009Article first published online: 29 MAY 200 The UK Planetary Forum (UKPF), an organization that represents the UK planetary science community, has a new committee. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||