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"A bare outpost of learned European culture on the edge of the jungles of Java": Johan Maurits Mohr (1716-1775) and the emergence of instrumental and institutional science in Dutch colonial Indonesia.

The transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769 appear to mark the starting point of instrumental science in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). This essay examines the conditions that triggered and constituted instrumental and institutional science on Indonesian soil in the late eighteenth century. In 1765 the Reverend J. M. Mohr, whose wife had received a large inheritance, undertook to build a fully equipped private observatory in Batavia (now Jakarta). There he made several major astronomical and meteorological observations. Mohr's initiative inspired other Europeans living on Java around 1770 to start a scientific movement. Because of the lack of governmental and other support, it was not until 1778 that this offspring of the Dutch-Indonesian Enlightenment became a reality. The Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen tried from the beginning to put into effect the program Mohr had outlined. The members even bought his instruments from his widow, intending to continue his measurements. For a number of reasons, however, this instrumental program was more than the society could support. Around 1790 instrumental science in the former Dutch East Indies came to a standstill, not to be resumed for several decades.

Astronomy↗

From peptide-based material science to protein fibrils: discipline convergence in nanobiology.

This paper illustrates the merits of convergence in nanobiology of two seemingly disparate fields, material science and computational biology. Traditionally, material science has been a discipline involving design and fabrication of synthetic polymers consisting of repeating units. Collaboration with synthetic organic chemists allowed design of new polymers, with a range of altered conformations. Yet, naturally occurring proteins are also materials. Their varied sequences and structures should enrich material science providing more complex shapes, scaffolds and chemical properties. For material scientists, the enhanced coverage of chemical space obtained by integrating proteins and synthetic organic chemistry through the introduction of non-natural residues allows a range of new useful potential applications.

Biocompatible Materials↗

Introduction: papers from the National Institutes of Health State-of-the-Science Conference on Improving End-of-Life Care.

A 1997 Institute of Medicine report cited growing public concern about the quality of care in the U.S. health care system for persons at the end of life. The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), the lead Institute at the National Institutes of Health for end-of-life research, has conducted a number of public forums to gather information and to assist in identifying research priorities. The complexity of biomedical research requires new methods of discovery, and scientists must use a broad approach and explore new models of team science. In December 2004, NINR and the NIH Office of Medical Applications of Research, along with many co-sponsors, held an interdisciplinary State-of-the-Science Conference on Improving End-of-Life Care. The conference panel identified many gaps in our current state of knowledge and provided suggestions for future research directions. This supplement presents papers from a distinguished group of scientists with a wide range of backgrounds who participated in this state-of-the-science conference.

Humans↗

YeastHub: a semantic web use case for integrating data in the life sciences domain.

MOTIVATION: As the semantic web technology is maturing and the need for life sciences data integration over the web is growing, it is important to explore how data integration needs can be addressed by the semantic web. The main problem that we face in data integration is a lack of widely-accepted standards for expressing the syntax and semantics of the data. We address this problem by exploring the use of semantic web technologies-including resource description framework (RDF), RDF site summary (RSS), relational-database-to-RDF mapping (D2RQ) and native RDF data repository-to represent, store and query both metadata and data across life sciences datasets. RESULTS: As many biological datasets are presently available in tabular format, we introduce an RDF structure into which they can be converted. Also, we develop a prototype web-based application called YeastHub that demonstrates how a life sciences data warehouse can be built using a native RDF data store (Sesame). This data warehouse allows integration of different types of yeast genome data provided by different resources in different formats including the tabular and RDF formats. Once the data are loaded into the data warehouse, RDF-based queries can be formulated to retrieve and query the data in an integrated fashion. AVAILABILITY: The YeastHub website is accessible via the following URL: http://yeasthub.gersteinlab.org.

Biology↗

Establishing a culture of care, conscience, and responsibility: addressing the improvement of scientific discovery and animal welfare through science-based performance standards.

Science-based performance standards offer a viable means of reducing regulatory burden while ensuring that research animal welfare and high-quality research data are realized. Unlike rigid regulations, science-based performance standards evolve as new information becomes available, thereby allowing new discoveries to be implemented in a timely manner and in a way that more effectively benefits the animals and the science. The implementation of performance standards requires a well-coordinated institutional team composed of the administration, research staff, the institutional animal care and use committee, professional and technical animal care personnel, occupational health and safety staff, and physical plant staff. This animal program team is best supported in an institutional environment that reflects a culture of care, compliance, and responsibility. In such a culture, the professional judgment exercised by the team is well grounded in meeting the diverse needs of the program's customers, who include the animals, the researchers, and research stakeholders such as the public. The institutional culture of care, compliance, and responsibility fosters workplace integrity, an ethics-based decision-making paradigm, sound understanding of institutional expectations through good communication and clear lines of authority, the hiring and retention of trained and well-qualified individuals, and a system for continuous development and improvement of the program.

Animal Care Committees↗

Virtue and truth in clinical science.

Since the time of Hippocrates, medical science sought to develop a practice based on "knowledge rather than opinion". However, in the light of recent alternative approaches to healing and a philosophy of science that, through thinkers like Kuhn, Rorty, and Foucault, is critical of claims to objective truth, we must reappraise the way in which medical interventions can be based on proven pathophysiological knowledge rather than opinion. Developing insights in Foucault, Lacan, and Wittgenstein, this essay argues for a recovery of the Aristotelian idea of a techne, where there is a dynamic interplay between praxis and conceptualization. The result is a post-Kuhnian epistemology for medical science that recognizes the evaluative dimension of knowledge, but that also looks to a Platonic conception of the good as the ultimate constraint on human thought, thus avoiding the radically self-contained accounts of truth found in some post-modern thinkers.

Biomedical Research↗

Theoretical medicine: a proposal for reconceptualizing medicine as a science of actions.

The main task of a critical theory of medicine should be to develop a perspectival, context-fair, and multidimensional science of actions which integrates both diversity and heterogeneity within medicine without eliminating either one. Such a theory should employ diversity in the following areas: (1) in systems, subsystems, and professions, because different medical professions embody different health-care subsystems, thereby influencing the way manpower is utilized, (2) in actors, (e.g., patients, health-care experts, and society), processes, and situations, because each actor potentially conceptualizes health, illness, and desired outcomes differently; and (3) in models of medicine (i.e., as an object science versus an action science). Situational influences modify concepts and explanatory models; even the particular terms, such as illness, disease, and sickness, are not necessarily concordant with each other.

Complementary Therapies↗

Social research in an integrated science of nutrition: future directions.

This paper is one in a series from the American Society of Nutritional Sciences Long Range Planning Committee, in which we are attempting to map out the implications of future directions in nutritional sciences for ASNS. Here, we address the area of social nutrition research and identify a series of orientations that are now emerging and likely to shape future research in this area. As with other areas of nutrition, a key feature is the importance of an integrated approach, both across social science disciplines and between social and biological scientists.

Nutritional Physiological Phenomena↗

The use of instructional technology in poultry science curricula in the United States and Canada: 2. Factors contributing to the use of instructional technology.

This paper describes a study conducted in recognition of the increasingly widespread use of computers and the importance of exposure to instructional technology (IT) in all aspects of the poultry science curriculum. The study consisted of the distribution and analysis of two cross-sectional surveys. One survey was sent to departments to obtain profiles of poultry science degree programs and the availability of IT and general support for its use. The second survey was sent to faculty to obtain individual profiles of IT use and of factors which may influence IT use. Herein are reported the results and analysis of those factors that are thought to contribute to or limit the diffusion of these media among poultry science faculty. Analysis consisted of descriptive statistics and contingency table comparisons using Likelihood Ratio chi-square. Factors that appear to be most important to faculty use of IT are availability of desired IT equipment, access to adequate expert assistance, availability of knowledgeable peers willing to share their experience and expertise, and exposure to concrete examples and ideas of how to use IT. All of these factors contribute to another important factor in participation and adoption: making it as easy as possible for faculty to learn and to use advanced IT methods.

Agriculture↗

Forensic science program: a community effort.

A forensic science program has been developed to assist the professional community population in using a scientific approach in the investigation of criminal offenses. The science of medicine and the principles of the law come together to form a multidisciplinary group of professionals to instruct in the collection of evidence after a crime has been committed. Specialists in these areas include forensic pathologists, forensic anthropologists, forensic odontologists, entomologists, and a radiologist with a specialty in forensics. No longer can educators ignore the necessity of community involvement in the apprehension and prosecution of the perpetrators of crime. This program is the first to offer basic forensic science courses to professionals in a variety of related fields.

Community Health Services↗

Microbiological, microstructure, and material science examinations of reprocessed Combitubes after multiple reuse.

UNLABELLED: Reprocessing (repeated cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization) and reuse of single-use medical devices has been performed safely with some devices. The aim of our study was to analyze whether reprocessing of the Combitubes (Kendall-Sheridan, Argyll, NY) airway device, used for emergency endotracheal intubation and difficult airway management, is possible and can be performed appropriately and safely. Microbiological, microstructure, and material science examinations were performed with unused, as well as multiple reused and reprocessed Combitubes. The reprocessing procedure consisted of a cleaning, a disinfection, a final inspection, and a sterilization. Microbiological examinations of multiple reused and reprocessed Combitubes found no test organisms in quantitative cultures. A microbial reduction between four and five log levels compared with nonreprocessed tubes was found. Microstructure analysis for the examination of topographical alterations and changes in the chemical composition of the surface demonstrated nonsignificant alterations between new and reprocessed medical devices. In material science examinations, cuff burst pressures were not different between unused and multiple reprocessed Combitubes. The results of all examinations proved that the decontamination process is adequately effective, and that no significant superficial alterations are generated by the multiple reuse and reprocessing of the Combitubes. To assure uniformly good results, a quality management system must be established and only validated methods should be used. IMPLICATIONS: Reprocessing of single-use medical devices offers the opportunity of significant savings and is already performed with some devices. Microbiological, microstructure, and material science examinations proved that reprocessing of multiple reused Combitubes (Kendall-Sheridan, Argyll, NY), mainly used for emergency airway management, is possible and safe.

Colony Count, Microbial↗

The academic role of the vice president for health sciences: can a walrus become a unicorn?

The post of vice president for the health sciences was first developed in an attempt to interpret, modulate, and buffer the growing power of the medical school in the university and the different values that have existed there. The job has been greatly transformed over the past 10 years as a consequence of a variety of factors. Now a genuine creative effort applied to the design of the administration of health sciences centers and how they fit into universities is needed. The present modes of organization are not equal to the challenges that must be faced. New designs must be created which will recognize the special place of the health sciences in today's world and yet keep its function within the university frame.

Administrative Personnel↗

A pair comparison study of the relevance of nine basic science courses.

A judgment of the relevance of nine basic sciences courses was tested by the pair comparison method. The test groups consisted of first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year medical students; interns and residents; basic sciences faculty; and clinical faculty. The data obtained from all groups proved to be consistent. Three strata of relevance were detected. Physiology, pathology, and pharmacology comprised the stratum of maximum relevance. The anatomy sciences (gross anatomy, histology, cell biology, and embryology) formed a stratum of lowest relevancy. The comparative relevancy of biochemisty and microbiology fell between the two extremes. Two approaches for making the anatomy disciplines more relevant are discussed.

Curriculum↗

Training teachers in the anatomical sciences.

A number of medical schools have initiated workshops to improve faculty teaching skills. Little effort, however, has been directed toward the pedagogical training of graduate students who are destined to become future medical science teachers. To help solve this problem, the faculty of the Department of Anatomy in the University of Nebraska College of Medicine recently developed a prototype teacher training program for graduate students in anatomy. Through formal course work and practical classroom experience, students are developing the skills requisite for effective teaching of the anatomical sciences. Student and faculty response to the training program has been enthusiastic, and the objectives and structure of the program can be applied to the production of competent and skilled teachers in other areas of the basic and clinical sciences.

Anatomy↗

Overlooking ethics in the search for objectivity and misconduct in science.

The author investigates the relationship between the reliability of scientific data and the ethics of the scientist, demonstrates how attention given to misconduct in the biological sciences adversely affects the broader significance of ethics in this field, and extracts from the applications of ethics in medicine perspectives relevant to the biological sciences. As twentieth-century biological scientists applied increasingly powerful methods to diminish bias and to improve the objectivity of their work, including the replication of experimental findings to verify them, they came to believe that these methods would protect their studies from error and misleading conclusions. This assumption has been shown to be unwarranted because it cannot protect scientists from self-conscious or biased selection in reporting evidence. The canons of scientific objectivity must be grounded in something more fundamental--the canon of ethics. In the end, a commitment to the ethical standard of truthfulness, through an understanding of its meaning to science, is essential to enhance objectivity and diminish bias. Unfortunately, the ethos of concern for scientific misconduct continues to dominate the research-ethics movement. This focus is damaging because it turns the attention to seeking and finding wrong-doers and determining punishment rather than discussing generic issues of doing the right thing, preventing harms, seeking benefits, and understanding the right-making and wrong-making characteristics of actions. The focus on scientific misconduct makes ethical issues appear synonymous with legal issues and the search for ethical understanding synonymous with carrying out an investigation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Biomedical Research↗

Defining scholarship at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences School of Medicine: A study in cultures.

Medical schools' long-awaited recognition of the varied contributions of their faculty has caused active dialogue and debate. The discourse centers on the best approach for incorporating a broader definition of scholarship, including professional service, into the traditional promotion and tenure processes. At the School of Medicine of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), the majority of the clinical faculty also serve as active-duty uniformed medical officers, and the subject of how to appropriately recognize their varied contributions has long been contended. Concerns have been raised from all constituent groups that broadening the definition of scholarship at the USUHS has the potential to lower the standards of the academy and thus devalue faculty positions. The USUHS has viewed this challenge as a study in the integration of cultures. Institutional cultures include those of the academy, the military, government, basic science, and clinical science, and all the resulting permutations. A nine-year review of scholarship, promotion, and tenure at the USUHS has resulted in a document that supports the diverse missions of the university and appropriately rewards the accomplishments of its faculty. The dialogue continues, as the new document is subject to continuing review and ongoing critical analysis.

Career Mobility↗

Alternative funding for academic medicine: experience at a Canadian Health Sciences Center.

In 1994 the School of Medicine of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, its clinical teachers, and the three principal teaching hospitals initiated a new approach to funding, the Alternative Funding Plan, a pragmatic response to the inability of fee-for-service billing by clinical faculty to subsidize the academic mission of the health sciences center. The center was funded to provide a package of service and academic deliverables (outputs), rather than on the basis of payment for physician clinical activity (inputs). The new plan required a new governance structure representing stakeholders and raised a number of important issues: how to reconcile the preservation of physician professional autonomy with corporate responsibilities; how to gather requisite information so as to equitably allocate resources; and how to report to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care in order to demonstrate accountability. In subsequent iterations of the agreement it was necessary to address issues of flexibility resulting from locked-in funding levels and to devise meaningful performance measures for departments and the center as a whole. The authors conclude that the Alternative Funding Plan represents a successful innovation in funding for an academic health sciences center in that it has created financial stability, as well as modest positive effects for education and research. The Ontario government hopes to replicate the model at the province's other four health sciences centers, and it may have applicability in any jurisdiction in which the costs of medical education outstrip the capacity of faculty clinical earnings.

Faculty, Medical↗

Adapting postdoctoral training to interdisciplinary science in the 21st century: the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program at the National Cancer Institute.

Preparing junior scientists for careers in the health sciences has become an immense challenge for many reasons, including the emerging demand for multidisciplinary approaches to solving problems in the health sciences. For those choosing careers in hybrid and interdisciplinary fields, the "traditional" postdoctoral training model may not perform well, particularly in light of other problems that plague postdoctoral success. New approaches are required. Using the interdisciplinary field of cancer prevention as an example, the authors describe the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (CPFP) of the National Cancer Institute, a three-year postdoctoral program of which the goal is to provide its fellows with a strong foundation in cancer prevention through education, mentored research, and structured professional development training activities that emphasize multidisciplinary approaches and leadership skills. Over time, the CPFP has incorporated the best aspects of the traditional postdoctoral training model with newer training approaches in an effort to overcome existing problems in postdoctoral training and to address the additional complexities inherent in training those who seek careers in interdisciplinary science. Many aspects of the CPFP, including an efficient infrastructure, a dedicated staff, a capacity to provide educational activities, and the provision of rich research opportunities, may translate well to other postdoctoral programs that face similar issues.

Education, Medical, Graduate↗

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