Graduate education. Hughes, NIH team up on novel training program.
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Academies and Institutes↗
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Results for “Natural Science Disciplines”
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[Persons, networks and institutions: on the founding of the German Society of History of Medicine and Natural Sciences].
In what way did the process of founding the "Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Medizin und Naturwissenschaften" (1901), the world's oldest society for the history of science develop? This article combines approaches of the historiography of institutions with concepts focusing on individual persons. During the early period of the process August Hirsch and Theodor Puschmann were the most relevant scientists. The history of the "Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Arzte" (GDNA) and their annual meetings mirror the difficult connection of medical history and medical geography or tropical medicine. It was the special ability of Karl Sudhoff to create networks which led to the emancipation and foundation of the DGGMN; nevertheless, the preliminary work of scientists like Hendrik Peypers, Felix von Oefele, Georg Kahlbaum, Julius Pagel or Max Neuburger and others must not be forgotten when analysing the crucial years around 1900. Sudhoff was the dominant personality then; different conceptions of the new discipline in addition to some severe conflicts are documented by newly found manuscripts and correspondences.
Germany↗
The return of science to education in clinical psychology: a reply to Snyder and Elliott.
Clinical psychology currently exists in a state of isolation from the other scientific domains. This disconnect is explained, in part, by the continued adherence to mind-body dualism by many clinical psychologists and the rift between researchers and practitioners within the discipline. However, natural science researchers are reasserting the connection between physical and biological properties and psychological phenomena. As a result, knowledge and skill pertaining to the scientific method will become increasingly important in the education of future clinical psychologists. Modifications to both undergraduate and graduate training are suggested.
Curriculum↗
Interdisciplinary research: putting the methods under the microscope.
BACKGROUND: While the desirability of interdisciplinary inquiry has been widely acknowledged, indeed has become 'the mantra of science policy', the methods of interdisciplinary collaboration are opaque to outsiders and generally remain undescribed. DISCUSSION: Many have analysed interdisciplinarity, especially in relation to the creation of new disciplines and institutions. These analyses are briefly outlined. Still, there currently persists a silence about the methods of interdisciplinary collaboration itself, and the core of this paper proposes a template for such methods. SUMMARY: Breaking this silence--by making the methods of interdisciplinary projects transparent--could further invigorate interdisciplinary research.
Academies and Institutes↗
The problematisation of existence: towards a philosophy of complexity.
By assuming that the Universe is best described as a cellular automaton, and by making use of results from the field of computational mechanics, this paper discusses an extension of the notion of existence from a simple binary opposition to that of a continuum. It is argued that none of the traditional objects of science, or any objects from any discipline, formal or not, can be said to be real in any absolute sense though a substantial realism may be associated with them. By problematising existence it is proposed that an evolutionary philosophy referred to as critical pluralism is more sensitive to the demands of complexity than contemporary scientific approaches. Though many of the conclusions reported herein are not original, the fact that they can be 'proved' in a scientific sense, and explored scientifically, is certainly of interest and is an interpretation of complexity theory that has received little attention.
Humans↗
Integration of multiple research disciplines on the International Space Station.
The International Space Station will provide an extremely high-quality, long-duration microgravity environment for the conduct of research. In addition, the ISS offers a platform for performing observations of Earth and Space from a high-inclination orbit, outside of the Earth's atmosphere. This unique environment and observational capability offers the opportunity for advancement in a diverse set of research fields. Many of these disciplines do not relate to one another, and present widely differing approaches to study, as well as different resource and operational requirements. Significant challenges exist to ensure the highest quality research return for each investigation. Requirements from different investigations must be identified, clarified, integrated and communicated to ISS personnel in a consistent manner. Resources such as power, crew time, etc. must be apportioned to allow the conduct of each investigation. Decisions affecting research must be made at the strategic level as well as at a very detailed execution level. The timing of the decisions can range from years before an investigation to real-time operations. The international nature of the Space Station program adds to the complexity. Each participating country must be assured that their interests are represented during the entire planning and operations process. A process for making decisions regarding research planning, operations, and real-time replanning is discussed. This process ensures adequate representation of all research investigators. It provides a means for timely decisions, and it includes a means to ensure that all ISS International Partners have their programmatic interests represented.
Decision Making, Organizational↗
Fostering innovation and discovery in biomedical research.
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Biomedical Research↗
Metaphysical games: an imaginary lecture on crafting earth's biological future.
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Forecasting↗
Spectral mapping tools from the earth sciences applied to spectral microscopy data.
BACKGROUND: Spectral imaging, originating from the field of earth remote sensing, is a powerful tool that is being increasingly used in a wide variety of applications for material identification. Several workers have used techniques like linear spectral unmixing (LSU) to discriminate materials in images derived from spectral microscopy. However, many spectral analysis algorithms rely on assumptions that are often violated in microscopy applications. This study explores algorithms originally developed as improvements on early earth imaging techniques that can be easily translated for use with spectral microscopy. METHODS: To best demonstrate the application of earth remote sensing spectral analysis tools to spectral microscopy data, earth imaging software was used to analyze data acquired with a Leica confocal microscope with mechanical spectral scanning. For this study, spectral training signatures (often referred to as endmembers) were selected with the ENVI (ITT Visual Information Solutions, Boulder, CO) "spectral hourglass" processing flow, a series of tools that use the spectrally over-determined nature of hyperspectral data to find the most spectrally pure (or spectrally unique) pixels within the data set. This set of endmember signatures was then used in the full range of mapping algorithms available in ENVI to determine locations, and in some cases subpixel abundances of endmembers. RESULTS: Mapping and abundance images showed a broad agreement between the spectral analysis algorithms, supported through visual assessment of output classification images and through statistical analysis of the distribution of pixels within each endmember class. CONCLUSIONS: The powerful spectral analysis algorithms available in COTS software, the result of decades of research in earth imaging, are easily translated to new sources of spectral data. Although the scale between earth imagery and spectral microscopy is radically different, the problem is the same: mapping material locations and abundances based on unique spectral signatures.
Algorithms↗
[Progress of natural sciences and technology from the point of view of a clinician].
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Humans↗
[The problem of analogy and its importance in natural science].
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Biology↗
An evaluation of the influence of natural science in regional-scale restoration projects.
Regional-scale restoration is a tool of growing importance in environmental management, and the number, scope, and complexity of restoration programs is increasing. Although the importance of natural science to the success of such projects generally is recognized, the actual use of natural science in these programs rarely has been evaluated. We used techniques of program evaluation to examine the use of natural science in six American and three Western European regional-scale restoration programs. Our results suggest that ensuring the technical rigor and directed application of the science is important to program development and delivery. However, the influence of science may be constrained if strategies for its integration into the broader program are lacking. Consequently, the influence of natural science in restoration programs is greatest when formal mechanisms exist for incorporating science into programs, for example, via a framework for integration of science and policy. Our evaluation proposes a model that can be used to enhance the influence of natural science in regional-scale restoration programs in the United States and elsewhere.
Conservation of Natural Resources↗
[Rokitansky and the Vienna Medical School--from the philosophy of nature to natural science].
On February 19th 2004 we celebrated the 200th anniversary of Carl Rokitansky's birth. Together with Morgagni and Virchow, Rokitansky paved the way for the development of modern pathology. In addition, he was the co-founder of the so-called Second Vienna Medical School. Rokitansky represents a personality on the threshold of the change in medicine from a phenomenological-dominated philosophy to an evidence-based science. This jubilee essay aims at outlining this development particularly with regard to the Vienna Medical School before and after Rokitansky.
Austria↗
[Rokitansky and Virchow: throes about the scientific term of disease].
The scientific conception of disease became established in the 19th century and resulted in medicine becoming a branch of the natural sciences. In Vienna, the development of pathoanatomy is closely linked with the work of Carl Rokitansky, who used the postmortem examination to draw conclusions that would guide the physician in making future clinical diagnoses. It were Rokitansky and Skoda who developed the II. Viennese School, the "young Viennese School". The founder of the new school of medicine was thus a pathoanatomist. In 1846, Rokitansky published the first volume of his "Compendium of General Pathological Anatomy". In Berlin, there was at the time a particularly avid group of young physicians who had learned to "think cellularly". Rudolf Virchow, a member of the group, was asked to review the newly published volume of Rokitansky's compendium. The 25-year-old was particularly scathing in his criticism, determined to prevent a new dyscrasia theory right from the very beginning. For the next edition of his work, Rokitansky rewrote the "compendium" completely, now in natural scientific terms, and in doing so, encouraged Virchow to further develop the natural scientific conception of disease. Rokitansky's factual approval thus gave Virchow valuable support on his way to cellular pathology.
Anatomy↗
Evolving research misconduct policies and their significance for physical scientists.
Scientific misconduct includes the fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (FFP) of concepts, data or ideas; some institutions in the United States have expanded this concept to include "other serious deviations (OSD) from accepted research practice." It is the absence of this OSD clause that distinguishes scientific misconduct policies of the past from the "research misconduct" policies that should be the basis of future federal policy in this area. This paper introduces a standard for judging whether an action should be considered research misconduct as distinguished from scientific misconduct: by this standard, research misconduct must involve activities unique to the practice of science and must have the potential to negatively affect the scientific record. Although the number of cases of scientific misconduct is uncertain (only the NIH and the NSF keep formal records), the costs are high in terms of the integrity of the scientific record, diversions from research to investigate allegations, ruined careers of those eventually exonerated, and erosion of public confidence in science. Existing scientific misconduct policies vary from institution to institution and from government agency to government agency; some have highly developed guidelines that include OSD, others have no guidelines at all. One result has been that the federal False Claims Act has been used to pursue allegations of scientific misconduct. As a consequence, such allegations have been adjudicated in federal courts, rather than judged by scientific peers. The federal government is now establishing a first-ever research misconduct policy that would apply to all research funded by the federal government regardless of which agency funded the research or whether the research was carried out in a government, industrial or university laboratory. Physical scientists, who up to now have only infrequently been the subject of scientific misconduct allegations, must nonetheless become active in the debate over research misconduct policies and how they are implemented since they will now be explicitly covered by this new federal wide policy.
Costs and Cost Analysis↗
Never getting to zero: Elementary school students' understanding of the infinite divisibility of number and matter.
Clinical interviews administered to third- to sixth-graders explored children's conceptualizations of rational number and of certain extensive physical quantities. We found within child consistency in reasoning about diverse aspects of rational number. Children's spontaneous acknowledgement of the existence of numbers between 0 and 1 was strongly related to their induction that numbers are infinitely divisible in the sense that they can be repeatedly divided without ever getting to zero. Their conceptualizing number as infinitely divisible was strongly related to their having a model of fraction notation based on division and to their successful judgment of the relative magnitudes of fractions and decimals. In addition, their understanding number as infinitely divisible was strongly related to their understanding physical quantities as infinitely divisible. These results support a conceptual change account of knowledge acquisition, involving two-way mappings between the domains of number and physical quantity.
Boston↗
Learning from education to communicate science as a good story.
Science communicators must learn from science educators in their crusade to counteract the traditional boring and inefficient approaches to convey science. Educators encounter a need for methods of teaching that portray science as 'hard fun' and resources that encourage students' minds to burst into action. Narratives are considered by several authors as highly valuable resources for science education. However, little research has been undertaken to measure the efficiency of narratives in the context of science communication to the general public. Recent work however, suggests that narratives are indeed an alternative and an important means for science communication to convey information in an accurate, attractive, imaginative and memorable way. To present scientific information through stories, novels, comics and plays should be regarded as an important means to transmit information in the repertoire of both science teachers and science communicators.
Curriculum↗
The tail end of the moth: clarifying species boundaries.
The search by naturalists for good characters upon which to base both classifications and determinations of species led some 19th century entomologists to put their faith in insect genitalia as a criteria by which they could differentiate between and classify forms. Karl Jordan was such an entomologist, who turned to these tiny structures as an aid to his work as a museum curator to identify, describe and classify moths and butterflies. In his writings on the subject he also demonstrated how the attempts of systematists to order the diversity of nature had profound implications for the efforts of biologists to explain the origin of that diversity. However, Jordan's plan of how to do systematics well required much more than convincing biologists of the importance of museum work. It also depended on refining the priorities of a natural history community that worked according to diverse means, priorities and methods during a tumultuous century.
Animals↗