Civilian Science Research Articles

Research gets a boost in final 2023 spending agreement

Budgets of many civilian science agencies will grow, but not always by as much as White House had requested.

Achievement and problems of modern civilian science and practice on judicial reform

The judiciary has lost confidence in the population of Ukraine. This is also confirmed by the statistics of the European Court of Human Rights, as Ukraine ranks one of the first countries in the Council of Europe in the number of applications pending before it. Hopes for a solution to Ukraine’s courts have given citizens judicial reform, which began several years ago and was to renew the judiciary at the expense of «new faces», people from outside the judiciary, including academics and lawyers. The entry of scholars into the judiciary should also have contributed to the improvement of judicial practice and the creation of clear legal positions on a national scale, if they had passed to the Civil Court of Cassation of the Supreme Court in the amount of at least 1/3 of the composition.37 scientists, including 8 doctors of law, have applied to participate in this competition. Of these, 16 scientists were not allowed to take the qualifying exams, then only 1 dropped out after the first exam (the results were published on the same day, the works were checked in the presence of observers and the press). However, as many as 12 scientists dropped out immediately after the second exam: all doctors of science who applied for the positions of judges of the Civil Court of Cassation were eliminated. The process of evaluating the works was delayed, the results were published only after 37 days, which gives grounds to doubt the objective selection of candidates.The Civil Court of Cassation did not include any doctor of sciences as an independent scientist in the new Supreme Court. The hope for a fundamental change in the system in terms of civil justice relied on only 3 people from science (candidates of science), 2 lawyers, the remaining 25 – judges from the old system. It is hard to believe that new people in the judiciary with 5 votes, who are in the minority, can radically change civil jurisprudence. Key words: judicial reform, civil science, Supreme Court, Civil Court of Cassation.

Civilian science: the potential of participatory environmental monitoring in areas affected by armed conflicts

Legal and policy initiatives to address the environmental dimensions of armed conflicts and their impact on people, ecosystems and sustainable development are highly dependent on the availability of environmental data from conflict-affected areas. Socio-political and security conditions in these areas often impede data collection, while traditional models of post-conflict environmental assessments are limited in scope. In response, an increasing range of actors is utilising remote sensing and open source data collection to identify and estimate health and ecological risks during and after conflicts. This paper considers the role of participatory citizen science methodologies in complementing both remote monitoring and post-conflict assessments. It examines existing models and mechanisms for environmental data collection and utilisation in conflict contexts, and the extent to which the core values and principles of citizen science are transferable. We find that ‘civilian science’ is feasible and could be well-suited to conflict conditions. In addition to addressing gaps in data collection, it may also empower communities affected by environmental degradation, enhance their environmental human rights, supplement the often limited monitoring capacity of governmental agencies and facilitate cooperation and peacebuilding. The paper concludes by proposing methodological approaches for three common forms of environmental degradation associated with armed conflicts.

Trump’s 2018 budget will squeeze civilian science agencies

Trump’s 2018 budget will squeeze civilian science agencies

Russian Science and Technology is Still Having Problems—Implications for Defense Research

Science and technology can play a crucial role in the long-term for the modernization of Russia and the armed forces, and many government initiatives have been approved but their implementation can be questioned. Russia has a strong science base into which it invests substantial funds, but that only to a limited extent generates competitive innovative products and services. The government still hopes the defense sector can be the driving force for innovation that is questioned in this article. The civilian research and development could be the driving force needed for promoting innovations but the problems that remain for the civilian science and technology sector are significant. The reform of the defense industry has been a long-time priority but very slow progress is being made due to difficulties to control it and because the problems facing the defense industries and research and development are even more serious in this sector in spite of large funding increases.

The Civilianization of a Nuclear Weapon Effects Test: Operation ARGUS

In 1958 the United States secretly conducted a low-yield, high-atmosphere nuclear weapon effects test in the South Atlantic code-named ARGUS. It tested a theory devised by Nicholas Christofilos that an anti-missile shield could be created around the planet by trapping high-energy electrons in the Earth’s radiation field. In order to conduct the test before the October 1958 nuclear test moratorium, the military borrowed International Geophysical Year equipment and used the program as cover for the clandestine nuclear tests. Though the experiment determined that an electron shield could not work, it provided important research data for weapon effects, atmospheric physics, and long-distance communications. In March 1959, Hanson Baldwin and Walter Sullivan of the New York Times published an unauthorized account of the tests. In response, the White House presented ARGUS as a civilian science program of the International Geophysical Year rather than a nuclear weapon effects test. In the internal debate about declassification, in the publicity of the test, and in the memories of James Killian and Herbert York, Operation ARGUS demonstrates that many scientists and Americans remained comfortable with anti-militarism, even under militarized policies.

Forgiving Science Majors

![Figure][1] The chair of a House spending panel that oversees several U.S. civilian science agencies says he wants to do something “dramatic” to attract more students into science, math, and engineering. Last week Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) won endorsements from presidential science adviser John Marburger and National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement, both new to his panel's jurisdiction, for a bill he's drafting. It would forgive interest on college loans for students earning science-related majors and working for 3 years in the field until their salaries exceeded four times the median U.S. income ($32,000). Borrowing an idea from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Wolf said he's looking for ways to reverse the one-way flow of students from engineering to political science or business. “I think it's the right kind of program,” said Marburger, calling it a “creative idea.” Bement went even further: “I've read Newt's book, and I liked it.” [1]: pending:yes

Will Terra be terrific? NASA's Terra mission provides new level of data, accessibility, and integration

There is no doubt the amount of data generated by NASA's terra spacecraft is impressive, at about a terabyte per day, it is billed as the largest-ever civilian computational science undertaking. While the investigators say advances in hardware and theoretical knowledge have combined to allow for such leaps, the real secret to terra's success will lie in how the scientific community reacts to the data.

Science Wins Out in Latest Budget

Science has emerged a winner in this year9s struggle over the Department of Energy9s budget, erasing fears earlier this summer of severe cuts in several high-profile programs. Congress this week gave the agency9s civilian science programs a 13% boost, to $3.2 billion, slightly more than the Administration had requested.

Clinton flails congress over $1.8 billion civilian R&D cuts

WASHINGTON President Clinton attacks Congress plans to cut $1.8 billion from civilian science research and development.

Indian Scientists Shaken by Bomb Test Aftershocks

NEW DELHI, INDIA-- Indian and Pakistani scientists are beginning to pay a price for last May9s atom bomb tests--a price that many believe is unfairly penalizing civilian science. Although the U.S. government took steps last week to limit the impact of economic sanctions, individual agencies began suspending all interactions with scientists from a long list of Indian and Pakistani research institutions, denying entry to some and questioning the status of others already in the country, restricting the exchange of lab materials, and canceling ongoing projects. Japan and Sweden have also taken punitive steps, leaving scientists from the subcontinent worrying that the stigma of the bomb tests may affect them for months or years to come.

New Budget Boosts 'Secret' Science

[ Pallava Bagla ][1] NEW DELHI-- Space and atomic energy are big winners, and civilian science a loser, as India's new government presented its budget this week to Parliament. The budget also doubles spending on defense research, to $620 million, an indication that the government plans to boost its indigenous military hardware program in the face of U.S. sanctions imposed in the wake of India's five underground nuclear tests last month. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/280/5369/1520a#bag

DOE Moves to Higher Ground

After 3 years of rocky budgets and partisan criticism, the Department of Energy (DOE) appears to be on the upswing, as civilian basic science is riding high both in the White House and on Capitol Hill and a host of new scientific facilities are slated to open soon. But it remains unclear whether more money will solve continuing problems in managing its network of 26 laboratories or in coordinating R&D efforts across the department.

Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China: The Politics of Knowledge

When in 1989 Chinese astrophysicist Fang Lizhi sought asylum for months in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, later escaping to the West, worldwide attention focused on the plight of liberal intellectuals in China. In Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China H. Lyman Miller examines the scientific community in China and prominent members such as Fang and physicist and historian of science Xu Liangying. Drawing on Chinese academic journals, newspapers, interviews, and correspondence with Chinese scientists, he considers the evolution of China's science policy and its impact on China's scientific community. He illuminates the professional and humanistic values that impelled scientific intellectuals on their course toward open, liberal political dissent. It is ironic that scientific dissidence in China arose in opposition to a regime supportive of and initially supported by scientists. In the late 1970s scientists were called upon to help implement reforms orchestrated by Deng Xiaoping's regime, which attached a high priority to science and technology. The regime worked to rebuild China's civilian science community and sought to enhance the standing of scientists while at the same time it continued to oppose political pluralism and suppress dissidence. The political philosophy of revolutionary China has taught generations of scientists that explanation of the entire world, from subatomic particles to galaxies, falls under the jurisdiction of natural dialectics, a branch of Marxism-Leninism. Escalating debates in the 1980s questioned the relationship of Marxism to science and led some to positions of open political dissent. At issue were the autonomy of China's scientific community and the conduct of science, as well as the validity and jurisdiction of Marxist-Leninist philosophy-and hence the fundamental legitimacy of the political system itself. Miller concludes that the emergence of a renewed liberal voice in China in the 1980s was in significant part an extension into politics of what some scientists believed to be the norms of healthy science; scientific dissidence was an unintended but consequence of the Deng regime's reforms. This thoughtful study of science as a powerful belief system and as a source of political and social values in contemporary China will appeal to a diverse audience, including readers interested in Chinese politics and society, comparative politics, communist regimes, the political sociology of science, and the history of ideas.

The R&D budget: Why a 'fund'?

News Analysis There it is, as spectacular as any Super Bowl commercial—$78.2 billion total R&D spreading across all federal agencies, $31 billion for a Research Fund For America (RFFA) that covers civilian science and technology. The fund provides an 8% increase for R&D next year, and a rise to $38 billion projected over the next five years. But wait a minute: Fund? Since when has the federal research budget become a fund? What is a fund? And what does it mean to have the R&D budget transformed into one? The answer is complicated and requires some delving into the Office of Management & Budget's (OMB) imposing, almost forbidding, budget books. You can apparently blame the whole thing on tobacco and on some arcane thinking by OMB's budgeteers as they sought ways to accommodate new programs whose spending would rise above caps set by last year's balanced budget agreement. The fund is, in budgetary par-lance, an ...

1999 BUDGET LIFTS R&D OUTLOOK

President Clinton has submitted as fiscal 1999 research development budget of $78 billion, up 3% from fiscal 1998. Nondefense R&D in the federal budget totals $37.8 billion—a 5.8% increase over the current year. It is the biggest civilian science technology budget in history fulfills the wildest wishes of the research community, especially that served by the National Institutes of Health the National Science Foundation, which are slated to receive major increases. You add it all up, says White House science adviser John H. Gibbons, and what the budget does is set the stage for a new century of progress, of learning discovery. Such rhetoric is common for the unveiling of budgets. But the mood of jubilation may well be excused this time. Two years ago, the tone was drenched in gloom as the Republican Congress attempted to kill favorite Clinton Administration programs. But there are caveats. ...

NASA Funding for Earth Science

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) may not have given Andrew Lawler the entire story on the funding of grants to analyze data from the “flotilla of Earth-observation satellites” that will be launched in the next few years (News & Comment, [29 Aug., p. 1198][1]). MTPE is certainly not “boosting” funding for science at the rate that they are increasing observations and data. Support for the MTPE grants program has, in fact, been cut significantly in recent years, from approximately $178 million in 1994 to $125 million in 1997. Program managers have been forced to sacrifice highly regarded and productive research programs. The modest restoration of funds to the research and analysis budget being proposed by MTPE leadership is, at best, a Bandaid when intensive care is needed. Every external and internal review panel over the past 3 years has been concerned that MTPE does not have a proper program balance. With an expected spending profile of more than $1 billion a year for the foreseeable future, MTPE is one of the largest civilian science programs in the world today. Yet the grants program engages less than 2000 investigators each year, a small fraction of the U.S. community with skills and interest in Earth system science and practical applications of remote sensing. More than 80% of the MTPE budget is dedicated to building and launching satellites, developing algorithms to generate data, and data management. The restoration of grants funding to $165 million by the year 2000 is totally inadequate to make productive use of MTPE data. A “bottoms up” analysis by science program managers at NASA indicated that at least $220 million would be required by 1998 to take advantage of highly rated research proposals using both existing and new data. NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin has determined that NASA programs will be science-driven. MTPE is responding very slowly to Goldin's challenge, with program investments continuing to be focused on a massive monitoring and data collection effort. The problems of understanding and adapting to climate change and moving toward sustainable development are so critical to this nation's future that it is unacceptable to let bureaucratic momentum continue to dominate budget strategy. The science community has spoken and MTPE is not listening. The productivity of the nation's premier global change research program is at risk. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.277.5330.1198a

Contamination Experiments in the Midcourse Space Experiment

The midcourse space experiment satellite is a space-based sensor platform designed to collect earth and atmospheric remote sensing and astronomy data in support of ballistic missile defense and civilian science objectives. Because of the potential adverse effects of contamination on the main optical sensors, the satellite contains a suite of contamination-monitoring instruments designed to completely characterize the source, generation, and mechanisms of contamination of space opticsand to validatepree ight contamination models. Descriptions of these contamination instruments, their calibration and testing, and the ground test data collected are presented. The sensitivity to contamination of the main optical sensors, which are imagers and interferometers in the infrared, visible, and ultraviolet spectral regions, are also discussed.

House cuts applied research programs

The House has approved legislation setting fiscal 1997 budgetary ceilings for a number of federal research programs that are, in many cases, lower than the Administration's requests. The Omnibus Civilian Science Authorization Act of 1996 (H.R. 3322) also continues GOP attempts to end funding of a number of programs dear to the Administration's heart, including the Department of Commerce's Advanced Technology Program and the Environmental Protection Agency's environmental technology initiative. And the bill substantially cuts funding for Mission to Planet Earth, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration's program to collect and analyze satellite and ground-based data on the total physical system that is Earth. Nevertheless, said Science Committee Chairman Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.) in introducing the bill, this is a very good bill that we bring before the floor. It is in strong support of science, and it is in a fiscally responsible climate. ... This bill does good science work in the context of ...

Beating missiles into microscopes

After four years of planning and negotiation, the U.S. federal government has initiated the Civilian Research & Development Foundation for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (CRDF). The public‐private partnership has been established to fund basic and applied research in the states of the former Soviet Union and to promote conversion of defense facilities and equipment into civilian science labs and industries.