Scientific Infrastructure Research Articles

Depression among left-behind children in China.

By retrieving literature published from 2005 to 2015 from Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, Vip, PubMed, and Web of Science, we filtered out studies using the Children's Depression Inventory only and compared left-behind children and non-left-behind children. The methodological quality of the papers was evaluated using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Finally, we included six studies to carry out a meta-analysis. The results showed that the Children's Depression Inventory scores of left-behind children are significantly higher than those of non-left-behind children (standardized mean difference: -0.233, 95% confidence interval: -0.036 to -0.430, p < 0.05).

Some factors limiting transfer of biotechnology research for health care at Cinvestav: A Mexican scientific center

We investigated a number of factors that influence the transfer and commercialization of biotechnology for health care at Cinvestav, a leading Mexican research institute and major contributor to biomedical sciences in the country. Mixed methods were used, where we sent a survey to all the principal investigators (PIs) doing research in health-oriented biotechnology at Cinvestav that we could identify and asked them about their transfer of technologies activities, and interviews were carried out with those PIs who are currently pursuing projects for commercialization. Our results show that, despite a strong publishing record on the international front, most of these scientists lack a business-oriented focus. Further business expertise does not appear to be readily available or helpful at the institutional technology transfer office. Weak collaboration strategies reflected in a low number of key partnerships, together with a lack of private financing, also limit the capacity to transfer and commercialize the technologies being generated. The local scientific tradition and conditions do not seem to be amenable to these kinds of efforts, nor does the government pursue a coherent strategy to promote technology transfer and commercialization in health biotechnology. Consequently, promising projects take too long to develop and usually go to a limited extent through the consecutive patenting and licensing steps, both indicators of commercial activity in academia. The end result is a lack of success in making the results of new scientific knowledge beneficial for public health, a problem experienced not only by Mexico but shared by a number of low-and-middle income countries. We discuss the need for an urgent change in concerted vision by research institutions in developing countries, so as to engage their robust scientific infrastructure with the social and health demands of their populations.

On the e-commercialization of science: A step toward the future?

This work discusses the advancement of science and the penetration of e-commerce into modern science as well as the openness of publications. We take into account rapidly developing information and communication technologies and the changing infrastructure of science, and this essay focuses attention on the appearance of a new characteristic of the scientific infrastructure and on the benefits it brings to science. We introduce the idea of the e-commercialization of science, and how it supplements the existing scientific infrastructure, its system of incentives, the assessment of the work of scientists, and their remuneration as the authors of ideas and innovations. We also argue that the modernization of the model of interaction among scientists from a market of collaboration to a market of scientific products, technologies, and ideas makes it possible to take advantage of scientific advancement provided by the openness of scientific communication.

Scientific collaboration as an element of science infrastructure

Scientific collaboration as an element of science infrastructure

Printed? Digital? It’s All the Same!: The academic library—of false front lines, unfulfilled doom, and new challenges

Libraries as memory institutions and infrastructure for science have for the most part undergone the digital transformation. For some people, the apparent dichotomy between the allegedly good old world of the printed book, which included readers and dignified education, and the world of the ubiquitous digital, which is often perceived to be dangerous and in which we are flooded with data and stimuli and wander about in confusion, may still stir heated discussions. For libraries, that dichotomy is long gone. Today the libraries’ concern is to let knowledge contents do their work in the various innovative and—more often than not—mobile user scenarios of the internet. The content’s format is irrelevant. The new mantra is ‘content in context’. The focus is as much on knowledge, learning, and research as on culture and education for everyone. The big challenge for the libraries of tomorrow is the trend towards the disappearance of that textual culture. It will be replaced by the new knowledge paradigm of the data stream that is dynamic, multimedia, and constantly changing.

Regulatory Science and Practices

In terms of regulation and the scientific disciplines, the scientific infrastructure for the modern world needs innovation. The need for science-based regulation is urgently needed to enable regulators to systematically review the vast scientific data, extract and analyze the most useful information, and develop best practices. Included in the current issue of Journal of Regulatory Science, practices in medicine regulatory agencies and environment polices are discussed. It is not the intent for this current issue of JRS to present or recommend the best science or practices; it is our intent to bring the topics into discussion.https://doi.org/10.21423/jrs-v04n04pi (DOI assigned 5/14/2019)

Climate science strategy of the US National Marine Fisheries Service

Changes to our climate and oceans are already affecting living marine resources (LMRs) and the people, businesses, and economies that depend on them. As a result, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has developed a Climate Science Strategy (CSS) to increase the production and use of the climate-related information necessary to fulfill its LMR stewardship mission for fisheries management and protected species conservation. The CSS establishes seven objectives: (1) determine appropriate, climate-informed reference points; (2) identify robust strategies for managing LMRs under changing climate conditions; (3) design decision processes that are robust to climate-change scenarios; (4) predict future states of ecosystems, LMRs, and LMR-dependent human communities; (5) determine the mechanisms of climate-change related effects on ecosystems, LMRs, and LMR-dependent human communities; (6) track trends in ecosystems, LMRs, and LMR-dependent human communities and provide early warning of change; and (7) build and maintain the science infrastructure required to fulfill NMFS mandates under changing climate conditions. These objectives provide a nationally consistent approach to addressing climate-LMR science needs that supports informed decision-making and effective implementation of the NMFS legislative mandates in each region. Near term actions that will address all objectives include: (1) conducting climate vulnerability analyses in each region for all LMRs; (2) establishing and strengthening ecosystem indicators and status reports in all regions; and (3) developing a capacity to conduct management strategy evaluations of climate-related impacts on management targets, priorities, and goals. Implementation of the Strategy over the next few years and beyond is critical for effective fulfillment of the NMFS mission and mandates in a changing climate.

Capacity as history and horizon: infrastructure, autonomy and future in African health science and care

Capacity as history and horizon: infrastructure, autonomy and future in African health science and care

Fast control latency uncertainty elimination for the BESIII ETOF upgrade**Supported by CAS Maintenance Project for Major Scientific and Technological Infrastructure (IHEP-SW-953/2013)

A new fanning topology is proposed to precisely fan out fast control signals in the Beijing Spectrometer (BESIII) end-cap time-of-flight (ETOF) electronics. However, uncertainty in transfer latency is introduced by the new fanning channel, which will degrade the precision of fast control. In this paper, latency uncertainty elimination for the BESIII ETOF upgrade is introduced. The latency uncertainty is determined by a Time-Digital-Converter (TDC) embedded in a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and is eliminated by re-capturing at synchronous and determinate time. Compared with the existing method of Barrel-cap TOF (BTOF), it has advantages of flexible structure, easy calibration and good adaptability. Field tests on the BESIII ETOF system show that this method effectively eliminates transfer latency uncertainty.

Justification of criteria and indicators of formation level of professional competence of future software engineers in ma system

The MA system in Ukraine is at the stage of formation, especially in the questions of organization and functioning, formation of educational programs, methodical support. But the popularity of MA permanently grows; it can be defined as one of prospective forms of higher education that appears and develops most successfully at scientific infrastructure and real scientific-pedagogic schools. The main contradictions become more acute: non-conformity between the level of modern undergraduate software engineer, his personal professional potential and the demands, made in professional activity; and also between the necessity of realization of professional-pedagogical activity of MA students and the reproducing character of learning process at higher school, fast development of technologies and slow renewal of the content of education and program-technical support. This very fact actualizes the problem of elaboration and introduction of criteria and indicators of formation level of professional competence of the future software engineers in MA system

Geomagnetic Observatories

In this article we briefly describe the geomagnetic observatories operated or supported by the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), their scientific and societal use in the light of a global approach, their main data products and their dissemination process, as well as their instrumentation. The geomagnetic observatories of GFZ are part of the 'Modular Earth Science Infrastructure' (MESI).

Of spheres and squares: Can Sloterdijk help us rethink the architecture of climate science?

This article explores how different visions and values of science translate into different architectural shapes. I bring Peter Sloterdijk's 'spherology' to bear on my ethnographic fieldwork at the NEEM ice core base in Greenland, a significant node in the global infrastructure of climate science. I argue that the visual form of the geodesic dome of the camp materializes specific values and visions of this branch of paleoclimate science, which I elaborate vis-a-vis the pragmatic claims of the scientists/designers and the particular architectural history of Danish ice core drilling in Greenland. I argue that this aesthetic history articulates with Buckminster Fuller's ideas of a 'new nature' and 'scalar connections' encapsulated in his geodesic form. Second, I argue that the aesthetic production of space in the camp replicates the modern distinction between science and society, in so far as the lab space is rectangular and the recreational space is spherical. Third, I argue that NEEM scientists and Sloterdijk are essentially engaged in a common project: the scientists work hard to align air bubbles in the cores with atmospheric fluctuations in the hemisphere on the evidentiary terrain of ice, and Sloterdijk attempts to connect micro-uteri with macro-uteri in an attempt to fundamentally rethink space. Fuller's notion of 'Spaceship Earth', appropriated by Sloterdijk in his thinking about anthropogenic climate change, lends itself well to capturing the scalar alignments and the isolated NEEM base - on a mission to save planet Earth. In conclusion, I argue that Sloterdijk's spherology may serve as a point of departure for rethinking the aesthetic grammar of the architecture of science.

A Note on Bubble Sizes in Subcooled Flow Boiling at Low Velocities in Internal Combustion Engine-Like Conditions

The equipment used in this work has been partially supported by FEDER project funds “Dotacion de infraestructuras cientifico tecnicas para el Centro Integral de Mejora Energetica y Medioambiental de Sistemas de Transporte (CiMeT), (FEDER-ICTS-2012-06)”, framed in the operational program of unique scientific and technical infrastructure of the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain. O. Cornejo is indebted to Senacyt Panama for their support. The authors wish to thank Dr. D. Busquets and Dr. E. Rayon their kind cooperation in the surface ´ characterization and in the interpretation of its results.

FORMATION OF MEDIA SCIENCE INFRASTRUCTURE BIG DATA SCIENCE IN THE AGE OF HIGH ELECTRONICS

Purpose. The article is aimed to analyze the specificity of formation of media infrastructure of science under the influence of digital media distribution technology, the changing nature of scientific activity, implementation of communication researchers using Big Data. Methodology. The implementation of the purpose is seen in the use of scientific and theoretical basis of the philosophy of science, mediaphilosophy, mediaphilosophical approach to understanding society, science and technology, use of publications on selected topics of research. Originality. It was considered the problem of scientific communication change under the influence of Big Data. Forming of media infrastructure of science under the influence of media technology was analyzed. Conclusions. The emergence, formation and development of mediainfrastructure makes the world scientific community see the modernist paradigm of scientific knowledge production, pay attention to the formation of a qualitatively new ways of transmission and reception using scientific evidence and information research. At the same time there is a need for simultaneous and comprehensive study of the potential negative effects of media technologies for researchers and educational activities. Note the complications self-identification individual simulation processes and phenomena that occurs reliance on empirical base. Also there is a problem controllable and selection of information: the huge flow of information of different kinds of content depth and complicate the selection and broadcast meaningful knowledge.

InfraPhenoGrid: A scientific workflow infrastructure for plant phenomics on the Grid

Plant phenotyping consists in the observation of physical and biochemical traits of plant genotypes in response to environmental conditions. Challenges, in particular in context of climate change and food security, are numerous. High-throughput platforms have been introduced to observe the dynamic growth of a large number of plants in different environmental conditions. Instead of considering a few genotypes at a time (as it is the case when phenomic traits are measured manually), such platforms make it possible to use completely new kinds of approaches. However, the datasets produced by such widely instrumented platforms are huge, constantly augmenting and produced by increasingly complex experiments, reaching a point where distributed computation is mandatory to extract knowledge from data.In this paper, we introduce InfraPhenoGrid, the infrastructure we designed and deploy to efficiently manage datasets produced by the PhenoArch plant phenomics platform in the context of the French Phenome Project. Our solution consists in deploying scientific workflows on a Grid using a middleware to pilot workflow executions. Our approach is user-friendly in the sense that despite the intrinsic complexity of the infrastructure, running scientific workflows and understanding results obtained (using provenance information) is kept as simple as possible for end-users.

Bridging the Academia/Industry Chasm: Proposed Solutions.

Bridging the Academia/Industry Chasm: Proposed Solutions.

A meta-analysis reveals prognostic role of programmed death ligand-1 in Asian patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Accumulating studies explored the clinicopathologic and prognostic value of programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but the results were controversial. We therefore conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the predictive role of PD-L1 in NSCLC patients. We systematically collected relevant studies from PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. The pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for overall survival (OS), and odd ratios (ORs) with 95% CIs for clinicopathologic factors were calculated. A total of 15 studies involving 3605 patients were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed no prognostic role of PD-L1 in the whole patients (HR=1.60, 95% CI: 0.88-2.89, P=0.123). Subgroup analysis showed that PD-L1 was associated with decreased OS in Asian patients (HR=2.00, 95% CI: 1.55-2.57, P<0.001). Among all the clinicopathologic factors, PD-L1 overexpression was significantly in relevance with poor tumor cell differentiation (HR=1.84, 95% CI: 1.49-2.28, P<0.001), late stage (HR=1.21, 95% CI: 1.02-1.43, P=0.026) and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) translocation (HR=2.63, 95% CI: 1.08-6.40, P=0.034), but not with other factors. In conclusion, our meta-analysis demonstrated that PD-L1 has a prognostic role in Asian patients with NSCLC.

The net as a knowledge machine: How the Internet became embedded in research

In this article, we examine the growth of the Internet as a research topic across the disciplines and the embedding of the Internet into the very fabric of research. While this is a trend that ‘everyone knows’, prior to this study, no work had quantified the extent to which this common sense knowledge was true or how the embedding actually took place. Using scientometric data extracted from Scopus, we explore how the Internet has become a powerful knowledge machine which forms part of the scientific infrastructure across not just technology fields, but also right across the social sciences, sciences and humanities.

The ELIXIR channel in F1000Research.

ELIXIR, the European life science infrastructure for biological information, is a unique initiative to consolidate Europe’s national centres, services, and core bioinformatics resources into a single, coordinated infrastructure. ELIXIR brings together Europe’s major life-science data archives and connects these with national bioinformatics infrastructures - the ELIXIR Nodes. This editorial introduces the ELIXIR channel in F1000Research; the aim of the channel is to collect and present ELIXIR’s scientific and operational output, engage with the broad life science community and encourage discussion on proposed infrastructure solutions. Submissions will be assessed by the ELIXIR channel Advisory Board to ensure they are relevant to ELIXIR community, and subjected to F1000Research open peer review process.

Scientific information: Modern epistemological problems in the context of the ethos of science

We consider modern problems of epistemological analysis of scientific information, scientific information, and research activities. The author presents a point of view in relation to production processes, viz., the use of scientific information and the ideological and applied priorities of science. The bases for the assessment and systematization of scientific information in connection with its praxeological characteristics in line with the actual problems of reforming the country's scientific infrastructure are offered.