Representation Of Scientific Knowledge Research Articles

PERCEPÇÕES DOCENTES SOBRE A UTILIZAÇÃO DA METODOLOGIA DE RESOLUÇÃO DE PROBLEMAS PARA A EDUCAÇÃO INCLUSIVA NO ENSINO DE QUÍMICA E CIÊNCIAS

TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS ABOUT THE USE OF THE PROBLEM-SOLVING METHODOLOGY FOR INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN THE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY AND SCIENCE. This manuscript aims to present and analyze the contributions of a training process on the principles of Inclusive Education integrated with the Problem-Solving (PS) methodology. This research intervention involved a 20-hour training course conducted during three consecutive semesters, with a total of 32 participants, including graduates in Chemistry and Biological Sciences from a Brazilian federal public university, as well as Chemistry and Biology teachers working in basic education in Rio Grande do Sul. Data were collected using initial and final procedures, field diary entries, and semi-structured interviews with three participants who implemented PS in a school context. According to the triangulated results, the formative action contributed to the conceptual construction of the theoretical aspects that were worked on. It also demonstrated that PS can democratize the teaching and learning process among students with and without disabilities by considering the different possibilities of learning school problems and representations of scientific knowledge. The methodology favors respect for the students’ developmental specificities, as well as educational interaction and mediation in an active and collaborative way between students and teachers.

The role of results in deciding to publish: A direct comparison across authors, reviewers, and editors based on an online survey.

Publishing study results in scientific journals has been the standard way of disseminating science. However, getting results published may depend on their statistical significance. The consequence of this is that the representation of scientific knowledge might be biased. This type of bias has been called publication bias. The main objective of the present study is to get more insight into publication bias by examining it at the author, reviewer, and editor level. Additionally, we make a direct comparison between publication bias induced by authors, by reviewers, and by editors. We approached our participants by e-mail, asking them to fill out an online survey. Our findings suggest that statistically significant findings have a higher likelihood to be published than statistically non-significant findings, because (1) authors (n = 65) are more likely to write up and submit articles with significant results compared to articles with non-significant results (median effect size 1.10, BF10 = 1.09*107); (2) reviewers (n = 60) give more favourable reviews to articles with significant results compared to articles with non-significant results (median effect size 0.58, BF10 = 4.73*102); and (3) editors (n = 171) are more likely to accept for publication articles with significant results compared to articles with non-significant results (median effect size, 0.94, BF10 = 7.63*107). Evidence on differences in the relative contributions to publication bias by authors, reviewers, and editors is ambiguous (editors vs reviewers: BF10 = 0.31, reviewers vs authors: BF10 = 3.11, and editors vs authors: BF10 = 0.42). One of the main limitations was that rather than investigating publication bias directly, we studied potential for publication bias. Another limitation was the low response rate to the survey.

“Heading for Extinction”: the representation of scientific knowledge in Extinction Rebellion's recruitment talks

This study examines how the climate action group Extinction Rebellion represents scientific knowledge in the public presentations used to recruit new members. Using a combination of semi-structured interviews and recordings of the talks and comparing them across four versions, we examine how the talk developed and identify four distinct modes of science communication. This analysis also highlights that many factors shape the mode of science communication employed, with the outcome particularly influenced by the editors' concept of how to best motivate action, as well as changes in the wider communication environment and the evolution of the movement's strategic aims. We note the way in which the modes are expressions of “boundary work” seeking to either include or exclude scientific views the group perceives as either aligning with, or running counter to, their political goals.

Science, fiction, and Santa Claus: Hollywood creator and consultant perceptions of fictional science in film and television

IntroductionFrom the high-stakes operating room of a Seattle hospital, to the shattered remains of a planet in a galaxy far, far away, Hollywood is often critiqued for its representations of scientific knowledge, methods, and/or technology. Existing research into Hollywood representations of science focuses primarily on those that do not align with expert consensus, and on how audiences engage with these representations — such as how misinformation in fictional narratives influences us. This paper, instead, approaches the matter of fictional science in fictional narratives (FiSci) from the perspectives of the individuals creating Hollywood content. We use the label of “FiSci” for any representation of science within a narrative which does not align with humanity's current knowledge or technological capability.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted in late 2020 with a purposefully-selected sample of both Hollywood creators (writers, directors, and producers; n = 28) and science experts who have served as consultants (n = 18) across a range of film and television projects. Thematic analysis was used to explore how these creators and consultants perceive FiSci and its role within Hollywood narratives. Three themes were constructed from the interview data.Results and discussionParticipants primarily spoke of FiSci as: (1) a storytelling tool, perceived either positively or negatively, depending upon how that tool is wielded; (2) a way to play within a constructed storyworld which does not resemble our own; and (3) a source of unrealistic “B.S.” which threatens to break audience suspension of disbelief and can signify a lack of effort in the creative process. This paper contributes to science communication research by providing access to minds behind the representations of science in Hollywood film and television. As such, it can be used to aid the creator-consultant relationship and the implementation of FiSci to the benefit of both groups. It may also inform creators who have yet to work with a consultant, experts looking to become consultants, audiences critiquing FiSci in the content they watch, and experts and science communicators who express concerns about the use of FiSci and the responsibilities of Hollywood.

Contexts and contradictions: a roadmap for computational drug repurposing with knowledge inference.

The cost of drug development continues to rise and may be prohibitive in cases of unmet clinical need, particularly for rare diseases. Artificial intelligence-based methods are promising in their potential to discover new treatment options. The task of drug repurposing hypothesis generation is well-posed as a link prediction problem in a knowledge graph (KG) of interacting of drugs, proteins, genes and disease phenotypes. KGs derived from biomedical literature are semantically rich and up-to-date representations of scientific knowledge. Inference methods on scientific KGs can be confounded by unspecified contexts and contradictions. Extracting context enables incorporation of relevant pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic detail, such as tissue specificity of interactions. Contradictions in biomedical KGs may arise when contexts are omitted or due to contradicting research claims. In this review, we describe challenges to creating literature-scale representations of pharmacological knowledge and survey current approaches toward incorporating context and resolving contradictions.

Speech methods of representation of scientific knowledge as a tool for increasing reader interest to popular science texts (based on the material of online versions of journals)

The purpose of this work is to: 1) identify, study and analyze speech methods of updating scientific knowledge as a tool for influencing the reader's consciousness; 2) identify potential criteria for increasing the audience's interest in the presented scientific knowledge in the aspect of popular science discourse on the example of popular science articles from selected journals for analysis; 3) describe the influencing potential of these speech methods of presenting knowledge to the addressee. Methodology. The influencing potential of media sources that increase the interest of the readership is revealed through a series of studies describing the factors and methods of popularizing scientific knowledge in modern media on the basis of intersecting discourses (social-political, pedagogical, medical, etc.). The research is also based on the method of continuous sampling in the selection of practical material, the method of quantitative and qualitative analysis. The article substantiates the most effective and frequent speech patterns.

Representing scientific knowledge for quantitative analysis of physical systems

Representation of scientific knowledge in ontologies suffers so often from the lack of computational knowledge required for inference. This article aims to perform quantitative analysis on physical systems, that is, to answer questions about values of quantitative state variables of a physical system with known structure. For this objective, we incorporate procedural knowledge on two distinct levels. At the domain-specific level, we propose a representation model for scientific knowledge, i.e. variables, theories, and laws of nature. At the domain-independent level, we provide an algorithm which, given a system S with known structure and a relevant scientific theory T, extracts a constraint network, whose variables are state variables of S defined by T, and whose constraints raise from relevant laws in T. The constraint network is then solved, to build a system of equations whose unknowns are the output variables of S. The proposed representation model and reasoning algorithm are evaluated by applying them to classic analysis examples.

Using a System of Heterogeneous Ontology Design Patterns to Develop Ontologies of Scientific Subject Domains

This paper presents an approach to developing ontologies of scientific subject domains (SSDs) that is based on the application of a system of heterogeneous ontology design patterns (ODPs), which are documented descriptions of proven solutions to typical problems of ontological modeling. This system includes both universal patterns used to describe typical ontology constructions and patterns focused on scientific knowledge representation. This ODP system not only allows all entities of an ontology developed for a particular SSD to be consistently represented, thus excluding many errors in the process of ontological modeling, but also makes it possible to save a significant amount of resources spent on the development of an ontology.

A new frontier: developing an undergraduate assessment task aimed at improving the representation of biomedical scientific information on Wikipedia

ABSTRACTThe representation of scientific knowledge and information on Wikipedia is controversial. While some entries present established scientific fact, other entries are devoid of information or present information of questionable rigour. Taking this and the problems associated with essay topics as assessment tasks into consideration, an assessment task has been developed in which senior physiology or histology students edit a Wikipedia entry which is relevant to the themes in the unit of study. Students develop digital literacy skills while improving the quality of scientific information on Wikipedia. Teaching and learning resources have been developed to aid the students transition from writing in a typical ‘essay style’ to writing in a style appropriate to Wikipedia. The assessment task and design presented here can be readily adapted to any field of study and is designed to help academics introduce editing of Wikipedia articles into existing curricula in an efficient and effective manner.

Dynamic frame as a structure for scientific knowledge representation

Dynamic frame as a structure for scientific knowledge representation

Science, Technology, and Society Approaches to Fieldwork in Geography

Geographers who take a science, technology, and society (STS) approach to research recognize that the doing of science happens within particular social and historical contexts. Additionally, the production and representation of scientific knowledge occurs via networks of human and nonhuman actors. This article considers how coconstructivist STS emphasizes the processes and practices whereby knowledge and context produce each other simultaneously. A particular focus of this article is to show how taking an STS approach alters both the construction of research questions and the doing of fieldwork, especially for those geographers less familiar with STS. Although not intended to be an in-depth introduction to STS, this article explores the central tenets of coconstructivist STS, including its ontological foundations, processes of critical knowledge production, and methods, to demonstrate the applicability of this approach to geographic inquiry. Specific fieldwork examples from case studies on nonlethal weaponry in Bangkok, Thailand, and on long-term political effects of the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine illustrate how a coconstructivist STS approach can be meaningful to geographic research and fieldwork. Key Words: Chernobyl disaster, fieldwork methods, knowledge production, nonlethal weapons, STS.

Ciencia y ficción. Notas sobre el escepticismo epistemológico del <em>Quijote</em>

El presente trabajo pretende analizar la representación del saber científico en el Quijote de Cervantes, basándose en varios pasajes que subrayan los conocimientos científicos de don Quijote. Se constata que la novela revela una sutil crítica de las ciencias en cuyo fondo está un profundo escepticismo epistemológico frente a la arbitrariedad de nuestros conceptos del mundo. La caracterización de don Quijote como científico incluso permite deducir que sufre un doble daño de lectura (caballeresco y científico) y que Cervantes, por tanto, considera la propia ciencia como ficción, un punto de vista muy moderno.

SOLVING OF SAT - PROBLEMS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH THE HELP OF LOCAL ELIMINATION ALGORITHMS

Intelligent systems of processing and representing the knowledge are presently developed towards the integration of symbol and image representations of scientific knowledge. In combination with well-developed hardware and software multimedia tools this trend in engineering of science has a great practical importance especially at the stage of conversion of paper documents into their electronic equivalents. In this situation there occur some problems related to the form of representation of knowledge, configuration of user interfaces, recognition of the input information and providing for high speed of its search and processing.

Construction of biological networks from unstructured information based on a semi-automated curation workflow.

Capture and representation of scientific knowledge in a structured format are essential to improve the understanding of biological mechanisms involved in complex diseases. Biological knowledge and knowledge about standardized terminologies are difficult to capture from literature in a usable form. A semi-automated knowledge extraction workflow is presented that was developed to allow users to extract causal and correlative relationships from scientific literature and to transcribe them into the computable and human readable Biological Expression Language (BEL). The workflow combines state-of-the-art linguistic tools for recognition of various entities and extraction of knowledge from literature sources. Unlike most other approaches, the workflow outputs the results to a curation interface for manual curation and converts them into BEL documents that can be compiled to form biological networks. We developed a new semi-automated knowledge extraction workflow that was designed to capture and organize scientific knowledge and reduce the required curation skills and effort for this task. The workflow was used to build a network that represents the cellular and molecular mechanisms implicated in atherosclerotic plaque destabilization in an apolipoprotein-E-deficient (ApoE −/− ) mouse model. The network was generated using knowledge extracted from the primary literature. The resultant atherosclerotic plaque destabilization network contains 304 nodes and 743 edges supported by 33 PubMed referenced articles. A comparison between the semi-automated and conventional curation processes showed similar results, but significantly reduced curation effort for the semi-automated process. Creating structured knowledge from unstructured text is an important step for the mechanistic interpretation and reusability of knowledge. Our new semi-automated knowledge extraction workflow reduced the curation skills and effort required to capture and organize scientific knowledge. The atherosclerotic plaque destabilization network that was generated is a causal network model for vascular disease demonstrating the usefulness of the workflow for knowledge extraction and construction of mechanistically meaningful biological networks.

The role of the media in the science-policy nexus. Some critical reflections based on an analysis of the Belgian drug policy debate (1996–2003)

BackgroundDrug policy is one of the most polarised subjects of public debate and media coverage, which frequently tend to be dramatic and event-centred. Although the role of the media in directing the drug discourse is widely acknowledged, limited research has been conducted in examining the particular role of the media in the science-policy nexus. We sought to determine how the (mis)representation of scientific knowledge in the media may, or may not, have an impact on the contribution of scientific knowledge to the drug-policy making process. MethodsUsing a case study of the Belgian drug-policy debates between 1996 and 2003, we conducted a discourse analysis of specially selected 1067 newspaper articles and 164 policy documents. Our analysis focused on: textual elements that feature intra-discourse differences, how players and scientific knowledge are represented in the text, the arguments used and claims made, and the various types of research utilisation. ResultsMedia discourse strongly influenced the public's and policy makers’ understanding as well as the content of the Belgian drug policy debate between 1996 and 2003. As a major source of scientific knowledge, media coverage supported the ‘enlightenment’ role of scientific knowledge in the policy-making process by broadening and even determining frames of reference. However, as the presentation of scientific knowledge in the media was often inaccurate or distorted due to the lack of contextual information or statistical misinformation, the media may also support the selective utilisation of scientific knowledge. ConclusionsMany challenges as well as opportunities lie ahead for researchers who want to influence the policy-making process since most research fails to go beyond academic publications. Although media is a valuable linking mechanism between science and policy, by no means does it provide scientists with a guarantee of a more ‘evidence-based’ drug policy.

Abstractions and scientific knowledge representation

Abstractions play a crucial role in scientific knowledge representation. The author is going to analyze the nature and mechanisms of functioning of some scientific abstractions in the scientific knowledge representations as well as limitations that they placed upon the result of scientific knowledge acquisition. Abstraction is the process (and result) of limitation of certain kinds of differences. Nevertheless it presupposes an adjunction of some properties as well, and this fact has its impact upon knowledge representation. The crucial problem of the emergence of abstraction is the problem of eliminating extraneous premises. Abstraction enables us to overcome the ‘entropy of experience’ and to represent knowledge as ordered sets of judgments which possess particular sense within the ‘interval of abstraction’. ‘Interval of abstraction’ may be interpreted as the measure of informative capacity of abstraction with its model of applicability, and not only the degree of its distraction properties. The author considers the role and place of some crucial abstractions in cognition and knowledge representation process. Special attention is paid to the indiscernibility abstraction. Le astrazioni giocano un ruolo cruciale nella rappresentazione della conoscenza scientifica. L’autore va ad analizzare la natura e i meccanismi di funzionamento di alcune astrazioni scientifiche nelle rappresentazioni della conoscenza scientifica cosi come le limitazioni che esse impongono sul risultato dell’acquisizione della conoscenza scientifica. L’astrazione e il processo (e il risultato) della limitazione di certi tipi di differenze. Nondimeno, essa presuppone altresi un’aggiunta di alcune proprieta, e questo fatto ha il suo impatto sulla rappresentazione della conoscenza. Il problema cruciale dell’emergenza dell’astrazione e il problema di eliminare le premesse estranee. L’astrazione ci permette di superare l’entropia dell’esperienza e rappresentare la conoscenza come insiemi ordinati di giudizi che posseggono un senso particolare all’interno dell’intervallo di astrazione. L’intervallo di puo essere interpretato come la misura della capacita informativa dell’astrazione con il suo modello di applicabilita, e non solo il grado delle sue proprieta di distrazione. L’autore considera il ruolo e il posto di alcune cruciali astrazioni nel processo di rappresentazione della cognizione e della conoscenza. Una speciale attenzione e prestata alla astrazione della indiscernibilita.

Pedagogical Transformations of Science Content Knowledge in Korean Elementary Classrooms

While a solid understanding of science content knowledge is important in developing expertise in science teaching, it is not necessarily a sufficient condition to teach science effectively in elementary schools. Teachers need to have the ability to transform their knowledge into forms learnable by students. Based on this perspective, the current study explored how science content knowledge was pedagogically transformed in Korean elementary classrooms. Data sources included video-recorded science lessons of five elementary teachers in a metropolitan city of Korea. The analysis of the data revealed that the Korean teachers often engaged in transforming science content knowledge by means of different semiotic modes, including language, pictures, materials, actions, and their complex combinations. Further, their representations of scientific knowledge were in diverse forms, such as personifications, analogies, quiz questions, pictorial models, diagrams, animations, real-life examples, hand demonstrations, videos, flash tools, and songs-and-dances. Future research involving a wider range of participants, such as students, content specialists, and teachers with weak and strong content understanding, was suggested to confirm the findings of this study and find more various ways of pedagogical transformation of science subject matter knowledge.

Fragmentary Landscapes: Revealing Seismicity in the Imagining of Southern California

This paper introduces ‘Terra Incognita’, a contemporary photographic practice located in the relationship between photography, seismology and the visual representation of landscape in Southern California. Photography and geological science have been used together since the late nineteenth century to document this region, and Terra Incognita can be situated within this visual culture of using photography in the representation of scientific knowledge, in particular to extend the threshold of visual perception. Concepts borrowed from archaeology provided a framework for the Terra Incognita practice, and also (together with discourses on Southern California, photography itself and seismology) for constructing meaning in the photographs. The seismic activity caused by the extensive fault zone which exists in this region is immense, with the topography moving at a rate of about five centimetres every year. Southern California, through sitting precariously on the edge of the North American continent, challenges thinking about how any landscape can ever be known. It has been described in terms such as ‘utopia’ and ‘sunshine’, but also in the same breath as ‘dystopia’ and ‘noir’, and the idea of things being in flux or unsettled has been central to creating an identity of place. The paper concludes that within the limits of the photographic medium, of human perception and of seismic prediction, ‘fragmentary views’ become the only way to know this ‘unknow-able’ landscape.

Estudo de planejamento e design de um módulo instrucional sobre o sistema respiratório: o ensino de ciências para surdos

Discorremos sobre o estudo do planejamento e design de um módulo instrucional para o ensino de ciências, especificamente para o ensino do sistema respiratório para alunos surdos. Primeiramente, apresentamos uma discussão sobre a educação de surdos pautada por questões linguísticas, que envolvem o ensino da língua portuguesa e a língua de sinais. Descrevemos a estratégia de criação do módulo, que está pautada no sociointeracionismo, e, finalmente, descrevemos uma situação de intervenção pedagógica analisando o processo de apropriação conceitual. Para tanto, apresentamos episódios de aulas para o 8º ano do Ensino Fundamental da Associação dos Surdos de Goiânia. Constituíram o design do módulo diferentes formas de representação do conhecimento científico. Nossos resultados permitem inferir que a estratégia foi utilizada como ferramenta da ação mediada e como instrumento de explicação e previsão. Ainda, permitiu aos alunos perceberem, estabelecerem relações e conhecerem fenômenos naturais simbolizados a partir das sequências vivenciadas.

Ideological cultures and media discourses on scientific knowledge: re-reading news on climate change

Focusing on the representation of climate change in the British “quality press,” this article argues that the discursive (re)construction of scientific claims in the media is strongly entangled with ideological standpoints. Understood here as a set of ideas and values that legitimate a program of action vis-à-vis a given social and political order, ideology works as a powerful selection device in deciding what is scientific news, i.e. what the relevant “facts” are, and who are the authorized “agents of definition” of science matters. The representation of scientific knowledge has important implications for evaluating political programs and assessing the responsibility of both governments and the public in addressing climate change.