Value Of Scientific Knowledge Research Articles

Development of research skills of secondary school students in the organisation of independent local history work in biology

Relevance. The relevance of the research is conditioned upon the active use of personal experience of students in the implementation of the process of teaching local history work in biology lessons, based on the development of methods of research activity in a secondary school. Purpose. The value of scientific knowledge, the need to increase the role of science in the education of schoolchildren are associated with the need to achieve cognitive independence of the individual and the organisation of a personality-oriented learning system. Methodology. There is a fact that the methodology of teaching biology, to date, does not sufficiently reflect the ways of developing research skills in the independent local history work of students. It is also necessary to develop a scientific and methodological approach to the development of research skills and skills acquired in biology lessons. This article describes an experiment in which a survey of biology teachers of grades 5-7 was carried out using a questionnaire. Among the theoretical research methods were used: analysis and synthesis of historical and cultural, psychological and pedagogical, methodological literature, abstraction and generalisation, study of normative documents on the problem of research. Results. The results of the experiment in this article showed that for this the teacher needs free time, where he will be able to independently solve the issues of interest to him for creative development. Such a process of introducing new educational standards into the education system is of particular relevance for the development of students' research skills in organising independent local history work in biology, which in turn requires teachers to have a high level of training.

Contextual Vulnerability Should Guide Fair Subject Selection in Xenotransplantation Clinical Trials

Contextual Vulnerability Should Guide Fair Subject Selection in Xenotransplantation Clinical Trials

Short-Term Effects of Air Pollution on Mortality in the Urban Area of Thessaloniki, Greece

This study examines the effects of short-term exposure to PM10 and O3 on all-cause, cardiorespiratory, and cerebrovascular mortality in the urban area of Thessaloniki, Greece. An analysis was performed on the vulnerable subgroup (the elderly population). The primary effect estimates employed were the relative risks for every 10 µg/m3 increase in air pollutant concentrations. Strong associations between PM10 and O3 levels on mortality were reported, with the elderly people becoming frailer. An increase of 10 μgr/m3 in PM10 concentration resulted in a 2.3% (95% CI: 0.8–3.8) and 2% (95% CI: 0.1–4.5) increase in total and cardiorespiratory mortality, respectively. O3 concentrations showed even stronger associations for all-cause (3.9%, 95% CI: 2.5–5.3) and cardiorespiratory deaths (5.3%, 95% CI: 3.1–7.7) with 10 μgr/m3 increases; no statistically significant associations were found for cerebrovascular causes, while both pollutants presented stronger impacts on health between day 0 and 3. Concerning the elderly, the total mortality rose by 3.2% (95% CI: 1.5–5) due to PM10 concentrations and by 4.4% (95% CI: 2.9–6) due to O3 concentrations. In total, 242 (170) all-cause deaths were annually attributed to the PM10 (O3) level in Thessaloniki. In the efforts towards achieving a sustainable environment for humanity, health benefits resulting from two air pollution abatement scenarios (a 20% reduction in PM10 levels and full compliance to the European Union PM10 limits) were quantified. The analysis led to a respective decrease in total excess mortality by 0.4% and 1.8%, respectively. This outcome stresses the necessity of appropriate civil protection actions and provides valuable scientific knowledge to national and regional administrations in order to develop proper health and air quality plans.

The scientific value of explanation and prediction.

Deep neural network models have revived long-standing debates on the value of explanation versus prediction for advancing science. Bowers et al.'s critique will not make these models go away, but it is likely to prompt new work that seeks to reconcile explanatory and predictive models, which could change how we determine what constitutes valuable scientific knowledge.

Émigrés and Migrations during the French Revolution

The French Revolution profoundly influenced many of the ideas and institutions that created the modern world. This far-reaching revolutionary upheaval drew widely on eighteenth-century Enlightenment culture to construct and spread modern ideas about human rights, republicanism, legal equality, nationalism, and the value of scientific knowledge. At the same time, France’s revolutionary leaders began to create new institutions that France and other modern countries would use to develop large state bureaucracies, mass conscription armies, centralized monetary and taxation systems, nationwide legal codes and police surveillance, carefully orchestrated public rituals, and new plans for public education.

Exploring Epistemic Humility and its Limits in Therapeutics

Exploring Epistemic Humility and its Limits in Therapeutics Douglas Porter, MD* (bio) I would like to thank Scott Waterman for sharing what must have been very challenging personal circumstances. Waterman's reflections touched upon many complex issues. For my part, I would like to explore how Waterman's experience underscores the importance of epistemic humility regarding the limits of scientific knowledge and our sense of the meaning of scientific knowledge while still recognizing the significance and power of scientific knowledge. The first epistemic challenge presented by Scott Waterman's experience of "patienthood" that demonstrates the limits of scientific knowledge is the ability to know pain. Of course, we have all known pain, but such firstperson knowledge would not qualify as scientific knowledge. To scientifically know pain, we would need to have an intersubjectively verifiable correlate of the pain. This is all well and good so long as scientific knowledge is not embraced with a form of epistemic hubris such that scientific knowledge is regarded as the only true form of knowledge. It is not uncommon for the knowledge associated with first-person experience to be denigrated as inherently dubious and merely subjective. Phenomenologists (see Merleau-Ponty, 1964, for example) have pointed out that ultimately the veracity of scientific knowledge must rely upon the veracity of knowledge gained from lived experience and, consequently, regarding first-person experience as inherently invalid is tantamount to regarding the entire scientific enterprise as invalid. Epistemic hubris regarding scientific knowledge may therefore be regarded as self-contradictory and irrational. But, when epistemic hubris regarding scientific knowledge becomes wed, as it sometimes does, to a certain form of metaphysical thinking then epistemic hubris becomes downright pernicious. The metaphysics I am referring to would regard reality as that which is scientifically knowable and, ipso facto, that which cannot be known scientifically as not really real. Such thinking would regard the experience of pain as merely an epiphenomenon to what is really going on which is, loosely put, some nerve signals firing away. Such thinking leads to a perverse inversion of priorities in therapeutics where the person experiencing pain should be understood as the salient phenomenon and the value of scientific knowledge must ultimately be measured by its relevance for addressing that experience of pain. In this sense I can echo Scott Waterman's assertion that humanism and the concern for scientific rigor should not be regarded [End Page 111] as antithetical or even complementary, but are better regarded as being cut from the same cloth. It is the humanist knowledge of the significance and meaning of suffering, in this case the distress of experiencing chronic pain, that motivates and measures the concern for the tools of science to intervene and relieve that suffering. Science untied to humanist moorings in therapeutics is science gone rogue. Waterman's experience with chronic pain demonstrated the need for epistemic humility regarding the limits of scientific knowledge. I think it also underscores the need for humility involving our sense of the exact meaning of science. A friend of mine who happens to be an anthropologist recently attended a party with members of the physics department and found the status of anthropology as a "science" to be met with some incredulity by some of the physicists in attendance. It seems to me that hubris regarding physics being the paradigmatic science would severely hamper any meaningful scientific assessment of the treatment of pain. Waterman explored the scientific relevance of the purported mechanisms of action for several treatment alternatives for pain. The etymology of the term mechanism refers to machines. As I have never known a machine to experience pain, I immediately questioned the limits of mechanistic thinking regarding this topic. But what has been dubbed "the new philosophy of mechanics" (Craver & Tabery, 2019) has jettisoned some of the cartesian physicalist assumptions originally associated with mechanistic reasoning in science. This new philosophy has embraced a more liberal stance to accommodate the myriad ways in which explanatory mechanisms are actually used in scientific practice. As an example, Illari and Williamson (2012) offered this definition of a mechanism for science, "A mechanism for a phenomenon consists of entities and activities organized in such a way that they are...

Should We Pay for Scientific Knowledge Spillovers? The Underappreciated Value of "Failed" R&D Efforts.

Recent experience with COVID-19 has reminded us of the importance of scientific progress in enabling pharmaceutical innovation. Developing novel therapies is a highly risky but rewarding process: it not only produces innovative drugs, but also valuable scientific knowledge that benefits the community of innovators. This paper examines whether the existing reward system for pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) leads to socially optimal levels of scientific knowledge generation and sharing, with a particular focus on the value of failures in the pharmaceutical R&D efforts. We first outline a conceptual approach based on the idea that pharmaceutical R&D efforts produce both medicines and scientific knowledge, and illustrate this with some examples of how failures may generate information beneficial to concurrent and subsequent R&D efforts. We then summarize the relatively small literature on failures in pharmaceutical R&D and their impact on R&D decision making. Lastly, we discuss several market-based and nonmarket-based policy approaches that can address potential shortcomings in the current reward system which may lead to suboptimal R&D and knowledge sharing.

Evolution of Views on the Value of Scientific Knowledge in Western Philosophy

Introduction. Evolution of views on the value of scientific knowledge in various directions of Western philosophy, from the ancient period to the 20th century is analyzed in the article. The relevance of the article is due to the fact that the view of scientific knowledge as the value of scientific reality is a fairly new phenomenon.Methodology and sources. The methodological basis of the work is the cultural and philosophical analysis of various points of view in the works of both ancient philosophers, philosophers of the Renaissance and the New times (Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, F. Aquinas, Leonard da Vinci, F. Bacon, Locke, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza), as well as in the works of O. Comte, Spencer, Mach, Poincare, Pierce, James, Dewey, Jaspers, B. Russell, etc. (i.e. representatives of positivism, existentialism, neo-Thomism).Results and discussion. Today two directions could be distinguished in the relation to science: either its absolutization, that we name scientism, or the cult of an abstract person opposed to science – anthropologism. This is a consequence of the changes in the views on scientific knowledge that have taken place throughout the history of science. Thus, in the ancient period, the value of science was determined, firstly, not in relation to the practical activity of a human being, but only in relation to science to knowledge and cognition, and secondly, as a way of self-development of the individual. In the Middle Ages, science was the “handmaid” of theology. In the Renaissance science faced new challenges: the first was an anti-religious understanding of the essence of a person, the second was the justification of the role of scientific knowledge both for practice and for the worldview as a whole. It was on this understanding of the meaning of scientific knowledge that the concepts of the philosophers of the XVII–XVIII centuries were built, and they dominated until the middle of the XIX century. From this period, a one-sided approach begins to dominate – the ideological role of the value of science was denied and only its pragmatic value is taken. Along with this, there is also a critical attitude towards science, which then develops into anti-scientism. Today, a pessimistic approach (postmodernism, for example) the approach to the consideration of the value of scientific knowledge is characteristic of modern philosophical trends that deny not only the value of scientific knowledge, but also deny knowledge itself.Conclusion. The evaluation of scientific knowledge in Western philosophy has undergone significant changes. If in classical philosophy, with a few exceptions, the recognition of the comprehensive value of science prevailed, i.e. its ideological, humanistic and practical value, then in the future all these three main aspects of the value of scientific knowledge are analyzed. In the extreme forms, this leads to the emergence of antiscientism, for which it is the development of scientific knowledge is perceived as a source of human misery and suffering.

Molecular Networking Discloses the Chemical Diversity of Flavonoids and Selaginellins in Selaginella convoluta.

Selaginella convoluta is a desiccation tolerant plant native to the Brazilian semiarid region (Caatinga), endowed with an effective drought resistance mechanism. As part of our research efforts to understand the chemical diversity of S. convoluta, dehydrated (harvested in their natural habitat in the dry season) and hydrated (plant acclimated in a laboratory after rehydration) specimens were analyzed by HR-LC-ESI-MS/MS followed by a structural annotation on the Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking Web platform. The molecular networking approach allowed for putative annotation of 39 metabolites, mainly selaginellins and flavonoids. Based on MS/MS data, three unprecedented selaginellins were annotated: 29-hydroxy selaginellin O, 29-hydroxy selaginellin A, and 4-{[2-(4-hydrophenyl)-6-[2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)ethynyl]phenyl](4-oxocyclohexa-2,5-dien-1-ylidene)methyl}benzaldehyde. Th results pointed out that valuable scientific knowledge can be obtained from studies conducted with plants in their natural habitat by allowing a more realistic profile of chemical diversity. The present study adds new information on specialized metabolites of S. convoluta, mainly flavonoids and selaginellins, and highlights the species as an untapped source of chemobiodiversity from Caatinga.

Antibacterial and Antibiofilm Activities of a Traditional Herbal Formula against Respiratory Infection Causing Bacteria

The plants, Althaea officinalis, Tilia cordata and Psidium guaja have been used traditionally to treat respiratory infection symptoms. Flowers of A. officinalis and leaves of T. cordata and P. guaja have been used to treat cough, sore throat, catarrh, oral and pharyngeal mucosa irritation. Therefore, this study was designed to examine the antibacterial and antibiofilm effects of these plants individually as well as in combination, as a formula against respiratory infections causing pathogens. The tested pathogens were Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase producing Escherichia coli (ESBL), Beta-Lactamase producing Escherichia coli (BL), Beta-Lactamase producing Klebsiella pneumoniae (BL), Beta-Lactamase producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa (BL), Enterobacter cloacae, and Beta-Lactamase producing Staphylococcus aureus (BL). The tested plants were extracted using ethanol and then fractionated using different polarity solvents (hexane, ethyl acetate and water). Disc diffusion and microdilution (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration) methods were used to evaluate the antibacterial activity while the antibiofilm activity was tested using crystal violet assay. The results showed that A. officinalis and T. cordata extracts and fractions exhibited weak antibacterial activity having MIC values ranged from 6.25 to 12.5 mg/mL. P. guaja exhibited moderate antibacterial activity with MIC values ranged from 6.25 to 1.56 mg/mL. Combination between these plants extracts and fractions in equal proportion provides stronger antibacterial (with MIC values ranged from 6.25 to 0.8 mg/mL) and antibiofilm activities (MBIC50 was 0.2 mg/mL). Therefore, this study provides a valuable scientific knowledge to support the use of plants in combination rather than individually.

Samos, Griechenland. Notizen zu Samos während der NS-Zeit

In the 1930s, the excavation at the Heraion of Samos was seen as the German Archaeological Institute’s (DAI) “most exceptional undertaking”. Numerous publications document the important discoveries and valuable scientific knowledge gained on the island. The outbreak of World War Two and the subsequent occupation of Greece led to a cessation of all DAI activities on Samos for a period of several years. Samos was subject to three successive occupations during the war: first under Italy (May 1941 to September 1943), then Britain (“temporary liberation” from September to November 1943), and finally under the Germans (November 1943 to September 1944, the liberation took place on 5 October 1944). The island, situated in the Eastern Aegean Sea in direct proximity to neutral Turkey, was in a state of constant emergency. During the occupation, Samos endured looting, bombardments and massacres. Under these conditions of general lawlessness, archaeological artefacts were also at great risk – a topic that will be the focus of my article.

Trans-Human and Post-Human: A Challenge for the Human and Philosophical Sciences

This paper describes the concept of scientific knowledge in both modern and post-modern society. It presents a brief analysis of how the value of scientific knowledge is changing in contemporary society and describes future developments linked to the new concept of trans-humanism. The term “post-human” refers to a progressive alteration of human characteristics by means of genetic and electronic manipulation that results in an anthropological mutation, which is a prelude to the advent of a new, and post-human species. The term “trans-human” means more than human, beyond human, transcending the limits of the human condition and aspiring to an almost divine superior meaning. This new modified condition of human beings is defined as post-human and the process of change is described within the cultural framework of humanism. Trans-humanism as a term refers to a philosophical doctrine belonging to the family of contemporary progressive ideologies in which trans-humanist intellectuals analyse and promote technologies aimed at overcoming the limits of human nature. Analyzing the trends, the anthropological implications and the cultural impact of such technologies, this new philosophical/scientific doctrine tends to emphasise the positive aspects of scientific development, but without underestimating the potential dangers arising from the misuse of technology. The open ethical challenge of trans-humanism is twofold: 1) the physical improvement of human beings with reference to the new trans-human concept of human nature; 2) the development of a trans-human being that can fulfil humanity’s dream of escaping the bonds of its condition, acquiring a “cybernetic nature” free from pain and suffering.

Peering into peer review: Good quality reviews of research articles require neither writing too much nor taking too long

Abstract The value of scientific knowledge is highly dependent on the quality of the process used to produce it, namely, the quality of the peer-review process. This process is a pivotal part of science as it works both to legitimize and improve the work of the scientific community. In this context, the present study investigated the relationship between review time, length, and feedback quality of review reports in the peer-review process of research articles. For this purpose, the review time of 313 referee reports from three Chilean international journals were recorded. Feedback quality was determined estimating the rate of direct requests by the total number of comments in each report. Number of words was used to describe the average length in the sample. Results showed that average time and length have little variation across review reports, irrespective of their quality. Low quality reports tended to take longer to reach the editor, so neither time nor length were related to feedback quality. This suggests that referees mostly describe, criticize, or praise the content of the article instead of making useful and direct comments to help authors improve their manuscripts.

Acceptance of Online-based Therapy by Patients with Light to Moderate Depressive Disorders

Over the past few years, there has been a considerable increase in online-based therapeutic services for people affected by depressive disorders. The efficacy and efficiency of these programmes is well documented by now. User acceptance is considered as a significant factor of success in establishing this new patient-centered care. Theory-based acceptance surveys can provide valuable scientific knowledge regarding long-term introduction. A nationwide online survey was conducted to determine the attitude towards web-based psychotherapy services for depressive disorders, the current state of knowledge and the intention of 186 participants (124 female and 62 male participants; aged 21 and above) to use these services. The participants were recruited from support groups for depressive disorders. The determinants of the intention to use online therapy, which is included in the binary logistic regression, are based upon the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Nearly two-thirds of the respondents could conceive making use of online-based therapeutic services in the near future. The perceived performance and expected effort proved to be significantly influential predictors regarding the intention to use. Specifically, these included an evaluation of the use of E-Mental Health to assist disease management, and better assessment of the course of one's disease. The actual contribution of E-Mental Health is closely connected to technical and jurisprudential assessments. But also, it significantly depends on evidence-based issues as well as user orientation in research, development and implementation. The results offer an initial theory-based approach to an increased user-oriented technology research in health care, with further diversity criteria to be taken into account in the future.

Socioscientific and epistemic dimensions of support for science: associations with science education and religiosity

ABSTRACTThis study investigated deference to scientific authority [Brossard, D., & Nisbet, M. C. (2007). Deference to scientific authority among a low information public: Understanding U.S. opinion on agricultural biotechnology. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 19, 24–52] as it relates to support for science across eight sociocultural domains: the economy, the environment, epistemology, science education for all, public health, race and gender, public policy, and science and religion [Cobern, W. W., & Loving, C. C. (2002). Investigation of preservice elementary teachers’ thinking about science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39, 1016–1031]. Results revealed that both increased deference to scientific authority and increased support for science were associated with greater science education and lower religious attendance and revealed two underlying dimensions: an epistemic dimension, combining the deference, epistemology, and science and religion scales, and differing based on religious attendance; and a socioscientific dimension, combining science education for all, economy, environment, and public policy scales, and differing based on science education. In summary, this study suggested that low religious attendance was most strongly associated with support for the value of scientific knowledge and authority, while greater science education was most strongly associated with support for science in schools and society. The effect size for religious attendance was substantially larger than that for science education.

Thinking About Development

The case is presented for a more human vision of development which would mean a different attitude to globalization. The philosophy of John Macmurray goes beyond traditional dualism of body and mind) and the dialectic of Hegel (both of which influence much current theorizing) to give priority to action over thinking. He challenges contemporary orthodoxy by emphasizing the personal and thus raises questions about the value of scientific knowledge for solving the problems of globalization. The strategy of writing development “under erasure” as introduced by Jacques Derrida emphasizes its problematic status. Thus we do have tools to reflect on what is meant by progress and economics and efficiency, and thus reconsider what we might be doing (or destroying) if we are trying to impose change on the “underdeveloped” of the world. tells us: “All meaningful knowledge is for the sake of action, and all meaningful action for the sake of friendship” (p. 15). The thinking of Howard Richards and associates, and his account of a specific development project in Chile (P.P.H.) are offered to illustrate this new way of approaching these issues, as it becomes possible to move away from the impersonal conception of efficiency towards the ultimate value of the personal. Thus we can perhaps come to see our future in terms of what we can do to try to build community (community) from the local to the global.

Theoretical Prediction of Crystal Polymorphs for Organic Molecules

Crystal structure prediction is one of the useful theoretical tools for designing and synthesizing new materials in pharmaceutical therapeutics and industrial electronics. Furthermore, the prediction can provide immense valuable scientific knowledge on a crystal growth, polymorphism and many properties of organic molecular crystals. Therefore, we have started the development of high-speed and high-accurate prediction method for organic molecular crystal structures [1,2]. In this work, we demonstrate the theoretical predictions of crystal structures of fourteen target molecules that were used in the international competitions known as CSP blind tests hosted by CCDC [3]. All strategies required for crystal lattice construction expanded to a given effective crystal radius, crystal energy calculation with the reliable molecular force field (MMFF94s) and exhaustive geometry search included a variety of crystal polymorphism are implemented into CONFLEX program [1]. As the results of the applications, we confirmed in all cases of target molecules that, at least, one calculated crystal structure in agreement with the corresponding observed ones can be found. Essential ability required for the prediction method to survive the CSP competitions is that the experimental crystal structure can computationally reproduce within top 3 of most stable structures in crystal energy evaluation. In these tests, only three applications to the target I (Orth. polymorph), II and VIII can successfully satisfy the demand. Details will be discussed in this conference.

MicroBEnet: lessons learned from building an interdisciplinary scientific community in the online sphere.

microBEnet: lessons learned from building an interdisciplinary scientific community in the online sphere.

Helping Survivors of Medulloblastoma Learn From What We Learn

Helping Survivors of Medulloblastoma Learn From What We Learn

A critical epidemiological review of cardiovascular disease risk in HIV‐infected adults: the importance of the HIV‐uninfected comparison group, confounding, and competing risks – authors' reply

A critical epidemiological review of cardiovascular disease risk in <scp>HIV</scp>‐infected adults: the importance of the <scp>HIV</scp>‐uninfected comparison group, confounding, and competing risks – authors' reply