139,770 research outputs found
Archaeology, science-based archaeology and the Mediterranean Bronze Age metals trade
Archaeologists often seem either sceptical of science-based archaeology or baffled by its
results. The underpinnings of science-based archaeology may conflict with social or behavioural
factors unsuited to quantification and grouping procedures. Thus, the interaction between archaeologists
and their science-based colleagues has been less profitable than it might have been. The
main point I consider in this study, and exemplify by considering metals provenance studies in
the Bronze Age Mediterranean, is the relevance and application of the stated aims of science-based
archaeology to the contemporary discipline of archaeology. Whereas most practitioners
today recognize that science-based archaeology has the potential to contribute positively to the
resolution of problems stemming from our field's inadequate and incomplete data resource, I contend
that science and scientific analyses alone cannot adjudicate between cultural possibilities.
Rather they provide analytical data which are likely to be open-ended, subject to multiple social
interpretations, and in need of evaluation by collaborating archaeologists using social theory
Aerospace bibliography, fifth edition
Bibliography of references, periodicals, and educational materials related to space fligh
Becoming PBRF-able: Research assessment and education in New Zealand
It seems ironic that, designed as they are to quantify, evaluate and reward the research quantum of academic institutions, departments and individuals, research assessment exercises have themselves become objects of their research and critique. As many in this volume and elsewhere attest, the impact of research assessment runs deeper than mere measurement of “what is already there”: such processes are productive, or formative (Henkel, 2005, McNay, 2003; Sikes, 2006). Of course bringing about change is intended in the sense of increasing research quantity, enhancing its quality, etc. However, there are suggestions that by changing the conditions of knowledge production, research assessment exercises may also alter the shape and direction of disciplines by diverting and channelling researchers’ intellectual attention and political engagement, influencing what they study, how they do it, and how they report and write (Beck and Yong, 2005; Bernstein, 2000)
Cry "Good for history, Cambridge and Saint George"? Essay Review of Mary Jo Nye (Ed.); The Cambridge History of Science, Vol. 5. The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
FIRST PARAGRAPH
This volume is the third thus far published of The Cambridge history of science, planned in eight parts over the last decade by Cambridge University Press. Noting the incompleteness of George Sarton’s heroic solo endeavour on a comparably magisterial scale (Sarton, 1953–1959), Cambridge general editors David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers adopted a more pragmatic multiple author approach in devising this new series. They devote the four latter volumes to that fertile wonder ‘modern science’, its modernity construed chronologically as the post-1800 era. While Volume 6 encompasses the biological and earth sciences ( Bowler & Pickstone, forthcoming), Volume 7 deals with the social sciences ( Porter & Ross, 2003), and Volume 8 examines the sciences in national and international setting ( Livingstone & Numbers, forthcoming). Lindberg and Numbers thus circumscribe the territory of Volume 5 to be the history of physics, chemistry, astronomy and mathematics in the Euro-American world. Although this might seem a fairly conventional—even conservative—subject clustering, few historians would have felt undaunted by the heterogeneity of such material, the narrowness of the brief and the long two-century period of coverage. This volume must therefore be judged with sensitivity to the difficulties of leading thirty-seven scholars in diverse specialisms to produce a coherent product, and the sheer impracticability of Sarton’s near-Shakespearean ambitions for unitary drama. Useful comparisons can thus be made with recent works that offer a multi-perspectival view over comparably broad terrain: John Krige and Dominic Pestre’s stimulating and uncomplacent Science in the twentieth century (1997), and the more radically inclusive bibliographical essays in Arne Hessenbruch (Ed.), The reader’s guide to the history of science (Hessenbruch, 2000)
The distorted mirror of Wikipedia: a quantitative analysis of Wikipedia coverage of academics
Activity of modern scholarship creates online footprints galore. Along with
traditional metrics of research quality, such as citation counts, online images
of researchers and institutions increasingly matter in evaluating academic
impact, decisions about grant allocation, and promotion. We examined 400
biographical Wikipedia articles on academics from four scientific fields to
test if being featured in the world's largest online encyclopedia is correlated
with higher academic notability (assessed through citation counts). We found no
statistically significant correlation between Wikipedia articles metrics
(length, number of edits, number of incoming links from other articles, etc.)
and academic notability of the mentioned researchers. We also did not find any
evidence that the scientists with better WP representation are necessarily more
prominent in their fields. In addition, we inspected the Wikipedia coverage of
notable scientists sampled from Thomson Reuters list of "highly cited
researchers". In each of the examined fields, Wikipedia failed in covering
notable scholars properly. Both findings imply that Wikipedia might be
producing an inaccurate image of academics on the front end of science. By
shedding light on how public perception of academic progress is formed, this
study alerts that a subjective element might have been introduced into the
hitherto structured system of academic evaluation.Comment: To appear in EPJ Data Science. To have the Additional Files and
Datasets e-mail the corresponding autho
The Knowledge Production Function for University Patenting
We estimate a knowledge production function for university patenting using an individual effects negative binomial model. We control for R&D expenditures, research field and the presence of a TTO office. We distinguish between three kinds of researchers who staff labs: faculty, postdoctoral students and PhD students. We also examine whether PhDs and postdoctoral scholars contribute equally to patent activity or whether there is a differential effect depending upon visa status. We find patent counts relate positively and significantly to the number of faculty, number of PhD students and number of postdocs. Our results also suggest that not all graduate students and postdocs contribute equally to patenting but that contribution is mediated by visa status. Working Paper 07-0
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