Visualizing latent domain knowledge

Knowledge discovery and data mining commonly rely on finding salient patterns of association from a vast amount of data. Traditional citation analysis of scientific literature draws insights from strong citation patterns. Latent domain knowledge, in contrast to the mainstream domain knowledge, often consists of highly relevant but relatively infrequently cited scientific works. Visualizing latent domain knowledge presents a significant challenge to knowledge discovery and quantitative studies of science. We build upon a citation-based knowledge visualization procedure and develop an approach that not only captures knowledge structures from prominent and highly cited works, but also traces latent domain knowledge through low-frequency citation chains. We apply this approach to two cases: (1) identifying cross-domain applications of Pathfinder networks (PFNETs) and (2) clarifying the current status of scientific inquiry of a possible link between Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, and a new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a type of brain disease in human

Knowledge and participation. Moving towards scientific citizenship

The scientific and technological progress of the first modernity developed through the centralization of intel- ligence, power and risk control, which was concentrated in technical structures comprising technicians, special- ist, decision makers. One of the challenges of the modern knowledge society is the development of more appropriate forms of democratic participation to incorporate scientific innovation and technology through an expansion of citizenship rights

Engineering simulations for cancer systems biology

Computer simulation can be used to inform in vivo and in vitro experimentation, enabling rapid, low-cost hypothesis generation and directing experimental design in order to test those hypotheses. In this way, in silico models become a scientific instrument for investigation, and so should be developed to high standards, be carefully calibrated and their findings presented in such that they may be reproduced. Here, we outline a framework that supports developing simulations as scientific instruments, and we select cancer systems biology as an exemplar domain, with a particular focus on cellular signalling models. We consider the challenges of lack of data, incomplete knowledge and modelling in the context of a rapidly changing knowledge base. Our framework comprises a process to clearly separate scientific and engineering concerns in model and simulation development, and an argumentation approach to documenting models for rigorous way of recording assumptions and knowledge gaps. We propose interactive, dynamic visualisation tools to enable the biological community to interact with cellular signalling models directly for experimental design. There is a mismatch in scale between these cellular models and tissue structures that are affected by tumours, and bridging this gap requires substantial computational resource. We present concurrent programming as a technology to link scales without losing important details through model simplification. We discuss the value of combining this technology, interactive visualisation, argumentation and model separation to support development of multi-scale models that represent biologically plausible cells arranged in biologically plausible structures that model cell behaviour, interactions and response to therapeutic interventions

D - Federal Republic of Germany

After describing the first and second training phase of teacher education as well as the application of teachers for a post and tenure in Germany, the author points out that the "professionalization of teachers" as a concept is characterized by a) a "high (scientific) subject knowledge", b) "didactic knowledge and skills based on subjects", c) "foundations in social sciences" and d) "the socialisation into the teaching profession". Finally, he concludes that "even though the degree of unified structures has never been as high as it is today, there are important differences" regarding teacher education in Germany. (DIPF/ssch.

Reflections On Science And Technoscience

Technoscientific research, a kind of scientific research conducted within the decontextualized approach (DA), uses advanced technology to produce instruments, experimental objects, and new objects and structures, that enable us to gain knowledge of states of affairs of novel domains, especially knowledge about new possibilities of what we can do and make, with the horizons of practical, industrial, medical or military innovation, and economic growth and competition, never far removed from view. The legitimacy of technoscientific innovations can be appraised only in the course of considering fully what sorts of objects technoscientific objects are: objects that embody scientific knowledge confirmed within DA; physical/chemical/biological objects, realizations of possibilities discovered in research conducted within DA, brought to realization by means of technical/experimental/instrumental interventions; and components of social/ecological systems, objects that embody the values of technological progress and (most of them) values of capital and the market. What technoscientific objects are - their powers, tendencies, sources of their being, effects on human beings and social/economic systems, how they differ from non technoscientific objects - cannot be grasped from technoscientific inquiry alone; scientific inquiry that is not reducible to that conducted within DA is also needed. The knowledge that underlies and explains the efficacy of technoscientific objects is never sufficient to grasp what sorts of object they are and could become. Science cannot be reduced to technoscience

Does Language Determine Our Scientific Ideas?

SummaryThis paper argues that the influence of language on science, philosophy and other field is mediated by communicative practices. Where communications is more restrictive, established linguistic structures exercise a tighter control over innovations and scientifically motivated reforms of language. The viewpoint here centers on the thesis that argumentation is crucial in the understanding and evaluation of proposed reforms and that social practices which limit argumentation serve to erode scientific objectivity. Thus, a plea is made for a sociology of scientific belief designed to understand and insure social‐institutional conditions of the possibility of knowledge and its growth. A chief argument draws on work of Axelrod concerning the evolution of cooperation