A tale of reviews in two history of science journals

This paper examines the role of book reviews in the discipline of the history of science by comparing their appearance in two periodicals, Isis, the flagship journal of the discipline that was founded in 1913, and the Journal for the History of Astronomy, founded in 1970 to serve a newly emerging, specialized subfield within the broader discipline. Our analysis of the reviews published in selected slices of time finds differing norms and reviewing practices within the two journals. Despite important changes during the past century in the conceptualization of the history of science and its research methods, reviewing practices in Isis remained remarkably consistent over time, with reviewers generally defending a fixed set of norms for “good” scholarship. More change appears in reviews of the Journal for the History of Astronomy, as its audience shifted from a mix of the laity, working astronomers, and historians to a specialized group of professional historians of astronomy. Scholarly norms, reflected in the reviews, shifted with these changes in readership. We conclude that book reviews offer rich sources for analyzing the evolution of scholarly disciplines and norms.Analiza recenzji w dwóch czasopismach z historii nauki W artykule przeanalizowano rolę recenzji książek w dyscyplinie historia nauki, porównując ich występowanie w dwóch czasopismach, Isis, flagowym czasopiśmie dyscypliny założonej w 1913 r., oraz Journal for the History of Astronomy, założonym w 1970 r. służącego nowo powstającej, wyspecjalizowanej poddziedzinie w ramach szerszej dyscypliny. Nasza analiza recenzji opublikowanych w wybranych wycinkach czasu wskazuje na różne normy i praktyki recenzowania w obu czasopismach. Pomimo ważnych zmian, jakie dokonały się w ciągu ostatniego stulecia w konceptualizacji historii nauki i jej metodach badawczych, praktyki recenzowania w Isis pozostawały z biegiem czasu niezwykle spójne, a recenzenci generalnie bronili ustalonego zestawu norm dotyczących „dobrej” nauki. Więcej zmian pojawia się w recenzjach czasopisma Journal for the History of Astronomy, gdy uległa zmianie jego publiczność od mieszanki laików: pracujących astronomów i historyków do wyspecjalizowanej grupy zawodowych historyków astronomii. Wraz z tymi zmianami czytelnictwa zmieniały się normy naukowe, odzwierciedlone w recenzjach. Dochodzimy do wniosku, że recenzje książek stanowią bogate źródła do analizy ewolucji dyscyplin i norm naukowych

The Structural Determinants of Insulin-Like Peptide 3 Activity

Insulin-like peptide 3 (INSL3) is a hormone and/or paracrine factor which is a member of the relaxin peptide family. It has key roles as a fertility regulator in both males and females. The receptor for INSL3 is the leucine rich repeat (LRR) containing G-protein coupled receptor 8 (LGR8) which is now known as relaxin family peptide receptor 2 (RXFP2). Receptor activation by INSL3 involves binding to the LRRs in the large ectodomain of RXFP2 by residues within the B-chain of INSL3 as well as an interaction with the transmembrane exoloops of the receptor. Although the binding to the LRRs is well characterized the features of the peptide and receptor involved in the exoloop interaction are currently unknown. This study was designed to determine the key INSL3 determinants for RXFP2 activation. A chimeric peptide approach was first utilized to demonstrate that the A-chain is critical for receptor activation. Replacement of the INSL3 A-chain with that from the related peptides INSL5 and INSL6 resulted in complete loss of activity despite only minor changes in binding affinity. Subsequent replacement of specific A-chain residues with those from the INSL5 peptide highlighted that the N-terminus of the A-chain of INSL3 is critical for its activity. Remarkably, replacement of the entire N-terminus with four or five alanine residues resulted in peptides with near native activity suggesting that specific residues are not necessary for activity. Additionally removal of two amino acids at the C-terminus of the A-chain and mutation of Lys-8 in the B-chain also resulted in minor decreases in peptide activity. Therefore we have demonstrated that the activity of the INSL3 peptide is driven predominantly by residues 5–9 in the A-chain, with minor additional contributions from the two C-terminal A-chain residues and Lys-8 in the B-chain. Using this new knowledge, we were able to produce a truncated INSL3 peptide structure which retained native activity, despite having 14 fewer residues than the parent peptide

Risk of myocardial infarction and stroke after acute infection or vaccination.

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that chronic inflammation may promote atherosclerotic disease. We tested the hypothesis that acute infection and vaccination increase the short-term risk of vascular events. METHODS: We undertook within-person comparisons, using the case-series method, to study the risks of myocardial infarction and stroke after common vaccinations and naturally occurring infections. The study was based on the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database, which contains computerized medical records of more than 5 million patients. RESULTS: A total of 20,486 persons with a first myocardial infarction and 19,063 persons with a first stroke who received influenza vaccine were included in the analysis. There was no increase in the risk of myocardial infarction or stroke in the period after influenza, tetanus, or pneumococcal vaccination. However, the risks of both events were substantially higher after a diagnosis of systemic respiratory tract infection and were highest during the first three days (incidence ratio for myocardial infarction, 4.95; 95 percent confidence interval, 4.43 to 5.53; incidence ratio for stroke, 3.19; 95 percent confidence interval, 2.81 to 3.62). The risks then gradually fell during the following weeks. The risks were raised significantly but to a lesser degree after a diagnosis of urinary tract infection. The findings for recurrent myocardial infarctions and stroke were similar to those for first events. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide support for the concept that acute infections are associated with a transient increase in the risk of vascular events. By contrast, influenza, tetanus, and pneumococcal vaccinations do not produce a detectable increase in the risk of vascular events

THE AMMONIA DIMER REVISITED

Author Institution: Missouri University of Science and Technology; Rolla, MO 65409-0010; Radboud University, 6525 AJ Nijmegen, The NetherlandsThe conclusion from microwave spectra by Nelson, Fraser, and Klemperer nderline{\textbf{83}} 6201 (1985)} that the ammonia dimer has a nearly cyclic structure led to much debate about the issue of whether (NH$_3$)$_2$ is hydrogen bonded. This structure was surprising because most \textit{ab initio} calculations led to a classical, nearly linear, hydrogen-bonded structure. An obvious explanation of the discrepancy between the outcome of these calculations and the microwave data which led Nelson \textit{et al.} to their "surprising structure'' might be the effect of vibrational averaging: the electronic structure calculations focus on finding the minimum of the intermolecular potential, the experiment gives a vibrationally averaged structure. Isotope substitution studies seemed to indicate, however, that the complex is nearly rigid. Additional data became available from high-resolution molecular beam far-infrared spectroscopy in the Saykally group nderline{\textbf{97}} 4727 (1992)}. These spectra, displaying large tunneling splittings, indicate that the complex is very floppy. The seemingly contradictory experimental data were explained when it became possible nderline{\textbf{101}} 8430 (1994); E.~H.~T.~Olthof, A.~van der Avoird, P.~E.~S.~Wormer, J.~G.~Loeser, and R.~J.~Saykally \textit{J.~Chem.~Phys.} nderline{\textbf{101}} 8443 (1994)} to calculate the vibration-rotation-tunneling (VRT) states of the complex on a six-dimensional intermolecular potential surface. The potential used was a simple model potential, with parameters fitted to the far-infrared data. Now, for the first time, a six-dimensional potential was computed by high level \textit{ab initio} methods and this potential will be used in calculations of the VRT states of (NH$_3$)$_2$ and (ND$_3$)$_2$. So, we will finally be able to answer the question whether the conclusions from the model calculations are indeed a valid explanation of the experimental data

Fitting Parton Distribution Data with Multiplicative Normalization Uncertainties

We consider the generic problem of performing a global fit to many independent data sets each with a different overall multiplicative normalization uncertainty. We show that the methods in common use to treat multiplicative uncertainties lead to systematic biases. We develop a method which is unbiased, based on a self--consistent iterative procedure. We demonstrate the use of this method by applying it to the determination of parton distribution functions with the NNPDF methodology, which uses a Monte Carlo method for uncertainty estimation.Comment: 33 pages, 5 figures: published versio

Simulating the component counts of combinatorial structures.

This article describes and compares methods for simulating the component counts of random logarithmic combinatorial structures such as permutations and mappings. We exploit the Feller coupling for simulating permutations to provide a very fast method for simulating logarithmic assemblies more generally. For logarithmic multisets and selections, this approach is replaced by an acceptance/rejection method based on a particular conditioning relationship that represents the distribution of the combinatorial structure as that of independent random variables conditioned on a weighted sum. We show how to improve its acceptance rate. We illustrate the method by estimating the probability that a random mapping has no repeated component sizes, and establish the asymptotic distribution of the difference between the number of components and the number of distinct component sizes for a very general class of logarithmic structures.ADB acknowledges support from ARC grants DP150101459 and DP150103588

Mid-infrared optical parametric amplifier using silicon nanophotonic waveguides

All-optical signal processing is envisioned as an approach to dramatically decrease power consumption and speed up performance of next-generation optical telecommunications networks. Nonlinear optical effects, such as four-wave mixing (FWM) and parametric gain, have long been explored to realize all-optical functions in glass fibers. An alternative approach is to employ nanoscale engineering of silicon waveguides to enhance the optical nonlinearities by up to five orders of magnitude, enabling integrated chip-scale all-optical signal processing. Previously, strong two-photon absorption (TPA) of the telecom-band pump has been a fundamental and unavoidable obstacle, limiting parametric gain to values on the order of a few dB. Here we demonstrate a silicon nanophotonic optical parametric amplifier exhibiting gain as large as 25.4 dB, by operating the pump in the mid-IR near one-half the band-gap energy (E~0.55eV, lambda~2200nm), at which parasitic TPA-related absorption vanishes. This gain is high enough to compensate all insertion losses, resulting in 13 dB net off-chip amplification. Furthermore, dispersion engineering dramatically increases the gain bandwidth to more than 220 nm, all realized using an ultra-compact 4 mm silicon chip. Beyond its significant relevance to all-optical signal processing, the broadband parametric gain also facilitates the simultaneous generation of multiple on-chip mid-IR sources through cascaded FWM, covering a 500 nm spectral range. Together, these results provide a foundation for the construction of silicon-based room-temperature mid-IR light sources including tunable chip-scale parametric oscillators, optical frequency combs, and supercontinuum generators