1,278 research outputs found
Open access revolutions
Open Access (OA) databases and publications are revolutionizing the storage and
communication of scientific results. OA databases of physical and chemical measurements have
been available for a long time, thanks to automated procedures of data acquisition and processing,
whereas this is still not possible with marine biodiversity data. The pay-per-view policy is being
replaced by the pay-to-be-viewed policy, with authors paying the expenses of the OA to their
work. The ethical side of OA is clear: the whole world should be able to profit from new knowledge,
not only those who can afford it, especially because research is often paid with public funds.
Since funding agencies increasingly ask their beneficiaries to publish their work with OA, OA
journals with unclear quality standards are proliferating, and some are publishing unreliable
results. Private companies, with either pay-per-view (Scopus, The Web of Knowledge) or OA
(Google Scholar) policies, rate the outputs of research. Funding agencies (e.g. Wellcome) are
experimenting a further development of the OA strategy, launching OA platforms that they manage
directly, with signed peer reviews. Similar experiments are being conducted with databases
of raw data. Public funding agencies should also fully embrace this policy. OA policies are still
developing, but the route towards a more democratic fashion of making the results of scientific
research openly available is mapped out
Diversi modi di fare scienza: la grande teoria della vita
La biologia studia una singolaritĂ nellâorganizzazione
della materia (la materia
vivente) e si basa su conoscenze
che sono di pertinenza di altre scienze che
studiano le proprietĂ generali della materia,
soprattutto non vivente. La mancanza di âleggiâ
predittive e universali in biologia Ăš spesso
presa come un segno di arretratezza della
disciplina, in attesa di una sua maturazione.
Tali âleggiâ, perĂČ, non esistono ma i biologi
hanno elaborato, e tuttora sviluppano, una
teoria che spiega un fatto incontrovertibile:
la materia vivente evolve. La teoria darwiniana,
riformata piĂč volte, rimane lâapproccio
unanimemente ritenuto corretto da chi si
occupa professionalmente di scienze della vita.
La negazione del valore esplicativo della
teoria dellâevoluzione non Ăš basata su spiegazioni
alternative che non chiamino in causa
entitĂ soprannaturali
Scientists can be free, but only once they are tenured
The frenzy for evaluation metrics recognizes the value of research based on the
impact factor of the journals that publish the results. Only some areas of science are conducive to
publication in the best tribunes. In biology, for instance, organismal biology, or taxonomy, are not
very fashionable, whereas molecular or global approaches are trendy. The citation system to
measure the quality of a scientistâs work is based on the acceptance of what is published: the more
the rest of the scientific community likes it, the higher the value. In this framework there is little
space for deviation from norms. Some examples are given here, within the fields of ecology and
evolutionary biology, that show how difficult it is to enforce ideas, either new or old, that do not
follow mainstream thought. In order to obtain tenure it is advisable to conform to mainstream, and
publish your results in journals with high impact factors. New things can be attempted âafterâ
tenure has been granted; but âafterâ is very often âtoo lateâ
THE PROPERTIES OF SOME GOODNESS-OF-FIT TESTS
The properties of Pearsonâs goodness-of-fit test, as used in density forecast evaluation, income distribution analysis and elsewhere, are analysed. The components-of-chi-squared or âPearson analogâ tests of Anderson (1994) are shown to be less generally applicable than was originally claimed. For the case of equiprobable classes, where the general components tests remain valid, a Monte Carlo study shows that tests directed towards skewness and kurtosis may have low power, due to differences between the class boundaries and the intersection points of the distributions being compared. The power of individual component tests can be increased by the use of nonequiprobable classes.Pearsonâs Goodness-of-fit test ; Component tests ; Distributional assumptions ; Monte Carlo ; Normality ; Nonequiprobable partitions
Uncertainty and disagreement in economic prediction : the Bank of England Survey of External Forecasters
This article introduces a new source of survey data, namely the Bank of England Survey of External Forecasters. The survey collects point and density forecasts of inflation and GDP growth, and hence offers the opportunity of constructing direct measures of uncertainty. We present a simple statistical framework in which to define and interrelate measures of uncertainty and disagreement. The resulting measures are compared with other direct measures of uncertainty, nationally and internationally. A significant, sustained reduction in inflation uncertainty followed the 1997 granting of operational independence to the Bank of England to pursue a monetary policy of inflation targeting.Forecast surveys ; point forecasts ; density forecasts ; uncertainty ; disagreement
Biodiversity, taxonomy and metagenomics
GenBank (Benson et al. 2013) is a database that
contains genetic sequences of species. Godfray
(2007) proposed that metagenomics can replace taxonomy
in identifying specimens. Indeed, giving
names to specimens is not the primary role of taxonomy,
the discipline being devoted to the description
of new species and to reconstruction of
phylogenies, focusing on both genotypes and phenotypes.
So, the use of metagenomics for routinary
species identification is a welcome technological aid
to the study of biodiversity, freeing taxonomists from
the burden of sorting and identifying biological
material
Does Empirical Embeddedness Matter? Methodological Issues on Agent-Based Models for Analytical Social Science
The paper deals with the use of empirical data in social science agent-based models. Agent-based models are too often viewed just as highly abstract thought experiments conducted in artificial worlds, in which the purpose is to generate and not to test theoretical hypotheses in an empirical way. On the contrary, they should be viewed as models that need to be embedded into empirical data both to allow the calibration and the validation of their findings. As a consequence, the search for strategies to find and extract data from reality, and integrate agent-based models with other traditional empirical social science methods, such as qualitative, quantitative, experimental and participatory methods, becomes a fundamental step of the modelling process. The paper argues that the characteristics of the empirical target matter. According to characteristics of the target, ABMs can be differentiated into case-based models, typifications and theoretical abstractions. These differences pose different challenges for empirical data gathering, and imply the use of different validation strategies
Economic Performance, Inter-Firm Relations and Local Institutional Engineering in a Computational Prototype of Industrial Districts
Industrial districts can be conceived as complex systems characterised by a network of interactions amongst heterogeneous, localised, functionally, integrated and complementary firms. In a previous paper, we have introduced an industrial district computational prototype, showing that the economic performance of an industrial district proceeds to the form through which firms interact and co-ordinate each others. In this paper, we use such computational framework to experiment different options of local institutional engineering', trying to understand how specific supporting institutions' could perform macro-collective activities, such as, i.e., technology research, transfer and information, improving the technological adaptation of firms. Is a district more than a simple aggregation of localised firms? What can explain the economic performance of firms localised into the same space? Could some options of 'local institutional engineering, improve the performance of a district? Could such options set aside the problem of how firms dynamically interact? These are questions explored in this paper
The Hydrozoa: a new classification in the light of old knowledge
The Hydrozoa, on the basis of embryological, developmental and morphological features, are considered as a superclass of the phylum Cnidaria comprising three classes: the Automedusa (with the subclasses: Actinulidae, Narcomedusae and Trachymedusae), characterised by direct development of the planula into a medusa; the Hydroidomedusa (with the subclasses: Anthomedusae, Laingiomedusae, Leptomedusae, Limnomedusae, and Siphonophorae), characterised by a polyp stage budding medusae through a medusary nodule; and the Polypodiozoa, with complex endocellular parasitic life cycles
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