Visualizing the World. Epistemic Strategies in the History of Scientific Illustrations

The history of scientific illustrations is a story that correspond the cultural, economic, political and scientific history of the world. A look into the history of sciences displays that pictures and illustrations had a decisive role for the sciences progressive success and rising societal status from the sixteenth century. The illustrations visualized the unknown to graspable facts. Without the pictures the new discovered continents, the blood circulatory system and the body’s muscles had remained theoretical proclamations. The scientific discoveries became visible and communicated, to a wider audience by its illustrations. The scientific illustrations and maps were intertwined with an epistemic ambition to unveil the true natural order. During the seventeenth century the concept of objectivity was interpreted as a quest for revealing nature’s ideal order, a task only feasible for the brilliant artist to accomplish. The epistemic ambition concurred with the belief that only one true ontological order existed that the scientific knowledge had to uncover. This concept of objectivity was succeeded by the modern concept of objectivity which equated objectivity with impartiality and elimination of the scientist’s subjective bias. The view from “nowhere” is still a valid, ruling definition of objectivity. However, the presence and huge expansion of computational pictures in the sciences as well in everyday life raises the question if a new sense of objectivity is framed. In physics and chemistry the produced pictures intend to be contributions to an ongoing theoretical discussion, about a nature in constant flux, let it be molecules or artificially processed materials in the nanoscale. The traveller designs her own map in advance, mixing the Google earth features with the personal arrangements. For both the scientists and the laymen the modernist objective virtues of detachment, impartiality and disinterestedness have been supplemented by a return of subjective involvements

Capsule endoscopy in the diagnosis of small bowel disease

Capsule endoscopy (CE) is a method for examining the small bowel by means of an ingested encapsulated video camera, propelled by peristalsis, to continuously take images during its passage through the gastrointestinal tract. The method has been in clinical use in Sweden since 2002 and is considered user-friendly and well tolerable by patients. CE is used to diagnose obscure small-bowel bleeding, Crohn´s disease (CD) and suspected small-bowel tumors. It is known for having a high sensitivity but a lower specificity. In study I CE was performed in 18 patients with chronic intestinal dysmotility (CID), in which a high frequency of mucosal breaks (89%) was observed. There were signs of motility disturbances but the small-bowel transit time did not differ significantly between the two types of CID or to a control group. This was the first study to use CE in CID patients. CE was shown to be feasible for the examination of small bowel mucosa in patients with CID. When CE is used to find a bleeding source in the small bowel, the most common finding are vascular malformations; angioectasias. These can also be found in non-bleeding patients but what triggers bleeding in some patients is not fully understood. In study II a group of 25 patients with bleeding from gastrointestinal angioectasias were tested for bleeding disorders with special focus on acquired von Willebrand syndrome (AVWS), a condition previously identified as a possible explanation for bleeding. Compared to a control group, no significant differences between groups were found in coagulation parameters, bleeding time or von Willebrand multimer levels. These results did not support the need for routine bleeding tests in cases of bleeding from angioectasias and do not demonstrate an overall increased risk of AVWS among these patients. Inflammatory lesions in the small bowel showed by CE may be due to CD but also to other conditions. Since biopsies from the small bowel might be difficult to obtain the relevance of the lesions may remain unclear. In study III 30 patients with small bowel lesions were tested for inflammatory markers in blood (CRP) and faeces (calprotectin). Harvey-Bradshaw Index (HBI) was used to grade patient symptoms. The patients were followed up after nine months with a second capsule endoscopy, CRP, calprotectin and HBI. A significant correlation was found between endoscopic inflammation and calprotectin that persisted over time. A correlation between endoscopic inflammation and CRP was found at inclusion but did not persist at follow up. Symptoms did not correlate with endoscopic findings of inflammation at any time. Study IV aimed to evaluate complications of capsule endoscopy, specifically incomplete examinations and capsule retention and to determine the risk factors for these. In this consecutive study 2300 CE examinations - performed at four different hospitals in Stockholm, Sweden from 2003 to 2009 - were included. The frequency of incomplete examinations was 20%. Older age, male gender and suspected or known CD were risk factors for an incomplete examination. Capsule retention occurred in 1.3%. Risk factors for capsule retention were known CD and a suspected tumor. CE was concluded to be an overall safe procedure, although obstructive symptoms and serious complications due to capsule retention can be found in large patient series

The Philosophers on the Market Square. Philosophical Modernism from Vienna to Uppsala

Abstract: The logical empiricists in Vienna and their Swedish counterparts in Uppsala shared a scientific ethos that underlined the philosophical academics as representatives for universalism, disinterest, professional loyalty, organized scepticism and public interest. Rudolf Carnap, Axel Hägerström and Ingemar Hedenius regarded themselves as intellectuals, offering their philosophical tools to society. However, when the scientific ethos was articulated by Robert Merton in 1942, the circumstances had drastically changed. The European tradition was left behind. However, the claim is that neither the professionalism, nor the specialized epistemology in analytical philosophy necessarily alienated the philosopher from the public. The gap occurred when the epistemology ceased to be cultural meaningful, as a part of the spirit of the time. The modernistic spirit promoted the ethos of intellectuality. In the 1960s a new ethos took over: the philosophers as purely academic professional experts, in US and Sweden

Review of Adrian Velicu, Civic Catechisms and Reason in the French Revolution

Katekeser är en genre som vanligtvis förknippas med lutheransk religionsundervisning, och inte revolutioner. Dess form, att ställa en antal givna frågor och ge ett definitivt svar för varje fråga synes lämna föga utrymme för självständigt och kritiskt tänkande. Frågandet som teknik är en retorik; syftet är att styra läsarens tänkande i avsedd riktning. Inpräntande av normer, inte radikala reflektioner är katekesens specialitet. Att katekesen form användes såväl av Les philosophes som av Robespierre kan förvåna i det förra fallet, men mindre i det senare, Robespierre ville ju skapa absolut lojala troende revolutionsanhängare. I en monografi byggd på tidigare outnyttjat empiriskt franskt 1700-tals material visar Adrian Velicu, idehistoriker vid Karlstad universitet, att katekeser hade en betydligt vidare användning. Under upplysningen och särskilt under franska revolutionen användes katekesen som medel av revolutionärerna för att skapa en ny medborgare med nya värderingar

Movement activity and space use

Fear of predation is a major selective pressure for prey species and, although important for survival, can have adverse effects on the well-being of the animals. Human disturbance has been shown to elicit the same behavioural and physiological responses, in particular in hunted species. Using GPS-data from a heavily hunted moose population in northern Sweden, I investigated differences in habitat selection and activity patterns between two valleys contrasting in human disturbance, during both peak and low tourism seasons. The effects of temperature, precipitation, and wind speed were also considered. I found moose to alter their habitat utilisation to use more protective habitats during the peak tourism seasons in the valley with high human disturbance, whereas open habitats were used more in the valley with low disturbance. I found no evidence for activity patterns being impacted by tourism, and the weather variables were of low importance. My study suggests that moose habitat selection is indeed affected by increased human disturbance. There is a need for studies on the long-term impacts on fitness on this displacement of moose into protective habitats. In addition, bodily measurements are required to assess physiological stress responses that are not visible in the behaviour of the animals. These findings, in combination with future studies, can help managers with the planning of further recreational sprawl into moose habitats

Technoscience comes to Lund : ESS and the Enlightenment Vision

In 2019 the first neutrons will be fired at the ESS plant, at least to its present plan, located in the outskirts of Lund, the brightest neutron facility in the world. In the scientists’ self-images, this kind of high technology and international cooperative knowledge production is entitled Big Science or Global Science. The concept “technoscience” isn’t used. This chapter will discuss if the concept technoscience makes aspects visible of 21st-century knowledge production that the other labels excludes. My claim is that it does, from two special vantage points, firstly, technoscience represents a new epistemological situation and secondly, a new attitude to social values, expressed in the quest for innovation and improved human conditions. These positions are associated with a new epoch, reflexive modernity or second modernity substituting the linear model of planning and institutional organization, which has for long been modernity’s hallmark. However one should discern this from an important historical fact, that science in practice never has been pure. In general, technology has been inseparable from science since at least the scientific revolution. Science is dependent on technology and technology is embedded in science. Hence the intertwining of theoretical science with technology cannot be a starting point to defend an argument of a new epoch of technoscience. Technoscience evokes the question if science is acquiring features we don’t yet have an epistemic vocabulary to articulate and hence have difficulties to reflect upon. The break with modernity consists in this non-determinate and open situation. Established binary categories such as natural—man-made and real—unreal are in flux since technoscience has remodeled the ontological situation, both from the perspective of science and of everyday life. The aim with this chapter is to show that the concept of technoscience, opens up for critical reflections on science and society, that remains veiled in concept such as Global Science and Big Science. For some people, the term technoscience is provocative and associated with postmodernism and the de-constructivist ambition to dissolve the rational cornerstones of our modern age and especially the Enlightenment heritage. This ideological standpoint is redundant for accepting that new features of science are constitutive for our knowledge-oriented society. Technoscience opens up for address the new situation of “knowledge and objectivity, theory and evidence, explanation and validation, representation and experimentation,” that affects society as a whole on long terms

Modelling prices of in-play football betting

Odds in sports betting can be seen as a price on a nancial contract. This Master thesis is a study of live odds in football matches. Movements and transactions in live odds from 1114 matches are investigated using a high frequency data set. The prices are then modeled using a Poisson distribution, and used to create a trading strategy

Structural damage to meiotic chromosomes impairs DNA recombination and checkpoint control in mammalian oocytes

Meiosis in human oocytes is a highly error-prone process with profound effects on germ cell and embryo development. The synaptonemal complex protein 3 (SYCP3) transiently supports the structural organization of the meiotic chromosome axis. Offspring derived from murine Sycp3−/− females die in utero as a result of aneuploidy. We studied the nature of the proximal chromosomal defects that give rise to aneuploidy in Sycp3−/− oocytes and how these errors evade meiotic quality control mechanisms. We show that DNA double-stranded breaks are inefficiently repaired in Sycp3−/− oocytes, thereby generating a temporal spectrum of recombination errors. This is indicated by a strong residual γH2AX labeling retained at late meiotic stages in mutant oocytes and an increased persistence of recombination-related proteins associated with meiotic chromosomes. Although a majority of the mutant oocytes are rapidly eliminated at early postnatal development, a subset with a small number of unfinished crossovers evades the DNA damage checkpoint, resulting in the formation of aneuploid gametes