Natural Philosophy or Science in Premodern Epistemic Regimes? The Case of the Astrology of Albert the Great and Galileo Galilei

Scholarly attempts to analyze the history of science sometime suffer from an imprecise use of terms. In order to understand accurately how science has developed and from where it draws its roots, researchers should be careful to recognize that epistemic regimes change over time and acceptable forms of knowledge production are contingent upon the hegemonic discourse informing the epistemic regime of any given period. In order to understand the importance of this point, I apply the techniques of historical epistemology to an analysis of the place of the study of astrology in the medieval and early modern periods alongside a discussion of the “language games” of these period as well as the role of the “archeology of knowledge” in uncovering meaning in our study of the past. In sum, I argue that the term “science” should never be used when studying approaches to knowledge formation prior to the seventeenth century

The road to rebellion : Norfolk, 1646-1650

In November of 1650 an insurrection broke out in Norfolk that is now known as the Winter Insurrection. This county had been a center of Parliamentary support throughout the First and Second Civil Wars. Therefore, the question that must be asked is why this revolt occurred in Norfolk, which had received a Parliamentary citation for the support the county had rendered as recently as 1644, and why the revolt occurred in 1650 rather than in conjunction with the Second Civil War of 1648 when revolts had broken out across England and Wales. This thesis addresses these questions through an analysis of important economic and social stresses that created tension within the county community of Norfolk, as well as the aggravation caused by the centralizing efforts of the government at Winchester. These stresses included high taxation during a period of high unemployment, famine level food prices produced by repeated crop failures during the years 1646 through 1649, and the resultant outbreaks of disease. In addition to these serious problems, strains were placed on the fabric of the county social structure as new men rose to prominence and challenged the men who were accustomed to the exercise of authority within Norfolk. These tensions were compounded by the meddling of central government in such areas as the local ministry and in local elections. These stresses are examined within the context of both local county society and the problems that affected the nation as a whole. All of England was experiencing economic strain and facing serious turmoil due to the Civil Wars. This turmoil was reflected in the local community and expressed itself through opposition to the actions of the central and local government in a number of ways. One method of resistance was through the use of riot. Two large-scale riots are analyzed, in 1646 and 1648. The riots are considered as representing opposition to taxation practices as well as, in the case of the latter, opposition to the infringement of traditional local liberties. In addition an analysis is made of the differences in the modes of violence employed in these riots and in the 1650 insurrection. These differences led the central government to respond much more harshly to the events of 1650, hanging twenty-five men, than to either of the earlier incidents (eight men were hanged in 1648 and none in 1646). The final analysis concludes that the Winter insurrection was the result of plotting that was partially orchestrated by moderate royalists in support of prince Charles Stuart (the future Charles II). This made up only part of the impetus to revolt, however, as the majority of those who revolted were driven more by frustration at a government in which they received only limited representation after Pride\u27s Purge of 1648 and that carried out policies they were not in agreement with, such as the execution of King Charles I in 1649. In addition, this government taxed them heavily. It is most telling that the 1650 insurrection occurred only days after a dramatic tax increase

God’s Deaf and Dumb Instruments: Albert the Great’s \u3cem\u3eSpeculum astronomiae\u3c/em\u3e and Four Centuries of Readers

“God’s Deaf and Dumb Instruments: Albert the Great’s Speculum Astronomiae and Four Centuries of Readers” is a study of the reception and influence of what is perhaps the most important work dealing with astrology to be produced in the Latin West during the middle ages. In order to determine the impact and importance of the Speculum I have dealt with questions relating to its authorship and dating, while studying its contents in the context of Albert’s larger body of work as well as the readers who found it useful and how they approached the Speculum. I have studied these readers both directly, through a study of thirty-five of the fifty-nine surviving manuscripts, as well as indirectly through a consideration of the way that other writers used the Speculum through the end of the fifteenth century. In the course of my research I travelled to archives in England, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the United States to study codices containing the Speculum, as well as examining microfilm copies of volumes housed in the Ambrosiana collection of Notre Dame University and in the Pope Pius XII Vatican Film Library at St. Louis University. My focus was upon the works that came to be bound with the Speculum and the marginalia readers left behind, as well as the accuracy of individual copies of the text. Furthermore, I have studied the writings of an array of authors, from the thirteenthcentury physician Peter d’Abano, to the fifteenth-century humanist Pico della Mirandola, to determine how these scholars viewed astrology and the place of the Speculum in their writings. In this way I have been able to demonstrate that astrology was central to the medieval worldview of intellectual elites. The Speculum astronomiae, which I demonstrate was indeed written by Albert the Great around the year 1260, served as an important component of the preservation of the study and practice of astrology as a discipline permissible to Christians. Standing as a semi-canonical defense of the science, physicians, astrologers, natural philosophers, and those interested in doctrinal purity read it with profit, while both defenders and detractors of astrology found it important to address the Speculum in their own work

Network centric operations and Naval Officers of the future : a first order analysis of desired knowledge, skills, abilities, and personality traits

The world is changing and future naval leaders must change with it. This thesis examines the future political, social, economic, and technological environments the Navy faces to determine future officer characteristics. A standard interview protocol is used to record the views of senior naval leadership and senior DON civilians who are experts in future warfare concepts and/or Navy manpower. From these interviews, future warfare and labor market requirements are examined. Due to increased speed and lethality during network centric operations (NCO), future officers will need to be broadly educated leaders who possess good decision making skills and core values. Future labor market requirements will demand officers who are leaders in diversity and possess leadership styles that motivate future generations. Because of the caliber of individuals demanded by NCO, future officers will need to possess greater interpersonal and team building skills to be effective leaders. To maximize the human potential of future officers, a new human resource strategy must be forged, one characterized by an adaptive manpower system that is holistic in nature as well as forward looking.http://archive.org/details/networkcentricop10945973

The Spirit of the Corps: The British Army and the Pre-National Pan-European Military World and the Origins of American martial culture, 1754-1783

"The Spirit of the Corps: The British Army and the Pre-national Pan-European Military World and the Origins of American Martial Culture,1754-1783," argues that during the eighteenth-century there was a transnational martial culture of European soldiers, analogous to the maritime world of sailors and the sea and attempts to identify the key elements of this martial culture, as reflected in the mid-eighteenth-century British Army, and briefly describes its transmission to the army of the United States. "The Spirit of the Corps" describes a pan-European military world had it origins in the wars of religion that engulfed Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries, and was a long established institution by the eighteenth-century. "The Spirit of the Corps" suggests that honor provided the justification and raison d'etre for the pan-European military world, and could be found embodied in the officer's gentlemanly sense of honor, and the espirit de corps of the rank and file. "The Spirit of the Corps" goes on to describe other important elements of the pan-European martial culture which included: weak military discipline and a relative loose control over soldiers which resulted in the soldier's life being viewed as one of relative freedom, the operation of an implicit contract between followers and leaders, a military community that included non-combatants, women, and children, a process of martial enculturation, a sense of military style that extended into drill and uniforms, and espirit de corps which loomed especially large during an era when nationalism and ideology were relatively minor factors. "The Spirit of the Corps" concludes by arguing that the Continental Line of the American Revolution was imbued with the culture of the British Army, and the pan-European military world; in its turn, this pan-European martial culture was, transmitted to the regular army of the United States were its presence could be seen clearly as late as 1940, and in some ways, can still be detected today

Looking through a social lens: conceptualising social aspects of knowledge management for global health practitioners

Knowledge management plays a critical role in global health. Global health practitioners require knowledge in every aspect of their jobs, and in resource-scarce contexts, practitioners must be able to rely on a knowledge management system to access the latest research and practice to ensure the highest quality of care. However, we suggest that there is a gap in the way knowledge management is primarily utilized in global health, namely, the systematic incorporation of human and social factors. In this paper, we briefly outline the evolution of knowledge management and then propose a conceptualization of knowledge management that incorporates human and social factors for use within a global health context. Our conceptualization of social knowledge management recognizes the importance of social capital, social learning, social software and platforms, and social networks, all within the context of a larger social system and driven by social benefit. We then outline the limitations and discuss future directions of our conceptualization, and suggest how this new conceptualization is essential for any global health practitioner in the business of managing knowledge

DENSE: efficient and prior knowledge-driven discovery of phenotype-associated protein functional modules

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Identifying cellular subsystems that are involved in the expression of a target phenotype has been a very active research area for the past several years. In this paper, <it>cellular subsystem </it>refers to a group of genes (or proteins) that interact and carry out a common function in the cell. Most studies identify genes associated with a phenotype on the basis of some statistical bias, others have extended these statistical methods to analyze functional modules and biological pathways for phenotype-relatedness. However, a biologist might often have a specific question in mind while performing such analysis and most of the resulting subsystems obtained by the existing methods might be largely irrelevant to the question in hand. Arguably, it would be valuable to incorporate biologist's knowledge about the phenotype into the algorithm. This way, it is anticipated that the resulting subsytems would not only be related to the target phenotype but also contain information that the biologist is likely to be interested in.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper we introduce a fast and theoretically guranteed method called <it>DENSE </it>(Dense and ENriched Subgraph Enumeration) that can take in as input a biologist's <it>prior </it>knowledge as a set of query proteins and identify all the dense functional modules in a biological network that contain some part of the query vertices. The density (in terms of the number of network egdes) and the enrichment (the number of query proteins in the resulting functional module) can be manipulated via two parameters γ and <it>μ</it>, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This algorithm has been applied to the protein functional association network of <it>Clostridium acetobutylicum </it>ATCC 824, a hydrogen producing, acid-tolerant organism. The algorithm was able to verify relationships known to exist in literature and also some previously unknown relationships including those with regulatory and signaling functions. Additionally, we were also able to hypothesize that some uncharacterized proteins are likely associated with the target phenotype. The DENSE code can be downloaded from <url>http://www.freescience.org/cs/DENSE/</url></p

Integrating value of research into NCI Clinical Trials Cooperative Group research review and prioritization: A pilot study

BackgroundThe Institute of Medicine has called for approaches to help maximize the return on investments (ROI) in cancer clinical trials. Value of Research (VOR) is a health economics technique that estimates ROI and can inform research prioritization. Our objective was to evaluate the impact of using VOR analyses on the clinical trial proposal review process within the SWOG cancer clinical trials consortium.MethodsWe used a previously developed minimal modeling approach to calculate VOR estimates for 9 phase II/III SWOG proposals between February 2015 and December 2016. Estimates were presented to executive committee (EC) members (N = 12) who determine which studies are sent to the National Cancer Institute for funding consideration. EC members scored proposals from 1 (best) to 5 based on scientific merit and potential impact before and after receiving VOR estimates. EC members were surveyed to assess research priorities, proposal evaluation process satisfaction, and the VOR process.ResultsValue of Research estimates ranged from −$2.1B to$16.46B per proposal. Following review of VOR results, the EC changed their score for eight of nine proposals. Proposal rankings were different in pre‐ vs postscores (P value: 0.03). Respondents had mixed views of the ultimate utility of VOR for their decisions with most supporting (42%) or neutral (41%) to the idea of adding VOR to the evaluation process.ConclusionsThe findings from this pilot study indicate use of VOR analyses may be a useful adjunct to inform proposal reviews within NCI Cooperative Clinical Trials groups.The Instiztute of Medicine has called for approaches to help maximize the return on investments in cancer clinical trials. The findings from this pilot study indicate use of value of research analyses may be a useful adjunct to inform proposal reviews within NCI Cooperative Clinical Trials groups.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146484/1/cam41657.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146484/2/cam41657_am.pd

Activated mutant NRasQ61K drives aberrant melanocyte signaling, survival, and invasiveness via a rac1-Dependent mechanism

Around a fifth of melanomas exhibit an activating mutation in the oncogene NRas that confers constitutive signaling to proliferation and promotes tumor initiation. NRas signals downstream of the major melanocyte tyrosine kinase receptor c-kit and activated NRas results in increased signaling via the extracellular signal–regulated kinase (ERK)/MAPK/ERK kinase/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways to enhance proliferation. The Ras oncogene also activates signaling via the related Rho GTPase Rac1, which can mediate growth, survival, and motility signaling. We tested the effects of activated NRasQ61K on the proliferation, motility, and invasiveness of melanoblasts and melanocytes in the developing mouse and ex vivo explant culture as well as in a melanoma transplant model. We find an important role for Rac1 downstream of NRasQ61K in mediating dermal melanocyte survival in vivo in mouse, but surprisingly NRasQ61K does not appear to affect melanoblast motility or proliferation during mouse embryogenesis. We also show that genetic deletion or pharmacological inhibition of Rac1 in NRasQ61K induced melanoma suppresses tumor growth, lymph node spread, and tumor cell invasiveness, suggesting a potential value for Rac1 as a therapeutic target for activated NRas-driven tumor growth and invasiveness