How can history of science matter to scientists?

History of science has developed into a methodologically diverse discipline, adding greatly to our understanding of the interplay between science, society, and culture. Along the way, one original impetus for the then newly emerging discipline —- what George Sarton called the perspective “from the point of view of the scientist” -— dropped out of fashion. This essay shows, by means of several examples, that reclaiming this interaction between science and history of science yields interesting perspectives and new insights for both science and history of science. The authors consequently suggest that historians of science also adopt this perspective as part of their methodological repertoire

Quantitative Perspectives on Fifty Years of the Journal of the History of Biology

Journal of the History of Biology provides a fifty-year long record for examining the evolution of the history of biology as a scholarly discipline. In this paper, we present a new dataset and preliminary quantitative analysis of the thematic content of JHB from the perspectives of geography, organisms, and thematic fields. The geographic diversity of authors whose work appears in JHB has increased steadily since 1968, but the geographic coverage of the content of JHB articles remains strongly lopsided toward the United States, United Kingdom, and western Europe and has diversified much less dramatically over time. The taxonomic diversity of organisms discussed in JHB increased steadily between 1968 and the late 1990s but declined in later years, mirroring broader patterns of diversification previously reported in the biomedical research literature. Finally, we used a combination of topic modeling and nonlinear dimensionality reduction techniques to develop a model of multi-article fields within JHB. We found evidence for directional changes in the representation of fields on multiple scales. The diversity of JHB with regard to the representation of thematic fields has increased overall, with most of that diversification occurring in recent years. Drawing on the dataset generated in the course of this analysis, as well as web services in the emerging digital history and philosophy of science ecosystem, we have developed an interactive web platform for exploring the content of JHB, and we provide a brief overview of the platform in this article. As a whole, the data and analyses presented here provide a starting-place for further critical reflection on the evolution of the history of biology over the past half-century.Comment: 45 pages, 14 figures, 4 table

Introduction

Author Posting. © University of Chicago Press, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of University of Chicago Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Gibson, A., Laubichler, M. D., & Maienschein, J. Introduction. Isis, 110(3), (2019): 497-501, doi: 10.1086/705542.Digital technologies have transformed both the historical record and the historical profession. This Focus section examines how computational methods have influenced, and will influence, the history of science. The essays discuss the new types of questions and narratives that computational methods enable and the need for better data management in the history and philosophy of science (HPS) community. They showcase various methodological approaches, including textual and network analyses, and they place the computational turn in historiographical and societal context. Rather than surrendering to either technophilia or technophobia, the essays articulate both the benefits and the drawbacks of computational HPS. They agree that the future of the field depends on the successful integration of technological developments, social practices, and infrastructural support and that historians of science must learn to embrace collaboration both within and beyond disciplinary boundaries.2020-09-0

Data-Driven Sliding Bearing Temperature Model for Condition Monitoring in Internal Combustion Engines

Condition monitoring of components in internal combustion engines is an essential tool for increasing engine durability and avoiding critical engine operation. If lubrication at the crankshaft main bearings is insufficient, metal-to-metal contacts become likely and thus wear can occur. Bearing temperature measurements with thermocouples serve as a reliable, fast responding, individual bearing-oriented method that is comparatively simple to apply. In combination with a corresponding reference model, such measurements could serve to monitor the bearing condition. Based on experimental data from an MAN D2676 LF51 heavy-duty diesel engine, the derivation of a data-driven model for the crankshaft main bearing temperatures under steady-state engine operation is discussed. A total of 313 temperature measurements per bearing are available for this task. Readily accessible engine operating data that represent the corresponding engine operating points serve as model inputs. Different machine learning methods are thoroughly tested in terms of their prediction error with the help of a repeated nested cross-validation. The methods include different linear regression approaches (i.e., with and without lasso regularization), gradient boosting regression and support vector regression. As the results show, support vector regression is best suited for the problem. In the final evaluation on unseen test data, this method yields a prediction error of less than 0.4 °C (root mean squared error). Considering the temperature range from approximately 76 °C to 112 °C, the results demonstrate that it is possible to reliably predict the bearing temperatures with the chosen approach. Therefore, the combination of a data-driven bearing temperature model and thermocouple-based temperature measurements forms a powerful tool for monitoring the condition of sliding bearings in internal combustion engines

Idebenone Prevents Oxidative Stress, Cell Death and Senescence of Retinal Pigment Epithelium Cells by Stabilizing BAX/Bcl-2 Ratio

Purpose: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the leading causes of blindness. Degeneration of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is pathognomonic for the disease, and oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathogenesis of this disease. This study investigates potential antiapoptotic and cytoprotective effects of idebenone on cultured RPE cells (ARPE-19) under conditions of oxidative stress. Methods: ARPE-19 cells were treated with 1-100 µM idebenone. Cell viability (MTT assay), induction of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) and histone-associated DNA fragments in mono- and oligonucleosomes, expression of proapoptotic BAX and antiapoptotic Bcl-2 as well as senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-Gal) activity were investigated under exposure to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Results: Idebenone concentrations from 1 to 20 µM showed no toxic effects on ARPE-19 cells. When cells were treated with H2O2, pretreatment with 5, 7.5, 10, and 20 µM idebenone led to a significant increase in the viability of ARPE-19 cells. In addition, idebenone pretreatment significantly attenuated the induction of SA-β-Gal and intracellular ROS as well as the amount of histone-associated DNA fragments after treatment with H2O2. The reduction of proapoptotic BAX and the elevation of antiapoptotic Bcl-2 under idebenone show that this process is rather mediated by inhibiting H2O2-induced apoptosis, not necrosis. Conclusion: In this study, idebenone increased survival of ARPE-19 cells and reduced cell death, senescence, and oxidative stress by stabilizing the BAX/Bcl-2 ratio