Critically evaluating collaborative research: why is it difficult to extend truth tests to reality tests?

We argue that critical evaluation achieves the reflexivity needed to facilitate collaboration by proposing boundary-negotiating artefacts to configure a joint action domain. Those objects become mediators for innovation by triggering controversies, conceived preventatively via an organized extension of what Boltanski calls ‘truth tests’ to ‘reality tests’ so that they dynamize ongoing affairs. However, critical evaluation must also anticipate actors’ reappropriation of boundary-negotiating artefacts in the effort to protect their rights, stakes or room for manoeuvre. Three scenarios commonly arise: avoidance or utopian projecting, enactment of inverted reality tests, and disavowal through role exchange. The article develops these propositions through the reconstruction of a modified theory-based evaluation of a collaborative research programme. The programme set out to explore how evidence from health research could be used rapidly and effectively in the context of practical problems and organizational challenges, so an internal evaluation was set up to facilitate learning during the process. What ensued, however, was a loss of trust between partners, resolved only by repositioning the evaluation as a reflective academic study, reducing its reflexive capacity to intervene on the level of activity and organizational integration. We conclude that doing successful critical evaluation and, more generally, achieving political pertinence for social scientific discourses depends on creating the conditions in which actors are able to take the risks and share the costs associated with the enhanced level of reflexivity necessary to engage in collective action as well as knowledge production

Minimizing hydrodynamic stress in mammalian cell culture through the lobed Taylor‐Couette bioreactor

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of hydrodynamic stress heterogeneity on metabolism and productivity of an industrial mammalian cell line. For this purpose, a novel Lobed Taylor-Couette (LTC) mixing unit combining a narrow distribution of hydrodynamic stresses and a membrane aeration system to prevent cell damage by bubble bursting was developed. A hydrodynamic analysis of the LTC was developed to reproduce, in a uniform hydrodynamic environment, the same hydrodynamic stress encountered locally by cells in a stirred tank, particularly at the large scale, e.g., close and far from the impeller. The developed LTC was used to simulate the stress values near the impeller of a laboratory stirred tank bioreactor, equal to about 0.4 Pa, which is however below the threshold value leading to cell death. It was found that the cells actively change their metabolism by increasing lactate production and decreasing titer while the consumption of the main nutrients remains substantially unchanged. When considering average stress values ranging from 1 to 10 Pa found by other researchers to cause physiological response of cells to the hydrodynamic stress in heterogeneous stirred vessels, our results are close to the lower boundary of this interval

Gibberellins and the floral transition in Sinapis alba

peer reviewedThe putative role of gibberellins in the transition to flowering was investigated in Sinapis alba, a caulescent long-day (LD) plant. It was observed that: (1) physiological doses of exogenous gibberellins (GA(1), GA(3), GA(9)) do not cause the floral shift of the meristem when applied to plants grown in short days but have some positive effect on the flowering response to a suboptimal LD; no inhibition was observed in any case; (2) GA-biosynthesis inhibitors (prohexadione-Ca and paclobutrazol) considerably inhibit stem growth but have some negative effect on flowering only when a suboptimal LD is given; and (3) the floral transition induced by one 22-h LD does not correlate with any detectable change in GA content of the apical bud, of the leaves, and of the phloem exudate reaching the apex. Taken together, these results suggest that GAs do not act as a major signal for photoperiodic flower induction in Sinapis

Library of simulated root images

<p>This depository contains the images and associated RSML files used in the paper entitled "Using a structural root system model for an in-depth assessment of root image analysis pipeline" from the same authors.</p> <p> </p> <p>It contains: </p> <p>- 10.000 simulated root images;</p> <p>- 10.000 corresponding RSML files;</p> <p>- .csv files containing the ground-truth data for each modelled root system;</p> <p>- .csv files containing the image descriptors extracted using RIA-J;</p> <p>- .tps files containing the shape descriptors data.</p> <p> </p> <p>The codes used with this data is available here: https://zenodo.org/record/62063</p

Surplus Distribution in Microfinance: Differences Among Cooperative, Nonprofit, and Shareholder Forms of Ownership

How do microfinance institutions (MFIs) allocate their surplus to stakeholders? This article shows that this allocation process varies depending on the MFI ownership structure. Nonprofit organizations and shareholders-held MFIs exhibit a tendency to largely keep their surplus within the MFI as a self-financing margin (reserve accounts, future investments, and capital increase) rather than transferring it to their clients (interest rate decrease) and their employees (salary increase). The surplus distribution in COOPs is more in favor of providers and employees. Finally, the article discusses the importance of these findings for the evaluation of MFIs by policy makers.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe