The EuroScience Open Forum: an open arena reflecting multiple dimensions of contemporary science communication

Introduction. The role of science communication in defining modern knowledge societies In 1984 the French philosopher Jean-Fran\ue7ois Lyotard argued that \uabknowledge had become, over the past few decades, the primary force of production in the upcoming postmodern society1\ubb. A science-based society, where science translates into the Aristotelian tradition notion of scientia (perfect knowing), takes over the industrial one, originated two centuries before. Today, scientific knowledge is widely considered as the core of economic growth, driver for innovation and a possible answer to humanity\u2019s greatest challenges such as shortage of resources and climate change. Because of such expectations, science communication comes to play a crucial role on, at least, three fronts: welfare, democracy and cultural identity2. Knowledge must be communicated to citizens, policy makers, entrepreneurs, so they can take advantage from it, enhance and strengthen our understanding of the world, develop new products and improve life quality. Beside welfare, democracy also benefits from science communication, as the decision-making is a practice more and more participative in our societies, engaging a variety of different publics. To let the general public in science-related debates as a key interlocutor, along with the understanding of scientific concepts, people must become familiar with how science works, be aware of its methodologies, practices, limitations and failings. Finally, science communication can directly mold the cultural fabric we live in by shaping our thinking about social issues, providing meaning and sense to the world, valuing knowledge as a public good and defining a shared social identity. This is especially true in Europe, where a deep-rooted political union as first envisaged by the Maastricht treaty in 1992 has still to come. But what do we exactly refer to when we talk about science communication? Over time, it has turned into something much more complex than a mere transmission, illustration or simplification of technical information by those who know to those who do not . Nowadays, science communication does not simply try to provide answers. It rather creates new environments where people with different expertises can face each other, debate, raise new questions and co-produce new solutions. This happens in a variety of contexts: science museums, festivals, events, workshops, conferences, public lectures and debates, journalistic publications, social media. In order to transfer knowledge, information must be \uabprocessed, integrated, understood 3\ubb and, for this, science communication provides interpretative categories, instruments and schemes for thought and for interpreting reality which are tailored to suit specific audiences: scientists, academics, general public, students, policy makers, communicators, entrepreneurs..

Some reasoning on the RELM-CSEP likelihood-based tests

The null hypothesis is the essence of any statistical test: this is basically a comparison of what we observe with what we would expect to see if the null hypothesis was true. In this work, I explore the suitability of the null hypothesis of likelihood-based tests (LBTs), which are often adopted by the laboratories of the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP), to check earthquake forecast models. First, I discuss the LBT in the wider context of classical statistical hypothesis testing. Then, I present some cases in which the null hypothesis of LBT is not appropriate for determining the merits of earthquake forecast models. I justify these results from a theoretical point of view, within the framework of point process theory. Finally, I propose a possible upgrade of LBT to enable the correct assessment of the forecasting capability of earthquake models. This study may provide new insights to the CSEP LBT

Anomalous spectral shift of near- and far-field plasmonic resonances in nanogaps

This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License.-- et al.The near-field and far-field spectral response of plasmonic systems are often assumed to be identical, due to the lack of methods that can directly compare and correlate both responses under similar environmental conditions. We develop a widely tunable optical technique to probe the near-field resonances within individual plasmonic nanostructures that can be directly compared to the corresponding far-field response. In tightly coupled nanoparticle-on-mirror constructs with nanometer-sized gaps we find >40 meV blue-shifts of the near-field compared to the dark-field scattering peak, which agrees with full electromagnetic simulations. Using a transformation optics approach, we show such shifts arise from the different spectral interference between different gap modes in the near- and far-field. The control and tuning of near-field and far-field responses demonstrated here is of paramount importance in the design of optical nanostructures for field-enhanced spectroscopy, as well as to control near-field activity monitored through the far-field of nano-optical devices.We acknowledge financial support from EPSRC grants EP/G060649/1, EP/L027151/1, EP/G037221/1, EPSRC NanoDTC, and ERC grant LINASS 320503. J.A. acknowledges support from project FIS2013-41184-P from Spanish MINECO and project NANOGUNE’14 from the Department of Industry of the Basque Country. F.B. acknowledges support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability. R.C. acknowledges financial support from St. John’s College, Cambridge, for a Dr. Manmohan Singh Scholarship. P.A. acknowledges funding from the Helmholtz Association for the Young Investigator group VH-NG-928 within the Initiative and Networking Fund.Peer Reviewe

The Spitzer mid-infrared AGN survey. II-the demographics and cosmic evolution of the AGN population

We present luminosity functions derived from a spectroscopic survey of AGN selected from Spitzer Space Telescope imaging surveys. Selection in the mid-infrared is significantly less affected by dust obscuration. We can thus compare the luminosity functions of the obscured and unobscured AGN in a more reliable fashion than by using optical or X-ray data alone. We find that the AGN luminosity function can be well described by a broken power-law model in which the break luminosity decreases with redshift. At high redshifts ($z>1.6$), we find significantly more AGN at a given bolometric luminosity than found by either optical quasar surveys or hard X-ray surveys. The fraction of obscured AGN decreases rapidly with increasing AGN luminosity, but, at least at high redshifts, appears to remain at $\approx 50$\% even at bolometric luminosities $\sim 10^{14}L_{\odot}$. The data support a picture in which the obscured and unobscured populations evolve differently, with some evidence that high luminosity obscured quasars peak in space density at a higher redshift than their unobscured counterparts. The amount of accretion energy in the Universe estimated from this work suggests that AGN contribute about 12\% to the total radiation intensity of the Universe, and a high radiative accretion efficiency $\approx 0.18^{+0.12}_{-0.07}$ is required to match current estimates of the local mass density in black holes.Comment: 14 pages, accepted by Ap

Malpractice and patient safety descriptors: an innovative grid to evaluate the quality of clinical records

Introduction: The medical record contains all the health information related to the patient’s clinical condition and its evolution during hospitalization. It was defined by the Italian Ministry of Health in 1992 as "The information tool designed to record all relevant demographic and clinical information about a patient during a single episode of hospitalization". The documents and information in a Medical Record must meet the following criteria: traceability, clarity, accuracy, authenticity, pertinence and completeness. The objectives of our study was to develop a tool capable of assessing the quality of the clinical record and pointed the critical point at the Organizational, Technical - Professional, Managerial level. Methods: To evaluate the quality of the medical documentation, we created an assessment grid composed of 4 sections with a total of 92 criteria. This grid was tested on 200 medical records that were randomly selected from 25 (18 medical and 7 surgical) wards of a teaching hospital in Rome. Results: The grid contains 4 sections. The first part regards administrative and clinical data; the second assesses the quality of hospital stay and surgical/invasive procedures; the third part is concerned with the discharge of the patient and the fourth aims to identify the presence of advisory reports given to the patient. This grid has been validated to verify internal consistency with Cronbach's Alpha = 0,743. Conclusions: Medical records were analyzed using a validated tool with grids to identify critical issues in care activities. Weaknesses in the system were identified in order to improve planning. The sample testing also in terms of ‘self-assessment' represents a tool to introduce activities to improve safety and quality of care, greatly reducing the costs of litigation

A INCLUSÃO EXCLUDENTE DE PESSOAS COM DEFICIÊNCIA: DO DISCURSO DE CIDADANIA À PRÁTICA DAS POLÍTICAS HABITACIONAIS NO BRASIL

Neste artigo apresenta-se uma reflexão sobre a inclusão socioespacial de pessoas com deficiência. O objetivo central é avaliar o discurso e a prática efetiva quanto à inclusão desses sujeitos nas políticas públicas brasileiras. A análise foca os programas habitacionais e tem como recorte espacial a cidade de Ponta Grossa, no estado do Paraná (Brasil). O termo “pessoa com deficiência” passa a ser utilizado no Brasil a partir de 2008 com o intuito de defender a igualdade, em termos de direitos e dignidade, desse segmento populacional em relação aos outros. Nas políticas habitacionais, o termo passa a ter um emprego imediato no programa federal “Minha Casa, Minha Vida”. O discurso que embasa tal programa prevê a garantia de acessibilidade para as pessoas com deficiência. Na prática efetiva, entretanto, quando se avalia a sucessão dos programas habitacionais implantados em Ponta Grossa, observa-se que a lógica de exclusão socioespacial não apresenta nenhuma ruptura ao longo do tempo, nem mesmo no programa mais recente. O que diferencia es se programa dos anteriores é: a) a destinação de um percentual das unidades às pessoas com deficiência; e b) a adaptação do espaço interno das casas para cadeirantes. Quanto à acessibilidade à infraestrura, equipamentos e serviços públicos, esse segmento não é atendido, sendo excluindo da vida no bairro e na cidade. Assiste-se, assim, a uma inclusão excludente desse segmento em termos socioespaciais.Palavras-chave: Inclusão socioespacial, pessoas com deficiência, política habitacional, Ponta Grossa (Paraná)

A structure-function analysis in patients with prekallikrein deficiency.

To investigate the structure-function relation in prekallikrein (PK) deficiency. PK is one of the proteins of the contact phase of blood coagulation which at the present time is the object of a revival of interest.All patients with PK deficiency who had been investigated by molecular biology techniques are the object of the present investigation. Details of patients were obtained from personal files and a time-unlimited PubMed search. Only cases with a molecular-biology-based diagnosis were included.Twelve families were included. The total number of missense mutation was 10, together with 3 stop codons and 2 insertions. These mutations involved mainly exons 11 and 14. There were eight proved homozygotes and three compound heterozygotes. In one instance, homozygosity was probable but not proved. In nine cases, the defect was Type I, whereas it was Type II in the remaining three. No bleeding manifestations were present in 11 of the 12 probands. One proband had epistaxis, but she had hypertension. Altogether, four patients had hypertension and one of them had also two myocardial infarctions.Despite the paucity of cases, it was established that the majority of mutations involved the catalytic domain. It is auspicable that future reports of patients with this disorder should include molecular studies. This would certainly contribute to the understanding of the contact phase of blood coagulation

Probabilistic interpretationof «Bath's Law»

Assuming that, in a catalog, all the earthquakes with magnitude larger than or equal to a cutoff magnitude M c follow the Gutenberg-Richter Law, the compatibility of this hypothesis with «Baths Law» is examined. Consi-dering the mainshock M 0 and the largest aftershock M 1 of a sequence respectively as the first and the second largest order statistic of a sample of independent and identically distributed exponential random variables, the distribution of M 0 , M 1 and of their difference D 1 is evaluated. In particular, it is analyzed as the distribution of D 1 changes when only the sequences with the magnitude of the mainshock above a second threshold M c*M c are considered. It results that the distributions of M 0 , M 1 and D 1 depend on the difference M c*M c and on the number of events in the sequence. Moreover, the expected value of D 1 increases with increasing of M c*M c for every value of N. Then it is shown that «Baths Law» could be ascribed to selection of data caused by the two thresholds M c and M c* and that it has a qualitative agreement with the model proposed. Key words Assuming that, in a catalog, all the earthquakes with magnitude larger than or equal to a cutoff magnitude M c follow the Gutenberg-Richter Law, the compatibility of this hypothesis with «Baths Law» is examined. Consi-dering the mainshock M 0 and the largest aftershock M 1 of a sequence respectively as the first and the second largest order statistic of a sample of independent and identically distributed exponential random variables, the distribution of M 0 , M 1 and of their difference D 1 is evaluated. In particular, it is analyzed as the distribution of D 1 changes when only the sequences with the magnitude of the mainshock above a second threshold M c*M c are considered. It results that the distributions of M 0 , M 1 and D 1 depend on the difference M c*M c and on the number of events in the sequence. Moreover, the expected value of D 1 increases with increasing of M c*M c for every value of N. Then it is shown that «Baths Law» could be ascribed to selection of data caused by the two thresholds M c and M c* and that it has a qualitative agreement with the model propose

Quality assessment of medical record as a tool for clinical risk management: a three year experience of a teaching hospital Policlinico Umberto I, Rome

Introduction: The medical record was defined by the Italian Ministry of Health in 1992 as "the information tool designed to record all relevant demographic and clinical information on a patient during a single hospitalization episode". Retrospective analysis of medical records is a tool for selecting direct and indirect indicators of critical issues (organizational, management and technical). The project’s aim being the promotion of an evaluation and self-evaluation process of medical records as a Clinical Risk Management tool to improve the quality of care within hospitals. Methods: The Authors have retrospectively analysed, using a validated grid, 1,184 medical records of patients admitted to the Teaching Hospital “Umberto I” in Rome during a three-year period (2013-2015). Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS for Windows © 19:00. All duly filled out criteria (92) were examined. “Strengths” and "Weaknesses" were identified through data analysis and Best and Bad Practice were identified based on established criteria. Conclusion: The data analysis showed marked improvements (statistically significant) in the quality of evaluated clinical documentation and indirectly upon behaviour. However, when examining some sub-criteria, critical issues emerge; these could be subject to future further corrective action