The Caminho dos Diamantes (Estrada Real, MG) that links Ouro Preto and Diamantina has been constructed due to the discovery and exploitation of diamonds and gold in the region. In accordance with ...reports and descriptions done by natural scientists who traveled in this region, especially during the 20th century, and associating them with current means, it was possible to understand the places of interest geological and mining beyond the touristic perspective. It was also possible to see these geosites through the natural scientist travelers´ point of view. During field trips, by combining the tools of navigation provided by Instituto Estrada Real to the reports of these natural scientist travelers, it can be realized that the motivation and interest in trips motivated by geodiversity precedes the appeal and use current of the Estrada Real touristic product. Therefore, based on the historical importance to understand and describe the geological and mining heritages, geotourism is an alternative to the upgrading regional tourism, besides it can also be a conservation and education tools
The article presents the results of a study of the features of biographical and prosopographic materials about famous mathematicians and natural scientists, published in one of the most authoritative ...journals “Bulletin of Experimental Physics and Elementary Mathematics”, which was published in Kyiv and Odesa during 1886–1917. In fact, the journal was an unofficial periodical printed branch of the Mathematical Department of the Novorossiysk Society of Naturalists. The purpose of the study is to conduct a meaningful and content analysis of the texts of the journal articles, which reveal biographies, features of labor activity and participation in scientific research of famous scientists. At the same time, the authors used scientific methods to conduct a meaningful analysis of the subject of research – analysis and synthesis, generalization and systematization. In the process of quantitative content analysis, text quantification, empirical data collection, their generalization, and mathematical and statistical processing were used. As a result of the study of biographical materials of the journal over the period, its authors came to the following conclusions. Firstly, the materials of the journal about famous domestic and foreign mathematicians and natural scientists were both biographical and prosopographic in nature. Moreover, the motives for the appearance of such publications, as a rule, were “round” dates from the moment of birth, from the beginning of creative activity, from the moment an important work was released, or from the moment of death (or the fact of death) of the subject of publication. All such articles in the journal are conditionally classified by the authors into brief biographical and prosopographic notes, detailed biographical and prosopographic articles, and obituaries. Secondly, the total volume of biographical and prosopographic materials for the entire period of publication of the journal was 2.88% of the total volume of the journal. At the same time, the journal contained materials about 84 scientists. The largest journal volume by the editors (more than 5 pages for each) was provided by 27 scientists and this amounted to 72.7% of the total volume of biographical material; this group included 9 domestic scientists and 18 foreigners. In total, the editors allotted an average of 4.89 pages for each domestic scientist, and 5.89 pages for each foreign scientist. The largest volume of materials was about physicists (46.42% of the total volume of biographical materials) and mathematicians (35.44%). Thirdly, the results of a meaningful analysis allow us to conclude that the published biographical and prosopographic materials of the journal are of high quality. This was largely facilitated by the careful selection of the authors of articles (or sources of materials), as well as the special requirements of the editors for documenting sources of materials in paginated links. Fourthly, the “inattention” of the editorial staff of the journal to a number of “round dates” of famous domestic and foreign mathematicians and physicists, as well as the uneven volumes allocated by the journal for biographies, indicate the absence of a clear editorial policy of the journal in the issue of allocating printed volumes for systematic biographical statements and research.
Interdisciplinary scientific research teams are essential for responding to society's complex scientific and social issues. Perceptual barriers to collaboration can inhibit the productivity of teams ...crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries. To explore these perceptual barriers, survey measures related to perceived competence were developed and validated with a population of earth scientists (n = 449) ranging from undergraduates through professionals. Resulting competence scales included three factors that we labeled as Perceived Respect (PR), Perceived Methodological Rigor (PM), and Perceived Intelligence (Pi). A Mann-Whitney U test revealed that earth scientists perceived social science/scientists as significantly less competent than natural science/scientists. A multivariate multilevel analysis indicated that women perceived scientists as more intelligent than did men. Working with social scientists and holding an earth science PhD changed earth scientists' perceptions of social science on multiple scales. Our study indicates that competence in scientific disciplines is a multidimensional construct. Our results from earth scientists also indicate that perceptual barriers towards other scientific disciplines should be studied further as interdisciplinarity in scientific research continues to be encouraged as a solution to many socio-scientific problems.
Purpose
Although natural science disciplines significantly contribute to sustainable development goals (SDGs), little research attends to how higher education institutions (HEIs) influence the ...development of leadership skills needed among sustainability leaders. This paper aims to examine the leadership development experiences of natural scientists at the forefront of disciplines associated with SDGs to identify barriers and drivers to sustainability leadership skills development at HEIs.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-methods comparative study was used, integrating qualitative interviews among 21 natural scientists and 11 non-scientists, two focus group discussions and a cross-sectional survey of 221 leaders. The theory of planned behaviour was used as the analytical frame to identify themes emerging from the data as facilitators or barriers to leadership development.
Findings
There was a statistically significant difference between scientists and non-scientists in the attitudes, beliefs and perceptions that drive participation in leadership development activities. Attitudes belittling leadership skills, limited integration of leadership skills in medical, engineering and agricultural curricula and a social identity of superior learning efficacy impede natural scientist students at HEIs from engaging in leadership development.
Research limitations/implications
Further research using a larger sample could assess the prevalence and effect of the drivers and barriers on sustainability leadership effectiveness.
Practical implications
Beyond integrating leadership skills in HEIs curricula, the development of sustainability leadership requires deliberate elevation of the value of leadership skills within natural sciences, specifically by addressing attitudes, beliefs and workload challenges that impede scientists’ engagement in co-curricular activities.
Originality/value
Integrating multiple disciplines provides generalised insights into the context of leadership development among natural scientists at HEIs. This study identifies specific drivers and barriers affecting leadership development at HEIs in a developing country setting.
In grasping emergent qualities and laws on various levels of organization of matter, dialectical theory employs its own conceptual structure, scientific language, and investigation method, and takes ...a categorially open-ended shape. In this context, Engels provides a remarkable illustration that not only argues for the interconnection and interpenetration of distinct spheres such as chemistry and biology, but also draws on a generative feature of self-organizing systems.
This article deals with phenomena occurring at the interface of the existential, the religious, and scientific inquiry. On the basis of in‐depth interviews with Polish physicists and biologists, I ...examine the role that science and religion play in their narrative of the meaning of the Universe and human life. I show that the narratives about meaning have a system‐related (“amalgam") character that is associated with responses to adjacent metaphysical questions, including those based on scientific knowledge. I reconstruct the typical amalgam questions of Polish scientists and come to a conclusion about the stability of religious and nonreligious amalgams in this group. Critically referring to the thesis concerning the secularizing impact of science, I conclude that science by itself does not have a destructive effect on Polish scientists’ confidence that life and the Universe are meaningful, but is rather an exacerbating factor of the existing worldview system.
During the Cold War, the systemic rivalry between East and West was also carried out in the field of scholarship. This volume examines the Academies of Sciences in Central Europe on either side of ...the Iron Curtain in the early stages of the Cold War (and in some cases beyond). These include academies in the Socialist states (the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Romanian People’s Republic Academy, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences, and the Slovakian Academy of Sciences), academies in divided Germany (the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin Academy of Sciences of the GDR, the Saxon Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the GDR, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and finally the Leopoldina in Halle/Saale as the all-German Academy of Sciences), and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.Der vorliegende Band ermöglicht erstmals einen vergleichenden Blick auf Akademien der Wissenschaften in Zentraleuropa im Kalten Krieg. Im Kalten Krieg wurde die Systemkonkurrenz zwischen Ost und West auch im Feld der Wissenschaften ausgetragen. Der Band thematisiert Akademien der Wissenschaften in Zentraleuropa diesseits und jenseits des Eisernen Vorhangs in der Zeit des frühen Kalten Krieges (und fallweise darüber hinaus). Vertreten sind Akademien in den sozialistischen Staaten (die Slowenische Akademie der Wissenschaften und Künste, die Akademie der Volksrepublik Rumänien, die Ungarische Akademie der Wissenschaften, die Polnische Akademie der Wissenschaften, die Tschechoslowakische Akademie der Wissenschaften und die Slowakische Akademie der Wissenschaften), Akademien der Wissenschaften im geteilten Deutschland (die Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, die Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften, die Akademie der Landwirtschaftswissenschaften der DDR, die Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, die Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften und schließlich die Leopoldina in Halle/Saale als gesamtdeutsche Akademie der Naturforscher) sowie die Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Die übergreifende Fragestellung richtet sich zum einen auf Kontinuitäten und Zäsuren innerhalb der Akademien, zum anderen auf Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen ‚westlichem‘ und sozialistischem Akademiemodell, aber auch innerhalb des jeweiligen politischen Systems. Ausgangspunkt des Vergleichs ist das Maß an Eigenständigkeit und Unabhängigkeit, dass den Wissenschaftsakademien von Staat und Politik jeweils zugestanden wird. In einem einleitenden Kapitel werden die grundsätzlichen Unterschiede zwischen Akademien ,westlichen‘ und sozialistischen Typs aufgezeigt und analysiert. Eine markante Differenz zeigt sich bereits in zwei zentralen Aspekten: Während die ‚westlichen‘ Akademien – trotz Involvierung in den Nationalsozialismus – nach 1945 weitgehend bruchlos weitergeführt wurden, erfolgte in den sozialistischen Staaten eine Neugründung der Wissenschaftsakademien. Die Akademien sozialistischen Typs wurden bald zu groß angelegten Forschungsträgern ausgebaut, während die ,westlichen‘ Akademien reine Gelehrtengesellschaften blieben. Eine Zwischenposition zwischen diesen beiden Modellen nimmt die Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW) ein. Die Einleitung der Herausgeber und der Beitrag von Mitchell Ash bilden einen fundierten Rahmen für die insgesamt 15 Beiträge namhafter Wissenschaftshistorikerinnen. Eine Schlussbetrachtung von Herbert Matis und Arnold Suppan verortet die Einzelbeiträge vor dem Hintergrund der politischen Transformationen in Zentraleuropa im Kalten Krieg. Der Band präsentiert neue Ergebnisse des von der ÖAW initiierten Forschungsnetzwerks zur Geschichte der Akademien der Wissenschaften in Europa im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. In diesem Band werden vielfach erstmals Forschungsergebnisse zu ostmitteleuropäischen Akademien im K
In the article we have defined the degree of the "Kyiv Society of Natural Scientists" activity exploration (1869-1929), examined its origins and defined the goals and objectives of the society ...activity. We have given special consideration to its library. In particular, we have submitted the data on the scope of the book and magazine collections and details about the library readers. In 1926 the society library was transferred from its previous location in the University of Saint Volodymyr (the Institute of Public Education at that time) and its holdings were temporarily transported to the National Library of Ukraine by the request of the society head - an academician I. I. Schmalhausen, and after the society and accordingly the contract liquidation in 1929 they remained permanently deposited in the library as a separate collection. The principal part of the librarian gathering of the society consists in the referential literature, relevant to biology, geology, zoology, geography, meteorology, chemistry, physics, mathematics as well as the scholar notes of universities and research institutions, which deal with nature study issues. Despite the fact, that the focal point of the society activities was the one concerning the theoretical nature study, increased attention was paid to the practical implementation of the research results. In this regard the subscription to the territorial agricultural periodicals was conducted from all the provinces of the empire. Since 1929 the centralization processes in the Academy of Sciences of USSR had intensified and the natural scientists library collection received other periodical editions, which had no ideological orientation and were not popular among the public.