Citizen science is becoming increasingly popular as a format in environmental and sustainability education. Citizen science not only allows researchers to gather large amounts of biodiversity-related ...data, it also has the potential to engage the public in biodiversity research. Numerous citizen science projects have emerged that assume that participation in the project affects participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. We investigated what evidence really exists about the outcomes of biodiversity citizen science projects on the side of the individual participants. For this purpose, we conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed research articles published up to and including 2017. We found evidence for various individual participant outcomes. The outcome reported most often was a gain in knowledge. Other outcomes, found in several articles, referred to changes in behavior or attitudes. Outcomes reported less often were new skills, increased self-efficacy and interest, and a variety of other personal outcomes. We discuss the research design and methods used in the reviewed studies und formulate specific recommendations for future research. We conclude that citizen science is a promising option for environmental and sustainability education focusing on biodiversity. Partnerships between natural and social scientists in the design and evaluation of projects would allow future biodiversity citizen science projects to utilize their full educational potential.
The primary objective of this inquiry was to explore the nexus between authorship attribution in medical literature and accountability for scientific impropriety while assessing the influence of ...authorial multiplicity on the severity of sanctions imposed. Probit regression models were employed to scrutinize the impact of authorship on assuming accountability for scientific misconduct, and unordered multinomial logistic regression models were used to examine the influence of authorship and the number of bylines on the severity of punitive measures. First authors and corresponding authors were significantly more likely to be liable for scientific misconduct than other authors and were more likely to be penalized particularly severely. Furthermore, a negative correlation was observed between the number of authors' affiliations and the severity of punitive measures. Authorship exerts a pronounced influence on the attribution of accountability in scientific research misconduct, particularly evident in the heightened risk of severe penalties confronting first and corresponding authors owing to their principal roles. Hence, scientific research institutions and journals must delineate authorship specifications meticulously, ascertain authors' contributions judiciously, bolster initiatives aimed at fostering scientific research integrity, and uphold an environment conducive for robust scientific inquiry.
The hypothesis of a Hierarchy of the Sciences, first formulated in the 19(th) century, predicts that, moving from simple and general phenomena (e.g. particle dynamics) to complex and particular (e.g. ...human behaviour), researchers lose ability to reach theoretical and methodological consensus. This hypothesis places each field of research along a continuum of complexity and "softness", with profound implications for our understanding of scientific knowledge. Today, however, the idea is still unproven and philosophically overlooked, too often confused with simplistic dichotomies that contrast natural and social sciences, or science and the humanities. Empirical tests of the hypothesis have usually compared few fields and this, combined with other limitations, makes their results contradictory and inconclusive. We verified whether discipline characteristics reflect a hierarchy, a dichotomy or neither, by sampling nearly 29,000 papers published contemporaneously in 12 disciplines and measuring a set of parameters hypothesised to reflect theoretical and methodological consensus. The biological sciences had in most cases intermediate values between the physical and the social, with bio-molecular disciplines appearing harder than zoology, botany or ecology. In multivariable analyses, most of these parameters were independent predictors of the hierarchy, even when mathematics and the humanities were included. These results support a "gradualist" view of scientific knowledge, suggesting that the Hierarchy of the Sciences provides the best rational framework to understand disciplines' diversity. A deeper grasp of the relationship between subject matter's complexity and consensus could have profound implications for how we interpret, publish, popularize and administer scientific research.
The case for using academic journals lists is critically scrutinised. An effect of their use, it argued, is to stifle diversity and constrict scholarly innovation. A monoculture is fostered in which ...a preoccupation with shoehorning research into a form prized by elite, US-oriented journals overrides a concern to maintain and enrich the diversity of topics, the range of methods and the plurality of perspectives engaged in business and management research. Use of a particular journal list, such as the one prepared by the Association of Business Schools (ABS), can come to dominate the scholarly terrain of a particular discipline with consequences that can be damaging to funding as well as to research culture.
The representation of subsurface structures is an essential aspect of a wide variety of geoscientific investigations and applications, ranging from geofluid reservoir studies, over raw material ...investigations, to geosequestration, as well as many branches of geoscientific research and applications in geological surveys. A wide range of methods exist to generate geological models. However, the powerful methods are behind a paywall in expensive commercial packages. We present here a full open-source geomodeling method, based on an implicit potential-field interpolation approach. The interpolation algorithm is comparable to implementations in commercial packages and capable of constructing complex full 3-D geological models, including fault networks, fault–surface interactions, unconformities and dome structures. This algorithm is implemented in the programming language Python, making use of a highly efficient underlying library for efficient code generation (Theano) that enables a direct execution on GPUs. The functionality can be separated into the core aspects required to generate 3-D geological models and additional assets for advanced scientific investigations. These assets provide the full power behind our approach, as they enable the link to machine-learning and Bayesian inference frameworks and thus a path to stochastic geological modeling and inversions. In addition, we provide methods to analyze model topology and to compute gravity fields on the basis of the geological models and assigned density values. In summary, we provide a basis for open scientific research using geological models, with the aim to foster reproducible research in the field of geomodeling.
The objective of this research was to determine the abrasive and remineralising efficacy of quail eggshell (Coturnix coturnix) incorporated into a new experimental toothpaste.
An experimental study ...was designed to compare the surface microhardness of the dental enamel of bovine lateral incisors exposed to different toothpastes. In relation to microroughness (abrasive efficiency), the unit of analysis was each specimen with 16 polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) blocks. For the remineralisation variable, the unit of analysis was each bovine lateral incisor tooth. A sample size of 16 was determined for each group.
The unpolished PMMA specimens presented the highest mean surface microroughness with a mean of 4.60 ± 1.47 µm, whilst the quail paste, universal polishing paste, control paste, and Diamond Excel Paste showed a mean of 1.16 ± 0.40 µm, 0.63 ± 024 µm, 0.45 ± 0.22 µm, and 0.43 ± 0.17 µm, respectively, presenting significant differences (P < .001). When comparing the surface microhardness of bovine lateral incisor dental enamel exposed to different toothpastes, the universal polishing paste presented the lowest microhardness, with 192.43 ± 56.21 kg/mm2, whilst the quail paste presented the greatest remineralising effect, with the highest average of 272 ± 21.18 kg/mm2, followed by the control paste with 244 ± 41.43 kg/mm2 and the Diamond Excel Paste with 228.72 ± 43.72 kg/mm2. These differences were statistically significant (P < .001).
Significant differences were found in the surface abrasive efficiency (microroughness) of PMMA subjected to different toothpastes. The quail toothpaste presented statistically significant results compared to the control pastes, the Diamond Excel Paste, and the universal polishing paste.
Significant efforts are underway within the biomedical research community to encourage sharing and reuse of research data in order to enhance research reproducibility and enable scientific discovery. ...While some technological challenges do exist, many of the barriers to sharing and reuse are social in nature, arising from researchers' concerns about and attitudes toward sharing their data. In addition, clinical and basic science researchers face their own unique sets of challenges to sharing data within their communities. This study investigates these differences in experiences with and perceptions about sharing data, as well as barriers to sharing among clinical and basic science researchers.
Clinical and basic science researchers in the Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Health were surveyed about their attitudes toward and experiences with sharing and reusing research data. Of 190 respondents to the survey, the 135 respondents who identified themselves as clinical or basic science researchers were included in this analysis. Odds ratio and Fisher's exact tests were the primary methods to examine potential relationships between variables. Worst-case scenario sensitivity tests were conducted when necessary.
While most respondents considered data sharing and reuse important to their work, they generally rated their expertise as low. Sharing data directly with other researchers was common, but most respondents did not have experience with uploading data to a repository. A number of significant differences exist between the attitudes and practices of clinical and basic science researchers, including their motivations for sharing, their reasons for not sharing, and the amount of work required to prepare their data.
Even within the scope of biomedical research, addressing the unique concerns of diverse research communities is important to encouraging researchers to share and reuse data. Efforts at promoting data sharing and reuse should be aimed at solving not only technological problems, but also addressing researchers' concerns about sharing their data. Given the varied practices of individual researchers and research communities, standardizing data practices like data citation and repository upload could make sharing and reuse easier.
The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has catalyzed a revolutionary transformation across various industries, including healthcare. Medical applications of ChatGPT, a powerful language model ...based on the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) architecture, encompass the creation of conversational agents capable of accessing and generating medical information from multiple sources and formats. This study investigates the research trends of large language models such as ChatGPT, GPT 4, and Google Bard, comparing their publication trends with early COVID-19 research. The findings underscore the current prominence of AI research and its potential implications in biomedical engineering. A search of the Scopus database on July 23, 2023, yielded 1,096 articles related to ChatGPT, with approximately 26% being medical science-related. Keywords related to artificial intelligence, natural language processing (NLP), LLM, and generative AI dominate ChatGPT research, while a focused representation of medical science research emerges, with emphasis on biomedical research and engineering. This analysis serves as a call to action for researchers, healthcare professionals, and policymakers to recognize and harness AI's potential in healthcare, particularly in the realm of biomedical research.
This article deals with how the profession of an academic researcher is viewed from a historical standpoint. Its narrative takes up the history of the legal professional status of academic ...researchers in Portugal, a status that depends greatly on Research and Development (R&D) funding flow. This historical perspective depicts how the legacy of the scientific system was built on unique circumstances, in many instances linked to a conservative institutional framework rooted in Portuguese universities and state laboratories. This has contributed to creating a gap that keeps researchers away from civil society and the private sector, causing losses for all parties and for the country as a whole.
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