U.S. regulation of dual-use research of concern and of research with enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential may alter soon. Much has been written on the best form for that regulation to take. Less ...was written on a procedural question: whose voices should shape that regulation? This commentary addresses the latter, the procedural question, regarding the appropriate parties to the deliberations and decisions on this matter. It proposes to U.S. virologists that it would be in the interests of their discipline and only appropriate if that regulation were shaped by many voices from outside the discipline and from outside the United States.
Creativity is considered a key element of the scientific infrastructure and a driving force of scientific advancement. This study aims to present Korean scientists' voices regarding scientific ...creativity by investigating their perceptions of scientific creativity and education for it. Extending the phenomenography lens through activity theory, we interviewed eleven scientists in various science research fields and investigated the structural features of the situations that influenced their perceptions. The results show that scientists' perceptions of scientific creativity were developed by the different epistemic cultures in their research fields. In addition, their perceptions of education for scientific creativity centred on the accumulation of resources to generate novel and valuable ideas and the facilitation of open discussion on knowledge construction. We discuss their perceptions of creativity in the context of their research fields' epistemic cultures and the design of science education for scientific creativity. We conclude by discussing the implications of this study for developing science education to cultivate creative scientists.
Abstract
Rapid advances in deep learning have brought not only a myriad of powerful neural networks, but also breakthroughs that benefit established scientific research. In particular, automatic ...differentiation (AD) tools and computational accelerators like GPUs have facilitated forward modeling of the Universe with differentiable simulations. Based on analytic or automatic backpropagation, current differentiable cosmological simulations are limited by memory, and thus are subject to a trade-off between time and space/mass resolution, usually sacrificing both. We present a new approach free of such constraints, using the adjoint method and reverse time integration. It enables larger and more accurate forward modeling at the field level, and will improve gradient-based optimization and inference. We implement it in an open-source particle-mesh (PM)
N
-body library
pmwd
(PM with derivatives). Based on the powerful AD system
JAX
,
pmwd
is fully differentiable, and is highly performant on GPUs.
Social scientists have increasingly turned to the experimental method to understand human behaviour. One critical issue that makes solving social problems difficult is scaling up the idea from a ...small group to a larger group in more diverse situations. The urgency of scaling policies impacts us every day, whether it is protecting the health and safety of a community or enhancing the opportunities of future generations. Yet, a common result is that, when we scale up ideas, most experience a 'voltage drop'-that is, on scaling, the cost-benefit profile depreciates considerably. Here I argue that, to reduce voltage drops, we must optimally generate policy-based evidence. Optimality requires answering two crucial questions: what information should be generated and in what sequence. The economics underlying the science of scaling provides insights into these questions, which are in some cases at odds with conventional approaches. For example, there are important situations in which I advocate flipping the traditional social science research model to an approach that, from the beginning, produces the type of policy-based evidence that the science of scaling demands. To do so, I propose augmenting efficacy trials by including relevant tests of scale in the original discovery process, which forces the scientist to naturally start with a recognition of the big picture: what information do I need to have scaling confidence?
The purposes of this study were to analyse trends in primary tooth emergence patterns and to identify physical factors potentially associated with them.
The participants were 27,454 infants who ...underwent routine 18-month-old health examinations in Ebetsu City, Japan, between 1980 and 2012. This study was conducted using data from infants’ 18-month-old health examinations over a 33-year period. The mean number of emerged primary teeth was analysed by sex using a general linear model. For logistic regression analysis, the proportion of infants with 16 emerged teeth or more at 18 months old was used as a dependent variable. Examination year; birth order; birth weight; weight, height, and chest girth at 18 months old; number of fused teeth; and mother's age were used as independent variables.
The mean number of emerged primary teeth decreased over the 33-year period. Birth weight and weight and height at 18 months old decreased, and the proportion of low-birth-weight (<2500 g) infants increased over the 33-year period. On general linear model analysis, the yearly change in the mean number of emerged primary teeth was −0.0188 for boys and −0.0181 for girls. Birth weight and weight and height at 18 months old were significantly associated with the presence of 16 emerged primary teeth or more, according to the logistic regression analysis.
The results demonstrated that, over the 33-year period examined, the mean number of emerged primary teeth decreased and birth weight and weight and height at 18 months old were associated with the pattern of tooth emergence.
Japan's universal health insurance covers a wide range of dental treatments, and the co-payment rates differ by age. We investigated whether the inequality in gingival bleeding and dental visits was ...smaller amongst those with lower co-payment rates.
This cross-sectional study used data from the 2019 Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study. The participants were functionally independent adults aged 65 years or older. The dependent variables were current gingival bleeding as a symptom of periodontal diseases and dental nonattendance for treatment in the past year. The independent variables were ridit scores of equivalent income and educational status. For covariates, we used age, sex, and the number of remaining teeth. To evaluate the inequalities, we used the slope index of inequality (SII) and the relative index of inequality (RII). We also conducted stratified analyses by co-payment rates (30%, 20%, and 10%) to clarify the difference in inequalities by co-payment rate.
A total of 15,389 participants were included in the analysis; their mean age was 71.8 (SD = 4.1) and 51.8% were women. There were significant absolute and relative inequalities in gingival bleeding and dental visits by equivalent income and education. With regards to educational status, inequalities were lower with a decrease in the co-payment rate. In particular, relative inequality by education in gingival bleeding was the largest amongst the 30% co-payment group (RII, 1.918; 95% confidence interval CI, 1.386 to 2.656). For gingival bleeding, the absolute and relative inequality by equivalent income were not significant amongst the 10% co-payment group (SII, −0.003; 95% CI, −0.003 to 0.028; RII, 1.006; 95% CI = 0.676 to 1.498).
A low co-payment rate was associated with smaller inequalities in gingival bleeding and dental visits by equivalent income and educational status.
Data indicate that large percentages of the general public regard psychology's scientific status with considerable skepticism. I examine 6 criticisms commonly directed at the scientific basis of ...psychology (e.g., psychology is merely common sense, psychology does not use scientific methods, psychology is not useful to society) and offer 6 rebuttals. I then address 8 potential sources of public skepticism toward psychology and argue that although some of these sources reflect cognitive errors (e.g., hindsight bias) or misunderstandings of psychological science (e.g., failure to distinguish basic from applied research), others (e.g., psychology's failure to police itself, psychology's problematic public face) reflect the failure of professional psychology to get its own house in order. I offer several individual and institutional recommendations for enhancing psychology's image and contend that public skepticism toward psychology may, paradoxically, be one of our field's strongest allies.
A goal of the biodiversity research community is to digitize the majority of the one billion specimens in US collections by 2020. Meeting this ambitious goal requires increased collaboration and ...technological innovation and broader engagement beyond the walls of universities and museums. Engaging the public in digitization promises to both serve the digitizing institutions and further the public understanding of biodiversity science. We discuss three broad areas accessible to public participants that will accelerate research progress: label and ledger transcription, georeferencing from locality descriptions, and specimen annotation from images. We illustrate each activity, compare useful tools, present best practices and standards, and identify gaps in our knowledge and areas for improvement. The field of public participation in digitization of biodiversity research specimens is in a growth phase with many emerging opportunities for scientists, educators, and the public, as well as broader communication with complementary projects in other areas (e.g., the digital humanities).
The spread of cell phone technology across Africa has transforming effects on the economic and political sphere of the continent. In this paper, we investigate the impact of cell phone technology on ...violent collective action. We contend that the availability of cell phones as a communication technology allows political groups to overcome collective action problems more easily and improve in-group cooperation, and coordination. Utilizing novel, spatially disaggregated data on cell phone coverage and the location of organized violent events in Africa, we are able to show that the availability of cell phone coverage significantly and substantially increases the probability of violent conflict. Our findings hold across numerous different model specifications and robustness checks, including cross-sectional models, instrumental variable techniques, and panel data methods.
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