Science access, career choices, achievement, and motivation: Perceptions of female science olympians

Science.gov (United States)

Price, Kelly Rae

Women remain under-represented in science career fields and this is especially evident in the physical sciences. Female students maintain equal science interest and achievement to male students in elementary school but by middle and high school they fall behind their male peers. Reasons cited for girls' declining interest in science include battling traditional gender stereotypes, lack of encouragement, and lack of female role models. Four main science concerns related to girls/women as indicated by research literature were science access, career choices, achievement, and motivation. In Georgia, some girls have made a break from the research trends by demonstrating their fervor for science through participation in the academic activity, Science Olympiad. The purpose of this study was to examine the science perceptions of girls who demonstrated science success by their participation in Science Olympiad. Utilizing phenomenological and feminist perspectives, the qualitative research method of focus group interviewing was used to address the research questions comprising the four science concerns of female science access, career choices, achievement, and motivation. The study participants were all girls/women who participated in Science Olympiad. A total of five focus groups were studied. One of the focus groups had current college undergraduates, former Science Olympians, in it while the others were composed of high school girls. Through the description of their science experiences, the participants shared their perceptions of the four science concerns. When addressing these science concerns, the participants revealed four factors that had most affected their science perceptions: the importance of support, science needs Serious Fun, teachers matter, and the bonuses of extracurricular involvement. In their experiences, the participants found success in science because they had teachers, parents, and peers who supported their academic interests, including science, and

Public Access to NASA's Earth Science Data

Science.gov (United States)

Behnke, J.; James, N.

2013-12-01

Many steps have been taken over the past 20 years to make NASA's Earth Science data more accessible to the public. The data collected by NASA represent a significant public investment in research. NASA holds these data in a public trust to promote comprehensive, long-term Earth science research. Consequently, NASA developed a free, open and non-discriminatory policy consistent with existing international policies to maximize access to data and to keep user costs as low as possible. These policies apply to all data archived, maintained, distributed or produced by NASA data systems. The Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) is a major core capability within NASA Earth Science Data System Program. EOSDIS is designed to ingest, process, archive, and distribute data from approximately 90 instruments. Today over 6800 data products are available to the public through the EOSDIS. Last year, EOSDIS distributed over 636 million science data products to the user community, serving over 1.5 million distinct users. The system supports a variety of science disciplines including polar processes, land cover change, radiation budget, and most especially global climate change. A core philosophy of EOSDIS is that the general user is best served by providing discipline specific support for the data. To this end, EOSDIS has collocated NASA Earth science data with centers of science discipline expertise, called Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). DAACs are responsible for data management, archive and distribution of data products. There are currently twelve DAACs in the EOSDIS system. The centralized entrance point to the NASA Earth Science data collection can be found at http://earthdata.nasa.gov. Over the years, we have developed several methods for determining needs of the user community including use of the American Customer Satisfaction Index survey and a broad metrics program. Annually, we work with an independent organization (CFI Group) to send this

The LAILAPS search engine: a feature model for relevance ranking in life science databases.

Science.gov (United States)

Lange, Matthias; Spies, Karl; Colmsee, Christian; Flemming, Steffen; Klapperstück, Matthias; Scholz, Uwe

2010-03-25

Efficient and effective information retrieval in life sciences is one of the most pressing challenge in bioinformatics. The incredible growth of life science databases to a vast network of interconnected information systems is to the same extent a big challenge and a great chance for life science research. The knowledge found in the Web, in particular in life-science databases, are a valuable major resource. In order to bring it to the scientist desktop, it is essential to have well performing search engines. Thereby, not the response time nor the number of results is important. The most crucial factor for millions of query results is the relevance ranking. In this paper, we present a feature model for relevance ranking in life science databases and its implementation in the LAILAPS search engine. Motivated by the observation of user behavior during their inspection of search engine result, we condensed a set of 9 relevance discriminating features. These features are intuitively used by scientists, who briefly screen database entries for potential relevance. The features are both sufficient to estimate the potential relevance, and efficiently quantifiable. The derivation of a relevance prediction function that computes the relevance from this features constitutes a regression problem. To solve this problem, we used artificial neural networks that have been trained with a reference set of relevant database entries for 19 protein queries. Supporting a flexible text index and a simple data import format, this concepts are implemented in the LAILAPS search engine. It can easily be used both as search engine for comprehensive integrated life science databases and for small in-house project databases. LAILAPS is publicly available for SWISSPROT data at http://lailaps.ipk-gatersleben.de.

Momona Ethiopian Journal of Science: Editorial Policies

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Momona Ethiopian Journal of Science (MEJS) is a free access e-journal ... related to Earth Science, Physical Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Biological Sciences and ... materials, information related to conferences and any other relevant topics.

NASA's Global Change Master Directory: Discover and Access Earth Science Data Sets, Related Data Services, and Climate Diagnostics

Science.gov (United States)

Aleman, Alicia; Olsen, Lola; Ritz, Scott; Morahan, Michael; Cepero, Laurel; Stevens, Tyler

2011-01-01

NASA's Global Change Master Directory provides the scientific community with the ability to discover, access, and use Earth science data, data-related services, and climate diagnostics worldwide. The GCMD offers descriptions of Earth science data sets using the Directory Interchange Format (DIF) metadata standard; Earth science related data services are described using the Service Entry Resource Format (SERF); and climate visualizations are described using the Climate Diagnostic (CD) standard. The DIF, SERF and CD standards each capture data attributes used to determine whether a data set, service, or climate visualization is relevant to a user's needs. Metadata fields include: title, summary, science keywords, service keywords, data center, data set citation, personnel, instrument, platform, quality, related URL, temporal and spatial coverage, data resolution and distribution information. In addition, nine valuable sets of controlled vocabularies have been developed to assist users in normalizing the search for data descriptions. An update to the GCMD's search functionality is planned to further capitalize on the controlled vocabularies during database queries. By implementing a dynamic keyword "tree", users will have the ability to search for data sets by combining keywords in new ways. This will allow users to conduct more relevant and efficient database searches to support the free exchange and re-use of Earth science data. http://gcmd.nasa.gov/

Perceptions and Practices of Culturally Relevant Science Teaching in American Indian Classrooms

Science.gov (United States)

Nam, Younkyeong; Roehrig, Gillian; Kern, Anne; Reynolds, Bree

2013-01-01

This study explores the perceptions of culturally relevant science teaching of 35 teachers of American Indian students. These teachers participated in professional development designed to help them better understand climate change science content and teaching climate change using both Western science and traditional and cultural knowledge. Teacher…

Making USGS Science Data more Open, Accessible, and Usable: Leveraging ScienceBase for Success

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, M.; Ignizio, D.; Langseth, M. L.; Norkin, T.

2016-12-01

In 2013, the White House released initiatives requiring federally funded research to be made publicly available and machine readable. In response, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has been developing a unified approach to make USGS data available and open. This effort has involved the establishment of internal policies and the release of a Public Access Plan, which outlines a strategy for the USGS to move forward into the modern era in scientific data management. Originally designed as a catalog and collaborative data management platform, ScienceBase (www.sciencebase.gov) is being leveraged to serve as a robust data hosting solution for USGS researchers to make scientific data accessible. With the goal of maintaining persistent access to formal data products and developing a management approach to facilitate stable data citation, the ScienceBase Data Release Team was established to ensure the quality, consistency, and meaningful organization of USGS data through standardized workflows and best practices. These practices include the creation and maintenance of persistent identifiers for data, improving the use of open data formats, establishing permissions for read/write access, validating the quality of standards compliant metadata, verifying that data have been reviewed and approved prior to release, and connecting to external search catalogs such as the USGS Science Data Catalog (data.usgs.gov) and data.gov. The ScienceBase team is actively building features to support this effort by automating steps to streamline the process, building metrics to track site visits and downloads, and connecting published digital resources in line with USGS and Federal policy. By utilizing ScienceBase to achieve stewardship quality and employing a dedicated team to help USGS scientists improve the quality of their data, the USGS is helping to meet today's data quality management challenges and ensure that reliable USGS data are available to and reusable for the public.

Physical Science Informatics: Providing Open Science Access to Microheater Array Boiling Experiment Data

Science.gov (United States)

McQuillen, John; Green, Robert D.; Henrie, Ben; Miller, Teresa; Chiaramonte, Fran

2014-01-01

The Physical Science Informatics (PSI) system is the next step in this an effort to make NASA sponsored flight data available to the scientific and engineering community, along with the general public. The experimental data, from six overall disciplines, Combustion Science, Fluid Physics, Complex Fluids, Fundamental Physics, and Materials Science, will present some unique challenges. Besides data in textual or numerical format, large portions of both the raw and analyzed data for many of these experiments are digital images and video, requiring large data storage requirements. In addition, the accessible data will include experiment design and engineering data (including applicable drawings), any analytical or numerical models, publications, reports, and patents, and any commercial products developed as a result of the research. This objective of paper includes the following: Present the preliminary layout (Figure 2) of MABE data within the PSI database. Obtain feedback on the layout. Present the procedure to obtain access to this database.

Practical relevance of pattern uniqueness in forensic science.

Science.gov (United States)

Jayaprakash, Paul T

2013-09-10

Uniqueness being unprovable, it has recently been argued that individualization in forensic science is irrelevant and, probability, as applied for DNA profiles, should be applied for all identifications. Critiques against uniqueness have omitted physical matching, a realistic and tangible individualization that supports uniqueness. Describing case examples illustrating pattern matches including physical matching, it is indicated that individualizations are practically relevant for forensic science as they establish facts on a definitive basis providing firm leads benefitting criminal investigation. As a tenet of forensic identification, uniqueness forms a fundamental paradigm relevant for individualization. Evidence on the indeterministic and stochastic causal pathways of characteristics in patterns available in the related fields of science sufficiently supports the proposition of uniqueness. Characteristics involved in physical matching and matching achieved in patterned evidence existing in the state of nature are not events amenable for counting; instead these are ensemble of visible units occupying the entire pattern area stretching the probability of re-occurrence of a verisimilitude pattern into infinity offering epistemic support to uniqueness. Observational methods are as respectable as instrumental or statistical methods since they are capable of generating results that are tangible and obviously valid as in physical matching. Applying the probabilistic interpretation used for DNA profiles to the other patterns would be unbefitting since these two are disparate, the causal pathways of the events, the loci, in the manipulated DNA profiles being determinable. While uniqueness enables individualizations, it does not vouch for eliminating errors. Instead of dismissing uniqueness and individualization, accepting errors as human or system failures and seeking remedial measures would benefit forensic science practice and criminal investigation. Copyright © 2013

JournalMap: Geo-semantic searching for relevant knowledge

Science.gov (United States)

Ecologists struggling to understand rapidly changing environments and evolving ecosystem threats need quick access to relevant research and documentation of natural systems. The advent of semantic and aggregation searching (e.g., Google Scholar, Web of Science) has made it easier to find useful lite...

Global forces and local currents in Argentina's science policy crossroads: restricted access or open knowledge

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Horacio Javier Etchichury

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The article describes the tensions between two competing approaches to scientific policy in Argentina. The traditional vision favors autonomous research. The neoliberal conception fosters the link between science and markets. In the past few years, a neodevelopmentalist current also tries to stress relevance of scientific research. Finally, the article describes how the Open Access movement has entered the debate. The World Bank intervention and the human rights dimension of the question are discussed in depth. The article introduces the notion of open knowledge as a guiding criterion to design a human-rights based scientific policy.

Assessing Effects of Climate Change on Access to Ecosystem Services in Rural Alaska: Enhancing the Science through Community Engagement

Science.gov (United States)

Brinkman, T. J.; Cold, H.; Brown, D. N.; Brown, C.; Hollingsworth, T. N.; Verbyla, D.

2017-12-01

In Arctic-Boreal regions, studies quantifying the characteristics and prevalence of environmental disruptions to access to ecosystem services are lacking. Empirical investigations are needed to assess the vulnerability of rural communities to climate change. We integrated community-based local observation (9 Interior Alaska Communities), field-based ground measurements, and remote sensing data to: 1) identify and prioritize the relative importance of different environmental changes affecting access, 2) characterize the biophysical causes and mechanisms related to access, and 3) evaluate long-term (30 year) trends in the environment that are challenging access. Dynamic winter ice and snow conditions (e.g., dangerous ice travel; n =147) were the most commonly reported cause of disturbance to access, followed by changes in summer hydrology (e.g., river navigability; n = 77) and seasonal shifts in freeze/thaw cycles (n = 31). Supporting local observations, our remote-sensing analysis indicated a trend toward environmental conditions that hinder or disrupt traditional uses of ecosystem services. For example, we found that the window of safe travel on ice has narrowed by approximately 2 weeks since the 1980s. Shifts in travel have implications on the effectiveness of subsistence activities, such as winter trapping and spring waterfowl hunting. From a methods perspective, we implemented a study design that generated novel science while also addressing locally relevant issues. Our approach and findings highlight opportunities for connecting biophysical science with societal concerns.

Putting rural energy access projects into perspective: What lessons are relevant?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vleuten, Frank van der; Stam, Nienke; Plas, Robert-Jan van der

2013-01-01

As the Secretary General of the United Nations and the president of the World Bank are calling upon countries to commit themselves to universal access to modern energy services by 2030, and international players such as the International Energy Agency, the EU, and ESMAP are building scenarios how to accomplish this, this article demonstrates the non-linear dynamics of scaling up rural energy access, drawing among others from over 70 energy access projects implemented by the EASE network of national energy and development NGOs in eight countries and on experiences combining microfinance and (clean) energy access. The article shows that scaling up rural energy access demands careful tuning of support to the business models of rural entrepreneurs, in which development finance has only a limited role to play. The article argues for market development approaches that take a programmatic approach, change their intervention model as the market matures, and build on smart use of the limited sector capacity. The ultimate challenge is how to down-tune ambitions and spending power of the development community to match the absorption capacity of rural markets and the reality of entrepreneurs on the ground. - Highlights: • Practitioner's experiences and lessons, based on over 70 implemented projects. • Relevant for “Sustainable Energy for All” high-level initiative. • Match high international ambitions with low capacity of rural energy markets

Why relevance theory is relevant for lexicography

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bothma, Theo; Tarp, Sven

2014-01-01

This article starts by providing a brief summary of relevance theory in information science in relation to the function theory of lexicography, explaining the different types of relevance, viz. objective system relevance and the subjective types of relevance, i.e. topical, cognitive, situational...... that is very important for lexicography as well as for information science, viz. functional relevance. Since all lexicographic work is ultimately aimed at satisfying users’ information needs, the article then discusses why the lexicographer should take note of all these types of relevance when planning a new...... dictionary project, identifying new tasks and responsibilities of the modern lexicographer. The article furthermore discusses how relevance theory impacts on teaching dictionary culture and reference skills. By integrating insights from lexicography and information science, the article contributes to new...

The Relevance of Evidence from the History of Science in the Contemporary Realism/Anti-realism Debate

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wray, K. Brad

2018-01-01

I aim to clarify the relevance of evidence from the history of science to the contemporary realism/anti-realism debate as the need for evidence from the history of science is often misunderstood or misrepresented.......I aim to clarify the relevance of evidence from the history of science to the contemporary realism/anti-realism debate as the need for evidence from the history of science is often misunderstood or misrepresented....

The case for policy-relevant conservation science.

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, David C

2015-06-01

Drawing on the "evidence-based" (Sutherland et al. 2013) versus "evidence-informed" debate (Adams & Sandbrook 2013), which has become prominent in conservation science, I argue that science can be influential if it holds a dual reference (Lentsch & Weingart 2011) that contributes to the needs of policy makers whilst maintaining technical rigor. In line with such a strategy, conservation scientists are increasingly recognizing the usefulness of constructing narratives through which to enhance the influence of their evidence (Leslie et al. 2013; Lawton & Rudd 2014). Yet telling stories alone is rarely enough to influence policy; instead, these narratives must be policy relevant. To ensure that evidence is persuasive alongside other factors in a complex policy-making process, conservation scientists could follow 2 steps: reframe within salient political contexts and engage more productively in boundary work, which is defined as the ways in which scientists "construct, negotiate, and defend the boundary between science and policy" (Owens et al. 2006:640). These will both improve the chances of evidence-informed conservation policy. © 2015 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.

Using News Media Databases (LexisNexis) To Identify Relevant Topics For Introductory Earth Science Classes

Science.gov (United States)

Cervato, C.; Jach, J. Y.; Ridky, R.

2003-12-01

Introductory Earth science courses are undergoing pedagogical changes in universities across the country and are focusing more than ever on the non-science majors. Increasing enrollment of non-science majors in these introductory Earth science courses demands a new look at what is being taught and how the content can be objectively chosen. Assessing the content and effectiveness of these courses requires a quantitative investigation of introductory Earth science topics and their relevance to current issues and concerns. Relevance of Earth science topics can be linked to improved students' attitude toward science and a deeper understanding of concepts. We have used the Internet based national news search-engine LexisNexis Academic Universe (http://www.lexisnexis.org/) to select the occurrence of Earth science terms over the last 12 months, five and ten years both regionally and nationally. This database of term occurrences is being used to examine how Earth sciences have evolved in the news through the last 10 years and is also compared with textbook contents and course syllabi from randomly selected introductory earth science courses across the nation. These data constitute the quantitative foundation for this study and are being used to evaluate the relevance of introductory earth science course content. The relevance of introductory course content and current real-world issues to student attitudes is a crucial factor when considering changes in course curricula and pedagogy. We have examined students' conception of the nature of science and attitudes towards science and learning science using a Likert-scale assessment instrument in the fall 2002 Geology 100 classes at Iowa State University. A pre-test and post-test were administered to see if the students' attitudes changed during the semester using as reference a control group comprised of geoscience undergraduate and graduate students, and faculty. The results of the attitude survey have been analyzed in terms

Open Access Citation Advantage in selected Information Science journals: an extended analysis to altmetrics indicators

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paulo Roberto Cintra

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Open access refers to scientific literature available free of charge and free of copyright restrictions and licensing for its reuse. An increase in the total number of citations received by articles available in open access in relation to those of restricted, pay-walled access is expected, according to the Open Access Citation Advantage hypothesis. Objective: Assess the possible citation advantages and mentions on the social web that open access can offer to the Information Science area. Methodology: Bibliometric and altmetric indicators were analyzed in two journals: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Scientometrics. Data collection was conducted in the Web of Science, Google Scholar, Altmetric.com and Mendeley. Results: The results indicated that for both journals, open access offers an advantage in the number of citations received by articles. It was also demonstrated that the advantage is maintained over time. Conclusions: This research confirmed the hypothesis of an Open Access Citation Advantage for the journals analyzed in the area of Information Science. This pattern was also observed for the altmetric data.

The Open Access Availability of Library and Information Science Literature

Science.gov (United States)

Way, Doug

2010-01-01

To examine the open access availability of Library and Information Science (LIS) research, a study was conducted using Google Scholar to search for articles from 20 top LIS journals. The study examined whether Google Scholar was able to find any links to full text, if open access versions of the articles were available and where these articles…

Types of Lexicographical Information Needs and their Relevance for Information Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bergenholtz, Henning

2017-09-01

Full Text Available In some situations, you need information in order to solve a problem that has occurred. In information science, user needs are often described through very specific examples rather than through a classification of situation types in which information needs occur. Furthermore, information science often describes general human needs, typically with a reference to Maslow's classification of needs (1954, instead of actual information needs. Lexicography has also focused on information needs, but has developed a more abstract classification of types of information needs, though (until more recent research into lexicographical functions with a particular interest in linguistic uncertainties and the lack of knowledge and skills in relation to one or several languages. In this article, we suggest a classification of information needs in which a tripartition has been made according to the different types of situations: communicative needs, cognitive needs, and operative needs. This is a classification that is relevant and useful in general in our modern information society and therefore also relevant for information science, including lexicography.

Path Not Found: Disparities in Access to Computer Science Courses in California High Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Alexis; McAlear, Frieda; Scott, Allison

2015-01-01

"Path Not Found: Disparities in Access to Computer Science Courses in California High Schools" exposes one of the foundational causes of underrepresentation in computing: disparities in access to computer science courses in California's public high schools. This report provides new, detailed data on these disparities by student body…

Culturally relevant science: An approach to math science education for Hispanics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Montellano, B.O. de

1996-11-14

This report describes later stages of a program to develop culturally relevant science and math programs for Hispanic students. Part of this effort was follow-up with 17 teachers who participated in early stages of the program. Response was not very good. Included with the report is a first draft effort for curriculum materials which could be used as is in such a teaching effort. Several of the participating teachers were invited to a writing workshop, where lesson plans were drafted, and critiqued and following rework are listed in this publication. Further work needs to be completed and is ongoing.

Researching the Real: Transforming the Science Fair through Relevant and Authentic Research

Science.gov (United States)

Davidson, Rosemary McBryan

This teacher research study documents the processes used to help students in an all-female, religious-based high school create science fair projects that are personally meaningful, scientifically sophisticated and up-to date in terms of science content. One-hundred sixteen young women in an honors chemistry class were introduced by their teacher to the methods used by science journalists when researching and crafting articles. The students then integrated these strategies into their science fair research through collaborative classroom activities designed by their teacher. Data collected during the process included audio and video tapes of classroom activities, student interviews, process work, finished projects, email conversations and the reflective journaling, annotated lesson plans, and memories of the lived experience by the teacher. The pedagogical changes which resulted from this project included the use of Read Aloud-Think Alouds (RATA) to introduce content and provide relevance, a discussion based topic selection process, the encouragement of relevant topic choices, the increased use of technology for learning activities and for sharing research, and an experimental design process driven by the student's personally relevant, topic choice. Built in feedback loops, provided by the teacher, peer editors and an outside editor, resulted in multiple revisions and expanded opportunities for communicating results to the community-at-large. Greater student engagement in science fair projects was evident: questioning for understanding, active involvement in decision making, collaboration within the classroom community, experience and expertise with reading, writing and the use of technology, sense of agency and interest in science related activities and careers all increased. Students communicated their evolving practices within the school community and became leaders who promoted the increased use of technology in all of their classes. Integrating journalistic

Does the public deserve free access to climate system science?

Science.gov (United States)

Grigorov, Ivo

2010-05-01

Some time ago it was the lack of public access to medical research data that really stirred the issue and gave inertia for legislation and a new publishing model that puts tax payer-funded medical research in the hands of those who fund it. In today's age global climate change has become the biggest socio-economic challenge, and the same argument resonates: climate affects us all and the publicly-funded science quantifying it should be freely accessible to all stakeholders beyond academic research. Over the last few years the ‘Open Access' movement to remove as much as possible subscription, and other on-campus barriers to academic research has rapidly gathered pace, but despite significant progress, the climate system sciences are not among the leaders in providing full access to their publications and data. Beyond the ethical argument, there are proven and tangible benefits for the next generation of climate researchers to adapt the way their output is published. Through the means provided by ‘open access', both data and ideas can gain more visibility, use and citations for the authors, but also result in a more rapid exchange of knowledge and ideas, and ultimately progress towards a sought solution. The presentation will aim to stimulate discussion and seek progress on the following questions: Should free access to climate research (& data) be mandatory? What are the career benefits of using ‘open access' for young scientists? What means and methods should, or could, be incorporated into current European graduate training programmes in climate research, and possible ways forward?

Open-access databases as unprecedented resources and drivers of cultural change in fisheries science

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McManamay, Ryan A [ORNL; Utz, Ryan [National Ecological Observatory Network

2014-01-01

Open-access databases with utility in fisheries science have grown exponentially in quantity and scope over the past decade, with profound impacts to our discipline. The management, distillation, and sharing of an exponentially growing stream of open-access data represents several fundamental challenges in fisheries science. Many of the currently available open-access resources may not be universally known among fisheries scientists. We therefore introduce many national- and global-scale open-access databases with applications in fisheries science and provide an example of how they can be harnessed to perform valuable analyses without additional field efforts. We also discuss how the development, maintenance, and utilization of open-access data are likely to pose technical, financial, and educational challenges to fisheries scientists. Such cultural implications that will coincide with the rapidly increasing availability of free data should compel the American Fisheries Society to actively address these problems now to help ease the forthcoming cultural transition.

Design and Implementation of a Library and Information Science Open Access Journal Union Catalogue System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sinn-Cheng Lin

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Open access is a mode of academic communication that has been on the rise in recent years, but open access academic resources are widely dispersed across the internet, making it occasionally inconvenient in terms of its use. This research is focused on library and information science, using the OAIS reference model as the system framework, two open access platform, DOAJ and E-LIS as the data sources, and through system implementation develop a “library and information science open access journal union catalogue” system. Using the OAI-PMH protocol as the data interoperability standard, and LAMP as the development environment, four major functionalities: injest, archiving, management and access of information were designed, developed, and integrated into system build. Actual testing and verification showed this system is able to successfully collect data from DOAJ and E-LIS open journal resources related to library and information science. The system is now active and functional, and can be used by researchers in the library and science information field.

A Bibliometric Study of Scholarly Articles Published by Library and Information Science Authors about Open Access

Science.gov (United States)

Grandbois, Jennifer; Beheshti, Jamshid

2014-01-01

Introduction: This study aims to gain a greater understanding of the development of open access practices amongst library and information science authors, since their role is integral to the success of the broader open access movement. Method: Data were collected from scholarly articles about open access by library and information science authors…

A Big Data Task Force Review of Advances in Data Access and Discovery Within the Science Disciplines of the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD)

Science.gov (United States)

Walker, R. J.; Beebe, R. F.

2017-12-01

One of the basic problems the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) faces when dealing with preservation of scientific data is the variety of the data. This stems from the fact that NASA's involvement in the sciences spans a broad range of disciplines across the Science Mission Directorate: Astrophysics, Earth Sciences, Heliophysics and Planetary Science. As the ability of some missions to produce large data volumes has accelerated, the range of problems associated with providing adequate access to the data has demanded diverse approaches for data access. Although mission types, complexity and duration vary across the disciplines, the data can be characterized by four characteristics: velocity, veracity, volume, and variety. The rate of arrival of the data (velocity) must be addressed at the individual mission level, validation and documentation of the data (veracity), data volume and the wide variety of data products present huge challenges as the science disciplines strive to provide transparent access to their available data. Astrophysics, supports an integrated system of data archives based on frequencies covered (UV, visible, IR, etc.) or subject areas (extrasolar planets, extra galactic, etc.) and is accessed through the Astrophysics Data Center (https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/astrophysics-data-centers/). Earth Science supports the Earth Observing System (https://earthdata.nasa.gov/) that manages the earth science satellite data. The discipline supports 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers. Heliophysics provides the Space Physics Data Facility (https://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/) that supports the heliophysics community and Solar Data Analysis Center (https://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/index.html) that allows access to the solar data. The Planetary Data System (https://pds.nasa.gov) is the main archive for planetary science data. It consists of science discipline nodes (Atmospheres, Geosciences, Cartography and Imaging Sciences, Planetary Plasma Interactions

Open data used in water sciences - Review of access, licenses and understandability

Science.gov (United States)

Falkenroth, Esa; Lagerbäck Adolphi, Emma; Arheimer, Berit

2016-04-01

The amount of open data available for hydrology research is continually growing. In the EU-funded project SWITCH-ON (Sharing Water-related Information to Tackle Changes in the Hydrosphere - for Operational Needs: www.water-switch-on.eu), we are addressing water concerns by exploring and exploiting the untapped potential of these new open data. This work is enabled by many ongoing efforts to facilitate the use of open data. For instance, a number of portals provide the means to search for open data sets and open spatial data services (such as the GEOSS Portal, INSPIRE community geoportal or various Climate Services and public portals). However, in general, many research groups in water sciences still hesitate in using this open data. We therefore examined some limiting factors. Factors that limit usability of a dataset include: (1) accessibility, (2) understandability and (3) licences. In the SWITCH-ON project we have developed a search tool for finding and accessing data with relevance to water science in Europe, as the existing ones are not addressing data needs in water sciences specifically. The tool is filled with some 9000 sets of metadata and each one is linked to water related key-words. The keywords are based on the ones developed within the CUAHSI community in USA, but extended with non-hydrosphere topics, additional subclasses and only showing keywords actually having data. Access to data sets: 78% of the data is directly accessible, while the rest is either available after registration and request, or through a web client for visualisation but without direct download. However, several data sets were found to be inaccessible due to server downtime, incorrect links or problems with the host database management system. One possible explanation for this could be that many datasets have been assembled by research project that no longer are funded. Hence, their server infrastructure would be less maintained compared to large-scale operational services

Leveraging Open Standards and Technologies to Enhance Community Access to Earth Science Lidar Data

Science.gov (United States)

Crosby, C. J.; Nandigam, V.; Krishnan, S.; Cowart, C.; Baru, C.; Arrowsmith, R.

2011-12-01

Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) data, collected from space, airborne and terrestrial platforms, have emerged as an invaluable tool for a variety of Earth science applications ranging from ice sheet monitoring to modeling of earth surface processes. However, lidar present a unique suite of challenges from the perspective of building cyberinfrastructure systems that enable the scientific community to access these valuable research datasets. Lidar data are typically characterized by millions to billions of individual measurements of x,y,z position plus attributes; these "raw" data are also often accompanied by derived raster products and are frequently terabytes in size. As a relatively new and rapidly evolving data collection technology, relevant open data standards and software projects are immature compared to those for other remote sensing platforms. The NSF-funded OpenTopography Facility project has developed an online lidar data access and processing system that co-locates data with on-demand processing tools to enable users to access both raw point cloud data as well as custom derived products and visualizations. OpenTopography is built on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) in which applications and data resources are deployed as standards compliant (XML and SOAP) Web services with the open source Opal Toolkit. To develop the underlying applications for data access, filtering and conversion, and various processing tasks, OpenTopography has heavily leveraged existing open source software efforts for both lidar and raster data. Operating on the de facto LAS binary point cloud format (maintained by ASPRS), open source libLAS and LASlib libraries provide OpenTopography data ingestion, query and translation capabilities. Similarly, raster data manipulation is performed through a suite of services built on the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL). OpenTopography has also developed our own algorithm for high-performance gridding of lidar point cloud data

Evolution of Nursing Science: Is Open Access the Answer?

Science.gov (United States)

Clarke, Pamela N; Garcia, Jenny

2015-10-01

The open access movement where journal content is made freely available over the Internet is purported to increase scientific exchange, yet has pros and cons. There are issues related to quality that need to be examined in relation to evolution of nursing science. © The Author(s) 2015.

Use and perceptions of information among family physicians: sources considered accessible, relevant, and reliable.

Science.gov (United States)

Kosteniuk, Julie G; Morgan, Debra G; D'Arcy, Carl K

2013-01-01

The research determined (1) the information sources that family physicians (FPs) most commonly use to update their general medical knowledge and to make specific clinical decisions, and (2) the information sources FPs found to be most physically accessible, intellectually accessible (easy to understand), reliable (trustworthy), and relevant to their needs. A cross-sectional postal survey of 792 FPs and locum tenens, in full-time or part-time medical practice, currently practicing or on leave of absence in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan was conducted during the period of January to April 2008. Of 666 eligible physicians, 331 completed and returned surveys, resulting in a response rate of 49.7% (331/666). Medical textbooks and colleagues in the main patient care setting were the top 2 sources for the purpose of making specific clinical decisions. Medical textbooks were most frequently considered by FPs to be reliable (trustworthy), and colleagues in the main patient care setting were most physically accessible (easy to access). When making specific clinical decisions, FPs were most likely to use information from sources that they considered to be reliable and generally physically accessible, suggesting that FPs can best be supported by facilitating easy and convenient access to high-quality information.

Culturally relevant science: An approach to math science education for Hispanics. Final technical report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ortiz de Montellano, B.

1996-11-14

As planned a letter was sent out to 17 teachers who had participated in a Summer 1994 workshop on ``Culturally Relevant Science for Hispanics`` at Michigan State. These teachers were supposed to have spent the intervening time developing lesson plans and curricula. The letter requested a report of any activities undertaken and copies of lesson plans and materials developed by February 1996 with a stipend of $400 for satisfactory reports. It was a disappointment to only get 9 responses and not all of them demonstrating a satisfactory level of activity. Diana Marinez, Dean of Science at Texas A and M University, Corpus Christi, who is the other developer of this curriculum and the author reviewed the submitted materials and chose those showing the most promise to be invited to participate in the Summer Writing Workshop. Spring of 1996 and particularly in May--June, the author wrote a partial first draft of a companion volume for the teacher`s manual which would provide a rationale for doing culturally relevant science, present the cultural and the scientific background that teachers would need in order to be able to teach. One of the goals of this curriculum is that it should be off-the-shelf ready to teach and that teachers would not have to do extra research to encourage its adoption. The outline of the book is appendix 1. The Writing Workshop was held at Texas A and M University, Corpus Christi from July 14 to July 27, 1996. Participating teachers chose topics that they were interested in developing and wrote first drafts. These were distributed to all participants and critiqued by the workshop directors before being rewritten. Some teachers were more productive than others depending on their science background. In total an impressive number of lesson plans were written. These lesson plans are listed in Appendix 3. Appendix 4 is a sample lesson. Work still needs to be done on both the source book and the teachers` manual.

Improving accessibility and discovery of ESA planetary data through the new planetary science archive

Science.gov (United States)

Macfarlane, A. J.; Docasal, R.; Rios, C.; Barbarisi, I.; Saiz, J.; Vallejo, F.; Besse, S.; Arviset, C.; Barthelemy, M.; De Marchi, G.; Fraga, D.; Grotheer, E.; Heather, D.; Lim, T.; Martinez, S.; Vallat, C.

2018-01-01

The Planetary Science Archive (PSA) is the European Space Agency's (ESA) repository of science data from all planetary science and exploration missions. The PSA provides access to scientific data sets through various interfaces at http://psa.esa.int. Mostly driven by the evolution of the PDS standards which all new ESA planetary missions shall follow and the need to update the interfaces to the archive, the PSA has undergone an important re-engineering. In order to maximise the scientific exploitation of ESA's planetary data holdings, significant improvements have been made by utilising the latest technologies and implementing widely recognised open standards. To facilitate users in handling and visualising the many products stored in the archive which have spatial data associated, the new PSA supports Geographical Information Systems (GIS) by implementing the standards approved by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The modernised PSA also attempts to increase interoperability with the international community by implementing recognised planetary science specific protocols such as the PDAP (Planetary Data Access Protocol) and EPN-TAP (EuroPlanet-Table Access Protocol). In this paper we describe some of the methods by which the archive may be accessed and present the challenges that are being faced in consolidating data sets of the older PDS3 version of the standards with the new PDS4 deliveries into a single data model mapping to ensure transparent access to the data for users and services whilst maintaining a high performance.

Integration of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy Into the Science Learning Progression Framework

Science.gov (United States)

Bernardo, Cyntra

This study integrated elements of culturally relevant pedagogy into a science learning progression framework, with the goal of enhancing teachers' cultural knowledge and thereby creating better teaching practices in an urban public high school science classroom. The study was conducted using teachers, an administrator, a science coach, and students involved in science courses in public high school. Through a qualitative intrinsic case study, data were collected and analyzed using traditional methods. Data from primary participants (educators) were analyzed through identification of big ideas, open coding, and themes. Through this process, patterns and emergent ideas were reported. Outcomes of this study demonstrated that educators lack knowledge about research-based academic frameworks and multicultural education strategies, but benefit through institutionally-based professional development. Students from diverse cultures responded positively to culturally-based instruction. Their progress was further manifested in better communication and discourse with their teacher and peers, and increased academic outcomes. This study has postulated and provided an exemplar for science teachers to expand and improve multicultural knowledge, ultimately transferring these skills to their pedagogical practice.

Making science accessible through collaborative science teacher action research on feminist pedagogy

Science.gov (United States)

Capobianco, Brenda M.

research. This study revealed that there are no uniform solutions or standard methods to address issues of equity and accessibility in science education. This study recommends teachers be given time, support, and freedom to collaborate with other teacher-researchers, enact decisions for change, and reflect on and make public the results of their work. Additional implications suggest science teacher educators collaborate with practicing science teachers to devise practical applications and feasible resources for a wider audience.

A relevancy algorithm for curating earth science data around phenomenon

Science.gov (United States)

Maskey, Manil; Ramachandran, Rahul; Li, Xiang; Weigel, Amanda; Bugbee, Kaylin; Gatlin, Patrick; Miller, J. J.

2017-09-01

Earth science data are being collected for various science needs and applications, processed using different algorithms at multiple resolutions and coverages, and then archived at different archiving centers for distribution and stewardship causing difficulty in data discovery. Curation, which typically occurs in museums, art galleries, and libraries, is traditionally defined as the process of collecting and organizing information around a common subject matter or a topic of interest. Curating data sets around topics or areas of interest addresses some of the data discovery needs in the field of Earth science, especially for unanticipated users of data. This paper describes a methodology to automate search and selection of data around specific phenomena. Different components of the methodology including the assumptions, the process, and the relevancy ranking algorithm are described. The paper makes two unique contributions to improving data search and discovery capabilities. First, the paper describes a novel methodology developed for automatically curating data around a topic using Earth science metadata records. Second, the methodology has been implemented as a stand-alone web service that is utilized to augment search and usability of data in a variety of tools.

Open access publishing in the biomedical sciences: could funding agencies accelerate the inevitable changes?

Science.gov (United States)

Glover, Steven William; Webb, Anne; Gleghorn, Colette

2006-09-01

Open access is making a noticeable impact on access to information. In 2005, many major research funders, including the Wellcome Trust, National Institutes for Health (NIH), and the Research Councils UK (RCUK), set out their position in a number of statements. Of particular note was the stipulation that authors receiving grants must deposit their final manuscript in an open access forum within 6-12 months of publication. The paper will look at the open access position statements issued by some of the major funding bodies in the biomedical sciences. The paper will also look at the models used by publishers to provide open or delayed access, such as Oxford Open from Oxford University Press, HighWire Press' delayed access policy, BioMed Central, and Public Library of Science (PLoS). There are now over 1.2 million articles in PubMed that are freely accessible via publishers' websites.(1) Could funding agencies accelerate the move to open access? The list of funding agencies supporting open access is growing. The National Institutes for Health and the Wellcome Trust have been joined by many of the world's major funders in biomedical research whose goal it is to make their research findings available with no barriers.

Enriching science, practice, and policy relevant to school psychology around the globe.

Science.gov (United States)

Jimerson, Shane R

2016-03-01

This editorial provides a brief synthesis of the past, present, and future of School Psychology Quarterly, highlighting important contributions as an international resource to enrich, invigorate, enhance, and advance science, practice, and policy relevant to school psychology around the globe. Information herein highlights (a) the value of high quality and timely reviews, (b) publishing manuscripts that address a breadth of important topics relevant to school psychology, and (c) the structure and contributions of the special topic sections featured in School Psychology Quarterly. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Remote Access to Instrumental Analysis for Distance Education in Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dietmar Kennepohl

2005-11-01

Full Text Available Remote access to experiments offers distance educators another tool to integrate a strong laboratory component within a science course. Since virtually all modern chemical instrumental analysis in industry now use devices operated by a computer interface, remote control of instrumentation is not only relatively facile, it enhances students’ opportunity to learn the subject matter and be exposed to “real world” contents. Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT and Athabasca University are developing teaching laboratories based on the control of analytical instruments in real-time via an Internet connection. Students perform real-time analysis using equipment, methods, and skills that are common to modern analytical laboratories (or sophisticated teaching laboratories. Students obtain real results using real substances to arrive at real conclusions, just as they would if they were in a physical laboratory with the equipment; this approach allows students to access to conduct instrumental science experiments, thus providing them with an advantageous route to upgrade their laboratory skills while learning at a distance.

Producing More Actionable Science Isn't the Problem; It's Providing Decision-Makers with Access to Right Actionable Knowledge

Science.gov (United States)

Trexler, M.

2017-12-01

Policy-makers today have almost infinite climate-relevant scientific and other information available to them. The problem for climate change decision-making isn't missing science or inadequate knowledge of climate risks; the problem is that the "right" climate change actionable knowledge isn't getting to the right decision-maker, or is getting there too early or too late to effectively influence her decision-making. Actionable knowledge is not one-size-fit-all, and for a given decision-maker might involve scientific, economic, or risk-based information. Simply producing more and more information as we are today is not the solution, and actually makes it harder for individual decision-makers to access "their" actionable knowledge. The Climatographers began building the Climate Web five years ago to test the hypothesis that a knowledge management system could help navigate the gap between infinite information and individual actionable knowledge. Today the Climate Web's more than 1,500 index terms allow instant access to almost any climate change topic. It is a curated public-access knowledgebase of more than 1,000 books, 2,000 videos, 15,000 reports and articles, 25,000 news stories, and 3,000 websites. But it is also much more, linking together tens of thousands of individually extracted ideas and graphics, and providing Deep Dives into more than 100 key topics from changing probability distributions of extreme events to climate communications best practices to cognitive dissonance in climate change decision-making. The public-access Climate Web is uniquely able to support cross-silo learning, collaboration, and actionable knowledge dissemination. The presentation will use the Climate Web to demonstrate why knowledge management should be seen as a critical component of science and policy-making collaborations.

77 FR 76028 - Access to Confidential Business Information by Science Applications International Corporation and...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-12-26

... Business Information by Science Applications International Corporation and Its Identified Subcontractor...: EPA has authorized its contractor, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of McLean, VA... information may be claimed or determined to be Confidential Business Information (CBI). DATES: Access to the...

78 FR 66697 - Access to Confidential Business Information by Science Applications International Corporation and...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-11-06

... Business Information by Science Applications International Corporation and Its Identified Subcontractors..., Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of McLean, VA, and its subcontractors to access...). Some of the information may have been claimed or determined to be Confidential Business Information...

The Online Public Access Catalogue at the Cite des Sciences Mediatheque in Paris.

Science.gov (United States)

Witt, Maria

1990-01-01

Provides background on the holdings, services, and layout of the mediatheque (multimedia library) at the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie (originally the Museum of Science, Technology, and Industry) in Paris. The library's online public access catalog and use of the catalog by children and the visually handicapped are described. (four…

Increasing Access and Relevance in Distance Education

Science.gov (United States)

Mendenhall, Robert W.

2009-01-01

Access to higher education is subject to many factors including affordability, time and geography. Distance education can deliver education to those that live far from a campus. Some of that distance education may be synchronous, or live, requiring students to be available at certain times. Flexibility and access are increased when the instruction…

Optimal Reorganization of NASA Earth Science Data for Enhanced Accessibility and Usability for the Hydrology Community

Science.gov (United States)

Teng, William; Rui, Hualan; Strub, Richard; Vollmer, Bruce

2016-01-01

A long-standing "Digital Divide" in data representation exists between the preferred way of data access by the hydrology community and the common way of data archival by earth science data centers. Typically, in hydrology, earth surface features are expressed as discrete spatial objects (e.g., watersheds), and time-varying data are contained in associated time series. Data in earth science archives, although stored as discrete values (of satellite swath pixels or geographical grids), represent continuous spatial fields, one file per time step. This Divide has been an obstacle, specifically, between the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. and NASA earth science data systems. In essence, the way data are archived is conceptually orthogonal to the desired method of access. Our recent work has shown an optimal method of bridging the Divide, by enabling operational access to long-time series (e.g., 36 years of hourly data) of selected NASA datasets. These time series, which we have termed "data rods," are pre-generated or generated on-the-fly. This optimal solution was arrived at after extensive investigations of various approaches, including one based on "data curtains." The on-the-fly generation of data rods uses "data cubes," NASA Giovanni, and parallel processing. The optimal reorganization of NASA earth science data has significantly enhanced the access to and use of the data for the hydrology user community.

Making Earth Science Relevant in the K-8 Classroom. The Development of an Instructional Soils Module for Pre-Service Elementary Teachers Using the Next Generation Science Standards

Science.gov (United States)

Baldwin, K. A.; Hauge, R.; Dechaine, J. M.; Varrella, G.; Egger, A. E.

2013-12-01

The development and adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) raises a challenge in teacher preparation: few current teacher preparation programs prepare students to teach science the way it is presented in the NGSS, which emphasize systems thinking, interdisciplinary science, and deep engagement in the scientific process. In addition, the NGSS include more geoscience concepts and methods than previous standards, yet this is a topic area in which most college students are traditionally underprepared. Although nationwide, programmatic reform is needed, there are a few targets where relatively small, course-level changes can have a large effect. One of these targets is the 'science methods' course for pre-service elementary teachers, a requirement in virtually all teacher preparation programs. Since many elementary schools, both locally and across the country, have adopted a kit based science curriculum, examining kits is often a part of a science methods course. Unfortunately, solely relying on a kit based curriculum may leave gaps in science content curriculum as one prepares teachers to meet the NGSS. Moreover, kits developed at the national level often fall short in connecting geoscientific content to the locally relevant societal issues that engage students. This highlights the need to train pre-service elementary teachers to supplement kit curriculum with inquiry based geoscience investigations that consider relevant societal issues, promote systems thinking and incorporate connections between earth, life, and physical systems. We are developing a module that teaches geoscience concepts in the context of locally relevant societal issues while modeling effective pedagogy for pre-service elementary teachers. Specifically, we focus on soils, an interdisciplinary topic relevant to multiple geoscience-related societal grand challenges (e.g., water, food) that is difficult to engage students in. Module development is funded through InTeGrate, NSF

Semantic Data Access Services at NASA's Atmospheric Science Data Center

Science.gov (United States)

Huffer, E.; Hertz, J.; Kusterer, J.

2012-12-01

The corpus of Earth Science data products at the Atmospheric Science Data Center at NASA's Langley Research Center comprises a widely heterogeneous set of products, even among those whose subject matter is very similar. Two distinct data products may both contain data on the same parameter, for instance, solar irradiance; but the instruments used, and the circumstances under which the data were collected and processed, may differ significantly. Understanding the differences is critical to using the data effectively. Data distribution services must be able to provide prospective users with enough information to allow them to meaningfully compare and evaluate the data products offered. Semantic technologies - ontologies, triple stores, reasoners, linked data - offer functionality for addressing this issue. Ontologies can provide robust, high-fidelity domain models that serve as common schema for discovering, evaluating, comparing and integrating data from disparate products. Reasoning engines and triple stores can leverage ontologies to support intelligent search applications that allow users to discover, query, retrieve, and easily reformat data from a broad spectrum of sources. We argue that because of the extremely complex nature of scientific data, data distribution systems should wholeheartedly embrace semantic technologies in order to make their data accessible to a broad array of prospective end users, and to ensure that the data they provide will be clearly understood and used appropriately by consumers. Toward this end, we propose a distribution system in which formal ontological models that accurately and comprehensively represent the ASDC's data domain, and fully leverage the expressivity and inferential capabilities of first order logic, are used to generate graph-based representations of the relevant relationships among data sets, observational systems, metadata files, and geospatial, temporal and scientific parameters to help prospective data consumers

Motivating Young Native American Students to Pursue STEM Learning Through a Culturally Relevant Science Program

Science.gov (United States)

Stevens, Sally; Andrade, Rosi; Page, Melissa

2016-12-01

Data indicate that females and ethnic/race minority groups are underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce calling for innovative strategies to engage and retain them in science education and careers. This study reports on the development, delivery, and outcomes of a culturally driven science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) program, iSTEM, aimed at increasing engagement in STEM learning among Native American 3rd-8th grade students. A culturally relevant theoretical framework, Funds of Knowledge, informs the iSTEM program, a program based on the contention that the synergistic effect of a hybrid program combining two strategic approaches (1) in-school mentoring and (2) out-of-school informal science education experiences would foster engagement and interest in STEM learning. Students are paired with one of three types of mentors: Native American community members, university students, and STEM professionals. The iSTEM program is theme based with all program activities specifically relevant to Native people living in southern Arizona. Student mentees and mentors complete interactive flash STEM activities at lunch hour and attend approximately six field trips per year. Data from the iSTEM program indicate that the program has been successful in engaging Native American students in iSTEM as well as increasing their interest in STEM and their science beliefs.

Open access behaviours and perceptions of health sciences faculty and roles of information professionals.

Science.gov (United States)

Lwoga, Edda T; Questier, Frederik

2015-03-01

This study sought to investigate the faculty's awareness, attitudes and use of open access, and the role of information professionals in supporting open access (OA) scholarly communication in Tanzanian health sciences universities. A cross-sectional survey was conducted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 librarians, while questionnaires were physically distributed to 415 faculty members in all eight Tanzanian health sciences universities, with a response rate of 71.1%. The study found that most faculty members were aware about OA issues. However, the high level of OA awareness among faculty members did not translate into actual dissemination of faculty's research outputs through OA web avenues. A small proportion of faculty's research materials was made available as OA. Faculty were more engaged with OA journal publishing than with self-archiving practices. Senior faculty with proficient technical skills were more likely to use open access than junior faculty. Major barriers to OA usage were related to ICT infrastructure, awareness, skills, author-pay model, and copyright and plagiarism concerns. Interviews with librarians revealed that there was a strong support for promoting OA issues on campus; however, this positive support with various open access-related tasks did not translate into actual action. It is thus important for librarians and OA administrators to consider all these factors for effective implementation of OA projects in research and academic institutions. This is the first comprehensive and detailed study focusing on the health sciences faculty's and librarians' behaviours and perceptions of open access initiatives in Tanzania and reveals findings that are useful for planning and implementing open access initiatives in other institutions with similar conditions. © 2015 Health Libraries Journal.

76 FR 37111 - Access to Confidential Business Information by Computer Sciences Corporation and Its Identified...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-06-24

... Business Information by Computer Sciences Corporation and Its Identified Subcontractors AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ACTION: Notice. SUMMARY: EPA has authorized its contractor, Computer Sciences Corporation of Chantilly, VA and Its Identified Subcontractors, to access information which has...

Electronic Information Access and Utilization by Makerere University Students in Uganda

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elisam Magara

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Objectives – The objectives of this study were to establish the level of computer utilization skills of Makerere University (Uganda Library and Information Science (LIS students; to determine the use of electronic information resources by LIS students; to determine the attitudes of LIS students towards electronic information resources; and to establish the problems faced by LIS students in accessing electronic information resources.Methods – A questionnaire survey was used for data collection.Results – The majority of Library and Information Science students at Makerere University depend on university computers for their work, and very few of them access the library’s e-resources. The few who access e-resources are self-taught. The majority of students surveyed were unaware of Emerald and EBSCO databases relevant to Library and Information Science students, and they found accessing eresources time-consuming. Conclusion – The study concluded that a concerted effort is needed by both LIS lecturers and university librarians in promoting use of the library’s electronic resources.

CILogon: An Integrated Identity and Access Management Platform for Science

Science.gov (United States)

Basney, J.

2016-12-01

When scientists work together, they use web sites and other software to share their ideas and data. To ensure the integrity of their work, these systems require the scientists to log in and verify that they are part of the team working on a particular science problem. Too often, the identity and access verification process is a stumbling block for the scientists. Scientific research projects are forced to invest time and effort into developing and supporting Identity and Access Management (IAM) services, distracting them from the core goals of their research collaboration. CILogon provides an IAM platform that enables scientists to work together to meet their IAM needs more effectively so they can allocate more time and effort to their core mission of scientific research. The CILogon platform enables federated identity management and collaborative organization management. Federated identity management enables researchers to use their home organization identities to access cyberinfrastructure, rather than requiring yet another username and password to log on. Collaborative organization management enables research projects to define user groups for authorization to collaboration platforms (e.g., wikis, mailing lists, and domain applications). CILogon's IAM platform serves the unique needs of research collaborations, namely the need to dynamically form collaboration groups across organizations and countries, sharing access to data, instruments, compute clusters, and other resources to enable scientific discovery. CILogon provides a software-as-a-service platform to ease integration with cyberinfrastructure, while making all software components publicly available under open source licenses to enable re-use. Figure 1 illustrates the components and interfaces of this platform. CILogon has been operational since 2010 and has been used by over 7,000 researchers from more than 170 identity providers to access cyberinfrastructure including Globus, LIGO, Open Science Grid

Privacy-Aware Relevant Data Access with Semantically Enriched Search Queries for Untrusted Cloud Storage Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Pervez, Zeeshan; Ahmad, Mahmood; Khattak, Asad Masood; Lee, Sungyoung; Chung, Tae Choong

2016-01-01

Privacy-aware search of outsourced data ensures relevant data access in the untrusted domain of a public cloud service provider. Subscriber of a public cloud storage service can determine the presence or absence of a particular keyword by submitting search query in the form of a trapdoor. However, these trapdoor-based search queries are limited in functionality and cannot be used to identify secure outsourced data which contains semantically equivalent information. In addition, trapdoor-based methodologies are confined to pre-defined trapdoors and prevent subscribers from searching outsourced data with arbitrarily defined search criteria. To solve the problem of relevant data access, we have proposed an index-based privacy-aware search methodology that ensures semantic retrieval of data from an untrusted domain. This method ensures oblivious execution of a search query and leverages authorized subscribers to model conjunctive search queries without relying on predefined trapdoors. A security analysis of our proposed methodology shows that, in a conspired attack, unauthorized subscribers and untrusted cloud service providers cannot deduce any information that can lead to the potential loss of data privacy. A computational time analysis on commodity hardware demonstrates that our proposed methodology requires moderate computational resources to model a privacy-aware search query and for its oblivious evaluation on a cloud service provider.

The relevance of behavioural sciences in dental practice

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schou, L

2000-01-01

includes compliance with certain oral hygiene regimens or specific dental visiting patterns. The outcome of the treatment depends on both the dental professional's knowledge and skills and the patient's skills, objectives and expectations. Furthermore, dental professionals and patients should be satisfied......The aim of this paper is to illustrate how knowledge from behavioural sciences is necessary and relevant in creating a successful dental practice, benefitting patients and dental professionals. There are many ways to create a successful dental practice, the products of which are the various...... treatments performed by dentists or dental hygienists for their patients. Advanced technologies and methods are constantly improving these treatments and thus the technical and managerial aspects of dentistry. However, the success of dental practice is not only dependent on the technique applied...

Relevance of separation science and technology to nuclear fuel complex operations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rao, S.M.; Ojha, P.B.; Rajashri, M.; Mirji, K.V.; Kalidas, R.

2004-01-01

During the last three decades at Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC), Hyderabad, the Science and Technology of separation to produce various reactor grade materials in tonnage quantity is being practiced in the fields of Zr/Hf, U and Nb/Ta. Apart from this, the separation science is also being used in the production of various high purity materials and in the analytical field. The separation science and technology that is used in the production and characterisation of reactor grade materials has many striking differences from that of the common metals. The relevance and significance of separation science in the field of nuclear materials arises mainly due to the harmful effects w.r.t corrosion property and absorption of neutron caused by the presence of impurities, that are to be brought down to ppm or sub ppm level. In many cases low separation factors, that too from a multi component system call for effective process control at every stage of the bulk production so as to get quality product consistently. This article brings out the importance of separation science and technology and various process standardisations/developments that have been carried out at NFC, starting from laboratory scale to pilot scale and up to industrial scale production in the case of (i) Uranium refining (ii) Zr-Hf separation (iii) Ta-Nb separation and (iv) High purity materials production. (author)

Planetary Sciences Literature - Access and Discovery

Science.gov (United States)

Henneken, Edwin A.; ADS Team

2017-10-01

The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) has been around for over 2 decades, helping professional astronomers and planetary scientists navigate, without charge, through the increasingly complex environment of scholarly publications. As boundaries between disciplines dissolve and expand, the ADS provides powerful tools to help researchers discover useful information efficiently. In its new form, code-named ADS Bumblebee (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu), it may very well answer questions you didn't know you had! While the classic ADS (http://ads.harvard.edu) focuses mostly on searching basic metadata (author, title and abstract), today's ADS is best described as a an "aggregator" of scholarly resources relevant to the needs of researchers in astronomy and planetary sciences, and providing a discovery environment on top of this. In addition to indexing content from a variety of publishers, data and software archives, the ADS enriches its records by text-mining and indexing the full-text articles (about 4.7 million in total, with 130,000 from planetary science journals), enriching its metadata through the extraction of citations and acknowledgments. Recent technology developments include a new Application Programming Interface (API), a new user interface featuring a variety of visualizations and bibliometric analysis, and integration with ORCID services to support paper claiming. The new ADS provides powerful tools to help you find review papers on a given subject, prolific authors working on a subject and who they are collaborating with (within and outside their group) and papers most read by by people who read recent papers on the topic of your interest. These are just a couple of examples of the capabilities of the new ADS. We currently index most journals covering the planetary sciences and we are striving to include those journals most frequently cited by planetary science publications. The ADS is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory under NASA

Understanding and Improving Blind Students' Access to Visual Information in Computer Science Education

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Catherine M.

Teaching people with disabilities tech skills empowers them to create solutions to problems they encounter and prepares them for careers. However, computer science is typically taught in a highly visual manner which can present barriers for people who are blind. The goal of this dissertation is to understand and decrease those barriers. The first projects I present looked at the barriers that blind students face. I first present the results of my survey and interviews with blind students with degrees in computer science or related fields. This work highlighted the many barriers that these blind students faced. I then followed-up on one of the barriers mentioned, access to technology, by doing a preliminary accessibility evaluation of six popular integrated development environments (IDEs) and code editors. I found that half were unusable and all had some inaccessible portions. As access to visual information is a barrier in computer science education, I present three projects I have done to decrease this barrier. The first project is Tactile Graphics with a Voice (TGV). This project investigated an alternative to Braille labels for those who do not know Braille and showed that TGV was a potential alternative. The next project was StructJumper, which created a modified abstract syntax tree that blind programmers could use to navigate through code with their screen reader. The evaluation showed that users could navigate more quickly and easily determine the relationships of lines of code when they were using StructJumper compared to when they were not. Finally, I present a tool for dynamic graphs (the type with nodes and edges) which had two different modes for handling focus changes when moving between graphs. I found that the modes support different approaches for exploring the graphs and therefore preferences are mixed based on the user's preferred approach. However, both modes had similar accuracy in completing the tasks. These projects are a first step towards

Open Access to Scientific Data: Promoting Science and Innovation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guan-Hua Xu

2007-06-01

Full Text Available As an important part of the science and technology infrastructure platform of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology launched the Scientific Data Sharing Program in 2002. Twenty-four government agencies now participate in the Program. After five years of hard work, great progress has been achieved in the policy and legal framework, data standards, pilot projects, and international cooperation. By the end of 2005, one-third of the existing public-interest and basic scientific databases in China had been integrated and upgraded. By 2020, China is expected to build a more user-friendly scientific data management and sharing system, with 80 percent of scientific data available to the general public. In order to realize this objective, the emphases of the project are to perfect the policy and legislation system, improve the quality of data resources, expand and establish national scientific data centers, and strengthen international cooperation. It is believed that with the opening up of access to scientific data in China, the Program will play a bigger role in promoting science and national innovation.

Accessing Earth Science Data Visualizations through NASA GIBS & Worldview

Science.gov (United States)

Cechini, M. F.; Boller, R. A.; Baynes, K.; Wong, M. M.; King, B. A.; Schmaltz, J. E.; De Luca, A. P.; King, J.; Roberts, J. T.; Rodriguez, J.; Thompson, C. K.; Pressley, N. N.

2017-12-01

For more than 20 years, the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) has operated dozens of remote sensing satellites collecting nearly 15 Petabytes of data that span thousands of science parameters. Within these observations are keys the Earth Scientists have used to unlock many things that we understand about our planet. Also contained within these observations are a myriad of opportunities for learning and education. The trick is making them accessible to educators and students in convenient and simple ways so that effort can be spent on lesson enrichment and not overcoming technical hurdles. The NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS) system and NASA Worldview website provide a unique view into EOS data through daily full resolution visualizations of hundreds of earth science parameters. For many of these parameters, visualizations are available within hours of acquisition from the satellite. For others, visualizations are available for the entire mission of the satellite. Accompanying the visualizations are visual aids such as color legends, place names, and orbit tracks. By using these visualizations, educators and students can observe natural phenomena that enrich a scientific education. This poster will provide an overview of the visualizations available in NASA GIBS and Worldview and how they are accessed. We invite discussion on how the visualizations can be used or improved for educational purposes.

Creating Accessible Science Museums with User-Activated Environmental Audio Beacons (Ping!)

Science.gov (United States)

Landau, Steven; Wiener, William; Naghshineh, Koorosh; Giusti, Ellen

2005-01-01

In 2003, Touch Graphics Company carried out research on a new invention that promises to improve accessibility to science museums for visitors who are visually impaired. The system, nicknamed Ping!, allows users to navigate an exhibit area, listen to audio descriptions, and interact with exhibits using a cell phone-based interface. The system…

The Societal Impact of Extraterrestrial Life: The Relevance of History and the Social Sciences

Science.gov (United States)

Dick, Steven J.

This chapter reviews past studies on the societal impact of extraterrestrial life and offers four related ways in which history is relevant to the subject: the history of impact thus far, analogical reasoning, impact studies in other areas of science and technology, and studies on the nature of discovery and exploration. We focus particularly on the promise and peril of analogical arguments, since they are by necessity widespread in the field. This chapter also summarizes the relevance of the social sciences, particularly anthropology and sociology, and concludes by taking a closer look at the possible impact of the discovery of extraterrestrial life on theology and philosophy. In undertaking this study we emphasize three bedrock principles: (1) we cannot predict the future; (2) society is not monolithic, implying many impacts depending on religion, culture and worldview; (3) the impact of any discovery of extraterrestrial life is scenario-dependent.

Science and the struggle for relevance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hessels, L.K.|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/304832863

2010-01-01

This thesis deals with struggles for relevance of university researchers, their efforts to make their work correspond with ruling standards of relevance and to influence these standards. Its general research question is: How to understand changes in the struggle for relevance of Dutch academic

Revolutionary land use change in the 21st century: Is (rangeland) science relevant?

Science.gov (United States)

Herrick, J.E.; Brown, J.R.; Bestelmeyer, B.T.; Andrews, S.S.; Baldi, G.; Davies, J.; Duniway, M.; Havstad, K.M.; Karl, J.W.; Karlen, D.L.; Peters, Debra P.C.; Quinton, J.N.; Riginos, C.; Shaver, P.L.; Steinaker, D.; Twomlow, S.

2012-01-01

Rapidly increasing demand for food, fiber, and fuel together with new technologies and the mobility of global capital are driving revolutionary changes in land use throughout the world. Efforts to increase land productivity include conversion of millions of hectares of rangelands to crop production, including many marginal lands with low resistance and resilience to degradation. Sustaining the productivity of these lands requires careful land use planning and innovative management systems. Historically, this responsibility has been left to agronomists and others with expertise in crop production. In this article, we argue that the revolutionary land use changes necessary to support national and global food security potentially make rangeland science more relevant now than ever. Maintaining and increasing relevance will require a revolutionary change in range science from a discipline that focuses on a particular land use or land cover to one that addresses the challenge of managing all lands that, at one time, were considered to be marginal for crop production. We propose four strategies to increase the relevance of rangeland science to global land management: 1) expand our awareness and understanding of local to global economic, social, and technological trends in order to anticipate and identify drivers and patterns of conversion; 2) emphasize empirical studies and modeling that anticipate the biophysical (ecosystem services) and societal consequences of large-scale changes in land cover and use; 3) significantly increase communication and collaboration with the disciplines and sectors of society currently responsible for managing the new land uses; and 4) develop and adopt a dynamic and flexible resilience-based land classification system and data-supported conceptual models (e.g., state-and-transition models) that represent all lands, regardless of use and the consequences of land conversion to various uses instead of changes in state or condition that are

ScienceCentral: open access full-text archive of scientific journals based on Journal Article Tag Suite regardless of their languages.

Science.gov (United States)

Huh, Sun

2013-01-01

ScienceCentral, a free or open access, full-text archive of scientific journal literature at the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies, was under test in September 2013. Since it is a Journal Article Tag Suite-based full text database, extensible markup language files of all languages can be presented, according to Unicode Transformation Format 8-bit encoding. It is comparable to PubMed Central: however, there are two distinct differences. First, its scope comprises all science fields; second, it accepts all language journals. Launching ScienceCentral is the first step for free access or open access academic scientific journals of all languages to leap to the world, including scientific journals from Croatia.

Phases and Steps in the Access to Data in Information Tools

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bergenholtz, Henning; Bothma, Theo; Gouws, Rufus

2015-01-01

route and access time, but not access structure. This term is not only ill defined – it is less relevant, because each user has different access routes, and also the same user makes use of different routes in different cases. We describe four experiments in a case study with one test person how...... the different access processes in different user situations take place. This test person is trying to solve different accounting information needs in different user situations. The aim of this paper is to compare and contrast the access process terminology of lexicography and information science, to systematize...... the terms in a logical structure and to show how these disciplines complement one another by providing clearer definitions to describe the different access processes....

Culturally relevant science: An approach to math science education for hispanics. Final technical report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Montellano, B.O. de

1996-11-14

This progress report summarizes results of a teacher workshop. A letter sent to 17 teachers who had participated in the workshop requested a report of any activities undertaken and copies of lesson plans and materials developed. Only nine responses were received, and not all of them demonstrated a satisfactory level of activity. Teachers who submitted materials showing the most promise were invited to participate in the Summer Writing Workshop. A partial first draft of a companion volume for the teacher`s manual was written which provides a rationale for culturally relevant science and presents the cultural and scientific background needed. The outline of the book is presented in Appendix 1. Appendix 2 is a sample chapter from the book.

ROSA P : The National Transportation Library’s Repository and Open Science Access Portal

Science.gov (United States)

2018-01-01

The National Transportation Library (NTL) was founded as an all-digital repository of US DOT research reports, technical publications and data products. NTLs primary public offering is ROSA P, the Repository and Open Science Access Portal. An open...

Increasing Access to Science Oriented Education Programmes in Tertiary Institutions in Ghana through Distance Education

Science.gov (United States)

Osei, C. K.; Mensah, J. A.

2014-01-01

There is emphasis in the educational policy of Ghana for the promotion of Distance Education programmes to widen access to education at all levels and facilitate human resource development. This study examined the level of access and challenges faced by learners in science oriented programmes offered by distance in the Kwame Nkrumah University of…

Mining and Utilizing Dataset Relevancy from Oceanographic Dataset Metadata, Usage Metrics, and User Feedback to Improve Data Discovery and Access

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — We propose to mine and utilize the combination of Earth Science dataset, metadata with usage metrics and user feedback to objectively extract relevance for improved...

Improving antivenom availability and accessibility: science, technology, and beyond.

Science.gov (United States)

Gutiérrez, José María

2012-09-15

Snakebite envenomings constitute a serious and neglected public health problem. Despite the fact that effective treatment exists, i.e. administration of animal-derived antivenoms, the availability and accessibility of these life-saving immunobiologicals is deficitary in various parts of the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and some regions of Asia. This article discusses some of the problems that need to be circumvented in order to improve the availability and accessibility of antivenoms. The conglomerate of antivenom manufacturers is highly heterogeneous in terms of technological base, qualification of staff, implementation of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), and volume of production. Therefore, improvements in antivenom quality and availability should be based on strategies tailored to the situation of each region or country; in this context, three different scenarios are discussed. Accessibility of antivenoms demands concerted efforts at multiple levels, including raising the awareness of public health authorities on the relevance of the problem, implementing innovative antivenom purchasing schemes, strengthening national distribution channels on the basis of robust epidemiological information, improving the cold chain and the provision of health services in remote rural settings, supporting the correct use of antivenoms, and promoting the involvement of local community organizations in various aspects of prevention and management. These tasks should be envisaged in terms of synergistic, interprogrammatic and intersectorial interventions, with the participation of many players. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cuban Science and the Open Access Alternative

CERN Document Server

Arencibia Jorge, Ricardo; Torricella-Morales, Raúl G

2004-01-01

Science in Cuba has experienced extraordinary development since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, in spite of the blockade to which Cuba has been subjected by the United States Government, and thanks to the support and cooperation of the countries that were part of the former Socialist Block. However, after the destruction of the Socialist Block, the Cuban economy suffered through a restructuring process that included the reorganization of the traditional systems for spreading scientific information. At that moment, it was necessary to use alternative means to effectively publicise, to the international scientific community, the information generated by Cuban scientists and scholars. This paper briefly reviews this new era, the institutions that led the process of change, and the future projections based on knowledge of the digital environment and the creation of electronic and open access information sources.

Increasing Access to Atmospheric Science Research at NASA Langley Research Center

Science.gov (United States)

Chambers, L. H.; Bethea, K. L.; LaPan, J. C.

2013-12-01

The Science Directorate (SD) at NASA's Langley Research Center conducts cutting edge research in fundamental atmospheric science topics including radiation and climate, air quality, active remote sensing, and upper atmospheric composition. These topics matter to the public, as they improve our understanding of our home planet. Thus, we have had ongoing efforts to improve public access to the results of our research. These efforts have accelerated with the release of the February OSTP memo. Our efforts can be grouped in two main categories: 1. Visual presentation techniques to improve science understanding: For fundamental concepts such as the Earth's energy budget, we have worked to display information in a more "digestible" way for lay audiences with more pictures and fewer words. These audiences are iPad-lovers and TV-watchers with shorter attention spans than audiences of the past. They are also educators and students who need a basic understanding of a concept delivered briefly to fit into busy classroom schedules. We seek to reach them with a quick, visual message packed with important information. This presentation will share several examples of visual techniques, such as infographics (e.g., a history of lidar at Langley and a timeline of atmospheric research, ozone garden diagrams (http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/ozonegarden/ozone-cycle.php); history of lidar at LaRC; DISCOVER-AQ maps. It will also share examples of animations and interactive graphics (DISCOVER-AQ); and customized presentations (e.g., to explain the energy budget or to give a general overview of research). One of the challenges we face is a required culture shift between the way scientists traditionally share knowledge with each other and the way these public audiences ingest knowledge. A cross-disciplinary communications team in SD is crucial to bridge that gap. 2. Lay research summaries to make research more accessible: Peer-reviewed publications are a primary product of the SD, with more

Open Access Policies of Research Funders: The Case Study of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)

OpenAIRE

Tonto, Yaşar; Doğan, Güleda; Al, Umut; Madran, Orçun

2015-01-01

The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) is the main funder for basic research in Austria. FWF has been instrumental in promoting Open Access in Austria and elsewhere and possesses a strong Open Access policy for the research it funds. This case study presents FWF as a good practice of an effective funder policy on account of its comprehensive strategy and multi-faceted approach for implementing and supporting it.

Examining Deaf Students' Equitable Access to Science vis-a-vis Contemporary Pedagogical Practices

Science.gov (United States)

Ross, Annemarie D.

As a Deaf individual, it is important to ensure the growth of the Deaf community as science-literate members of society. While many predecessors have contributed to the body of research in Deaf pedagogy, there is still much to be done in safeguarding Deaf learners' equitable access to science education. One area of concern is in narrowing the statistically significant gap in Climate Change knowledge between Deaf students' and Hearing students' at the Rochester Institute of Technology. It is within this topic that the writing-to-learn-science framework is practiced and Deaf students in the Laboratory Science Technology program at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf participate in a study to assess whether or not the use of writing-to-learn-science strategies help them become better scientists, writers and learners. In this study, the social constructivist framework (Vygotsky, 1987) is used to study the impact of the use of the Berland and Reiser (2009) argumentation framework, so that they write-to-learn-science through the steps of sense-making, articulation and persuasion.

Science-based occupations and the science curriculum: Concepts of evidence

Science.gov (United States)

Aikenhead, Glen S.

2005-03-01

What science-related knowledge is actually used by nurses in their day-to-day clinical reasoning when attending patients? The study investigated the knowledge-in-use of six acute-care nurses in a hospital surgical unit. It was found that the nurses mainly drew upon their professional knowledge of nursing and upon their procedural understanding that included a common core of concepts of evidence (concepts implicitly applied to the evaluation of data and the evaluation of evidence - the focus of this research). This core included validity triangulation, normalcy range, accuracy, and a general predilection for direct sensual access to a phenomenon over indirect machine-managed access. A cluster of emotion-related concepts of evidence (e.g. cultural sensitivity) was also discovered. These results add to a compendium of concepts of evidence published in the literature. Only a small proportion of nurses (one of the six nurses in the study) used canonical science content in their clinical reasoning, a result consistent with other research. This study also confirms earlier research on employees in science-rich workplaces in general, and on professional development programs for nurses specifically: canonical science content found in a typical science curriculum (e.g. high school physics) does not appear relevant to many nurses' knowledge-in-use. These findings support a curriculum policy that gives emphasis to students learning how to learn science content as required by an authentic everyday or workplace context, and to students learning concepts of evidence.

Polymers – A New Open Access Scientific Journal on Polymer Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shu-Kun Lin

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Polymers is a new interdisciplinary, Open Access scientific journal on polymer science, published by Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI. This journal welcomes manuscript submissions on polymer chemistry, macromolecular chemistry, polymer physics, polymer characterization and all related topics. Both synthetic polymers and natural polymers, including biopolymers, are considered. Manuscripts will be thoroughly peer-reviewed in a timely fashion, and papers will be published, if accepted, within 6 to 8 weeks after submission. [...

mORCA: ubiquitous access to life science web services.

Science.gov (United States)

Diaz-Del-Pino, Sergio; Trelles, Oswaldo; Falgueras, Juan

2018-01-16

Technical advances in mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have produced an extraordinary increase in their use around the world and have become part of our daily lives. The possibility of carrying these devices in a pocket, particularly mobile phones, has enabled ubiquitous access to Internet resources. Furthermore, in the life sciences world there has been a vast proliferation of data types and services that finish as Web Services. This suggests the need for research into mobile clients to deal with life sciences applications for effective usage and exploitation. Analysing the current features in existing bioinformatics applications managing Web Services, we have devised, implemented, and deployed an easy-to-use web-based lightweight mobile client. This client is able to browse, select, compose parameters, invoke, and monitor the execution of Web Services stored in catalogues or central repositories. The client is also able to deal with huge amounts of data between external storage mounts. In addition, we also present a validation use case, which illustrates the usage of the application while executing, monitoring, and exploring the results of a registered workflow. The software its available in the Apple Store and Android Market and the source code is publicly available in Github. Mobile devices are becoming increasingly important in the scientific world due to their strong potential impact on scientific applications. Bioinformatics should not fall behind this trend. We present an original software client that deals with the intrinsic limitations of such devices and propose different guidelines to provide location-independent access to computational resources in bioinformatics and biomedicine. Its modular design makes it easily expandable with the inclusion of new repositories, tools, types of visualization, etc.

In Support of Access and Inclusion: Joint Professional Development for Science and Special Educators

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rita Brusca-Vega

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This article addresses the need for collaborative professional development of science and special educators to enhance access and inclusion for students with disabilities and improve science learning for all students. The purpose of the study was to examine changes in the teaching practices of science and special educators, grades 4 to 8, as they jointly completed an intense year-long professional development program designed to promote hands-on, inquiry-based science in their classrooms; expand their instructional repertoires to better serve students with disabilities and other learning problems; and facilitate communication between the groups. Quantitative and qualitative measures, including pre and post ratings of teacher classroom performance, action research projects, and teacher interviews, were used to determine changes in teacher instructional and collaborative practices.

A Hybrid Model of Mathematics Support for Science Students Emphasizing Basic Skills and Discipline Relevance

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson, Deborah C.; Johnson, Elizabeth D.

2013-01-01

The problem of students entering university lacking basic mathematical skills is a critical issue in the Australian higher-education sector and relevant globally. The Maths Skills programme at La Trobe University has been developed to address under preparation in the first-year science cohort in the absence of an institutional mathematics support…

The Mathematics of Networks Science: Scale-Free, Power-Law Graphs and Continuum Theoretical Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Padula, Janice

2012-01-01

When hoping to initiate or sustain students' interest in mathematics teachers should always consider relevance, relevance to students' lives and in the middle and later years of instruction in high school and university, accessibility. A topic such as the mathematics behind networks science, more specifically scale-free graphs, is up-to-date,…

Nutrition, Food Science, and Dietetics Faculty Have Information Needs Similar to Basic and Medical Sciences Faculty – Online Access to Electronic Journals, PubMed/Medline, and Google. A Review of: Shpilko, I. (2011. Assessing information-seeking patterns and needs of nutrition, food science, and dietetics faculty. Library & Information Science Research, 33(2, 151-157.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mê-Linh Lê

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Objective – To determine the information needs of nutrition, food science, and dietetics faculty members by specifically examining how they locate and access information sources and which scholarly journals are consulted for teaching, research, and current awareness; and identifying any perceived information service needs (e.g., training.Design – Online survey questionnaire.Setting – Four senior colleges within the City University of New York (CUNY system.Subjects – Nutrition, food science, and dietetics faculty members.Methods – Using institutional websites and the assistance of relevant affiliated librarians, 29 full-time and adjunct nutrition, food science, and dietetics faculty members were identified at Queens College, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, and Lehman College (all part of the CUNY system. A survey was emailed in June and July 2007 and had 14 (48.4% responses. The study was temporarily halted in late 2007. When resumed in January 2009, the survey was re-sent to the initial non-respondents; five additional responses were received for a final 65.5% (n=19 response rate.Main Results – The majority of respondents held a PhD in their field of study (63.1%, were full-time faculty (no percentage given, and female (89.5%. Information sources were ranked for usage by respondents, with scholarly journals unsurprisingly ranked highly (100%, followed by conference and seminar proceedings (78.9%, search engines (73.6%, government sources (68.4%, and information from professional organizations (68.4%. Respondents ranked the top ten journals they used for current awareness and for research and teaching purposes. Perhaps due to a lack of distinction by faculty in terms of what they use journals for, the two journal lists differ by only two titles.The majority browse e-journals (55.6% rather than print, obtain access to e-journals through home or work computers (23.6%, and obtain access to print through personal collections (42

Open Access Research via Collaborative Educational Blogging: A Case Study from Library & Information Science

Science.gov (United States)

Rebmann, Kristen Radsliff; Clark, Camden Bernard

2017-01-01

This article charts the development of activities for online graduate students in library and information science. Project goals include helping students develop competencies in understanding open access publishing, synthesizing research in the field, and engaging in scholarly communication via collaborative educational blogging. Using a design…

Open Access to Data - Central Role for Geoinformatics

Science.gov (United States)

Snyder, W. S.

2006-12-01

open access to scientific information by concentrating on the data versus the written word. The written word can and should be copyrighted. This protects the viability of the journals of many societies - large and small - and therefore the viability of the societies and the science they support. Furthermore, the written word is largely interpretation - some of which flows directly from the funded research, but much of which reflects the accumulated knowledge of the scientists; knowledge that has been derived from sources that cannot be tracked. Interpretations and conclusions differ among scientists - that is what drives the progress of science, and that is the written word. The notion that all journal articles must be free to all effectively says that ideas and interpretations cannot be protected by copyright. It should also be noted that all articles are available in libraries as they are published, so it is hard to argue that they are not "freely available." What hinders science and public policy decision making, is the lack of complete access to all relevant data and metadata. To require that all relevant data and metadata be publically available six months after publication is a viable solution. The government dollars clearly pay for the data, but the source of support for scientific interpretation and discussion is impossible to determine. Once the data are public, they are free for all to reinterpret and to use as the basis for additional studies that reflect the unsolved issues of the previous study. Many of the government agencies that supply research funds already have data policies in place. What may be required is the funding base to allow them to implement these policies in consultation with the academic community that they serve.

Earth Science Data for a Mobile Age

Science.gov (United States)

Oostra, D.; Chambers, L. H.; Lewis, P. M.; Baize, R.; Oots, P.; Rogerson, T.; Crecelius, S.; Coleman, T.

2012-12-01

Earth science data access needs to be interoperable and automatic. Recently, increasingly savvy data users combined with more complex web and mobile applications have placed increasing demands on how this Earth science data is being delivered to educators and students. The MY NASA DATA (MND) and S'COOL projects are developing a strategy to interact with the education community in the age of mobile devices and platforms. How can we provide data and meaningful scientific experiences to educational users through mobile technologies? This initiative will seek out existing technologies and stakeholders within the Earth Science community to identify datasets that are relevant and appropriate for mobile application development and use by the educational community. Targeting efforts within the educational community will give the project a better understanding of the previous attempts at data/mobile application use in the classroom and its problems. In addition, we will query developers and data providers on what successes and failures they've experienced in trying to provide data for applications designed on mobile platforms. This feedback will be implemented in new websites, applications and lessons that will provide authentic scientific experiences for students and end users. We want to create tools that help sort through the vast amounts of NASA data, and deliver it to users automatically. NASA provides millions of gigabytes of data that is publicly available through a large number of services spread across the World Wide Web. Accessing and navigating this data can be time consuming and problematic with variety of file types and methods for accessing this data. The MND project, through its' Live Access Server system, provides selected datasets that are relevant and targets National Standards of Learning for educators to easily integrate into existing curricula. In the future, we want to provide desired data to users with automatic updates, anticipate future data queries

Improving the Accessibility and Use of NASA Earth Science Data

Science.gov (United States)

Tisdale, Matthew; Tisdale, Brian

2015-01-01

Many of the NASA Langley Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) multidimensional tropospheric and atmospheric chemistry data products are stored in HDF4, HDF5 or NetCDF format, which traditionally have been difficult to analyze and visualize with geospatial tools. With the rising demand from the diverse end-user communities for geospatial tools to handle multidimensional products, several applications, such as ArcGIS, have refined their software. Many geospatial applications now have new functionalities that enable the end user to: Store, serve, and perform analysis on each individual variable, its time dimension, and vertical dimension. Use NetCDF, GRIB, and HDF raster data formats across applications directly. Publish output within REST image services or WMS for time and space enabled web application development. During this webinar, participants will learn how to leverage geospatial applications such as ArcGIS, OPeNDAP and ncWMS in the production of Earth science information, and in increasing data accessibility and usability.

Relevance of plasma science to particle accelerators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Herrmannsfeldt, W.B.

1998-01-01

In following the theme of this Symposium, ''Plasma Science and Its Applications,'' the authors may be suggesting to some readers that the other applications of Plasma Science somehow justify the existence of a field traditionally devoted to fusion energy. In fact, they do not believe that plasma science can or should be justified for its spin-off contributions. Nevertheless, the unity of science would be seriously threatened by a precipitous decline in the support for plasma science. It is that unity which repeatedly has been verified as one looks for how advances in one field are crucial to several other seemingly fundamentally different fields. Thus it is in this case, as a representative of the community of Particle Accelerator Scientists, that they show four significant areas in which the methods and the results of plasma science have been applied to Accelerator Science. They have deliberately skipped plasma ion sources which are perhaps the most obvious application of plasmas to accelerators. Two of their four examples are cases in which the computational methods of plasma science have been adopted, and two are examples in which the plasmas themselves are employed. One of each category are now actively in use and the other one in each category is being used to develop or design new devices

Sustaining librarian vitality: embedded librarianship model for health sciences libraries.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Lin; Mi, Misa

2013-01-01

With biomedical information widely accessible from anywhere at any time, health sciences libraries have become less centralized, and they are challenged to stay relevant and vital to the mission and strategic goals of their home institution. One solution is to embed librarians at strategic points in health professions' education, research, and patient care. This article discusses a proposed five-level model of embedded librarianship within the context of health sciences libraries and describes different roles, knowledge, and skills desirable for health sciences librarians working as embedded librarians.

Do open access data policies inhibit innovation?

Science.gov (United States)

Katzner, Todd E.

2015-01-01

There has been a great deal of attention paid recently to the idea of data sharing (Van Noorden 2014, Beardsley 2015, Nature Publishing Group2015, www.copdess.com). However, the vast majority of these arguments are in agreement and present as fait accompli the idea that data are a public good and that therefore, once published, they should become open access. In fact, although there are many good reasons for data sharing, there also are a number of cogent and coherent cases to be made against open-access policies (e.g., Fenichel and Skelly 2015). The goal of this piece is not to debate the relevance or accuracy of the points made in favor of data sharing but to elevate the discussion by pointing out key problems with open-access policies and to identify central issues that, if solved, will enhance the utility of data sharing to science and society.

The foundation of the concept of relevance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hjørland, Birger

2010-01-01

that what was regarded as the most fundamental view by Saracevic in 1975 has not since been considered (with very few exceptions). Other views, which are based on less fruitful assumptions, have dominated the discourse on relevance in information retrieval and information science. Many authors have...... reexamined the concept of relevance in information science, but have neglected the subject knowledge view, hence basic theoretical assumptions seem not to have been properly addressed. It is as urgent now as it was in 1975 seriously to consider “the subject knowledge view” of relevance (which may also...... be termed “the epistemological view”). The concept of relevance, like other basic concepts, is influenced by overall approaches to information science, such as the cognitive view and the domain-analytic view. There is today a trend toward a social paradigm for information science. This paper offers...

The Blueprint for Change: A National Strategy to Enhance Access to Earth and Space Science Education Resources

Science.gov (United States)

Geary, E. E.; Barstow, D.

2001-12-01

Enhancing access to high quality science education resources for teachers, students, and the general public is a high priority for the earth and space science education communities. However, to significantly increase access to these resources and promote their effective use will require a coordinated effort between content developers, publishers, professional developers, policy makers, and users in both formal and informal education settings. Federal agencies, academic institutions, professional societies, informal science centers, the Digital Library for Earth System Education, and other National SMETE Digital Library Projects are anticipated to play key roles in this effort. As a first step to developing a coordinated, national strategy for developing and delivering high quality earth and space science education resources to students, teachers, and the general public, 65 science educators, scientists, teachers, administrators, policy makers, and business leaders met this June in Snowmass, Colorado to create "Earth and Space Science Education 2010: A Blueprint for Change". The Blueprint is a strategy document that will be used to guide Earth and space science education reform efforts in grades K-12 during the next decade. The Blueprint contains specific goals, recommendations, and strategies for coordinating action in the areas of: Teacher Preparation and Professional Development, Curriculum and Materials, Equity and Diversity, Assessment and Evaluation, Public Policy and Systemic Reform, Public and Informal Education, Partnerships and Collaborations, and Technology. If you develop, disseminate, or use exemplary earth and space science education resources, we invite you to review the Blueprint for Change, share it with your colleagues and local science educators, and join as we work to revolutionize earth and space science education in grades K-12.

Computer Access and Computer Use for Science Performance of Racial and Linguistic Minority Students

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Mido; Kim, Sunha

2009-01-01

This study examined the effects of computer access and computer use on the science achievement of elementary school students, with focused attention on the effects for racial and linguistic minority students. The study used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) database and conducted statistical analyses with proper weights and…

The case for policy-relevant conservation science

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, David C

2015-01-01

Drawing on the “evidence-based” (Sutherland et al. 2013) versus “evidence-informed” debate (Adams & Sandbrook 2013), which has become prominent in conservation science, I argue that science can be influential if it holds a dual reference (Lentsch & Weingart 2011) that contributes to the needs of policy makers whilst maintaining technical rigor. In line with such a strategy, conservation scientists are increasingly recognizing the usefulness of constructing narratives through which to enhance the influence of their evidence (Leslie et al. 2013; Lawton & Rudd 2014). Yet telling stories alone is rarely enough to influence policy; instead, these narratives must be policy relevant. To ensure that evidence is persuasive alongside other factors in a complex policy-making process, conservation scientists could follow 2 steps: reframe within salient political contexts and engage more productively in boundary work, which is defined as the ways in which scientists “construct, negotiate, and defend the boundary between science and policy” (Owens et al. 2006:640). These will both improve the chances of evidence-informed conservation policy. El Caso para la Ciencia de la Conservación con Relevancia Política Resumen A partir del debate “con base en evidencia” (Sutherland et al. 2013) versus “informado con evidencia” (Adams & Sandbrook 2013), debate que se ha vuelto prominente en la ciencia de la conservación, argumento que la ciencia puede ser influyente si mantiene una referencia dual (Lentsch & Weingart 2011) que contribuya a las necesidades de quienes hacen la política a la vez que mantiene un rigor técnico. En línea con dicha estrategia, los científicos de la conservación cada vez reconocen más la utilidad de construir narrativas con las cuales pueden mejorar la influencia de sus evidencias (Leslie et al. 2013; Lawton & Rudd 2014). Sin embargo, sólo contar historias rara vez es suficiente para influir sobre la política; en su lugar, estas

The Big Challenge in Big Earth Science Data: Maturing to Transdisciplinary Data Platforms that are Relevant to Government, Research and Industry

Science.gov (United States)

Wyborn, Lesley; Evans, Ben

2016-04-01

scientific domain silos, including into the humanities and social sciences. Furthermore there is increasing desire for these 'Big Data' data infrastructures to prove their value not only as platforms for scientific discovery, but to also support the development of evidence-based government policies, economic growth, and private-sector opportunities. The capacity of these transdisciplinary data repositories leads to many new exciting opportunities for the next generation of large-scale data integration, but there is an emerging suite of data challenges that now need to be tackled. Many large volume data sets have historically been developed within traditional domain silos and issues such as difference of standards (informal and formal), the data conventions, the lack of controlled or even uniform vocabularies, the non-existent/not machine-accessible semantic information, and bespoke or unclear copyrights and licensing are becoming apparent. The different perspectives and approaches of the various communities have also started to come to the fore; particularly the dominant file based approach of the big data generating science communities versus the database approach of the point observational communities; and the multidimensional approach of the climate and oceans community versus the traditional 2D approach of the GIS/spatial community. Addressing such challenges is essential to fully unlock online access to all relevant data to enable the maturing of research to the transdisciplinary paradigm.

Everyday science & science every day: Science-related talk & activities across settings

Science.gov (United States)

Zimmerman, Heather

To understand the development of science-related thinking, acting, and learning in middle childhood, I studied youth in schools, homes, and other neighborhood settings over a three-year period. The research goal was to analyze how multiple everyday experiences influence children's participation in science-related practices and their thinking about science and scientists. Ethnographic and interaction analysis methodologies were to study the cognition and social interactions of the children as they participated in activities with peers, family, and teachers (n=128). Interviews and participant self-documentation protocols elucidated the participants' understandings of science. An Everyday Expertise (Bell et al., 2006) theoretical framework was employed to study the development of science understandings on three analytical planes: individual learner, social groups, and societal/community resources. Findings came from a cross-case analysis of urban science learners and from two within-case analyses of girls' science-related practices as they transitioned from elementary to middle school. Results included: (1) children participated actively in science across settings---including in their homes as well as in schools, (2) children's interests in science were not always aligned to the school science content, pedagogy, or school structures for participation, yet children found ways to engage with science despite these differences through crafting multiple pathways into science, (3) urban parents were active supporters of STEM-related learning environments through brokering access to social and material resources, (4) the youth often found science in their daily activities that formal education did not make use of, and (5) children's involvement with science-related practices can be developed into design principles to reach youth in culturally relevant ways.

LudusScope: Accessible Interactive Smartphone Microscopy for Life-Science Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Honesty; Gerber, Lukas Cyrill; Chiu, Daniel; Lee, Seung Ah; Cira, Nate J; Xia, Sherwin Yuyang; Riedel-Kruse, Ingmar H

2016-01-01

For centuries, observational microscopy has greatly facilitated biology education, but we still cannot easily and playfully interact with the microscopic world we see. We therefore developed the LudusScope, an accessible, interactive do-it-yourself smartphone microscopy platform that promotes exploratory stimulation and observation of microscopic organisms, in a design that combines the educational modalities of build, play, and inquire. The LudusScope's touchscreen and joystick allow the selection and stimulation of phototactic microorganisms such as Euglena gracilis with light. Organismal behavior is tracked and displayed in real time, enabling open and structured game play as well as scientific inquiry via quantitative experimentation. Furthermore, we used the Scratch programming language to incorporate biophysical modeling. This platform is designed as an accessible, low-cost educational kit for easy construction and expansion. User testing with both teachers and students demonstrates the educational potential of the LudusScope, and we anticipate additional synergy with the maker movement. Transforming observational microscopy into an interactive experience will make microbiology more tangible to society, and effectively support the interdisciplinary learning required by the Next Generation Science Standards.

What Can Nature Teach Us About Improving Earth Science Data Access?

Science.gov (United States)

Young, S.

2012-12-01

Humans have collected earth observations data for centuries, helping us understand present conditions, allowing us to forecast the future, and giving us a window billions of years into the past. In the last 40 years the collection of earth observations data has increased on a truly massive and accelerating scale. Our abilities to collect new data have outpaced our abilities to access and use the data in all the ways users may expect. Mobile technology is a prime example. Smart telephones and tablet devices are proliferating rapidly; by 2016 there likely will be more smartphones than PCs on the planet. Earth data providers need to plan for and evolve to meet the needs, expectations, and capabilities of vast new numbers of mobile users. These users will not only consume data; many of them will also want to provide data via crowdsourcing or "citizen science" efforts. Can we channel the desire to provide citizen data in ways that help to ground-truth other observations, enrich the observations base, and improve data quality? Innovation will be key to meeting such challenges. Is it possible to innovate by studying the past? Does the earth system itself hold lessons that we can apply? We will examine what nature can teach us to foster sustainable innovation in our information technologies. Simplicity enables complexity; understanding complexity requires a return to simplicity. This presentation describes several user scenarios and examples of simplicity-complexity interactions to illustrate the connections with earth science data access.

Some relevant questions in science education from the perspective Science- Technology-Society

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prieto, Teresa;

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In this article, some of the answers given at this time to three classic questions related to science teaching: why teach science?, what kind of science to teach?, and how to teach it?, are analyzed from a Science-Technology- Society perspective (STS. It argues for the need to prepare future citizens to make responsible decisions on matters related to science and technology in the XXI century, and the convenience of using socio-scientific issues in the science classroom. Finally, the analysis is exemplified in two cases: food consumption and energy consumption.

Reasoning with alternative explanations in physics: The cognitive accessibility rule

Science.gov (United States)

Heckler, Andrew F.; Bogdan, Abigail M.

2018-06-01

A critical component of scientific reasoning is the consideration of alternative explanations. Recognizing that decades of cognitive psychology research have demonstrated that relative cognitive accessibility, or "what comes to mind," strongly affects how people reason in a given context, we articulate a simple "cognitive accessibility rule", namely that alternative explanations are considered less frequently when an explanation with relatively high accessibility is offered first. In a series of four experiments, we test the cognitive accessibility rule in the context of consideration of alternative explanations for six physical scenarios commonly found in introductory physics curricula. First, we administer free recall and recognition tasks to operationally establish and distinguish between the relative accessibility and availability of common explanations for the physical scenarios. Then, we offer either high or low accessibility explanations for the physical scenarios and determine the extent to which students consider alternatives to the given explanations. We find two main results consistent across algebra- and calculus-based university level introductory physics students for multiple answer formats. First, we find evidence that, at least for some contexts, most explanatory factors are cognitively available to students but not cognitively accessible. Second, we empirically verify the cognitive accessibility rule and demonstrate that the rule is strongly predictive, accounting for up to 70% of the variance of the average student consideration of alternative explanations across scenarios. Overall, we find that cognitive accessibility can help to explain biases in the consideration of alternatives in reasoning about simple physical scenarios, and these findings lend support to the growing number of science education studies demonstrating that tasks relevant to science education curricula often involve rapid, automatic, and potentially predictable processes and

Relevance in the science classroom: A multidimensional analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Hartwell, Matthew F.

While perceived relevance is considered a fundamental component of adaptive learning, the experience of relevance and its conceptual definition have not been well described. The mixed-methods research presented in this dissertation aimed to clarify the conceptual meaning of relevance by focusing on its phenomenological experience from the students' perspective. Following a critical literature review, I propose an identity-based model of perceived relevance that includes three components: a contextual target, an identity target, and a connection type, or lens. An empirical investigation of this model that consisted of two general phases was implemented in four 9th grade-biology classrooms. Participants in Phase 1 (N = 118) completed a series of four open-ended writing activities focused on eliciting perceived personal connections to academic content. Exploratory qualitative content analysis of a 25% random sample of the student responses was used to identify the main meaning-units of the proposed model as well as different dimensions of student relevance perceptions. These meaning-units and dimensions provided the basis for the construction of a conceptual mapping sentence capturing students' perceived relevance, which was then applied in a confirmatory analysis to all other student responses. Participants in Phase 2 (N = 139) completed a closed survey designed based on the mapping sentence to assess their perceived relevance of a biology unit. The survey also included scales assessing other domain-level motivational processes. Exploratory factor analysis and non-metric multidimensional scaling indicated a coherent conceptual structure, which included a primary interpretive relevance dimension. Comparison of the conceptual structure across various groups (randomly-split sample, gender, academic level, domain-general motivational profiles) provided support for its ubiquity and insight into variation in the experience of perceived relevance among students of different

Laboratory science with space data accessing and using space-experiment data

CERN Document Server

van Loon, Jack J W A; Zell, Martin; Beysens, Daniel

2011-01-01

For decades experiments conducted on space stations like MIR and the ISS have been gathering data in many fields of research in the natural sciences, medicine and engineering. The European Union-sponsored ULISSE project focused on exploring the wealth of unique experimental data provided by revealing raw and metadata from these studies via an Internet Portal. This book complements the portal. It serves as a handbook of space experiments and describes the various types of experimental infrastructure areas of research in the life and physical sciences and technology space missions that hosted scientific experiments the types and structures of the data produced and how one can access the data through ULISSE for further research. The book provides an overview of the wealth of space experiment data that can be used for additional research and will inspire academics (e.g. those looking for topics for their PhD thesis) and research departments in companies for their continued development.

Special issue on enabling open and interoperable access to Planetary Science and Heliophysics databases and tools

Science.gov (United States)

2018-01-01

The large amount of data generated by modern space missions calls for a change of organization of data distribution and access procedures. Although long term archives exist for telescopic and space-borne observations, high-level functions need to be developed on top of these repositories to make Planetary Science and Heliophysics data more accessible and to favor interoperability. Results of simulations and reference laboratory data also need to be integrated to support and interpret the observations. Interoperable software and interfaces have recently been developed in many scientific domains. The Virtual Observatory (VO) interoperable standards developed for Astronomy by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) can be adapted to Planetary Sciences, as demonstrated by the VESPA (Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access) team within the Europlanet-H2020-RI project. Other communities have developed their own standards: GIS (Geographic Information System) for Earth and planetary surfaces tools, SPASE (Space Physics Archive Search and Extract) for space plasma, PDS4 (NASA Planetary Data System, version 4) and IPDA (International Planetary Data Alliance) for planetary mission archives, etc, and an effort to make them interoperable altogether is starting, including automated workflows to process related data from different sources.

Web-Scale Discovery Services Retrieve Relevant Results in Health Sciences Topics Including MEDLINE Content

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elizabeth Margaret Stovold

2017-06-01

Full Text Available A Review of: Hanneke, R., & O’Brien, K. K. (2016. Comparison of three web-scale discovery services for health sciences research. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 104(2, 109-117. http://dx.doi.org/10.3163/1536-5050.104.2.004 Abstract Objective – To compare the results of health sciences search queries in three web-scale discovery (WSD services for relevance, duplicate detection, and retrieval of MEDLINE content. Design – Comparative evaluation and bibliometric study. Setting – Six university libraries in the United States of America. Subjects – Three commercial WSD services: Primo, Summon, and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS. Methods – The authors collected data at six universities, including their own. They tested each of the three WSDs at two data collection sites. However, since one of the sites was using a legacy version of Summon that was due to be upgraded, data collected for Summon at this site were considered obsolete and excluded from the analysis. The authors generated three questions for each of six major health disciplines, then designed simple keyword searches to mimic typical student search behaviours. They captured the first 20 results from each query run at each test site, to represent the first “page” of results, giving a total of 2,086 total search results. These were independently assessed for relevance to the topic. Authors resolved disagreements by discussion, and calculated a kappa inter-observer score. They retained duplicate records within the results so that the duplicate detection by the WSDs could be compared. They assessed MEDLINE coverage by the WSDs in several ways. Using precise strategies to generate a relevant set of articles, they conducted one search from each of the six disciplines in PubMed so that they could compare retrieval of MEDLINE content. These results were cross-checked against the first 20 results from the corresponding query in the WSDs. To aid investigation of overall

ACCESS - A Science and Engineering Assessment of Space Coronagraph Concepts for the Direct Imaging and Spectroscopy of Exoplanetary Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Trauger, John

2008-01-01

Topics include and overview, science objectives, study objectives, coronagraph types, metrics, ACCESS observatory, laboratory validations, and summary. Individual slides examine ACCESS engineering approach, ACCESS gamut of coronagraph types, coronagraph metrics, ACCESS Discovery Space, coronagraph optical layout, wavefront control on the "level playing field", deformable mirror development for HCIT, laboratory testbed demonstrations, high contract imaging with the HCIT, laboratory coronagraph contrast and stability, model validation and performance predictions, HCIT coronagraph optical layout, Lyot coronagraph on the HCIT, pupil mapping (PIAA), shaped pupils, and vortex phase mask experiments on the HCIT.

Identifying Relevant Anti-Science Perceptions to Improve Science-Based Communication: The Negative Perceptions of Science Scale

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Melanie Morgan

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Science communicators and scholars have struggled to understand what appears to be increasingly frequent endorsement of a wide range of anti-science beliefs and a corresponding reduction of trust in science. A common explanation for this issue is a lack of science literacy/knowledge among the general public (Funk et al. 2015. However, other possible explanations have been advanced, including conflict with alternative belief systems and other contextual factors, and even cultural factors (Gauchat 2008; Kahan 2015 that are not necessarily due to knowledge deficits. One of the challenges is that there are limited tools available to measure a range of possible underlying negative perceptions of science that could provide a more nuanced framework within which to improve communication around important scientific topics. This project describes two studies detailing the development and validation of the Negative Perceptions of Science Scale (NPSS, a multi-dimensional instrument that taps into several distinct sets of negative science perceptions: Science as Corrupt, Science as Complex, Science as Heretical, and Science as Limited. Evidence for the reliability and validity of the NPSS is described. The sub-dimensions of the NPSS are associated with a range of specific anti-science beliefs across a broad set of topic areas above and beyond that explained by demographics (including education, sex, age, and income, political, and religious ideology. Implications for these findings for improving science communication and science-related message tailoring are discussed.

Improving information access by relevance and topical feedback

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kaptein, R.; Kamps, J.; Hopfgartner, F.

2008-01-01

One of the main bottle-necks in providing more effective information access is the poverty of the query end. With an average query length of about two terms, users provide only a highly ambiguous statement of the, often complex, underlying information need. Implicit and explicit feedback can provide

On negotiating White science: a call for cultural relevance and critical reflexivity

Science.gov (United States)

Bettez, Silvia Cristina; Aguilar-Valdez, Jean Rockford; Carlone, Heidi B.; Cooper, Jewell E.

2011-12-01

This article is a response to Randy Yerrick and Joseph Johnson's article "Negotiating White Science in Rural Black America: A Case for Navigating the Landscape of Teacher Knowledge Domains". They write about research conducted by Yerrick in which videos of his teaching practice as a White educator in a predominately Black rural classroom were examined. Their analysis is framed through Shulman's (1986) work on "domains of teacher knowledge" and Ladson-Billings' (1999) critical race theory (CRT). Although we appreciate a framework that attends to issues of power, such as CRT, we see a heavier emphasis on Shulman's work in their analysis. We argue that a culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) framework has the potential to provide a more nuanced analysis of what occurred in Yerrick's classroom from a critical lens. Thus we examine Yerrick and Johnson's work through the five main CRP components (as defined by Brown-Jeffy and Cooper 2011) and ultimately argue that science educators who want to promote equity in their classrooms should engage in continuous critical reflexivity, aid students in claiming voice, and encourage students to become not only producers of scientific knowledge but also users and critics of such knowledge.

Setting up crowd science projects.

Science.gov (United States)

Scheliga, Kaja; Friesike, Sascha; Puschmann, Cornelius; Fecher, Benedikt

2016-11-29

Crowd science is scientific research that is conducted with the participation of volunteers who are not professional scientists. Thanks to the Internet and online platforms, project initiators can draw on a potentially large number of volunteers. This crowd can be involved to support data-rich or labour-intensive projects that would otherwise be unfeasible. So far, research on crowd science has mainly focused on analysing individual crowd science projects. In our research, we focus on the perspective of project initiators and explore how crowd science projects are set up. Based on multiple case study research, we discuss the objectives of crowd science projects and the strategies of their initiators for accessing volunteers. We also categorise the tasks allocated to volunteers and reflect on the issue of quality assurance as well as feedback mechanisms. With this article, we contribute to a better understanding of how crowd science projects are set up and how volunteers can contribute to science. We suggest that our findings are of practical relevance for initiators of crowd science projects, for science communication as well as for informed science policy making. © The Author(s) 2016.

A phenomenological case study concerning science teacher educators' beliefs and teaching practices about culturally relevant pedagogy and preparing K-12 science teachers to engage African American students in K-12 science

Science.gov (United States)

Underwood, Janice Bell

Due to the rising diversity in today's schools, science teacher educators (STEs) suggest that K-12 teachers must be uniquely prepared to engage these students in science classrooms. Yet, in light of the increasing white-black science achievement gap, it is unclear how STEs prepare preservice teachers to engage diverse students, and African Americans in particular. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to find out how STEs prepare preservice teachers to engage African American students in K-12 science. Thus, using the culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) framework, this phenomenological case study explored beliefs about culturally relevant science teaching and the influence of reported beliefs and experiences related to race on STEs' teaching practices. In the first phase, STE's in a mid-Atlantic state were invited to participate in an electronic survey. In the second phase, four participants, who were identified as exemplars, were selected from the survey to participate in three semi-structured interviews. The data revealed that STEs were more familiar with culturally responsive pedagogy (CResP) in the context of their post-secondary classrooms as opposed to CRP. Further, most of the participants in part one and two described modeling conventional ways they prepare their preservice teachers to engage K-12 students, who represent all types of diversity, without singling out any specific race. Lastly, many of the STEs' in this study reported formative experiences related to race and beliefs in various manifestations of racism have impacted their teaching beliefs and practices. The findings of this study suggest STEs do not have a genuine understanding of the differences between CRP and CResP and by in large embrace CResP principles. Secondly, in regards to preparing preservice teachers to engage African American students in science, the participants in this study seemed to articulate the need for ideological change, but were unable to demonstrate pedagogical changes

A qualitative study examining methods of accessing and identifying research relevant to clinical practice among rehabilitation clinicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Patel, Drasti; Koehmstedt, Christine; Jones, Rebecca; Coffey, Nathan T; Cai, Xinsheng; Garfinkel, Steven; Shaewitz, Dahlia M; Weinstein, Ali A

2017-01-01

Research examining the utilization of evidence-based practice (EBP) specifically among rehabilitation clinicians is limited. The objective of this study was to examine how various rehabilitative clinicians including physical therapists, occupational therapists, rehabilitation counselors, and physiatrists are gaining access to literature and whether they are able to implement the available research into practice. A total of 21 total clinicians were interviewed via telephone. Using NVivo, a qualitative analysis of the responses was performed. There were similarities found with respect to the information-seeking behaviors and translation of research across the different clinician types. Lack of time was reported to be a barrier for both access to literature and implementation of research across all clinician types. The majority of clinicians who reported having difficulty with utilizing the published literature indicated that the literature was not applicable to their practice, the research was not specific enough to be put into practice, or the research found was too outdated to be relevant. In addition, having a supportive work environment aided in the search and utilization of research through providing resources central to assisting clinicians in gaining access to health information. Our study identified several barriers that affect EBP for rehabilitation clinicians. The findings suggest the need for researchers to ensure that their work is applicable and specific to clinical practice for implementation to occur.

Eye tracking in Library and Information Science

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lund, Haakon

2016-01-01

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic literature review of the application of eye-tracking technology within the field of library and information science. Eye-tracking technology has now reached a level of maturity, which makes the use of the technology more accessible....... Subsequently, a growing interest in employing eye tracking as a methodology within library and information science research must be anticipated. Design/methodology/approach The review follows the guidelines set in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses recommendations. Two...... reference databases are searched for relevant references: Library and Information Science Abstracts and Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts. The main selection criteria are peer-reviewed literature that describes the experimental setting, including which eye-tracking equipment was used...

75 FR 20843 - Notice of Workshop To Discuss Policy-Relevant Science to Inform EPA's Integrated Plan for the...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-21

... Policy-Relevant Science to Inform EPA's Integrated Plan for the Review of the Lead National Ambient Air.... Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing that a workshop entitled, ``Workshop to Discuss Policy... workshop will be open to attendance by interested public observers on a first-come, first-served basis up...

Online medical books: their availability and an assessment of how health sciences libraries provide access on their public Websites.

Science.gov (United States)

MacCall, Steven L

2006-01-01

The objective of this study was to determine the number and topical range of available online medical books and to assess how health sciences libraries were providing access to these resources on their public Websites. The collection-based evaluative technique of list checking was used to assess the number and topical range of online medical books of the six largest publishers. Publisher inventory lists were downloaded over a two-day period (May 16-17, 2004). Titles were counted and compared with the 2003 Brandon/Hill list. A sample of health sciences libraries was subsequently derived by consulting the 2004 "Top Medical Schools-Research" in U.S. News & World Report. Bibliographic and bibliothecal access methods were evaluated based on an inspection of the publicly available Websites of the sample libraries. Of 318 currently published online medical books, 151 (47%) were Brandon/Hill titles covering 42 of 59 Brandon/Hill topics (71%). These 151 titles represented 22% (N = 672) of the Brandon/Hill list, which further broke down as 52 minimal core, 41 initial purchase, and 58 other recommended Brandon/Hill titles. These numbers represented 50%, 28%, and 12%, respectively, of all Brandon/Hill titles corresponding to those categories. In terms of bibliographic access, 20 of 21 of sampled libraries created catalog records for their online medical books, 1 of which also provided analytical access at the chapter level, and none provided access at the chapter section level. Of the 21 libraries, 19 had library Website search engines that provided title-level access and 4 provided access at the chapter level and none that at the chapter section level. For bibliothecal access, 19 of 21 libraries provided title-level access to medical books, 8 of which provided classified and alphabetic arrangements, 1 provided a classified arrangement only, and 10 provided an alphabetic arrangement only. No library provided a bibliothecal arrangement for medical book chapters or chapter

Analysis of Sci-Hub downloads of computer science papers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andročec Darko

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The scientific knowledge is disseminated by research papers. Most of the research literature is copyrighted by publishers and avail- able only through paywalls. Recently, some websites offer most of the recent content for free. One of them is the controversial website Sci-Hub that enables access to more than 47 million pirated research papers. In April 2016, Science Magazine published an article on Sci-Hub activity over the period of six months and publicly released the Sci-Hub’s server log data. The mentioned paper aggregates the view that relies on all downloads and for all fields of study, but these findings might be hiding interesting patterns within computer science. The mentioned Sci-Hub log data was used in this paper to analyse downloads of computer science papers based on DBLP’s list of computer science publications. The top downloads of computer science papers were analysed, together with the geographical location of Sci-Hub users, the most downloaded publishers, types of papers downloaded, and downloads of computer science papers per publication year. The results of this research can be used to improve legal access to the most relevant scientific repositories or journals for the computer science field.

Overview: Routes to Open Access

OpenAIRE

Tullney, Marco; van Wezenbeek, Wilma

2017-01-01

Slides of an overview presentation given at a CESAER workshop on Open Access, February 2nd, 2017, in Brussels Cover major routes to more open access as discussed in the Task Force Open Science of CESAER: (national) open access strategies open access mandates open access incentives open access awareness open access publishing open access infrastructure

Data Albums: An Event Driven Search, Aggregation and Curation Tool for Earth Science

Science.gov (United States)

Ramachandran, Rahul; Kulkarni, Ajinkya; Maskey, Manil; Bakare, Rohan; Basyal, Sabin; Li, Xiang; Flynn, Shannon

2014-01-01

Approaches used in Earth science research such as case study analysis and climatology studies involve discovering and gathering diverse data sets and information to support the research goals. To gather relevant data and information for case studies and climatology analysis is both tedious and time consuming. Current Earth science data systems are designed with the assumption that researchers access data primarily by instrument or geophysical parameter. In cases where researchers are interested in studying a significant event, they have to manually assemble a variety of datasets relevant to it by searching the different distributed data systems. This paper presents a specialized search, aggregation and curation tool for Earth science to address these challenges. The search rool automatically creates curated 'Data Albums', aggregated collections of information related to a specific event, containing links to relevant data files [granules] from different instruments, tools and services for visualization and analysis, and information about the event contained in news reports, images or videos to supplement research analysis. Curation in the tool is driven via an ontology based relevancy ranking algorithm to filter out non relevant information and data.

Making Geoscience Data Relevant for Students, Teachers, and the Public

Science.gov (United States)

Taber, M.; Ledley, T. S.; Prakash, A.; Domenico, B.

2009-12-01

The scientific data collected by government funded research belongs to the public. As such, the scientific and technical communities are responsible to make scientific data accessible and usable by the educational community. However, much geoscience data are difficult for educators and students to find and use. Such data are generally described by metadata that are narrowly focused and contain scientific language. Thus, data access presents a challenge to educators in determining if a particular dataset is relevant to their needs, and to effectively access and use the data. The AccessData project (EAR-0623136, EAR-0305058) has developed a model for bridging the scientific and educational communities to develop robust inquiry-based activities using scientific datasets in the form of Earth Exploration Toolbook (EET, http://serc.carleton.edu/eet) chapters. EET chapters provide step-by-step instructions for accessing specific data and analyzing it with a software analysis tool to explore issues or concepts in science, technology, and mathematics. The AccessData model involves working directly with small teams made up of data providers from scientific data archives or research teams, data analysis tool specialists, scientists, curriculum developers, and educators (AccessData, http://serc.carleton.edu/usingdata/accessdata). The process involves a number of steps including 1) building of the team; 2) pre-workshop facilitation; 3) face-to-face 2.5 day workshop; 4) post-workshop follow-up; 5) completion and review of the EET chapter. The AccessData model has been evolved over a series of six annual workshops hosting ~10 teams each. This model has been expanded to other venues to explore expanding its scope and sustainable mechanisms. These venues include 1) workshops focused on the data collected by a large research program (RIDGE, EarthScope); 2) a workshop focused on developing a citizen scientist guide to conducting research; and 3) facilitating a team on an annual basis

Impact of Culturally Relevant Contextualized Activities on Elementary and Middle School Students' Perceptions of Science: An Exploratory Study

Science.gov (United States)

González-Espada, Wilson; Llerandi-Román, Pablo; Fortis-Santiago, Yaihara; Guerrero-Medina, Giovanna; Ortiz-Vega, Nicole; Feliú-Mójer, Mónica; Colón-Ramos, Daniel

2015-01-01

Although researchers have argued that textbooks should be customized to local cultures and experiences, they rarely are. Ciencia Puerto Rico, a non-profit group interested in promoting science literacy and education among Latino(a)s/Hispanics, identified a need to provide schools with culturally relevant materials. The result was the publication…

Relevant Features of Science: Values in Conservation Biology

Science.gov (United States)

van Dijk, Esther M.

2013-01-01

The development of an understanding of the nature of science is generally assumed to be an important aspect of science communication with respect to the enhancement of scientific literacy. At present, a general characterization of the nature of science is still lacking and probably such a characterization will not be achievable. The overall aim of…

Access to Information and Freedom of Information Requests: Neglected Means of Data Production in the Social Sciences

Science.gov (United States)

Walby, Kevin; Larsen, Mike

2012-01-01

Access to information (ATI) and freedom of information (FOI) mechanisms are now relevant features of governments in many liberal democracies today. Citizens, organizations, and permanent residents in several countries across the globe can request unpublished information from federal, provincial, state, county, and municipal government agencies.…

Science-Relevant Curiosity Expression and Interest in Science: An Exploratory Study

Science.gov (United States)

Luce, Megan R.; Hsi, Sherry

2015-01-01

In efforts to understand and promote long-term interest in science, much work has focused on measuring students' interest in topics of science, typically with surveys. This approach has challenges, as interest in a topic may not necessarily indicate interest in scientific practices and pursuits. An underexplored and perhaps productive way to…

Supporting the advancement of science: Open access publishing and the role of mandates

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Phelps Lisa

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract In December 2011 the United States House of Representatives introduced a new bill, the Research Works Act (H.R.3699, which if passed could threaten the public's access to US government funded research. In a digital age when professional and lay parties alike look more and more to the online environment to keep up to date with developments in their fields, does this bill serve the best interests of the community? Those in support of the Research Works Act argue that government open access mandates undermine peer-review and take intellectual property from publishers without compensation, however journals like Journal of Translational Medicine show that this is not the case. Journal of Translational Medicine in affiliation with the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer demonstrates how private and public organisations can work together for the advancement of science.

New concepts of science and medicine in science and technology studies and their relevance to science education.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hsiu-Yun; Stocker, Joel F; Fu, Daiwie

2012-02-01

Science education often adopts a narrow view of science that assumes the lay public is ignorant, which seemingly justifies a science education limited to a promotional narrative of progress in the form of scientific knowledge void of meaningful social context. We propose that to prepare students as future concerned citizens of a technoscientific society, science education should be informed by science, technology, and society (STS) perspectives. An STS-informed science education, in our view, will include the following curricular elements: science controversy education, gender issues, historical perspective, and a move away from a Eurocentric view by looking into the distinctive patterns of other regional (in this case of Taiwan, East Asian) approaches to science, technology, and medicine. This article outlines the significance of some major STS studies as a means of illustrating the ways in which STS perspectives can, if incorporated into science education, enhance our understanding of science and technology and their relationships with society. Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier B.V.

New concepts of science and medicine in science and technology studies and their relevance to science education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hsiu-Yun Wang

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Science education often adopts a narrow view of science that assumes the lay public is ignorant, which seemingly justifies a science education limited to a promotional narrative of progress in the form of scientific knowledge void of meaningful social context. We propose that to prepare students as future concerned citizens of a technoscientific society, science education should be informed by science, technology, and society (STS perspectives. An STS-informed science education, in our view, will include the following curricular elements: science controversy education, gender issues, historical perspective, and a move away from a Eurocentric view by looking into the distinctive patterns of other regional (in this case of Taiwan, East Asian approaches to science, technology, and medicine. This article outlines the significance of some major STS studies as a means of illustrating the ways in which STS perspectives can, if incorporated into science education, enhance our understanding of science and technology and their relationships with society.

Fort Collins Science Center- Policy Analysis and Science Assistance Branch : Integrating social, behavioral, economic and biological sciences

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

The Fort Collins Science Center's Policy Analysis and Science Assistance (PASA) Branch is a team of approximately 22 scientists, technicians, and graduate student researchers. PASA provides unique capabilities in the U.S. Geological Survey by leading projects that integrate social, behavioral, economic, and biological analyses in the context of human-natural resource interactions. Resource planners, managers, and policymakers in the U.S. Departments of the Interior (DOI) and Agriculture (USDA), State and local agencies, as well as international agencies use information from PASA studies to make informed natural resource management and policy decisions. PASA scientists' primary functions are to conduct both theoretical and applied social science research, provide technical assistance, and offer training to advance performance in policy relevant research areas. Management and research issues associated with human-resource interactions typically occur in a unique context, involve difficult to access populations, require knowledge of both natural/biological science in addition to social science, and require the skill to integrate multiple science disciplines. In response to these difficult contexts, PASA researchers apply traditional and state-of-the-art social science methods drawing from the fields of sociology, demography, economics, political science, communications, social-psychology, and applied industrial organization psychology. Social science methods work in concert with our rangeland/agricultural management, wildlife, ecology, and biology capabilities. The goal of PASA's research is to enhance natural resource management, agency functions, policies, and decision-making. Our research is organized into four broad areas of study.

Unlocking the full potential of Open Innovation in the Life Sciences through a classification system

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nilsson, Niclas; Minssen, Timo

2018-01-01

Open Innovation (OI) holds much promise as a new business model for collaborative value creation in life science. From a corporate perspective, benefits include faster access to new relevant technology; the opportunity for Biotechs and Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to explore new marke...

Access to Research Inputs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Czarnitzki, Dirk; Grimpe, Christoph; Pellens, Maikel

2015-01-01

The viability of modern open science norms and practices depends on public disclosure of new knowledge, methods, and materials. However, increasing industry funding of research can restrict the dissemination of results and materials. We show, through a survey sample of 837 German scientists in life...... sciences, natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences, that scientists who receive industry funding are twice as likely to deny requests for research inputs as those who do not. Receiving external funding in general does not affect denying others access. Scientists who receive external funding...... of any kind are, however, 50 % more likely to be denied access to research materials by others, but this is not affected by being funded specifically by industry...

Access to Research Inputs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Czarnitzki, Dirk; Grimpe, Christoph; Pellens, Maikel

The viability of modern open science norms and practices depend on public disclosure of new knowledge, methods, and materials. However, increasing industry funding of research can restrict the dissemination of results and materials. We show, through a survey sample of 837 German scientists in life...... sciences, natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences, that scientists who receive industry funding are twice as likely to deny requests for research inputs as those who do not. Receiving external funding in general does not affect denying others access. Scientists who receive external funding...... of any kind are, however, 50% more likely to be denied access to research materials by others, but this is not affected by being funded specifically by industry....

THE RELEVANCE OF SOCIO-LEGAL STUDIES IN LEGAL SCIENCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victor Imanuel W. Nalle

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Some law schools in Indonesia reject socio-legal studies with epistemological arguments that puts jurisprudence as sui generis. Rejection is based argument that jurisprudence is a normative science. In fact socio-legal studies in the development of jurisprudence outside Indonesia has long existed and contributed to the legal reform. Socio-legal studies also significant for legal reform. It is caused by the existence of non doctrinal aspect in law making and implementation of the law. Therefore the position and relevance of socio-legal research is not related to the benefits that provided for the development of national law or jurisprudence. Beberapa fakultas hukum di Indonesia menolak penelitian sosio-legal dengan argumentasi epistemologis yang menempatkan ilmu hukum sebagai sui generis. Penolakan tersebut didasarkan argumentasi bahwa ilmu hukum adalah ilmu yang bersifat normatif. Kenyataannya studi sosio-legal dalam perkembangan ilmu hukum di luar Indonesia telah lama eksis dan berperan dalam pembaharuan hukum. Selain itu, studi sosiolegal juga berperan dalam pembaharuan hukum. Hal ini disebabkan adanya aspek-aspek nondoktrinal yang berperan dalam pembentukan hukum dan implementasi hukum di masyarakat. Oleh karena itu kedudukan dan relevansi penelitian sosio-legal pada ada tidaknya manfaat yang diberikan bagi perkembangan hukum nasional ataupun ilmu hukum.

THE RELEVANCE OF SOCIO-LEGAL STUDIES IN LEGAL SCIENCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victor Imanuel W. Nalle

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Some law schools in Indonesia reject socio-legal studies with epistemological arguments that puts jurisprudence as sui generis. Rejection is based argument that jurisprudence is a normative science. In fact socio-legal studies in the development of jurisprudence outside Indonesia has long existed and contributed to the legal reform. Socio-legal studies also significant for legal reform. It is caused by the existence of non doctrinal aspect in law making and implementation of the law. Therefore the position and relevance of socio-legal research is not related to the benefits that provided for the development of national law or jurisprudence.   Beberapa fakultas hukum di Indonesia menolak penelitian sosio-legal dengan argumentasi epistemologis yang menempatkan ilmu hukum sebagai sui generis. Penolakan tersebut didasarkan argumentasi bahwa ilmu hukum adalah ilmu yang bersifat normatif. Kenyataannya studi sosio-legal dalam perkembangan ilmu hukum di luar Indonesia telah lama eksis dan berperan dalam pembaharuan hukum. Selain itu, studi sosiolegal juga berperan dalam pembaharuan hukum. Hal ini disebabkan adanya aspek-aspek nondoktrinal yang berperan dalam pembentukan hukum dan implementasi hukum di masyarakat. Oleh karena itu kedudukan dan relevansi penelitian sosio-legal pada ada tidaknya manfaat yang diberikan bagi perkembangan hukum nasional ataupun ilmu hukum.

A qualitative study examining methods of accessing and identifying research relevant to clinical practice among rehabilitation clinicians

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patel D

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Drasti Patel,1 Christine Koehmstedt,1 Rebecca Jones,1 Nathan T Coffey,1 Xinsheng Cai,2 Steven Garfinkel,2 Dahlia M Shaewitz,2 Ali A Weinstein1 1Center for Study of Chronic Illness and Disability, College of Health and Human Services, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 2American Institutes for Research, Washington, DC, USA Purpose: Research examining the utilization of evidence-based practice (EBP specifically among rehabilitation clinicians is limited. The objective of this study was to examine how various rehabilitative clinicians including physical therapists, occupational therapists, rehabilitation counselors, and physiatrists are gaining access to literature and whether they are able to implement the available research into practice.Methods: A total of 21 total clinicians were interviewed via telephone. Using NVivo, a qualitative analysis of the responses was performed.Results: There were similarities found with respect to the information-seeking behaviors and translation of research across the different clinician types. Lack of time was reported to be a barrier for both access to literature and implementation of research across all clinician types. The majority of clinicians who reported having difficulty with utilizing the published literature indicated that the literature was not applicable to their practice, the research was not specific enough to be put into practice, or the research found was too outdated to be relevant. In addition, having a supportive work environment aided in the search and utilization of research through providing resources central to assisting clinicians in gaining access to health information.Conclusion: Our study identified several barriers that affect EBP for rehabilitation clinicians. The findings suggest the need for researchers to ensure that their work is applicable and specific to clinical practice for implementation to occur. Keywords: health information, information behavior, knowledge utilization

A Survey of Physical Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics Faculty Regarding Author Fees in Open Access Journals

Science.gov (United States)

Cusker, Jeremy; Rauh, Anne E.

2014-01-01

Discussions of the potential of open access publishing frequently must contend with the skepticism of research authors regarding the need to pay author fees (also known as publication fees). With that in mind, the authors undertook a survey of faculty, postdocs, and graduate students in physical science, mathematics, and engineering fields at two…

User-oriented information access by information need recontextualisation and articulation. Application in nuclear criticality safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Medini, Lionel

2001-01-01

This research thesis addresses the design methodology of a system of access to information which is based on an access to relevant information with respect to user needs. In a first part, the author addresses the various issues related to access to information and to information understanding. The next part addresses the involved methods and tools and presents the operational approach adopted for this research regarding access to information. Different disciplines are addressed (knowledge management, ergonomics and information science) and different technologies are used (W3 and XML, DVP, ActiveX, pdf format and the Adobe suite). In the core chapter, the author reports the design of a LMCE (a multi-user book of electronic knowledge) which allows both hypermedia navigation in knowledge diagrams and a construction of a document query. This design is based on a knowledge-management modelling to define diagrams, on ergonomics modelling for user profile identification, and on information science for a specific indexing of the information system. The prototype can be visualized with a web browser such as Internet Explorer 5. The author reports a first assessment and discusses the contribution of his approach to the problematic of access to information which is to be applied to nuclear criticality safety [fr

Research Opportunities in Corrosion Science for Long-Term Prediction of Materials Performance: A Report of the DOE Workshop on “Corrosion Issues of Relevance to the Yucca Mountain Waste Repository”.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Payer, Joe H. [Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH (United States); Scully, John R. [Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (United States)

2003-07-29

The report summarizes the findings of a U.S. Department of Energy workshop on “Corrosion Issues of Relevance to the Yucca Mountain Waste Repository”. The workshop was held on July 29-30, 2003 in Bethesda, MD, and was co-sponsored by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences and Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. The workshop focus was corrosion science relevant to long-term prediction of materials performance in hostile environments, with special focus on relevance to the permanent disposal of nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain Repository. The culmination of the workshop is this report that identifies both generic and Yucca Mountain Project-specific research opportunities in basic and applied topic areas. The research opportunities would be realized well after the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s initial construction-authorization licensing process. At the workshop, twenty-three invited scientists deliberated on basic and applied science opportunities in corrosion science relevant to long-term prediction of damage accumulation by corrosive processes that affect materials performance.

Building a better search engine for earth science data

Science.gov (United States)

Armstrong, E. M.; Yang, C. P.; Moroni, D. F.; McGibbney, L. J.; Jiang, Y.; Huang, T.; Greguska, F. R., III; Li, Y.; Finch, C. J.

2017-12-01

Free text data searching of earth science datasets has been implemented with varying degrees of success and completeness across the spectrum of the 12 NASA earth sciences data centers. At the JPL Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) the search engine has been developed around the Solr/Lucene platform. Others have chosen other popular enterprise search platforms like Elasticsearch. Regardless, the default implementations of these search engines leveraging factors such as dataset popularity, term frequency and inverse document term frequency do not fully meet the needs of precise relevancy and ranking of earth science search results. For the PO.DAAC, this shortcoming has been identified for several years by its external User Working Group that has assigned several recommendations to improve the relevancy and discoverability of datasets related to remotely sensed sea surface temperature, ocean wind, waves, salinity, height and gravity that comprise a total count of over 500 public availability datasets. Recently, the PO.DAAC has teamed with an effort led by George Mason University to improve the improve the search and relevancy ranking of oceanographic data via a simple search interface and powerful backend services called MUDROD (Mining and Utilizing Dataset Relevancy from Oceanographic Datasets to Improve Data Discovery) funded by the NASA AIST program. MUDROD has mined and utilized the combination of PO.DAAC earth science dataset metadata, usage metrics, and user feedback and search history to objectively extract relevance for improved data discovery and access. In addition to improved dataset relevance and ranking, the MUDROD search engine also returns recommendations to related datasets and related user queries. This presentation will report on use cases that drove the architecture and development, and the success metrics and improvements on search precision and recall that MUDROD has demonstrated over the existing PO.DAAC search

Social science informing forest management — bringing new knowledge to fuels managers

Science.gov (United States)

Pamela Jakes

2007-01-01

To improve access, interpretability, and use of the full body of research, a pilot project was initiated by the USDA Forest Service to synthesize relevant scientific information and develop publications and decision support tools that managers can use to inform fuels treatment plans. This article provides an overview of the work of the Social Science Core Team. Team...

The relevance of basic sciences in undergraduate medical education.

Science.gov (United States)

Lynch, C; Grant, T; McLoughlin, P; Last, J

2016-02-01

Evolving and changing undergraduate medical curricula raise concerns that there will no longer be a place for basic sciences. National and international trends show that 5-year programmes with a pre-requisite for school chemistry are growing more prevalent. National reports in Ireland show a decline in the availability of school chemistry and physics. This observational cohort study considers if the basic sciences of physics, chemistry and biology should be a prerequisite to entering medical school, be part of the core medical curriculum or if they have a place in the practice of medicine. Comparisons of means, correlation and linear regression analysis assessed the degree of association between predictors (school and university basic sciences) and outcomes (year and degree GPA) for entrants to a 6-year Irish medical programme between 2006 and 2009 (n = 352). We found no statistically significant difference in medical programme performance between students with/without prior basic science knowledge. The Irish school exit exam and its components were mainly weak predictors of performance (-0.043 ≥ r ≤ 0.396). Success in year one of medicine, which includes a basic science curriculum, was indicative of later success (0.194 ≥ r (2) ≤ 0.534). University basic sciences were found to be more predictive than school sciences in undergraduate medical performance in our institution. The increasing emphasis of basic sciences in medical practice and the declining availability of school sciences should mandate medical schools in Ireland to consider how removing basic sciences from the curriculum might impact on future applicants.

A Case of Fragmented High School Earth and Space Science Education in the Great Plains: Tracing Teacher Certification Policy to Students' Access

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Elizabeth; Lu, Jia

2017-01-01

Although U.S. high school students' access to Earth and space science (ESS) varies widely from state to state, nationally, ESS content is the most neglected area of science education and scientific literacy. States have been considering whether they will formally adopt, or less formally adapt, the new national science education standards, the Next…

Groundwater science relevant to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement: A status report

Science.gov (United States)

Grannemann, Norman G.; Van Stempvoort, Dale

2016-01-01

When the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) was signed in 1972 by the Governments of Canada and the United States (the “Parties”) (Environment Canada, 2013a), groundwater was not recognized as important to the water quality of the Lakes. At that time, groundwater and surface water were still considered as two separate systems, with almost no appreciation for their interaction. When the GLWQA was revised in 1978 (US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), 2012), groundwater contamination, such as that reported at legacy industrial sites such as those at Love Canal near the Niagara River, was squarely in the news. Consequently, the potential impacts of contaminated groundwater from such sites on Great Lakes water quality became a concern (Beck, 1979), and Annex 16 was added to the agreement, to address “pollution from contaminated groundwater” (Francis, 1989). However, no formal process for reporting under this annex was provided. The GLWQA Protocol in 1987 modified Annex 16 and called for progress reports beginning in 1988 (USEPA, 1988). The Protocol in 2012 provided a new Annex 8 to address groundwater more holistically (Environment 2 Canada, 2013b). Annex 8 (Environment Canada, 2013b) commits the Parties to coordinate groundwater science and management actions; as a first step, to “publish a report on the relevant and available groundwater science” by February 2015 (this report); and to “identify priorities for science activities and actions for groundwater management, protection, and remediation…” The broader mandate of Annex 8 is to (1) “identify groundwater impacts on the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Waters of the Great Lakes;” (2) “analyze contaminants, including nutrients in groundwater, derived from both point and non-point sources impacting the Waters of the Great Lakes;” (3) “assess information gaps and science needs related to groundwater to protect the quality of the Waters of the Great Lakes

The Importance of Accuracy, Stimulating writing, and Relevance in Middle School Science Textbook Writing

Science.gov (United States)

Hubisz, John

2004-05-01

While accuracy in Middle School science texts is most important, the texts should also read well, stimulating the student to want to go on, and the material must be relevant to the subject at hand as the typical student is not yet prepared to ignore that which is irrelevant. We know that children will read if the material is of interest (witness The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter book sales) and so we must write in a way that stimulates the student to want to examine the subject further and eliminate that which adds nothing to the discipline. Examples of the good and the bad will be presented.

Accessing Wireless Sensor Networks Via Dynamically Reconfigurable Interaction Models

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Cecília Gomes

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs technology is already perceived as fundamental for science across many domains, since it provides a low cost solution for environment monitoring. WSNs representation via the service concept and its inclusion in Web environments, e.g. through Web services, supports particularly their open/standard access and integration. Although such Web enabled WSNs simplify data access, network parameterization and aggregation, the existing interaction models and run-time adaptation mechanisms available to clients are still scarce. Nevertheless, applications increasingly demand richer and more flexible accesses besides the traditional client/server. For instance, applications may require a streaming model in order to avoid sequential data requests, or the asynchronous notification of subscribed data through the publish/subscriber. Moreover, the possibility to automatically switch between such models at runtime allows applications to define flexible context-based data acquisition. To this extent, this paper discusses the relevance of the session and pattern abstractions on the design of a middleware prototype providing richer and dynamically reconfigurable interaction models to Web enabled WSNs.

Controlling Access to Suicide Means

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miriam Iosue

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Background: Restricting access to common means of suicide, such as firearms, toxic gas, pesticides and other, has been shown to be effective in reducing rates of death in suicide. In the present review we aimed to summarize the empirical and clinical literature on controlling the access to means of suicide. Methods: This review made use of both MEDLINE, ISI Web of Science and the Cochrane library databases, identifying all English articles with the keywords “suicide means”, “suicide method”, “suicide prediction” or “suicide prevention” and other relevant keywords. Results: A number of factors may influence an individual’s decision regarding method in a suicide act, but there is substantial support that easy access influences the choice of method. In many countries, restrictions of access to common means of suicide has lead to lower overall suicide rates, particularly regarding suicide by firearms in USA, detoxification of domestic and motor vehicle gas in England and other countries, toxic pesticides in rural areas, barriers at jumping sites and hanging, by introducing “safe rooms” in prisons and hospitals. Moreover, decline in prescription of barbiturates and tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs, as well as limitation of drugs pack size for paracetamol and salicylate has reduced suicides by overdose, while increased prescription of SSRIs seems to have lowered suicidal rates. Conclusions: Restriction to means of suicide may be particularly effective in contexts where the method is popular, highly lethal, widely available, and/or not easily substituted by other similar methods. However, since there is some risk of means substitution, restriction of access should be implemented in conjunction with other suicide prevention strategies.

Relevance of Industrial and Science Parks to Industrial ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Here, we reviewed the impact of Industrial and Science Parks on industrial ... and stimulate the development of small and medium size enterprises as a base for ... In order to achieve these, emphasis should be on establishing Industrial and ... transfer, industrial park, Science Park, industrial development, innovation, ...

Scaffolding scientific discussion using socially relevant representations in networked multimedia

Science.gov (United States)

Hoadley, Christopher M.

1999-11-01

How do students make use of social cues when learning on the computer? This work examines how students in a middle-school science course learned through on-line peer discussion. Cognitive accounts of collaboration stress interacting with ideas, while socially situated accounts stress the interpersonal context. The design of electronic environments allows investigation into the interrelation of cognitive and social dimensions. I use on-line peer discussion to investigate how socially relevant representations in interfaces can aid learning. First, I identify some of the variables that affect individual participation in on-line discussion, including interface features. Individual participation is predicted by student attitudes towards learning from peers. Second, I describe the range of group outcomes for these on-line discussions. There is a large effect of discussion group on learning outcomes which is not reducible to group composition or gross measures of group process. Third, I characterize how students (individually) construct understanding from these group discussions. Learning in the on-line discussions is shown to be a result of sustained interaction over time, not merely encountering or expressing ideas. Experimental manipulations in the types of social cues available to students suggest that many students do use socially relevant representations to support their understanding of multiple viewpoints and science reasoning. Personalizing scientific disputes can afford reflection on the nature of scientific discovery and advance. While there are many individual differences in how social representations are used by students in learning, overall learning benefits for certain social representations can be shown. This work has profound implications for design of collaborative instructional methods, equitable access to science learning, design of instructional technology, and understanding of learning and cognition in social settings.

Bridging Theory and Practice: Using Hip-Hop Pedagogy As A Culturally Relevant Approach In The Urban Science Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Adjapong, Edmund S.

This dissertation explores the context of urban science education as it relates to the achievement and engagement of urban youth. This study provides a framework for Hip-Hop Pedagogy, an approach to teaching and learning anchored in the creative elements of Hip-Hop culture, in STEM as an innovative approach to teaching and learning demonstrates the effect that Hip-Hop Pedagogy, as a culturally relevant approach to teaching has on teaching and learning in an urban science classroom. This study establishes practical tools and approaches, which were formed from by theory and research that transcend the traditional monolithic approaches to teaching science. Participants in this study are middle school students who attend an urban school in one of the largest school systems in the country. This research showed that as result of utilizing Hip-Hop pedagogical practices, students reported that they developed a deeper understanding of science content, students were more likely to identify as scientists, and students were provided a space and opportunities to deconstruct traditional classroom spaces and structures.

Creating a Model of Acceptance: Preservice Teachers Interact with Non-English-Speaking Latino Parents Using Culturally Relevant Mathematics and Science Activities at Family Learning Events

Science.gov (United States)

Ramirez, Olga; McCollough, Cherie A.; Diaz, Zulmaris

2016-01-01

The following describes a culturally relevant mathematics and science content program implemented by preservice teachers (PSTs) at Family Math/Science Learning Events (FM/SLEs) conducted through two different university programs in south Texas. These experiences are required course activities designed to inform PSTs of the importance of…

History of Science and Science Museums

Science.gov (United States)

Faria, Cláudia; Guilherme, Elsa; Gaspar, Raquel; Boaventura, Diana

2015-10-01

The activities presented in this paper, which are addressed to elementary school, are focused on the pioneering work of the Portuguese King Carlos I in oceanography and involve the exploration of the exhibits belonging to two different science museums, the Aquarium Vasco da Gama and the Maritime Museum. Students were asked to study fish adaptations to deep sea, through the exploration of a fictional story, based on historical data and based on the work of the King that served as a guiding script for all the subsequent tasks. In both museums, students had access to: historical collections of organisms, oceanographic biological sampling instruments, fish gears and ships. They could also observe the characteristics and adaptations of diverse fish species characteristic of deep sea. The present study aimed to analyse the impact of these activities on students' scientific knowledge, on their understanding of the nature of science and on the development of transversal skills. All students considered the project very popular. The results obtained suggest that the activity promoted not only the understanding of scientific concepts, but also stimulated the development of knowledge about science itself and the construction of scientific knowledge, stressing the relevance of creating activities informed by the history of science. As a final remark we suggest that the partnership between elementary schools and museums should be seen as an educational project, in which the teacher has to assume a key mediating role between the school and the museums.

Data Access, Interoperability and Sustainability: Key Challenges for the Evolution of Science Capabilities

Science.gov (United States)

Walton, A. L.

2015-12-01

In 2016, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will support a portfolio of activities and investments focused upon challenges in data access, interoperability, and sustainability. These topics are fundamental to science questions of increasing complexity that require multidisciplinary approaches and expertise. Progress has become tractable because of (and sometimes complicated by) unprecedented growth in data (both simulations and observations) and rapid advances in technology (such as instrumentation in all aspects of the discovery process, together with ubiquitous cyberinfrastructure to connect, compute, visualize, store, and discover). The goal is an evolution of capabilities for the research community based on these investments, scientific priorities, technology advances, and policies. Examples from multiple NSF directorates, including investments by the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Division, are aimed at these challenges and can provide the geosciences research community with models and opportunities for participation. Implications for the future are highlighted, along with the importance of continued community engagement on key issues.

The policy relevance of global environmental change research

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yarnal, Brent

1996-01-01

Many scientists are striving to identify and promote the policy implications of their global change research. Much basic research on global environmental change cannot advance policy directly, but new projects can determine the relevance of their research to decision makers and build policy-relevant products into the work. Similarly, many ongoing projects can alter or add to the present science design to make the research policy relevant. Thus, this paper shows scientists working on global change how to make their research policy relevant. It demonstrates how research on physical global change relates to human dimensions studies and integrated assessments. It also presents an example of how policy relevance can be fit retroactively into a global change project (in this case, SRBEX-the Susquehanna River Basin Experiment) and how that addition can enhance the project's status and science. The paper concludes that policy relevance is desirable from social and scientific perspectives

Publishing in Open Access Education Journals: The Authors' Perspectives

Science.gov (United States)

Coonin, Bryna; Younce, Leigh M.

2010-01-01

Open access publishing is now an accepted method of scholarly communication. However, the greatest traction for open access publishing thus far has been in the sciences. Penetration of open access publishing has been much slower among the social sciences. This study surveys 309 authors from recent issues of open access journals in education to…

The integration of open access journals in the scholarly communication system: Three science fields

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Faber Frandsen, Tove

2009-01-01

across disciplines. This study is an analysis of the citing behaviour in journals within three science fields: biology, mathematics, and pharmacy and pharmacology. It is a statistical analysis of OAJs as well as non-OAJs including both the citing and cited side of the journal to journal citations......The greatest number of open access journals (OAJs) is found in the sciences and their influence is growing. However, there are only a few studies on the acceptance and thereby integration of these OAJs in the scholarly communication system. Even fewer studies provide insight into the differences....... The multivariate linear regression reveals many similarities in citing behaviour across fields and media. But it also points to great differences in the integration of OAJs. The integration of OAJs in the scholarly communication system varies considerably across fields. The implications for bibliometric research...

An Improved Forensic Science Information Search.

Science.gov (United States)

Teitelbaum, J

2015-01-01

Although thousands of search engines and databases are available online, finding answers to specific forensic science questions can be a challenge even to experienced Internet users. Because there is no central repository for forensic science information, and because of the sheer number of disciplines under the forensic science umbrella, forensic scientists are often unable to locate material that is relevant to their needs. The author contends that using six publicly accessible search engines and databases can produce high-quality search results. The six resources are Google, PubMed, Google Scholar, Google Books, WorldCat, and the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Carefully selected keywords and keyword combinations, designating a keyword phrase so that the search engine will search on the phrase and not individual keywords, and prompting search engines to retrieve PDF files are among the techniques discussed. Copyright © 2015 Central Police University.

A Compositional Relevance Model for Adaptive Information Retrieval

Science.gov (United States)

Mathe, Nathalie; Chen, James; Lu, Henry, Jr. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

There is a growing need for rapid and effective access to information in large electronic documentation systems. Access can be facilitated if information relevant in the current problem solving context can be automatically supplied to the user. This includes information relevant to particular user profiles, tasks being performed, and problems being solved. However most of this knowledge on contextual relevance is not found within the contents of documents, and current hypermedia tools do not provide any easy mechanism to let users add this knowledge to their documents. We propose a compositional relevance network to automatically acquire the context in which previous information was found relevant. The model records information on the relevance of references based on user feedback for specific queries and contexts. It also generalizes such information to derive relevant references for similar queries and contexts. This model lets users filter information by context of relevance, build personalized views of documents over time, and share their views with other users. It also applies to any type of multimedia information. Compared to other approaches, it is less costly and doesn't require any a priori statistical computation, nor an extended training period. It is currently being implemented into the Computer Integrated Documentation system which enables integration of various technical documents in a hypertext framework.

Geosciences: An Open Access Journal on Earth and Planetary Sciences and Their Interdisciplinary Approaches

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jesus Martinez-Frias

2011-05-01

Full Text Available On behalf of the Editorial Board and the editorial management staff of MDPI, it is my great pleasure to introduce this new journal Geosciences. Geosciences is an international, peer-reviewed open access journal, which publishes original papers, rapid communications, technical notes and review articles, and discussions about all interdisciplinary aspects of the earth and planetary sciences. Geosciences may also include papers presented at scientific conferences (proceedings or articles on a well defined topic assembled by individual editors or organizations/institutions (special publications.

Archives: Afrique Science: Revue Internationale des Sciences et ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Items 1 - 31 of 31 ... Archives: Afrique Science: Revue Internationale des Sciences et Technologie. Journal Home > Archives: Afrique Science: Revue Internationale des Sciences et Technologie. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Science during crisis: the application of social science during major environmental crises

Science.gov (United States)

Machlis, Gary; Ludwig, Kris; Manfredo, Michael J.; Vaske, Jerry J.; Rechkemmer, Andreas; Duke, Esther

2014-01-01

Historical and contemporary experience suggests that science plays an increasingly critical role in governmental and institutional responses to major environmental crises. Recent examples include major western wildfires (2009), the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (2010), the Fukushima nuclear accident (2011), and Hurricane Sandy (2012). The application of science during such crises has several distinctive characteristics, as well as essential requirements if it is to be useful to decision makers. these include scope conditions that include coupled natural/human systems, clear statement of uncertainties and limitations, description of cascading consequences, accurate sense of place, estimates of magnitude of impacts, identification of beneficiaries and those adversely affected, clarity and conciseness, compelling visualization and presentation, capacity to speak "truth to power", and direct access to decision makers. In this chapter, we explore the role and significance of science – including all relevant disciplines and focusing attention on the social sciences – in responding to major environmental crises. We explore several important questions: How is science during crisis distinctive? What social science is most useful during crises? What distinctive characteristics are necessary for social science to make meaningful contributions to emergency response and recovery? How might the social sciences be integrated into the strategic science needed to respond to future crises? The authors, both members of the Department of the Interior's innovative Strategic Sciences Group, describe broad principles of engagement as well as specific examples drawn from history, contemporary efforts (such as during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill), and predictions of environmental crises still to be confronted.

Examining data access and use in science

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yan, E.; Zhao, M.

2016-07-01

In this research-in-progress paper, we provide preliminary evidence of data access and use in scientific literature based on a content analysis of 600 stratified sampled PLOS ONE publications. Results show that data access and use varied greatly from one paper to another in terms of how datasets were collected, referenced, and curated. (Author)

Improving Access to NASA Earth Science Data through Collaborative Metadata Curation

Science.gov (United States)

Sisco, A. W.; Bugbee, K.; Shum, D.; Baynes, K.; Dixon, V.; Ramachandran, R.

2017-12-01

The NASA-developed Common Metadata Repository (CMR) is a high-performance metadata system that currently catalogs over 375 million Earth science metadata records. It serves as the authoritative metadata management system of NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), enabling NASA Earth science data to be discovered and accessed by a worldwide user community. The size of the EOSDIS data archive is steadily increasing, and the ability to manage and query this archive depends on the input of high quality metadata to the CMR. Metadata that does not provide adequate descriptive information diminishes the CMR's ability to effectively find and serve data to users. To address this issue, an innovative and collaborative review process is underway to systematically improve the completeness, consistency, and accuracy of metadata for approximately 7,000 data sets archived by NASA's twelve EOSDIS data centers, or Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). The process involves automated and manual metadata assessment of both collection and granule records by a team of Earth science data specialists at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. The team communicates results to DAAC personnel, who then make revisions and reingest improved metadata into the CMR. Implementation of this process relies on a network of interdisciplinary collaborators leveraging a variety of communication platforms and long-range planning strategies. Curating metadata at this scale and resolving metadata issues through community consensus improves the CMR's ability to serve current and future users and also introduces best practices for stewarding the next generation of Earth Observing System data. This presentation will detail the metadata curation process, its outcomes thus far, and also share the status of ongoing curation activities.

A New Open Access Journal of Marine Science and Engineering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anthony S. Clare

2013-03-01

Full Text Available The oceans cover approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface and contain more than 97% of the planet’s water, representing over 100 times more liveable volume than the terrestrial habitat. Approximately fifty percent of the species on the planet occupy this ocean biome, much of which remains unexplored. The health and sustainability of the oceans are threatened by a combination of pressures associated with climate change and the ever-increasing demands we place on them for food, recreation, trade, energy and minerals. The biggest threat, however, is the pace of change to the oceans, e.g., ocean acidification, which is unprecedented in human history. Consequently, there has never been a greater need for the rapid and widespread dissemination of the outcomes of research aimed at improving our understanding of how the oceans work and solutions to their sustainable use. It is our hope that this new online, open-access Journal of Marine Science and Engineering will go some way to fulfilling this need. [...

Globus Identity, Access, and Data Management: Platform Services for Collaborative Science

Science.gov (United States)

Ananthakrishnan, R.; Foster, I.; Wagner, R.

2016-12-01

Globus is software-as-a-service for research data management, developed at, and operated by, the University of Chicago. Globus, accessible at www.globus.org, provides high speed, secure file transfer; file sharing directly from existing storage systems; and data publication to institutional repositories. 40,000 registered users have used Globus to transfer tens of billions of files totaling hundreds of petabytes between more than 10,000 storage systems within campuses and national laboratories in the US and internationally. Web, command line, and REST interfaces support both interactive use and integration into applications and infrastructures. An important component of the Globus system is its foundational identity and access management (IAM) platform service, Globus Auth. Both Globus research data management and other applications use Globus Auth for brokering authentication and authorization interactions between end-users, identity providers, resource servers (services), and a range of clients, including web, mobile, and desktop applications, and other services. Compliant with important standards such as OAuth, OpenID, and SAML, Globus Auth provides mechanisms required for an extensible, integrated ecosystem of services and clients for the research and education community. It underpins projects such as the US National Science Foundation's XSEDE system, NCAR's Research Data Archive, and the DOE Systems Biology Knowledge Base. Current work is extending Globus services to be compliant with FEDRAMP standards for security assessment, authorization, and monitoring for cloud services. We will present Globus IAM solutions and give examples of Globus use in various projects for federated access to resources. We will also describe how Globus Auth and Globus research data management capabilities enable rapid development and low-cost operations of secure data sharing platforms that leverage Globus services and integrate them with local policy and security.

The Limits to Relevance

Science.gov (United States)

Averill, M.; Briggle, A.

2006-12-01

Science policy and knowledge production lately have taken a pragmatic turn. Funding agencies increasingly are requiring scientists to explain the relevance of their work to society. This stems in part from mounting critiques of the "linear model" of knowledge production in which scientists operating according to their own interests or disciplinary standards are presumed to automatically produce knowledge that is of relevance outside of their narrow communities. Many contend that funded scientific research should be linked more directly to societal goals, which implies a shift in the kind of research that will be funded. While both authors support the concept of useful science, we question the exact meaning of "relevance" and the wisdom of allowing it to control research agendas. We hope to contribute to the conversation by thinking more critically about the meaning and limits of the term "relevance" and the trade-offs implicit in a narrow utilitarian approach. The paper will consider which interests tend to be privileged by an emphasis on relevance and address issues such as whose goals ought to be pursued and why, and who gets to decide. We will consider how relevance, narrowly construed, may actually limit the ultimate utility of scientific research. The paper also will reflect on the worthiness of research goals themselves and their relationship to a broader view of what it means to be human and to live in society. Just as there is more to being human than the pragmatic demands of daily life, there is more at issue with knowledge production than finding the most efficient ways to satisfy consumer preferences or fix near-term policy problems. We will conclude by calling for a balanced approach to funding research that addresses society's most pressing needs but also supports innovative research with less immediately apparent application.

The Cluster Science Archive and its relevance for multi-missions data analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Masson, A.; Escoubet, C. P.; Laakso, H. E.; Perry, C. H.

2014-12-01

The science data archive of the Cluster mission is a major contribution of the European Space Agency (ESA) to the International Living With a Star program. Known as the Cluster Active Archive (CAA), its availability since 2006 has resulted in a significant increase of the scientific return of this on-going mission. The Cluster science archive (CSA) has been developed in parallel to CAA over the last few years at the European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC) in Madrid, Spain. It is the long-term science archive of the Cluster mission, developed and managed along with all the other ESA science archives. Publicly opened in November 2013, CSA is available in parallel with CAA during a transition period until CAA public closing in early autumn 2014. Our goal here is to present what has been put in place to help geophysicists in their research. We will first talk about some aspects of the CSA user interface (data visualization including particle distribution; user data profiles) and how users can access data remotely (data streaming in Matlab, or via IDL or Python). The second goal is to present unique value added datasets that are now available on the CSA/CAA. These data have been produced by the scientific community, thanks to two EU FP7 projects: ECLAT and MAARBLE. For instance, the polarization and propagation parameters of ULF Pc waves measured by Cluster and Themis (since 2007) are available and cover more than a decade; along with magnetic spectra of Pc waves measured simultaneously by CHAMP and ground-based magnetometers. These data are clearly an outstanding data resource for low frequency waves researchers. Other datasets will be presented to show that CSA/CAA allow much more than downloading Cluster data from a graphical user interface. It's a single point entry that allows studies from micro-scale physics in the tail (e.g. catalogues of dipolarization fronts), to meso- and large-scale M-I coupling studies (e.g. Cluster magnetic footprints based on T96 and TS05

Review: To be or not to be an identifiable model. Is this a relevant question in animal science modelling?

Science.gov (United States)

Muñoz-Tamayo, R; Puillet, L; Daniel, J B; Sauvant, D; Martin, O; Taghipoor, M; Blavy, P

2018-04-01

What is a good (useful) mathematical model in animal science? For models constructed for prediction purposes, the question of model adequacy (usefulness) has been traditionally tackled by statistical analysis applied to observed experimental data relative to model-predicted variables. However, little attention has been paid to analytic tools that exploit the mathematical properties of the model equations. For example, in the context of model calibration, before attempting a numerical estimation of the model parameters, we might want to know if we have any chance of success in estimating a unique best value of the model parameters from available measurements. This question of uniqueness is referred to as structural identifiability; a mathematical property that is defined on the sole basis of the model structure within a hypothetical ideal experiment determined by a setting of model inputs (stimuli) and observable variables (measurements). Structural identifiability analysis applied to dynamic models described by ordinary differential equations (ODEs) is a common practice in control engineering and system identification. This analysis demands mathematical technicalities that are beyond the academic background of animal science, which might explain the lack of pervasiveness of identifiability analysis in animal science modelling. To fill this gap, in this paper we address the analysis of structural identifiability from a practitioner perspective by capitalizing on the use of dedicated software tools. Our objectives are (i) to provide a comprehensive explanation of the structural identifiability notion for the community of animal science modelling, (ii) to assess the relevance of identifiability analysis in animal science modelling and (iii) to motivate the community to use identifiability analysis in the modelling practice (when the identifiability question is relevant). We focus our study on ODE models. By using illustrative examples that include published

elevatr: Access Elevation Data from Various APIs | Science ...

Science.gov (United States)

Several web services are available that provide access to elevation data. This package provides access to several of those services and returns elevation data either as a SpatialPointsDataFrame from point elevation services or as a raster object from raster elevation services. Currently, the package supports access to the Mapzen Elevation Service, Mapzen Terrain Service, and the USGS Elevation Point Query Service. The R language for statistical computing is increasingly used for spatial data analysis . This R package, elevatr, is in response to this and provides access to elevation data from various sources directly in R. The impact of `elevatr` is that it will 1) facilitate spatial analysis in R by providing access to foundational dataset for many types of analyses (e.g. hydrology, limnology) 2) open up a new set of users and uses for APIs widely used outside of R, and 3) provide an excellent example federal open source development as promoted by the Federal Source Code Policy (https://sourcecode.cio.gov/).

Tenure-Track Science Faculty and the 'Open Access Citation Effect'

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Christopher Doty

2013-02-01

Full Text Available INTRODUCTION The observation that open access (OA articles receive more citations than subscription-based articles is known as the OA citation effect (OACE. Implicit in many OACE studies is the belief that authors are heavily invested in the number of citations their articles receive. This study seeks to determine what influence the OACE has on the decision-making process of tenure-track science faculty when they consider where to submit a manuscript for publication. METHODS Fifteen tenure-track faculty members in the Departments of Biology and Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill participated in semi-structured interviews employing a variation of the critical incident tecnique. RESULTS Seven of the fifteen faculty members said they would consider making a future article freely-available based on the OACE. Due to dramatically different expectations with respect to the size of the OACE, however, only one of them is likely to seriously consider the OACE when deciding where to submit their next manuscript for publication. DISCUSSION Journal reputation and audience, and the quality of the editorial and review process are the most important factors in deciding where to submit a manuscript for publication. Once a subset of journals has satisfied these criteria, financial and access issues compete with the OACE in making a final decision. CONCLUSION In order to increase the number of OA materials, librarians should continue to emphasize depositing pre- and post-prints in disciplinary and institutional repositories and retaining the author rights prior to publication in order to make it possible to do so.

Improving Industry-Relevant Nuclear-Knowledge Development through Special Partnerships

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cilliers, A.

2016-01-01

Full text: South African Network for Nuclear Education Science and Technology (SAN NEST) has the objective to develop the nuclear education system in South Africa to a point where suitably qualified and experienced nuclear personnel employed by nuclear science and technology programmes in South Africa are predominantly produced by the South African education system. This is done to strengthen the nuclear science and technology education programmes to better meet future demands in terms of quality, capacity and relevance. To ensure sustainable relevance, it is important to develop special partnerships with industry. This paper describes unique partnerships that were developed with nuclear industry partners. The success of these partnerships has ensured more industry partners to embrace the model which has proven to develop relevant knowledge, support research and provide innovative solutions for industry. (author

Free access to science

CERN Multimedia

2003-01-01

Several influential American scientists have begun to argue that the cost of research publications has grown so large that it impedes the distribution of knowledge. Some subscriptions cost thousands of dollars per year, and those journals are usually available online only to subscribers. So a coalition led by Harold Varmus, the former director of the National Institutes of Health, is creating a new model, called the Public Library of Science (1/2 page).

Research and Science Today Supplement No. 3/2015

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adriana BUTCOVAN

2015-07-01

Full Text Available RESEARCH AND SCIENCE TODAY is a biannual science journal established in 2011. The journal is an informational platform that publishes assessment articles and the results of various scientific research carried out by academics. We provide the authors with the opportunity to create and/or perfect their science writing skills. Thus, each issue of the journal (two per year and at least two supplements will contain professional articles from any academic field, authored by domestic and international academics. The goal of this journal is to pass on relevant information to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as to fellow academics and researchers; the topics covered are unlimited, considering its multi-disciplinary profile. Regarding the national and international visibility of Research and Science Today, it is indexed in over 30 international databases (IDB and is present in over 200 online libraries and catalogues; therefore, anybody can easily consult the articles featured in each issue by accessing the databases or simply the website.

Research and Science Today No. 2(4/2012

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

VĂIDEAN Amelia-Liana

2012-11-01

Full Text Available RESEARCH AND SCIENCE TODAY is a biannual science journal established in 2011. The journal is an informational platform that publishes assessment articles and the results of various scientific research carried out by academics. We provide the authors with the opportunity to create and/or perfect their science writing skills. Thus, each issue of the journal (two per year and at least two supplements will contain professional articles from any academic field, authored by domestic and international academics. The goal of this journal is to pass on relevant information to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as to fellow academics and researchers; the topics covered are unlimited, considering its multi-disciplinary profile. Regarding the national and international visibility of Research and Science Today, it is indexed in over 30 international databases (IDB and is present in over 200 online libraries and catalogues; therefore, anybody can easily consult the articles featured in each issue by accessing the databases or simply the website.

Research and Science Today Supplement No. 1/2014

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elena-Steluţa DINU

2014-07-01

Full Text Available RESEARCH AND SCIENCE TODAY is a biannual science journal established in 2011. The journal is an informational platform that publishes assessment articles and the results of various scientific research carried out by academics. We provide the authors with the opportunity to create and/or perfect their science writing skills. Thus, each issue of the journal (two per year and at least two supplements will contain professional articles from any academic field, authored by domestic and international academics. The goal of this journal is to pass on relevant information to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as to fellow academics and researchers; the topics covered are unlimited, considering its multi-disciplinary profile. Regarding the national and international visibility of Research and Science Today, it is indexed in over 30 international databases (IDB and is present in over 200 online libraries and catalogues; therefore, anybody can easily consult the articles featured in each issue by accessing the databases or simply the website.

Research and Science Today Supplement No. 2/2015

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tudor Cosmin CIOCAN

2015-04-01

Full Text Available RESEARCH AND SCIENCE TODAY is a biannual science journal established in 2011. The journal is an informational platform that publishes assessment articles and the results of various scientific research carried out by academics. We provide the authors with the opportunity to create and/or perfect their science writing skills. Thus, each issue of the journal (two per year and at least two supplements will contain professional articles from any academic field, authored by domestic and international academics. The goal of this journal is to pass on relevant information to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as to fellow academics and researchers; the topics covered are unlimited, considering its multi-disciplinary profile. Regarding the national and international visibility of Research and Science Today, it is indexed in over 30 international databases (IDB and is present in over 200 online libraries and catalogues; therefore, anybody can easily consult the articles featured in each issue by accessing the databases or simply the website.

Research and Science Today Supplement No. 1/2016

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana-Maria ADĂSCĂLIȚEI

2016-08-01

Full Text Available RESEARCH AND SCIENCE TODAY is a biannual science journal established in 2011. The journal is an informational platform that publishes assessment articles and the results of various scientific research carried out by academics. We provide the authors with the opportunity to create and/or perfect their science writing skills. Thus, each issue of the journal (two per year and at least two supplements will contain professional articles from any academic field, authored by domestic and international academics. The goal of this journal is to pass on relevant information to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as to fellow academics and researchers; the topics covered are unlimited, considering its multi-disciplinary profile. Regarding the national and international visibility of Research and Science Today, it is indexed in over 30 international databases (IDB and is present in over 200 online libraries and catalogues; therefore, anybody can easily consult the articles featured in each issue by accessing the databases or simply the website.

Research and Science Today No. 2(2/2011

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adriana Rodica MUREŞAN

2011-12-01

Full Text Available RESEARCH AND SCIENCE TODAY is a biannual science journal established in 2011. The journal is an informational platform that publishes assessment articles and the results of various scientific research carried out by academics. We provide the authors with the opportunity to create and/or perfect their science writing skills. Thus, each issue of the journal (two per year and at least two supplements will contain professional articles from any academic field, authored by domestic and international academics. The goal of this journal is to pass on relevant information to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as to fellow academics and researchers; the topics covered are unlimited, considering its multi-disciplinary profile. Regarding the national and international visibility of Research and Science Today, it is indexed in over 30 international databases (IDB and is present in over 200 online libraries and catalogues; therefore, anybody can easily consult the articles featured in each issue by accessing the databases or simply the website.

Research and Science Today Supplement No. 1/2015

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adrian Todor

2015-01-01

Full Text Available RESEARCH AND SCIENCE TODAY is a biannual science journal established in 2011. The journal is an informational platform that publishes assessment articles and the results of various scientific research carried out by academics. We provide the authors with the opportunity to create and/or perfect their science writing skills. Thus, each issue of the journal (two per year and at least two supplements will contain professional articles from any academic field, authored by domestic and international academics. The goal of this journal is to pass on relevant information to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as to fellow academics and researchers; the topics covered are unlimited, considering its multi-disciplinary profile. Regarding the national and international visibility of Research and Science Today, it is indexed in over 30 international databases (IDB and is present in over 200 online libraries and catalogues; therefore, anybody can easily consult the articles featured in each issue by accessing the databases or simply the website.

Research and Science Today No. 1(1/2011

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandra DRĂGHICI

2011-09-01

Full Text Available RESEARCH AND SCIENCE TODAY is a biannual science journal established in 2011. The journal is an informational platform that publishes assessment articles and the results of various scientific research carried out by academics. We provide the authors with the opportunity to create and/or perfect their science writing skills. Thus, each issue of the journal (two per year and at least two supplements will contain professional articles from any academic field, authored by domestic and international academics. The goal of this journal is to pass on relevant information to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students as well as to fellow academics and researchers; the topics covered are unlimited, considering its multi-disciplinary profile. Regarding the national and international visibility of Research and Science Today, it is indexed in over 30 international databases (IDB and is present in over 200 online libraries and catalogues; therefore, anybody can easily consult the articles featured in each issue by accessing the databases or simply the website.

Open Access von A bis Z

OpenAIRE

Stieg, Kerstin; Pavlovic, Karlo

2012-01-01

The glossary „Open Access from A to Z“ comprises essential key terms on Open Access such as arXiv, The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), Creative Commons (CC), the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), the EU project Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research (DRIVER), the Finch Report,...

What can Citizen Science do for Ocean Science and Ocean Scientists?

Science.gov (United States)

Best, M.; Hoeberechts, M.; Mangin, A.; Oggioni, A.; Orcutt, J. A.; Parrish, J.; Pearlman, J.; Piera, J.; Tagliolato, P.

2016-12-01

The ocean represents over 70% of our planet's surface area, over 90% of the living space. Humans are not marine creatures, we therefore have fundamentally not built up knowledge of the ocean in the same way we have on land. The more we learn about the ocean, the more we understand it is the regulatory engine of our planet…How do we catch up? Answers to this question will need to come from many quarters; A powerful and strategic option to complement existing observation programs and infrastructure is Citizen Science. There has been significant and relevant discussion of the importance of Citizen Science to citizens and stakeholders. The missing effective question is sometimes what is the potential of citizen science for scientists? The answers for both scientists and society are: spatial coverage, remote locations, temporal coverage, event response, early detection of harmful processes, sufficient data volume for statistical analysis and identification of outliers, integrating local knowledge, data access in exchange for analysis (e.g. with industry) and cost-effective monitoring systems. Citizens can be involved in: instrument manufacture and maintenance, instrument deployment/sample collection, data collection and transmission, data analysis, data validation/verification, and proposals of new topics of research. Such opportunities are balanced by concern on the part of scientists about the quality, the consistency and the reliability of citizen observations and analyses. Experience working with citizen science groups continues to suggest that with proper training and mentoring, these issues can be addressed, understanding both benefits and limitations. How to do it- implementation and maintenance of citizen science: How to recruit, engage, train, and maintain Citizen Scientists. Data systems for acquisition, assessment, access, analysis, and visualisation of distributed data sources. Tools/methods for acquiring observations: Simple instruments, Smartphone Apps

Research Opportunities in Corrosion Science for Long-Term Prediction of Materials Performance: A Report of the DOE Workshop on ''Corrosion Issues of Relevance to the Yucca Mountain Waste Repository''

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Payer, Joe H.; Scully, John R.

2003-01-01

The report summarizes the findings of a U.S. Department of Energy workshop on ''Corrosion Issues of Relevance to the Yucca Mountain Waste Repository''. The workshop was held on July 29-30, 2003 in Bethesda, MD, and was co-sponsored by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences and Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. The workshop focus was corrosion science relevant to long-term prediction of materials performance in hostile environments, with special focus on relevance to the permanent disposal of nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain Repository. The culmination of the workshop is this report that identifies both generic and Yucca Mountain Project-specific research opportunities in basic and applied topic areas. The research opportunities would be realized well after the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's initial construction-authorization licensing process. At the workshop, twenty-three invited scientists deliberated on basic and applied science opportunities in corrosion science relevant to long-term prediction of damage accumulation by corrosive processes that affect materials performance.

ICSU and the Challanges of Data and Information Management for International Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Fox

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The International Council for Science (ICSU vision explicitly recognises the value of data and information to science and particularly emphasises the urgent requirement for universal and equitable access to high quality scientific data and information. A universal public domain for scientific data and information will be transformative for both science and society. Over the last several years, two ad-hoc ICSU committees, the Strategic Committee on Information and Data (SCID and the Strategic Coordinating Committee on Information and Data (SCCID, produced key reports that make 5 and 14 recommendations respectively aimed at improving universal and equitable access to data and information for science and providing direction for key international scientific bodies, such as the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA as well as a newly ratified (by ICSU in 2008 formation of the World Data System. This contribution outlines the framing context for both committees based on the changed world scene for scientific data conduct in the 21st century. We include details on the relevant recommendations and important consequences for the worldwide community of data providers and consumers, ultimately leading to a conclusion, and avenues for advancement that must be carried to the many thousands of data scientists world-wide.

A National Study of the Relationship between Home Access to a Computer and Academic Performance Scores of Grade 12 U.S. Science Students: An Analysis of the 2009 NAEP Data

Science.gov (United States)

Coffman, Mitchell Ward

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the relationship between student access to a computer at home and academic achievement. The 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) dataset was probed using the National Data Explorer (NDE) to investigate correlations in the subsets of SES, Parental Education, Race, and Gender as it relates to access of a home computer and improved performance scores for U.S. public school grade 12 science students. A causal-comparative approach was employed seeking clarity on the relationship between home access and performance scores. The influence of home access cannot overcome the challenges students of lower SES face. The achievement gap, or a second digital divide, for underprivileged classes of students, including minorities does not appear to contract via student access to a home computer. Nonetheless, in tests for significance, statistically significant improvement in science performance scores was reported for those having access to a computer at home compared to those not having access. Additionally, regression models reported evidence of correlations between and among subsets of controls for the demographic factors gender, race, and socioeconomic status. Variability in these correlations was high; suggesting influence from unobserved factors may have more impact upon the dependent variable. Having access to a computer at home increases performance scores for grade 12 general science students of all races, genders and socioeconomic levels. However, the performance gap is roughly equivalent to the existing performance gap of the national average for science scores, suggesting little influence from access to a computer on academic achievement. The variability of scores reported in the regression analysis models reflects a moderate to low effect, suggesting an absence of causation. These statistical results are accurate and confirm the literature review, whereby having access to a computer at home and the

[Self-archiving of biomedical papers in open access repositories].

Science.gov (United States)

Abad-García, M Francisca; Melero, Remedios; Abadal, Ernest; González-Teruel, Aurora

2010-04-01

Open-access literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Self-archiving or deposit of scholarly outputs in institutional repositories (open-access green route) is increasingly present in the activities of the scientific community. Besides the benefits of open access for visibility and dissemination of science, it is increasingly more often required by funding agencies to deposit papers and any other type of documents in repositories. In the biomedical environment this is even more relevant by the impact scientific literature can have on public health. However, to make self-archiving feasible, authors should be aware of its meaning and the terms in which they are allowed to archive their works. In that sense, there are some tools like Sherpa/RoMEO or DULCINEA (both directories of copyright licences of scientific journals at different levels) to find out what rights are retained by authors when they publish a paper and if they allow to implement self-archiving. PubMed Central and its British and Canadian counterparts are the main thematic repositories for biomedical fields. In our country there is none of similar nature, but most of the universities and CSIC, have already created their own institutional repositories. The increase in visibility of research results and their impact on a greater and earlier citation is one of the most frequently advance of open access, but removal of economic barriers to access to information is also a benefit to break borders between groups.

Lowering the barriers for accessing distributed geospatial big data to advance spatial data science: the PolarHub solution

Science.gov (United States)

Li, W.

2017-12-01

Data is the crux of science. The widespread availability of big data today is of particular importance for fostering new forms of geospatial innovation. This paper reports a state-of-the-art solution that addresses a key cyberinfrastructure research problem—providing ready access to big, distributed geospatial data resources on the Web. We first formulate this data-access problem and introduce its indispensable elements, including identifying the cyber-location, space and time coverage, theme, and quality of the dataset. We then propose strategies to tackle each data-access issue and make the data more discoverable and usable for geospatial data users and decision makers. Among these strategies is large-scale web crawling as a key technique to support automatic collection of online geospatial data that are highly distributed, intrinsically heterogeneous, and known to be dynamic. To better understand the content and scientific meanings of the data, methods including space-time filtering, ontology-based thematic classification, and service quality evaluation are incorporated. To serve a broad scientific user community, these techniques are integrated into an operational data crawling system, PolarHub, which is also an important cyberinfrastructure building block to support effective data discovery. A series of experiments were conducted to demonstrate the outstanding performance of the PolarHub system. We expect this work to contribute significantly in building the theoretical and methodological foundation for data-driven geography and the emerging spatial data science.

Explainers' development of science-learner identities through participation in a community of practice

Science.gov (United States)

Richardson, Anne E.

The urgent environmental issues of today require science-literate adults to engage in business and political decisions to create solutions. Despite the need, few adults have the knowledge and skills of science literacy. This doctoral dissertation is an analytical case study examining the science-learner identity development of Exploratorium Field Trip Explainers. Located in San Francisco, CA, the Exploratorium is a museum of science, art, and human perception dedicated to nurturing curiosity and exploration. Data collected included semi-structured interviews with sixteen former Field Trip Explainers, participant observation of the current Field Trip Explainer Program, and review of relevant documentation. Data analysis employed constant comparative analysis, guided by the communities of practice theoretical framework (Wenger, 1998) and the National Research Council's (2009) Six Strands of Science Learning. Findings of this research indicate that Exploratorium Field Trip Explainers participate in a community of practice made up of a diverse group of people that values curiosity and openness to multiple ways of learning. Many participants entered the Field Trip Explainer Program with an understanding of science learning as a rigid process reserved for a select group of people; through participation in the Field Trip Explainer community of practice, participants developed an understanding of science learning as accessible and a part of everyday life. The findings of this case study have implications for research, theory, and practice in informal adult science learning, access of non-dominant groups to science learning, and adult workplace learning in communities of practice.

Is Information Still Relevant?

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Lia

2013-01-01

Introduction: The term "information" in information science does not share the characteristics of those of a nomenclature: it does not bear a generally accepted definition and it does not serve as the bases and assumptions for research studies. As the data deluge has arrived, is the concept of information still relevant for information…

Navigating the science-policy spectrum: Opportunities to work on policies related to your research

Science.gov (United States)

Licker, R.; Ekwurzel, B.; Goldman, G. T.; DeLonge, M. S.

2017-12-01

Many scientists conduct research with direct policy relevance, whether it be producing sea-level projections that are taken-up by local decision-makers, or developing new agricultural technologies. All scientists are affected by policies made by their respective local, regional, and federal governments. For example, budgets affect the grant resources available to conduct research and policies on visas influence the accessibility of new positions for foreign scientists. As a result, many scientists would like to engage with the policy domain, and either bring their science to bear on new policies that are in the works (science-for-policy) or inform policies on the scientific research enterprise (policy-for-science). Some scientists prefer to engage and be neutral to the policy outcome, serving primarily as an information resource. Many may choose to also advocate for a particular outcome based on their expertise and experience. Research shows that policy decisions benefit greatly from the input of scientific experts. We explore the spectrum between informing policies in a "non-prescriptive" manner to working on policies in an advocacy space. We highlight tips for successful engagement along this spectrum. Finally, we review current science-for-policy and policy-for-science issues of relevance to the geophysical sciences.

Android Smartphone Relevance to Military Weather Applications

Science.gov (United States)

2011-10-01

lithium -ion battery that may be replaced by the user (unlike Apple iPod Touch devices), thus spare batteries can be carried. If there is only sporadic...Android Smartphone Relevance to Military Weather Applications by David Sauter ARL-TR-5793 October 2011...Android Smartphone Relevance to Military Weather Applications David Sauter Computational and Information Sciences Directorate, ARL

El acceso a VacciMonitor puede hacerse a través de la Web of Science / Accessing VacciMonitor by the Web of Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Francisco Arencibia-Arrebola

2015-01-01

Full Text Available VacciMonitor has gradually increased its visibility by access to different databases. Thus, it was introduced in the project SciELO, EBSCO, HINARI, Redalyc, SCOPUS, DOAJ, SICC Data Bases, SeCiMed, among almost thirty well-known index sites, including the virtual libraries of the main universities from United States of America and other countries. Through an agreement SciELO-Web of Science (WoS it will be possible to include the journals that are indexed in SciELO in the WoS, however this collaboration work is already presenting its outcomes, it is possible to access the content of SciELO by WoS in the link: http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinar y/scielo/ WoS was designed by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI and it is one of the products of the pack ISI Web of Knowledge, currently property of Thomson Reuters (1. WoS is a service of citation index and databases, worldwide on-line leader with multidisciplinary information covering the knowledge fields of sciences in general, social sciences as well as arts and humanities with more than 46 million of bibliographical references and other hundreds of citations, that made possible navigation in the broad web of journal articles, lecture materials and other registers included in its collection (1. The logic of the functioning of WoS is based on quantitative criteria, since a bigger production demonstrates a greater number of registered papers in most recognized Journals and to what extend these papers are cited by these journals (2. The information obtained from WoS databases are very useful to address efforts of scientific research to a personal, institutional or national level. Scientists publishing in WoS journals not only produce more scientific literature but also this literature is more consulted and used (3. However, it should be considered that statistics of this site for the bibliometric analysis only take into account those journals in this web, but contains three

Guidelines for Using Movement Science to Inform Biodiversity Policy

Science.gov (United States)

Barton, Philip S.; Lentini, Pia E.; Alacs, Erika; Bau, Sana; Buckley, Yvonne M.; Burns, Emma L.; Driscoll, Don A.; Guja, Lydia K.; Kujala, Heini; Lahoz-Monfort, José J.; Mortelliti, Alessio; Nathan, Ran; Rowe, Ross; Smith, Annabel L.

2015-10-01

Substantial advances have been made in our understanding of the movement of species, including processes such as dispersal and migration. This knowledge has the potential to improve decisions about biodiversity policy and management, but it can be difficult for decision makers to readily access and integrate the growing body of movement science. This is, in part, due to a lack of synthesis of information that is sufficiently contextualized for a policy audience. Here, we identify key species movement concepts, including mechanisms, types, and moderators of movement, and review their relevance to (1) national biodiversity policies and strategies, (2) reserve planning and management, (3) threatened species protection and recovery, (4) impact and risk assessments, and (5) the prioritization of restoration actions. Based on the review, and considering recent developments in movement ecology, we provide a new framework that draws links between aspects of movement knowledge that are likely the most relevant to each biodiversity policy category. Our framework also shows that there is substantial opportunity for collaboration between researchers and government decision makers in the use of movement science to promote positive biodiversity outcomes.

Guidelines for Using Movement Science to Inform Biodiversity Policy.

Science.gov (United States)

Barton, Philip S; Lentini, Pia E; Alacs, Erika; Bau, Sana; Buckley, Yvonne M; Burns, Emma L; Driscoll, Don A; Guja, Lydia K; Kujala, Heini; Lahoz-Monfort, José J; Mortelliti, Alessio; Nathan, Ran; Rowe, Ross; Smith, Annabel L

2015-10-01

Substantial advances have been made in our understanding of the movement of species, including processes such as dispersal and migration. This knowledge has the potential to improve decisions about biodiversity policy and management, but it can be difficult for decision makers to readily access and integrate the growing body of movement science. This is, in part, due to a lack of synthesis of information that is sufficiently contextualized for a policy audience. Here, we identify key species movement concepts, including mechanisms, types, and moderators of movement, and review their relevance to (1) national biodiversity policies and strategies, (2) reserve planning and management, (3) threatened species protection and recovery, (4) impact and risk assessments, and (5) the prioritization of restoration actions. Based on the review, and considering recent developments in movement ecology, we provide a new framework that draws links between aspects of movement knowledge that are likely the most relevant to each biodiversity policy category. Our framework also shows that there is substantial opportunity for collaboration between researchers and government decision makers in the use of movement science to promote positive biodiversity outcomes.

IV access in dental practice.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Fitzpatrick, J J

2009-04-01

Intravenous (IV) access is a valuable skill for dental practitioners in emergency situations and in IV sedation. However, many people feel some apprehension about performing this procedure. This article explains the basic principles behind IV access, and the relevant anatomy and physiology, as well as giving a step-by-step guide to placing an IV cannula.

INDEXING OF MAPING SCIENCE JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jadranka Stojanovski

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Bibliometric analyses based on citations are most often at the forefront where scientific publications are concerned. A fact often neglected is that the visibility and availability of scientific publications are basic prerequisites for future reading, citation and influence. Journal visibility can be significantly improved by providing open access and availability through popular online databases. In this study, we investigated 112 mapping science journals to determine the visibility of scientific publications in a smaller interdisciplinary field. In addition to other data, we collected data on open access, indexing, subject areas within the Web of Science and Scopus bibliographic databases and the number of journals in these databases. The coverage of mapping science journals in 14 bibliographic databases was analyzed. Only 11% of the titles from the journals analyzed were indexed in 10 or more databases. Google Scholar, Scopus, Bibliotheca Cartographica and GEOBASE include most mapping science journals, while only 19 are included in Web of Science. A comparison indicates more thorough coverage of an individual journal in Web of Science than in Scopus. Only a few mapping science journals appear in the Directory of Open Access Journals, despite the large number of open access mapping science journals available. Adding subject categories within databases does not facilitate finding mapping science journals, which are dispersed among numerous, mostly inadequate categories in the Web of Science and Scopus databases.

The Dissemination of Science and Science Journalism in Brazilian Universities: Analyzing Strategies that Facilitate Access to Science & Technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giuliana Batista Rodrigues de Queiroz

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This article is a mapping of Brazilian universities that maintain a structured work for Science Journalism and / or the dissemination of science. It analyses the strategies used by the top 50 Brazilian universities for including dissemination of science in their communication activities. In order to do this each institution’s website was examined for the purpose of collecting a large sample size of universities that organize and prioritize the dissemination of science and science journalism, and make their studies and projects available to the public. The dissemination of science is a priority for only 15 universities; ones that have structured science journalism programs. 11 of these universities are among the top 25 in the country which indicates that there is a direct relationship between academic quality and dissemination of science. Thus, this study lends to a deeper understanding of the field of science journalism.

An Investigation of the Effects of Authentic Science Experiences Among Urban High School Students

Science.gov (United States)

Chapman, Angela

Providing equitable learning opportunities for all students has been a persistent issue for some time. This is evident by the science achievement gap that still exists between male and female students as well as between White and many non-White student populations (NCES, 2007, 2009, 2009b) and an underrepresentation of female, African-American, Hispanic, and Native Americans in many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related careers (NCES, 2009b). In addition to gender and ethnicity, socioeconomic status and linguistic differences are also factors that can marginalize students in the science classroom. One factor attributed to the achievement gap and low participation in STEM career is equitable access to resources including textbooks, laboratory equipment, qualified science teachers, and type of instruction. Extensive literature supports authentic science as one way of improving science learning. However, the majority of students do not have access to this type of resource. Additionally, extensive literature posits that culturally relevant pedagogy is one way of improving education. This study examines students' participation in an authentic science experience and argues that this is one way of providing culturally relevant pedagogy in science classrooms. The purpose of this study was to better understand how marginalized students were affected by their participation in an authentic science experience, within the context of an algae biofuel project. Accordingly, an interpretivist approach was taken. Data were collected from pre/post surveys and tests, semi-structured interviews, student journals, and classroom observations. Data analysis used a mixed methods approach. The data from this study were analyzed to better understand whether students perceived the experience to be one of authentic science, as well as how students science identities, perceptions about who can do science, attitudes toward science, and learning of science practices

Science in the General Educational Development (GED) curriculum: Analyzing the science portion of GED programs and exploring adult students' attitudes toward science

Science.gov (United States)

Hariharan, Joya Reena

The General Educational Development (GED) tests enable people to earn a high school equivalency diploma and help them to qualify for more jobs and opportunities. Apart from this main goal, GED courses aim at enabling adults to improve the condition of their lives and to cope with a changing society. In today's world, science and technology play an exceedingly important role in helping people better their lives and in promoting the national goals of informed citizenship. Despite the current efforts in the field of secondary science education directed towards scientific literacy and the concept of "Science for all Americans", the literature does not reflect any corresponding efforts in the field of adult education. Science education research appears to have neglected a population that could possibly benefit from it. The purpose of this study is to explore: the science component of GED programs, significant features of the science portion of GED curricula and GED science materials, and adult learners' attitudes toward various aspects of science. Data collection methods included interviews with GED students and instructors, content analysis of relevant materials, and classroom observations. Data indicate that the students in general feel that the science they learn should be relevant to their lives and have direct applications in everyday life. Student understanding of science and interest in it appears to be contingent to their perceiving it as relevant to their lives and to society. Findings indicate that the instructional approaches used in GED programs influence students' perceptions about the relevance of science. Students in sites that use strategies such as group discussions and field trips appear to be more aware of science in the world around them and more enthusiastic about increasing this awareness. However, the dominant strategy in most GED programs is individual reading. The educational strategies used in GED programs generally focus on developing reading

Challenges with participant reimbursement: experiences from a post-trial access study.

Science.gov (United States)

Mngadi, Kathryn Therese; Frohlich, Janet; Montague, Carl; Singh, Jerome; Nkomonde, Nelisiwe; Mvandaba, Nomzamo; Ntombeka, Fanelesibonge; Luthuli, Londiwe; Abdool Karim, Quarraisha; Mansoor, Leila

2015-11-01

Reimbursement of trial participants remains a frequently debated issue, with specific guidance lacking. Trials combining post-trial access and implementation science may necessitate new strategies and models. CAPRISA 008, a post-trial access study testing the feasibility of using family planning services to rollout a prelicensure HIV prevention intervention, tried to balance the real-life scenario of no reimbursement for attendance at public sector clinics with that of a trial including some visits that focused on research procedures and others that focused on standard of care procedures. A reduced reimbursement was offered for 'standard of care' visits, meant primarily to cover transport costs to and from the clinic only. This impacted negatively on accrual, retention and participant morale, primarily due to the protracted delay in regulatory approval, during which time, the costs of living, including travel costs had increased. Relevant guidelines were reviewed and institutional policy was updated to incorporate the South African National Health Research Ethics Committee guidelines on reimbursement (taking into account participant time, travel and inconvenience). The reimbursement amount for 'standard of care' visits was increased accordingly. The question remains whether a trial that combines post-trial access with implementation science, with clear benefits for the participants and the provision of above standard medical care, should have reimbursement rates that approach those of a proof-of-concept trial, for 'standard of care' visits. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

Self Reflections of Undergraduate Students on Using Web-Supported Counterintuitive Science Demonstrations

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, David Devraj; Dunn, Jessica

2018-03-01

Analysis of self-reflections of undergraduate education students in a project involving web-supported counterintuitive science demonstrations is reported in this paper. Participating students (N = 19) taught science with counterintuitive demonstrations in local elementary school classrooms and used web-based resources accessed via wireless USB adapters. Student reflections to seven questions were analyzed qualitatively using four components of reflection (meeting objectives/perception of learning, dynamics of pedagogy, special needs accommodations, improving teaching) deriving 27 initial data categories and 12 emergent themes. Overall the undergraduates reported meeting objectives, engaging students in pedagogically relevant learning tasks including, providing accommodations to students with special needs, and gaining practice and insight to improve their own teaching. Additional research is needed to arrive at generalizable findings concerning teaching with web-supported counterintuitive science demonstrations in elementary classrooms.

Editorial: The FQS-Issue "Doing Biographical Research". Four Years of Publishing FQS as an Example for Social Science Open Access Journals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katja Mruck

2003-09-01

Full Text Available In FQS 4(3—"Doing Biographical Research"—social scientists discuss from different disciplinary and national stances the interview with Hülya, a Turkish migrant living and working in Germany. In addition to contributions linked directly to the issue topic, eight single contributions, nine review essays and review notes and two conference reports are published, coming from researchers from eight nations and seven academic disciplines. Approximately 450 articles have been published since the first FQS issue was accessible on-line in January 2000. In addition to the contributions to the new issue "Doing Biographical Research," the current state of FQS is briefly reviewed. FQS is also discussed as an example for social science open access journals, being part of the open access initiatives which aim to make scientific information accessible worldwide free of cost. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0303176

Improving data discoverability, accessibility, and interoperability with the Esri ArcGIS Platform at the NASA Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC).

Science.gov (United States)

Tisdale, M.

2017-12-01

NASA's Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) is operationally using the Esri ArcGIS Platform to improve data discoverability, accessibility and interoperability to meet the diversifying user requirements from government, private, public and academic communities. The ASDC is actively working to provide their mission essential datasets as ArcGIS Image Services, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Mapping Services (WMS), and OGC Web Coverage Services (WCS) while leveraging the ArcGIS multidimensional mosaic dataset structure. Science teams at ASDC are utilizing these services through the development of applications using the Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS and the ArcGIS API for Javascript. These services provide greater exposure of ASDC data holdings to the GIS community and allow for broader sharing and distribution to various end users. These capabilities provide interactive visualization tools and improved geospatial analytical tools for a mission critical understanding in the areas of the earth's radiation budget, clouds, aerosols, and tropospheric chemistry. The presentation will cover how the ASDC is developing geospatial web services and applications to improve data discoverability, accessibility, and interoperability.

Use of the Paid Open Access Option in Hybrid Open Access Journals in Agriculture: A Mixed-Methods Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Megan Kocher

2016-12-01

Full Text Available We explore the use and usefulness of the hybrid open access publishing model in agricultural sciences using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. To ascertain the level of usage of the paid open access option in hybrid open access journals in agriculture, we studied the agriculture-related journals published by six commercial publishers. These publishers offer authors the option of paying a fee, often close to $3,000 per article, to make their article immediately freely available, usually with a Creative Commons license. We defined agriculture broadly but also assigned each journal to a subspecialty (e.g., animal science in order to see if there were differences based on these subdivisions. For each journal we gathered data for 2014-2015 and noted the total number of research articles and the number of those that were made freely available by authors paying the open access fee. To give context to our results we also surveyed local faculty in agricultural sciences, asking their reasons for considering the paid open access options and the sources of the funds to pay for it. Survey respondents were asked about their academic position and rank to see if there were differences to be noted. We also investigated the findability of the open access articles, noting if each individual publisher offered a way to easily locate all the freely available articles in a particular journal and if there are other avenues to easily locate these articles.

Further Democratizing Latin America: Broadening Access to Higher Education and Promoting Science Policies Focused on the Advanced Training of Human Resources

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manuel Heitor

2014-08-01

Full Text Available We focus this paper on the conditions to build reliable science, technology and higher education systems in Latin America, based on international comparative studies, fieldwork and interviews conducted over the last three years. The analysis shows that science can have a major role in furthering the democratization of society through public policies that foster opportunities to access knowledge and the advanced training of human resources. Broadening the social basis for higher education promotes the qualification of the labour force and contributes to social and economic development. The need to guarantee higher education diversity, strengthening scientific institutions and investing in a strong science base, is deemed as critical, but goes far beyond policies centred on innovation and industry-science relationships. It requires adequate training and attraction of skilled people, as well as the social promotion of a scientific and technological culture.

The Access Pricing Problem: A Synthesis.

OpenAIRE

Armstrong, Mark; Doyle, Chris; Vickers, John

1996-01-01

The Baumol-Willig efficient component pricing rule states that it is efficient to set the price of access to an essential facility equal to the direct cost of access plus the opportunity cost to the integrated access provider. The authors analyze the relevant notion of 'opportunity cost' under various assumptions about demand and supply conditions, including product differentiation, bypass, and substitution possibilities, which all reduce opportunity cost compared to the benchmark case. They ...

Relevance of Corporate Governance in Nigerian Banks | Akinyomi ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Relevance of Corporate Governance in Nigerian Banks. ... PROMOTING ACCESS TO AFRICAN RESEARCH ... Although corporate governance is of general interests to the Nigerian public, that of the banking industry is of particular interest ...

Interaction between NGOs and science through science shops

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Michael Søgaard

and institutions have more resources themselves and easier access to and influence on the research facilities than NGO’s like consumer organisations, environmental organisations, trade unions, social organisations etc. Science shops are organisations that offer NGO’s free or very low-cost access to scientific...... knowledge and research in order to help them achieve social and environmental improvement. Originally developed at Dutch universities during the 1970’s, science shops now also exist in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Romania and the U.K., as well as in a number of non-European countries including Australia......, Canada, Malaysia, South Korea and the USA. Some science shops are independent not-for-profit research centres and some are affiliated to a university acting as the intermediary between NGO’s and university researchers, teachers and students, who conduct research in response. Most university based science...

International production on science oriented towards data: analysis of the terms data science and e-science in scopus and the web of science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leilah Santiago Bufrem

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Introduction: current configuration in the dynamics of production and scientific communication reveals the role of Science Oriented Towards Data, a comprehensive conception represented, mainly, by terms such as "e-Science" and "Data Science". Objective: To present the global scientific production on Science Oriented Towards Data by using the terms "e-Science" and "Data Science" in Scopus and the Web of Science during 2006-2016. Methodology: The study is divided into five phases: a search for information in Scopus and the Web of Science data bases; b obtaining bibliometric records; c complementing keywords; d data correction and crossing; e analytical data representation. Results: The most important terms within the analyzed scientific production were Distributed computer systems (2006, Grid computing (2007-2013 and Big data (2014- 2016. In the area of Library and Information Science, the emphasis was on Digital Library and Open Access issues, highlighting the importance of the field for the discussions on the devices providing access to scientific information in digital media. Conclusions: Under a diachronic look, it was found a visible shift of focus, from issues approaching data exchange operations to an analytical perspective for finding patterns in large data volumes

Metadata Access Tool for Climate and Health

Science.gov (United States)

Trtanji, J.

2012-12-01

The need for health information resources to support climate change adaptation and mitigation decisions is growing, both in the United States and around the world, as the manifestations of climate change become more evident and widespread. In many instances, these information resources are not specific to a changing climate, but have either been developed or are highly relevant for addressing health issues related to existing climate variability and weather extremes. To help address the need for more integrated data, the Interagency Cross-Cutting Group on Climate Change and Human Health, a working group of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, has developed the Metadata Access Tool for Climate and Health (MATCH). MATCH is a gateway to relevant information that can be used to solve problems at the nexus of climate science and public health by facilitating research, enabling scientific collaborations in a One Health approach, and promoting data stewardship that will enhance the quality and application of climate and health research. MATCH is a searchable clearinghouse of publicly available Federal metadata including monitoring and surveillance data sets, early warning systems, and tools for characterizing the health impacts of global climate change. Examples of relevant databases include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Environmental Public Health Tracking System and NOAA's National Climate Data Center's national and state temperature and precipitation data. This presentation will introduce the audience to this new web-based geoportal and demonstrate its features and potential applications.

Teaching Science through Story

Science.gov (United States)

Horton, Jessica

2013-01-01

Children find comfort in stories. They are familiar, accessible and entertaining. By teaching science through narratives, we can provide that same comfort and access to scientific content to children of all ages. In this article, I will discuss how, through the use of narratives in science instruction, we can provide students with a deeper…

Beyond access to transformations: A cross-national analysis of women in science and engineering education, 1970--2000

Science.gov (United States)

Wotipka, Christine Min

2001-12-01

reliance on liberal feminist suggestions such as access and equal opportunities for women in science. More recently, UNESCO publications have included some transformative perspectives that entail possibilities for the inclusion of women's needs and interests into the existing male-dominated scientific curricula and structures. The same is true of some of the most recent international conferences.

Break-glass handling exceptional situations in access control

CERN Document Server

Petritsch, Helmut

2014-01-01

Helmut Petritsch describes the first holistic approach to Break-Glass which covers the whole life-cycle: from access control modeling (pre-access), to logging the security-relevant system state during Break-Glass accesses (at-access), and the automated analysis of Break-Glass accesses (post-access). Break-Glass allows users to override security restrictions in exceptional situations. While several Break-Glass models specific to given access control models have already been discussed in research (e.g., extending RBAC with Break-Glass), the author introduces a generic Break-Glass model. The pres

Egyptian Journal of Biomedical Sciences

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Egyptian Journal of Biomedical Sciences publishes in all aspects of biomedical research sciences. Both basic and clinical research papers are welcomed. Vol 23 (2007). DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT Open Access DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT Subscription or Fee Access. Table of Contents. Articles. Phytochemical And ...

We Look More, Listen More, Notice More: Impact of Sustained Professional Development on Head Start Teachers' Inquiry-Based and Culturally-Relevant Science Teaching Practices

Science.gov (United States)

Roehrig, Gillian H.; Dubosarsky, Mia; Mason, Annie; Carlson, Stephan; Murphy, Barbara

2011-10-01

Despite many scholars' recommendations, science is often avoided during early childhood education. Among the reasons provided by early childhood teachers for the exclusion of science from their daily routines included science anxiety, low self-efficacy with respect to teaching science, lack of experience participating in science activities as students, or the notion that literacy and language are more important during the early years. In minority populations the problem is even greater due to identification of science with the `culture of. This article presents results from Ah Neen Dush, a sustained and transformative professional development program for Head Start teachers on an American Indian Reservation. The goal of the program is to support early childhood teachers in developing inquiry-based and culturally-relevant teaching practices. Through analysis of teachers' classroom practices, surveys and interviews, we explore changes in teachers' attitudes toward science and inquiry-based practices. Classroom observations were conducted using CLASS (Classroom assessment Scoring System), a tool used to evaluate the quality of classroom interactions. After 1 year of professional development teachers' attitudes were found to improve and after 2 years teachers classroom practices were more inquiry-based with statistically significant increases in CLASS observation scores.

Legal Aspects of Radioactive Waste Management: Relevant International Legal Instruments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wetherall, Anthony; Robin, Isabelle

2014-01-01

The responsible use of nuclear technology requires the safe and environmentally sound management of radioactive waste, for which countries need to have stringent technical, administrative and legal measures in place. The legal aspects of radioactive waste management can be found in a wide variety of legally binding and non-binding international instruments. This overview focuses on the most relevant ones, in particular those on nuclear safety, security, safeguards and civil liability for nuclear damage. It also identifies relevant regional instruments concerning environmental matters, in particular, with regard to strategic environmental assessments (SEAs), environmental impact assessments (EIAs), public access to information and participation in decision-making, as well as access to justice

The Mission Accessible Near-Earth Object Survey (MANOS) -- Science Highlights

Science.gov (United States)

Moskovitz, Nicholas; Thirouin, Audrey; Binzel, Richard; Burt, Brian; Christensen, Eric; DeMeo, Francesca; Endicott, Thomas; Hinkle, Mary; Mommert, Michael; Person, Michael; Polishook, David; Siu, Hosea; Thomas, Cristina; Trilling, David; Willman, Mark

2015-08-01

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are essential to understanding the origin of the Solar System through their compositional links to meteorites. As tracers of other parts of the Solar System they provide insight to more distant populations. Their small sizes and complex dynamical histories make them ideal laboratories for studying ongoing processes of planetary evolution. Knowledge of their physical properties is essential to impact hazard assessment. And the proximity of NEOs to Earth make them favorable targets for a variety of planetary mission scenarios. However, in spite of their importance, only the largest NEOs are well studied and a representative sample of physical properties for sub-km NEOs does not exist.MANOS is a multi-year physical characterization survey, originally awarded survey status by NOAO. MANOS is targeting several hundred mission-accessible, sub-km NEOs across visible and near-infrared wavelengths to provide a comprehensive catalog of physical properties (astrometry, light curves, spectra). Accessing these targets is enabled through classical, queue, and target-of-opportunity observations carried out at 1- to 8-meter class facilities in the northern and southern hemispheres. Our observing strategy is designed to rapidly characterize newly discovered NEOs before they fade beyond observational limits.Early progress from MANOS includes: (1) the de-biased taxonomic distribution of spectral types for NEOs smaller than ~100 meters, (2) the distribution of rotational properties for approximately 100 previously unstudied NEOs, (3) detection of the fastest known rotation period of any minor planet in the Solar System, (4) an investigation of the influence of planetary encounters on the rotational properties of NEOs, (5) dynamical models for the evolution of the overall NEO population over the past 0.5 Myr, and (6) development of a new set of online tools at asteroid.lowell.edu that will enable near realtime public dissemination of our data products while

A method to evaluate equitable accessibility : Combining ethical theories and accessibility-based approaches

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lucas, K.; Van Wee, G.P.; Maat, C.

2015-01-01

In this paper, we present the case that traditional transport appraisal methods do not sufficiently capture the social dimensions of mobility and accessibility. However, understanding this is highly relevant for policymakers to understand the impacts of their transport decisions. These dimensions

Exploring Educational Quality and Relevance through Integrating ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Exploring Educational Quality and Relevance through Integrating Environmental and Social Issues in Science Education. ... However, the new contextualised concept of learning and teaching was applied only to one of them. A post-test was ...

Learning about the Earth through Societally-relevant Interdisciplinary Research Projects: the Honours Integrated Science Program at McMaster

Science.gov (United States)

Eyles, C.; Symons, S. L.; Harvey, C. T.

2016-12-01

Students in the Honours Integrated Science (iSci) program at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) learn about the Earth through interdisciplinary research projects that focus on important societal issues. The iSci program is a new and innovative undergraduate program that emphasizes the links between scientific disciplines and focuses on learning through research and the development of scientific communication skills. The program accepts up to 60 students each year and is taught by a team of 18 instructors comprising senior and junior faculty, post-doctoral fellows, a lab coordinator, instructional assistant, a librarian and library staff, and an administrator. The program is designed around a pedagogical model that emphasizes hands-on learning through interdisciplinary research (Research-based Integrated Education: RIE) and is mostly project-based and experiential. In their freshman year students learn fundamental Earth science concepts (in conjunction with chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology) through research projects focused on environmental contamination, interplanetary exploration, the effect of drugs on the human body and environment, sustainable energy, and cancer. In subsequent years they conduct research on topics such as the History of the Earth, Thermodynamics, Plant-Animal Interactions, Wine Science, Forensics, and Climate Change. The iSci program attracts students with a broad interest in science and has been particularly effective in directing high quality students into the Earth sciences as they are introduced to the discipline in their first year of study through research projects that are interesting and stimulating. The structure of the iSci program encourages consideration of geoscientific applications in a broad range of societally relevant research projects; these projects are reviewed and modified each year to ensure their currency and ability to meet program learning objectives.

Global Social Challenges: insights from the physical sciences and their relevance to the evolution of social science

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2014-01-01

The complex challenges confronting humanity today point to the need for new thinking and new theory in the social sciences which overcomes the limitations of compartmentalized, sectoral concepts, strategies and policies and mechanistic approaches to living social systems. The World Academy of Art & Science is convening a consortium of leading institutions and thinkers from different sectors to contribute ideas for formulation of a cohesive framework capable of addressing global social challenges in their totality and complex interrelationships. The objective of my presentation will be to explore the potential for collaboration between the physical and social sciences to arrive at a more cohesive and effective framework by exploring a series of questions, including - - Is an integrated science of society possible that transcends disciplinary boundaries based on common underlying principles as we find in the natural sciences? - To what extent can principles of natural science serve as valid models and a...

The role of discourse and linguistic framing effects in sustaining high carbon energy policy-An accessible introduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Scrase, J. Ivan; Ockwell, David G.

2010-01-01

This paper seeks to provide an accessible introduction to the relevance to energy policy of a fundamental insight from the policy sciences. This concerns the role that the linguistic framing of policy problems and solutions can play in sustaining the dominance of existing policy positions. The paper introduces a discourse perspective to understanding the policy process and uses it to analyse four central goals pursued in energy policy: access, security, efficiency and environmental acceptability, drawing on examples from UK policy documents. It introduces readers to how, as well as requiring technical and economic solutions, a transition to a low carbon energy system will also require a 'reframing' of energy policy problems and solutions in a way that either connects with, or overrides the powerful discourses that shape energy policy today.

Transesophageal NOTES--a critical analysis of relevant problems.

Science.gov (United States)

Grund, Karl E; Lehmann, Thorsten G

2010-10-01

The transesophageal access route has not become a principal topic in the discussion about NOTES up to now. Analyzing the problems in this new field of surgery, however, the transesophageal route shows high relevance. Here, all possibilities, limitations, and problems of NOTES become obvious. This paper contains a critical analysis of the literature published to date (nine full papers, five abstracts). Nearly all publications represent experimental studies in living pigs. In most cases a submucosal tunnel technique is performed as access route to mediastinum, pleural cavity, and heart. Interventions and operations include simple mediastinoscopies as well as epicardial operations after exposition of the heart. For access and manipulation, conventional flexible endoscopes and instruments are used. Clips, T-bars, or a combination of both achieve the closure. Some studies rely on spontaneous closure of the incision without any suturing or approximation. In such experimental settings, the following results are presented: Access is achieved in 90% of cases, the aim of the operation is met in 92%, technical success in closure is achieved in 90%, healing of incision assessed as good in two of five studies, satisfactory in three of five studies. Mortality, ranging from 6 to 25%, and complication rates were (surprisingly) high. It has to be stressed that analyzing these papers published to date, no adequate attention is paid to basic facts and problems of general and thoracic surgery (e.g. different forms, prevention, diagnosis and therapy of pneumothorax or differentiated forms of ventilation). Relevant differences in the anatomy and physiology of the esophagus and mediastinum between humans and pigs should additionally be taken into account to choose optimal experimental parameters when transferring results to human settings. Moreover, requirements regarding sterility and hygiene in a structure like the mediastinum, which is at high risk from the point of view of infection

Towards a joint approach for access to environmental research infrastructures

Science.gov (United States)

Mann, Ingrid; Tjulin, Anders; Pappalardo, Gelsomina; Gagliardi, Simone; Philippin, Sabine; Sellegri, Karine; Chabbi, Abad

2016-04-01

Geoscience is a multi-disciplinary field and in many cases its research benefits from considering different kinds of observational results. Geoscience observations are in some cases of direct interest also to the public. For these reasons effective knowledge transfer and access also across disciplines are especially important for research infrastructures (RIs) in the environmental domain. More generally, the ultimate success of a RI is measured by its scientific outcome and this is best achieved based on efficient access for a broad scientific community. In this presentation the authors report activities to develop governance tools so that the access to environmental RIs and to the data that they provide is common, fair and based on scientific rationale, regarding at the same time economically and technically reasonable use of limited resources. Implementing such governance tools will indeed foster and widen the access to RIs across environmental science domains while addressing societal challenges. The strategies also need to be flexible and sustainable over the expected lifetimes of the RIs. The reported activities involve researchers from different projects and environmental subdomains that come together in the project ENVRI_plus. ENVRI_plus is a Cluster project of RIs that brings together the current ESFRI roadmap RIs in the environmental domain and other relevant existing and developing RIs and projects. ENVRI_plus also offers opportunities for free-of-charge transnational access to four multi-disciplinary research platforms. These calls for access target research groups and companies wishing to conduct research or to test instruments for cross-disciplinary topics within the environmental domains atmosphere, biosphere, marine, and solid earth. They are initiated specifically to gain experience with access across different disciplines (further information is given at www.envriplus.eu). ENVRI_plus receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research

Constructing Contracts: Making Discrete Mathematics Relevant to Beginning Programmers

Science.gov (United States)

Gegg-Harrison, Timothy S.

2005-01-01

Although computer scientists understand the importance of discrete mathematics to the foundations of their field, computer science (CS) students do not always see the relevance. Thus, it is important to find a way to show students its relevance. The concept of program correctness is generally taught as an activity independent of the programming…

Condensation induced water hammer (CIWH). Relevance in the nuclear industry and state of science and technology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Swidersky, Harald [TUeV Sued Industrie Service GmbH, Muenchen (Germany)

2013-03-15

Condensation-induced water hammers (CIWH) are consequences of rapid condensation of steam in partially filled pipes. They present a particular hazard potential, as they seem to occur spontaneously and out of stagnation. The entire process still eludes a secured analytical or numerical predictability and determination of the fluid dynamic loads. The simulation of these processes is one of the most difficult tasks of thermal hydraulic transient analyses. Condensation induced water hammers in plants - mostly power plants - can lead to significant costs if they result in long downtimes, detailed analyses and upgrades. In this contribution, the phenomenon CIWH is explained and the relevance for nuclear engineering will be discussed. An outlook on the actual requirements of regulatory guidelines and the state of science and technology will be given. (orig.)

Condensation induced water hammer (CIWH). Relevance in the nuclear industry and state of science and technology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Swidersky, Harald

2013-01-01

Condensation-induced water hammers (CIWH) are consequences of rapid condensation of steam in partially filled pipes. They present a particular hazard potential, as they seem to occur spontaneously and out of stagnation. The entire process still eludes a secured analytical or numerical predictability and determination of the fluid dynamic loads. The simulation of these processes is one of the most difficult tasks of thermal hydraulic transient analyses. Condensation induced water hammers in plants - mostly power plants - can lead to significant costs if they result in long downtimes, detailed analyses and upgrades. In this contribution, the phenomenon CIWH is explained and the relevance for nuclear engineering will be discussed. An outlook on the actual requirements of regulatory guidelines and the state of science and technology will be given. (orig.)

Ultrasonic spectroscopy applications in condensed matter physics and materials science

CERN Document Server

Leisure, Robert G

2017-01-01

Ultrasonic spectroscopy is a technique widely used in solid-state physics, materials science, and geology that utilizes acoustic waves to determine fundamental physical properties of materials, such as their elasticity and mechanical energy dissipation. This book provides complete coverage of the main issues relevant to the design, analysis, and interpretation of ultrasonic experiments. Topics including elasticity, acoustic waves in solids, ultrasonic loss, and the relation of elastic constants to thermodynamic potentials are covered in depth. Modern techniques and experimental methods including resonant ultrasound spectroscopy, digital pulse-echo, and picosecond ultrasound are also introduced and reviewed. This self-contained book includes extensive background theory and is accessible to students new to the field of ultrasonic spectroscopy, as well as to graduate students and researchers in physics, engineering, materials science, and geophysics.

Symposium 1: Challenges in science education and popularization of Science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ildeo de Castro Moreira

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Science education and popularization of science are important elements for social inclusion. The Brazil exhibits strong inequalities regarding the distribution of wealth, access to cultural assets and appropriation of scientific and technological knowledge. Each Brazilian should have the opportunity to acquire a basic knowledge of science and its operation that allow them to understand their environment and expand their professional opportunities. However, the overall performance of Brazilian students in science and math is bad. The basic science education has, most often, few resources and is discouraging, with little appreciation of experimentation, interdisciplinarity and creativity. Beside the shortage of science teachers, especially teachers with good formation, predominate poor wage and working conditions, and deficiencies in instructional materials and laboratories. If there was a significant expansion in access to basic education, the challenge remains to improve their quality. According to the last National Conference of STI, there is need of a profound educational reform at all levels, in particular with regard to science education. Already, the popularization of science can be an important tool for the construction of scientific culture and refinement of the formal teaching instrument. However, we still lack a comprehensive and adequate public policy to her intended. Clearly, in recent decades, an increase in scientific publication occurred: creating science centers and museums; greater media presence; use of the internet and social networks; outreach events, such as the National Week of CT. But the scenario is shown still fragile and limited to broad swathes of Brazilians without access to scientific education and qualified information on CT. In this presentation, from a general diagnosis of the situation, some of the main challenges related to education and popularization of science in the country will address herself.

Advancing Climate Literacy through Investment in Science Education Faculty, and Future and Current Science Teachers: Providing Professional Learning, Instructional Materials, and a Model for Locally-Relevant and Culturally-Responsive Content

Science.gov (United States)

Halversen, C.; Apple, J. K.; McDonnell, J. D.; Weiss, E.

2014-12-01

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for 5th grade students to "obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect Earth's resources and environment". Achieving this, and other objectives in NGSS, will require changes in the educational system for both students and teachers. Teachers need access to high quality instructional materials and continuous professional learning opportunities starting in pre-service education. Students need highly engaging and authentic learning experiences focused on content that is strategically interwoven with science practices. Pre-service and early career teachers, even at the secondary level, often have relatively weak understandings of the complex Earth systems science required for understanding climate change and hold alternative ideas and naïve beliefs about the nature of science. These naïve understandings cause difficulties in portraying and teaching science, especially considering what is being called for in NGSS. The ACLIPSE program focuses on middle school pre-service science teachers and education faculty because: (1) the concepts that underlie climate change align well with the disciplinary core ideas and practices in NGSS for middle grades; and (2) middle school is a critical time for capturing students interest in science as student engagement by eighth grade is the most effective predictor of student pursuit of science in high school and college. Capturing student attention at this age is critical for recruitment to STEM careers and lifelong climate literacy. THE ACLIPSE program uses cutting edge research and technology in ocean observing systems to provide educators with new tools to engage students that will lead to deeper understanding of the interactions between the ocean and climate systems. Establishing authentic, meaningful connections between indigenous and place-based, and technological climate observations will help generate a more holistic perspective

U-Science (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Borne, K. D.

2009-12-01

The emergence of e-Science over the past decade as a paradigm for Internet-based science was an inevitable evolution of science that built upon the web protocols and access patterns that were prevalent at that time, including Web Services, XML-based information exchange, machine-to-machine communication, service registries, the Grid, and distributed data. We now see a major shift in web behavior patterns to social networks, user-provided content (e.g., tags and annotations), ubiquitous devices, user-centric experiences, and user-led activities. The inevitable accrual of these social networking patterns and protocols by scientists and science projects leads to U-Science as a new paradigm for online scientific research (i.e., ubiquitous, user-led, untethered, You-centered science). U-Science applications include components from semantic e-science (ontologies, taxonomies, folksonomies, tagging, annotations, and classification systems), which is much more than Web 2.0-based science (Wikis, blogs, and online environments like Second Life). Among the best examples of U-Science are Citizen Science projects, including Galaxy Zoo, Stardust@Home, Project Budburst, Volksdata, CoCoRaHS (the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow network), and projects utilizing Volunteer Geographic Information (VGI). There are also scientist-led projects for scientists that engage a wider community in building knowledge through user-provided content. Among the semantic-based U-Science projects for scientists are those that specifically enable user-based annotation of scientific results in databases. These include the Heliophysics Knowledgebase, BioDAS, WikiProteins, The Entity Describer, and eventually AstroDAS. Such collaborative tagging of scientific data addresses several petascale data challenges for scientists: how to find the most relevant data, how to reuse those data, how to integrate data from multiple sources, how to mine and discover new knowledge in large databases, how to

Research methods from social science can contribute much to the health sciences.

Science.gov (United States)

Wensing, Michel

2008-06-01

Research methods from social science, such as social network analysis, random coefficient modeling, and advanced measurement techniques, can contribute much to the health sciences. There is, however, a slow rate of transmission of social science methodology into the health sciences. This paper identifies some of the barriers for adoption and proposes ideas for the future. Commentary. Contributions of social science to the health sciences are not always recognized as such. It may help if the professional profile of social science in the health sciences would be higher and if its focus would be more on making useful predictions. Clinical epidemiologists may assume that their discipline includes all relevant methods and that social science is largely based on qualitative research. These perceptions need to be challenged in order to widen the scope of clinical epidemiology and include relevant methods from other sciences. New methods help to ask new research questions and to provide better to old questions. This paper has sketched challenges for both social science researchers and clinical epidemiologists.

A User-Centered Approach to Adaptive Hypertext Based on an Information Relevance Model

Science.gov (United States)

Mathe, Nathalie; Chen, James

1994-01-01

Rapid and effective to information in large electronic documentation systems can be facilitated if information relevant in an individual user's content can be automatically supplied to this user. However most of this knowledge on contextual relevance is not found within the contents of documents, it is rather established incrementally by users during information access. We propose a new model for interactively learning contextual relevance during information retrieval, and incrementally adapting retrieved information to individual user profiles. The model, called a relevance network, records the relevance of references based on user feedback for specific queries and user profiles. It also generalizes such knowledge to later derive relevant references for similar queries and profiles. The relevance network lets users filter information by context of relevance. Compared to other approaches, it does not require any prior knowledge nor training. More importantly, our approach to adaptivity is user-centered. It facilitates acceptance and understanding by users by giving them shared control over the adaptation without disturbing their primary task. Users easily control when to adapt and when to use the adapted system. Lastly, the model is independent of the particular application used to access information, and supports sharing of adaptations among users.

Access to major overseas research facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bolderman, J. W.

1997-01-01

This paper will describe four schemes which have been established to permit Australian researchers access to some of the most advanced overseas research facilities. These include, access to Major Research Facilities Program, the Australian National Beamline Facility at the Photon Factory, the Australian Synchrotron Research Program and the ISIS Agreement. The details of each of these programs is discussed and the statistics on the scientific output provided. All programs are managed on behalf of the Department of Industry, Science and Tourism by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. One hundred and thirteen senior scientists plus forty, one postgraduate, students were supported through these schemes during the 1996-1997 financial year

Handbook of public communication of science and technology

CERN Document Server

Trench, Brian

2008-01-01

Comprehensive yet accessible, this key handbook provides an up-to-date overview of the fast growing and increasingly important area of 'public communication of science and technology', from both research and practical perspectives. As well as introducing the main issues, arenas and professional perspectives involved, it presents the findings of earlier research and the conclusions previously drawn. Unlike most existing books on this topic, this unique volume couples an overview of the practical problems faced by practitioners with a thorough review of relevant literature and research. The practical handbook format ensures it is a student-friendly resource, but its breadth of scope and impressive contributors means that it is also ideal for practitioners and professionals working in the field. Combining the contributions of different disciplines (media and journalism studies, sociology and history of science), the perspectives of different geographical and cultural contexts, and by selecting key contributions ...

Accessing antiretroviral therapy for children: Caregivers' voices

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Margaret (Maggie) Williams

ScienceDirect journal homepage: http://ees.elsevier.com/hsag/default.asp ... inability of their caregivers to travel the distance requisite to accessing ... and describe the experiences of caregivers accessing ART for .... In this study credibility was facilitated by the researchers ensuring that .... educational assets to assist them.

Bible Translation And Relevance Theory | Deist | Stellenbosch ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus. Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives · Journal Home > Vol 22 (1992) >. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads. Username, Password, Remember me, or Register. Bible Translation And Relevance Theory. F Deist ...

The effects of home computer access and social capital on mathematics and science achievement among Asian-American high school students in the NELS:88 data set

Science.gov (United States)

Quigley, Mark Declan

The purpose of this researcher was to examine specific environmental, educational, and demographic factors and their influence on mathematics and science achievement. In particular, the researcher ascertained the interconnections of home computer access and social capital, with Asian American students and the effect on mathematics and science achievement. Coleman's theory on social capital and parental influence was used as a basis for the analysis of data. Subjects for this study were the base year students from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) and the subsequent follow-up survey data in 1990, 1992, and 1994. The approximate sample size for this study is 640 ethnic Asians from the NELS:88 database. The analysis was a longitudinal study based on the Student and Parent Base Year responses and the Second Follow-up survey of 1992, when the subjects were in 12th grade. Achievement test results from the NELS:88 data were used to measure achievement in mathematics and science. The NELS:88 test battery was developed to measure both individual status and a student's growth in a number of achievement areas. The subject's responses were analyzed by principal components factor analysis, weights, effect sizes, hierarchial regression analysis, and PLSPath Analysis. The results of this study were that prior ability in mathematics and science is a major influence in the student's educational achievement. Findings from the study support the view that home computer access has a negative direct effect on mathematics and science achievement for both Asian American males and females. None of the social capital factors in the study had either a negative or positive direct effect on mathematics and science achievement although some indirect effects were found. Suggestions were made toward increasing parental involvement in their children's academic endeavors. Computer access in the home should be considered related to television viewing and should be closely

The ethics of open access publishing.

Science.gov (United States)

Parker, Michael

2013-03-22

Should those who work on ethics welcome or resist moves to open access publishing? This paper analyses arguments in favour and against the increasing requirement for open access publishing and considers their implications for bioethics research. In the context of biomedical science, major funders are increasingly mandating open access as a condition of funding and such moves are also common in other disciplines. Whilst there has been some debate about the implications of open-access for the social sciences and humanities, there has been little if any discussion about the implications of open access for ethics. This is surprising given both the central role of public reason and critique in ethics and the fact that many of the arguments made for and against open access have been couched in moral terms. In what follows I argue that those who work in ethics have a strong interest in supporting moves towards more open publishing approaches which have the potential both to inform and promote richer and more diverse forms of public deliberation and to be enriched by them. The importance of public deliberation in practical and applied ethics suggests that ethicists have a particular interest in the promotion of diverse and experimental forms of publication and debate and in supporting new, more creative and more participatory approaches to publication.

Rigor, Reliability, and Scientific Relevance: Citizen Science Lessons from COASST (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Parrish, J. K.

2013-12-01

Citizen science promises fine grain, broad extent data collected over decadal time scales, with co-benefits including increased scientific literacy and civic engagement. But does it only deliver non-standardized, unverifiable data collected episodically by individuals with little-to-no training? How do you know which projects to trust? What are the attributes of a scientifically sound citizen science project? The Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) is a 15 year old citizen science project currently involving ~800 participants from northern California north to Kotzebue, Alaska and west to the Commander Islands, Russia. After a single 5-hour training delivered in-community by an expert, volunteers have the knowledge and skill sets to accurately survey a coastal site for beached bird carcasses, which they will be able to identify to species correctly ~85% of the time. Data are collected monthly, and some volunteers remain with the program for years, contributing hundreds, even thousands, of survey hours. COASST trainings, data collection materials, and data entry web portal all reinforce 'evidence first, deduction second,' a maxim that allows volunteers to learn, and gives on-staff experts the ability to independently verify all birds found. COASST data go directly into science, as part of studies as diverse as fishery entanglement, historic native uses of seabirds as food sources, and the impacts of sudden shifts in upwelling; as well as into resource management, as part of decisions on fishing regulations, waterfowl hunting limits, and ESA-listed species management. Like professional science, COASST features a specific sampling design linked to questions of interest, verifiable data, statistical analysis, and peer-reviewed publication. In addition, COASST features before-and-after testing of volunteer knowledge, independent verification of all deductive data, and recruitment and retention strategies linked to geographic community norms. As a result

Identifiers for the 21st century: How to design, provision, and reuse persistent identifiers to maximize utility and impact of life science data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

McMurry, Julie A; Juty, Nick; Blomberg, Niklas

2017-01-01

, there is a need for increased awareness about how to avoid and manage common identifier problems, especially those related to persistence and web-accessibility/resolvability. We focus strongly on web-based identifiers in the life sciences; however, the principles are broadly relevant to other disciplines.......In many disciplines, data are highly decentralized across thousands of online databases (repositories, registries, and knowledgebases). Wringing value from such databases depends on the discipline of data science and on the humble bricks and mortar that make integration possible; identifiers...

Reconceptualizing the Nature of Science for Science Education: Why Does it Matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Dagher, Zoubeida R.; Erduran, Sibel

2016-01-01

Two fundamental questions about science are relevant for science educators: (a) What is the nature of science? and (b) what aspects of nature of science should be taught and learned? They are fundamental because they pertain to how science gets to be framed as a school subject and determines what aspects of it are worthy of inclusion in school…

Science commons

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2007-01-01

SCP: Creative Commons licensing for open access publishing, Open Access Law journal-author agreements for converting journals to open access, and the Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine for retaining rights to self-archive in meaningful formats and locations for future re-use. More than 250 science and technology journals already publish under Creative Commons licensing while 35 law journals utilize the Open Access Law agreements. The Addendum Engine is a new tool created in partnership with SPARC and U.S. universities. View John Wilbanks's biography

The Marine Realms Information Bank family of digital libraries: access to free online information for coastal and marine science

Science.gov (United States)

Lightsom, Frances L.; Allwardt, Alan O.

2007-01-01

Searching the World Wide Web for reliable information about specific topics or locations can be frustrating: too many hits, too little relevance. A well-designed digital library, offering a carefully selected collection of online resources, is an attractive alternative to web search engines. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provides three digital libraries for coastal and marine science to serve the needs of a diverse audience--scientists, public servants, educators, and the public.

How FOSTER supports training Open Science in the GeoSciences

Science.gov (United States)

Orth, Astrid

2016-04-01

FOSTER (1) is about promoting and facilitating the adoption of Open Science by the European research community, and fostering compliance with the open access policies set out in Horizon 2020 (H2020). FOSTER aims to reach out and provide training to the wide range of disciplines and countries involved in the European Research Area (ERA) by offering and supporting face-to-face as well as distance training. Different stakeholders, mainly young researchers, are trained to integrate Open Science in their daily workflow, supporting researchers to optimise their research visibility and impact. Strengthening the institutional training capacity is achieved through a train-the-trainers approach. The two-and-half-year project started in February 2014 with identifying, enriching and providing training content on all relevant topics in the area of Open Science. One of the main elements was to support two rounds of trainings, which were conducted during 2014 and 2015, organizing more than 100 training events with around 3000 participants. The presentation will explain the project objectives and results and will look into best practice training examples, among them successful training series in the GeoSciences. The FOSTER portal that now holds a collection of training resources (e.g. slides and PDFs, schedules and design of training events dedicated to different audiences, video captures of complete events) is presented. It provides easy ways to identify learning materials and to create own e-learning courses based on the materials and examples. (1) FOSTER is funded through the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 612425. http://fosteropenscience.eu

Game-Based Learning in Science Education: A Review of Relevant Research

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ming-Chaun; Tsai, Chin-Chung

2013-12-01

The purpose of this study is to review empirical research articles regarding game-based science learning (GBSL) published from 2000 to 2011. Thirty-one articles were identified through the Web of Science and SCOPUS databases. A qualitative content analysis technique was adopted to analyze the research purposes and designs, game design and implementation, theoretical backgrounds and learning foci of these reviewed studies. The theories and models employed by these studies were classified into four theoretical foundations including cognitivism, constructivism, the socio-cultural perspective, and enactivism. The results indicate that cognitivism and constructivism were the major theoretical foundations employed by the GBSL researchers and that the socio-cultural perspective and enactivism are two emerging theoretical paradigms that have started to draw attention from GBSL researchers in recent years. The analysis of the learning foci showed that most of the digital games were utilized to promote scientific knowledge/concept learning, while less than one-third were implemented to facilitate the students' problem-solving skills. Only a few studies explored the GBSL outcomes from the aspects of scientific processes, affect, engagement, and socio-contextual learning. Suggestions are made to extend the current GBSL research to address the affective and socio-contextual aspects of science learning. The roles of digital games as tutor, tool, and tutee for science education are discussed, while the potentials of digital games to bridge science learning between real and virtual worlds, to promote collaborative problem-solving, to provide affective learning environments, and to facilitate science learning for younger students are also addressed.

Earth and environmental science in the 1980's: Part 1: Environmental data systems, supercomputer facilities and networks

Science.gov (United States)

1986-01-01

Overview descriptions of on-line environmental data systems, supercomputer facilities, and networks are presented. Each description addresses the concepts of content, capability, and user access relevant to the point of view of potential utilization by the Earth and environmental science community. The information on similar systems or facilities is presented in parallel fashion to encourage and facilitate intercomparison. In addition, summary sheets are given for each description, and a summary table precedes each section.

SPECIAL REPORT - The KC EMPOWER Project: Designing More Accessible STEM Learning Activities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bob Hirshon

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The overall purpose of the Kinetic City (KC Empower project was to examine how informal science activities can be made accessible for students with disabilities. The premise of this project was that all students, including those with disabilities, are interested in and capable of engaging in science learning experiences, if these experiences are accessible to them. Drawing on resources from Kinetic City, a large collection of science experiments, games, and projects developed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, the project researched and adapted five afterschool science activities guided by universal design for learning principles.

Education Scholars' Perceptions and Practices toward Open Access Publishing

Science.gov (United States)

Ellingford, Lori Michelle

2012-01-01

Although open access publishing has been available since 1998, we know little regarding scholars' perceptions and practices toward publishing in open access outlets, especially in the social science community. Open access publishing has been slow to penetrate the field of education, yet the potential impact of open access could make this…

Access to major overseas research facilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bolderman, J. W. [Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Lucas Heights, NSW (Australia)

1997-12-31

This paper will describe four schemes which have been established to permit Australian researchers access to some of the most advanced overseas research facilities. These include, access to Major Research Facilities Program, the Australian National Beamline Facility at the Photon Factory, the Australian Synchrotron Research Program and the ISIS Agreement. The details of each of these programs is discussed and the statistics on the scientific output provided. All programs are managed on behalf of the Department of Industry, Science and Tourism by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. One hundred and thirteen senior scientists plus forty, one postgraduate, students were supported through these schemes during the 1996-1997 financial year. 1 fig.

Science Education on the Internet: Conference for Developers of OnLine Curricula ''Learning Strategies for Science Education Websites''; FINAL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gesteland, Raymond F.; Dart, Dorothy S.; Logan, Jennifer; Stark, Louisa

2000-01-01

Internet-based science education programs are coming of age. Educators now look seriously to the Internet as a source of accessible classroom materials, and they are finding many high-quality online science programs. Beyond providing solid curriculum, these programs have many advantages. They provide materials that are far more current than what textbooks offer and are more accessible to disadvantaged and rural population. Students can engage in inquiry-based learning online through interactive and virtual activities, accessing databases, tracking nature occurrences in real time, joining online science communities and conversing with scientists

Science to the People

CERN Document Server

Doswaldbeck, L; Brancati, D; Colombo, U; Coyaud, S; De Semir, V; Dupuy, G; Ellis, Jonathan Richard; Lecourt, D; Llewellyn Smith, Christopher Hubert; Mettan, G; Montagnier, L; Morrison, Douglas Robert Ogston; Rampini, F; Ting, Samuel C C; Ugo, R; Widman, A; CERN. Geneva

1994-01-01

Science & society : urgent topics Risk perception : Ringing the alarm bells Basic research : Understanding its relevance Science and Economics : Comparing puplic costs and puplic benefits Language(s) : Translating expert knowledge into common culture Science and ethics : Freedom of research and limits to its applications Science,Media & Society: A confrontation

Open Access Papers Have a Greater Citation Advantage in the Author-Pays Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elaine Sullo

2016-03-01

; they also verified that the journals were using the APC model by visiting each journal’s website. Because of the large number of subject areas of the identified journals, the researchers decided to classify the journals into four broader categories: Health Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences and Humanities. To calculate the impact of OA papers, citation per paper (CPP was calculated for each subject area. Impact values were calculated on an annual basis as well. The researchers calculated the citation advantage of OA articles as the “difference between the open access and toll access impacts in terms of a percentage of the latter” (p. 585. Main Results – The authors categorized their findings according to three themes: the growth of APC funded OA papers, the number of OA papers by discipline, and citation advantage of OA vs. TA in general and by subject area. Together, Springer and Elsevier published 18,654 OA papers in the APC journals; this number represents 4.7% of the 396,760 papers published between 2007 and 2011. While the number of OA and TA papers has been growing annually, the number of OA papers has been growing more rapidly compared to the TA papers. In terms of subject areas, Life Sciences had the largest number of OA and TA papers (184,315, followed by Health Sciences (149,341, Natural Sciences (121,274, and Social Sciences and Humanities (42,824. Natural Sciences had the most OA papers (5.7% in terms of the number of papers in this subject area being OA papers, followed by Social Sciences and Humanities (5.2%, Health Sciences (4.6% and Life Sciences (3.6%. Overall, the researchers found that the impact values of OA papers were larger than those of the TA papers for each year examined. In considering subject areas, in all disciplines except Life Sciences, the most highly cited paper in the field is an OA paper. In Life Sciences, the most highly cited TA paper had 2,215 citations, compared to the OA paper, which had 1

Open Access and repositories beyond green and gold

CERN Document Server

2007-01-01

Access to previous results and their reuse in new research are at the very basis of scientific progress. In the era of e-Science and when the Open Access paradigm is changing scholarly communication, there is an unprecedented need for rapid and effective online access to scientific information. High-Energy Physics (HEP) pioneered innovation in scholarly communication with the invention of the Web, originally a vehicle of scientific information, and with the inception of online preprint repositories, introducing Open Access to preliminary scientific results. With the imminent start-up of the CERN LHC accelerator, one of the flagships of European science, the HEP community urgently needs a new platform for scientific information. A multi-disciplinary collaboration of academies, research laboratories and industrial partners has developed a vision to build such an innovative e-infrastructure: HEPIS (High Energy Physics Information System). HEPIS will integrate present European and American databases and repositor...

African Health Sciences: Submissions

African Journals Online (AJOL)

African Health Sciences is an internationally refereed, free access, journal publishing original articles on research, clinical practice, public health, policy, planning, ... Makerere University School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences

The Relevance of Information and Communication Technologies in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Relevance of Information and Communication Technologies in Libraries Services ... Technologies in Libraries Services and Librarianship Profession in the 21th Century ... This paper therefore, examines the importance of ICT in librarianship as a ... for Authors · for Policy Makers · about Open Access · Journal Quality.

Nine meta-functions for science museums and science centres

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Achiam, Marianne; Sølberg, Jan

2017-01-01

Science centres and science museums face challenges such as increased accountability, increased demands for accessibility, and growing competition from leisure experiences. On their own, the traditional museum practices of preservation, communication, and research are insufficient to address...... Ecsite conference, to map out how these institutions address modern-day challenges. This analysis generates a new framework of nine meta-functions for science centres and science museums that can guide and help qualify discussions about their present and future activities. We discuss the new meta...

The Relevance of Biological Sciences in the 21st Century | Onyeka ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives ... Biological Sciences, as the name implies, is a group of sciences, rather than a ... knowledge is better assessed by the various problems of modern civilization ... in the improvement of food supply and elimination of hereditary diseases.

SPECIAL REPORT - The KC EMPOWER Project: Designing More Accessible STEM Learning Activities

OpenAIRE

Bob Hirshon; Laureen Summers; Babette Moeller; Wendy Martin

2016-01-01

The overall purpose of the Kinetic City (KC) Empower project was to examine how informal science activities can be made accessible for students with disabilities. The premise of this project was that all students, including those with disabilities, are interested in and capable of engaging in science learning experiences, if these experiences are accessible to them. Drawing on resources from Kinetic City, a large collection of science experiments, games, and projects developed by the American...

Game-Based Learning in Science Education: A Review of Relevant Research

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ming-Chaun; Tsai, Chin-Chung

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study is to review empirical research articles regarding game-based science learning (GBSL) published from 2000 to 2011. Thirty-one articles were identified through the Web of Science and SCOPUS databases. A qualitative content analysis technique was adopted to analyze the research purposes and designs, game design and…

Advancing science, practice, and policy relevant to school psychology.

Science.gov (United States)

Jimerson, Shane R

2013-03-01

The purpose of this editorial to inform both readers and potential authors, the editor provides a few details relevant to the School Psychology Quarterly (SPQ) including: the mission, contemporary context, the new emphases of SPQ, the editorial board, and advice for authors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

National inventory of Global Change relevant research in Norway; Nasjonal kartlegging av global change-relevant forskning

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2001-05-01

The Norwegian Global Change Committee has made an inventory of global change research (GCR) projects funded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) in 2001. In lack of a rigid definition, GCR was defined as research that can be considered relevant to the science agenda of the four major international global change programmes DIVERSITAS, IGBP, IHDP and WCRP. Relevance was judged based on the objectives stated for each of the international programmes and their core projects. It was not attempted to check whether the projects had any kind of link to the programmes they were considered relevant for. The grants provided by the RCN in 2001 to GCR as defined above amounts to about 77 mill. NOK. Based on a recent survey on climate change research it is reasonable to estimate that the RCN finances between 30 and 40 % of all GCR in Norway. Accordingly, the total value of Norwegian research relevant to the four international global change programmes in 2001 can be estimated to 192 - 254 mill. NOK.

The National Ignition Facility: Ushering in a new age for high energy density science

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moses, E. I.; Boyd, R. N.; Remington, B. A.; Keane, C. J.; Al-Ayat, R.

2009-01-01

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) [E. I. Moses, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 112, 012003 (2008); https://lasers.llnl.gov/], completed in March 2009, is the highest energy laser ever constructed. The high temperatures and densities achievable at NIF will enable a number of experiments in inertial confinement fusion and stockpile stewardship, as well as access to new regimes in a variety of experiments relevant to x-ray astronomy, laser-plasma interactions, hydrodynamic instabilities, nuclear astrophysics, and planetary science. The experiments will impact research on black holes and other accreting objects, the understanding of stellar evolution and explosions, nuclear reactions in dense plasmas relevant to stellar nucleosynthesis, properties of warm dense matter in planetary interiors, molecular cloud dynamics and star formation, and fusion energy generation.

Agricultural and Food Science Journal of Ghana

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Agricultural and Food Science Journal of Ghana publishes papers describing research, observational or experimental and critical reviews in Agriculture and Food Science. Vol 10, No 1 (2017). DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT Open Access DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT Subscription or Fee Access. Table of Contents. Articles ...

Science For Sendai - Bridging the gap between research and application

Science.gov (United States)

Rees, J.

2015-12-01

Disasters have an enormous cost in lives and livelihoods, but the use of rigorous evidence-based scientific approaches to minimise their impact remains poor. Vast amounts of science which could be readily applied for disaster risk reduction (DRR) is under-utilised, if used at all. Previous international agreements have failed to change this picture, but there is a clear call from the international community that the 2015 Sendai framework should make a difference; it is thus re-appraising how to bridge the chasm that exists between DRR relevant scientists and potential users of their research. There is widespread recognition of the need for risk affected countries and communities to engage in science-based decision-making, but several barriers, such as a lack of infrastructure or necessary skills, institutions, and enforcement of science-based policies require significant attention. There are now incentives for governments to respond: the framework has science embedded throughout and it sets-out national targets against which science uptake can be monitored; similarly, widening access to insurance also demands sound science. Advances such as open-data and models, increasing computational capacity, expanding networks, evolving diverse mobile technologies and the other multiple facets of the big data agenda, also should drive change. So, how does the scientific community need to adapt? Whilst vast amounts of 'DRR-relevant' science has been produced, too little of it can be readily used in DRR science. Much remains highly disciplinary and focused on analysis of limited distributions or single processes with a small number of agents; by contrast real-world DRR problems are commonly complex, with multiple drivers and uncertainties. There is a major need for a trans-disciplinary DRR-focused risk research agenda to evolve. Not only do research funders need to develop and resource risk research, but researchers themselves need to identify that focussing on the bigger risk

Using Open and Interoperable Ways to Publish and Access LANCE AIRS Near-Real Time Data

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Peisheng; Lynnes, Christopher; Vollmer, Bruce; Savtchenko, Andrey; Theobald, Michael; Yang, Wenli

2011-01-01

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Near-Real Time (NRT) data from the Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) element at the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) provides information on the global and regional atmospheric state, with very low temporal latency, to support climate research and improve weather forecasting. An open and interoperable platform is useful to facilitate access to, and integration of, LANCE AIRS NRT data. As Web services technology has matured in recent years, a new scalable Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is emerging as the basic platform for distributed computing and large networks of interoperable applications. Following the provide-register-discover-consume SOA paradigm, this presentation discusses how to use open-source geospatial software components to build Web services for publishing and accessing AIRS NRT data, explore the metadata relevant to registering and discovering data and services in the catalogue systems, and implement a Web portal to facilitate users' consumption of the data and services.

A study of ruthenium complexes of some biologically relevant a-N ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Chemical Sciences; Volume 112; Issue 3. A study of ruthenium complexes of some biologically relevant ∙ -N-heterocyclic ... Author Affiliations. P Sengupta1 S Ghosh1. Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Calcutta 700 032, India ...

Australian synchrotron radiation science

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

White, J.W.

1996-01-01

Full text: The Australian Synchrotron Radiation Program, ASRP, has been set up as a major national research facility to provide facilities for scientists and technologists in physics, chemistry, biology and materials science who need access to synchrotron radiation. Australia has a strong tradition in crystallography and structure determination covering small molecule crystallography, biological and protein crystallography, diffraction science and materials science and several strong groups are working in x-ray optics, soft x-ray and vacuum ultra-violet physics. A number of groups whose primary interest is in the structure and dynamics of surfaces, catalysts, polymer and surfactant science and colloid science are hoping to use scattering methods and, if experience in Europe, Japan and USA can be taken as a guide, many of these groups will need third generation synchrotron access. To provide for this growing community, the Australian National Beamline at the Photon Factory, Tsukuba, Japan, has been established since 1990 through a generous collaboration with Japanese colleagues, the beamline equipment being largely produced in Australia. This will be supplemented in 1997 with access to the world's most powerful synchrotron x-ray source at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, USA. Some recent experiments in surface science using neutrons as well as x-rays from the Australian National Beamline will be used to illustrate one of the challenges that synchrotron x-rays may meet

Perilous terra incognita--open-access journals.

Science.gov (United States)

Balon, Richard

2014-04-01

The author focuses on a new rapidly spreading practice of publication in open-access journals. The pros and cons of open-access journals are discussed. Publishing in these journals may be cost prohibitive for educators and junior faculty members. Some authors may be lured by the ease of publishing in open-access journals (and their, at times, inflated self-description, e.g., "international", "scientific"), and their possibly valuable contributions will escape the attention of Academic Psychiatry readership in the vast sea of open-access journals. The readership may be flooded with a large number of low-quality articles (maybe not even properly peer-reviewed) from open-access journals. It may take some time to sort out what is and what is not relevant and useful. Open-access publishing represents a problematic and controversial practice and may be associated with a conflict of interest for the editors and publishers of these journals.

Materials Knowledge Systems in Python - A Data Science Framework for Accelerated Development of Hierarchical Materials.

Science.gov (United States)

Brough, David B; Wheeler, Daniel; Kalidindi, Surya R

2017-03-01

There is a critical need for customized analytics that take into account the stochastic nature of the internal structure of materials at multiple length scales in order to extract relevant and transferable knowledge. Data driven Process-Structure-Property (PSP) linkages provide systemic, modular and hierarchical framework for community driven curation of materials knowledge, and its transference to design and manufacturing experts. The Materials Knowledge Systems in Python project (PyMKS) is the first open source materials data science framework that can be used to create high value PSP linkages for hierarchical materials that can be leveraged by experts in materials science and engineering, manufacturing, machine learning and data science communities. This paper describes the main functions available from this repository, along with illustrations of how these can be accessed, utilized, and potentially further refined by the broader community of researchers.

Making the innovation case in Open Access scholary communication

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2005-01-01

It seems almost unnecessary to have to elaborate additional reasons for the adoption of Open Access scholarly communication (OA sc) as manifested through Open Access journals and self-archiving practices. To those active within the OA arena, the case has been convincingly made, and current arguments merely need to be disseminated beyond the Library and Information Science (LIS) sphere. However, it is my contention that a convincing argument for OA sc needs to be launched from the Science Policy perspective if any government mandated pro-OA policy changes are to be effected. This paper, then, is an attempt at taking the OA discussion beyond the LIS arena and into the realm of Science and Innovation Policy. Using Innovation Theory as its theoretical framework, it is argued that Open Access scholarly communication can only serve to bolster Innovation Systems, be they national, regional, or sectoral. The case of South Africa is taken as an illustrative example, though the case can and will be generalised to beyon...

Science education as a pathway to teaching language literacy: a critical book review

Science.gov (United States)

Tolbert, Sara

2011-03-01

In this paper, I present a critical review of the recent book, Science Education as a Pathway to Teaching Language Literacy, edited by Alberto J. Rodriguez. This volume is a timely collection of essays in which the authors bring to attention both the successes and challenges of integrating science instruction with literacy instruction (and vice versa). Although several themes in the book merit further attention, a central unifying issue throughout all of the chapters is the task of designing instruction which (1) gives students access to the dominant Discourses in science and literacy, (2) builds on students' lived experiences, and (3) connects new material to socially and culturally relevant contexts in both science and literacy instruction— all within the high stakes testing realities of teachers and students in public schools. In this review, I illustrate how the authors of these essays effectively address this formidable challenge through research that `ascends to the concrete'. I also discuss where we could build on the work of the authors to integrate literacy and science instruction with the purpose of `humanizing and democratizing' science education in K-12 classrooms.

ScienceOrganizer System and Interface Summary

Science.gov (United States)

Keller, Richard M.; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

ScienceOrganizer is a specialized knowledge management tool designed to enhance the information storage, organization, and access capabilities of distributed NASA science teams. Users access ScienceOrganizer through an intuitive Web-based interface that enables them to upload, download, and organize project information - including data, documents, images, and scientific records associated with laboratory and field experiments. Information in ScienceOrganizer is "threaded", or interlinked, to enable users to locate, track, and organize interrelated pieces of scientific data. Linkages capture important semantic relationships among information resources in the repository, and these assist users in navigating through the information related to their projects.

Relevance of Donation to Special Federal Tertiary Institution ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

While structured and open-ended interview and relevant documents, including gift and donation files, acquisition records and library accession registers were used to collect data for the study. The population of the study consisted of the Special Federal Tertiary Institution Libraries under study while the subjects of the study ...

A Technique to Speedup Access to Web Contents

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Resonance – Journal of Science Education; Volume 7; Issue 7. Web Caching - A Technique to Speedup Access to Web Contents. Harsha Srinath Shiva Shankar Ramanna. General Article Volume 7 Issue 7 July 2002 pp 54-62 ... Keywords. World wide web; data caching; internet traffic; web page access.

Library legislation and free access to information as new topics in library and information science education.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

2000-01-01

Full Text Available An outline of LIS programs offered by the Department of Information Sciences, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb is given. Factors affecting the recent curriculum revision are described and the reasons for the introduction of a new course in library legislation and standards have been pointed out. The intention of the course has been to make students aware of the existence of international documents relevant to libraries and librarians and to show how the current trends are reflected in national legislation. It is hoped that the course might help students improve their understanding of the legal context surrounding libraries and other information institutions and teach them to appreciate the importance of good legislation.

Investigations in the Science of Sports.

Science.gov (United States)

Hammrich, Penny L.; Fadigan, Kathleen

2003-01-01

Describes the Sisters in Sport Science (SISS) program which provides equitable access for girls to science and mathematics through sports. Includes a sample SISS activity that integrates track and physical sciences. (YDS)

Open Access Scholarly Publications as OER

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Terry Anderson

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the rationale, common practices, challenges, and some personal anecdotes from a journal editor on the production, use, and re-use of peer-reviewed scholarly articles as open educational resources (OER. The scholarly and professional discourse related to open educational resources has largely focused on open learning objects, courseware, and textbooks. However, especially in graduate education, articles published in scholarly journals are often a major component of the course content in formal education. In addition, open access journal articles are critical to expanding access to knowledge by scholars in the developing world and in fostering citizen science, by which everyone has access to the latest academic information and research results. In this article, I highlight some of the challenges, economic models, and evidence for quality of open access journal content and look at new affordances provided by the Net for enhanced functionality, access, and distribution.In the 17 years since I graduated with a doctorate degree, the climate and acceptance of open access publishing has almost reversed itself. I recall a conversation with my PhD supervisor in which he argued that publishing online was not a viable option as the product would not have permanency, scholarly recognition, or the prestige of a paper publication. His comments reflect the confusion between online resources and those described as open access, but as well illustrate the change in academic acceptance and use of open access products during the past decade. The evolution from paper to online production and consumption is a disruptive technology in which much lower cost and increased accessibility of online work opens the product to a completely new group of potential users. In the case of OER these consumers are primarily students, but certainly access to scholars from all parts of the globe and the availability to support citizen science (Silvertown, 2009

Ethiopia's accession to the world trade organisation: lessons from ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This article examines the experiences of least developing countries (LDCs) acceded to World Trade Organisation (WTO) in relation to their accession process, terms of accession and implementation of commitments with a view to drawing lessons which could be relevant to Ethiopia to devise successful strategies and avoid ...

"From the Beginning, I Felt Empowered": Incorporating an Ecological Approach to Learning in Elementary Science Teacher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Birmingham, Daniel; Smetana, Lara; Coleman, Elizabeth

2017-09-01

While a renewed national dialog promotes the importance of science education for future technological and economic viability, students must find science personally relevant to themselves and their communities if the goals set forth in recent reform movements are to be achieved. In this paper, we investigate how incorporating an ecological perspective to learning in teacher education, including opportunities to participate with science in connection to their everyday lives, influenced the ways in which elementary teacher candidates (TCs) envisioned learning and doing science and its potential role in their future classroom. We draw from data collected across three sections of a field-based elementary methods course focused on learning to teach science and social studies through inquiry. We argue that participating in an authentic interdisciplinary inquiry project impacted the ways in which TCs conceived of science, their identities as science learners and teachers and their commitments to bringing inquiry-based science instruction to their future classrooms. This paper addresses issues regarding access to quality science learning experiences in elementary classrooms through empowering TCs to build identities as science learners and teachers in order to impact conditions in their future classrooms.

A novel asynchronous access method with binary interfaces

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Torres-Solis Jorge

2008-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Traditionally synchronous access strategies require users to comply with one or more time constraints in order to communicate intent with a binary human-machine interface (e.g., mechanical, gestural or neural switches. Asynchronous access methods are preferable, but have not been used with binary interfaces in the control of devices that require more than two commands to be successfully operated. Methods We present the mathematical development and evaluation of a novel asynchronous access method that may be used to translate sporadic activations of binary interfaces into distinct outcomes for the control of devices requiring an arbitrary number of commands to be controlled. With this method, users are required to activate their interfaces only when the device under control behaves erroneously. Then, a recursive algorithm, incorporating contextual assumptions relevant to all possible outcomes, is used to obtain an informed estimate of user intention. We evaluate this method by simulating a control task requiring a series of target commands to be tracked by a model user. Results When compared to a random selection, the proposed asynchronous access method offers a significant reduction in the number of interface activations required from the user. Conclusion This novel access method offers a variety of advantages over traditionally synchronous access strategies and may be adapted to a wide variety of contexts, with primary relevance to applications involving direct object manipulation.

African Journals Online: Veterinary Science

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Items 1 - 15 of 15 ... African Journals Online: Veterinary Science ... Browse By Category · Browse Alphabetically · Browse By Country · List All Titles · Free to read Titles This Journal is Open Access ... Life Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics & Physics, Earth Sciences ... The Nigerian Journal of Animal Science (NJAS) is an official ...

Types of Lexicographical Information Needs and their Relevance for Information Science

OpenAIRE

Bergenholtz, Henning; Agerbo, Heidi

2017-01-01

In some situations, you need information in order to solve a problem that has occurred. In information science, user needs are often described through very specific examples rather than through a classification of situation types in which information needs occur. Furthermore, information science often describes general human needs, typically with a reference to Maslow's classification of needs (1954), instead of actual information needs. Lexicography has also focused on information needs, but...

SCIDIP-ES - A science data e-infrastructure for preservation of earth science data

Science.gov (United States)

Riddick, Andrew; Glaves, Helen; Marelli, Fulvio; Albani, Mirko; Tona, Calogera; Marketakis, Yannis; Tzitzikas, Yannis; Guarino, Raffaele; Giaretta, David; Di Giammatteo, Ugo

2013-04-01

business cases for the long term support of that data. This paper will describe our progress to date, including the results of community engagement and user consultation exercises designed to specify and scope the required tools and services. Our user engagement methodology, ensuring that we are capturing the views of a representative sample of institutional users, will be described. Key results of an in-depth user requirements exercise, and also the conclusions from a survey of existing technologies and policies for earth science data preservation involving almost five hundred respondents across Europe and beyond will also be outlined. A key aim of the project will also be to create harmonised data preservation and access policies for earth science data in Europe, taking into account the requirements of relevant earth science data users and archive providers across Europe, liaising appropriately with other European e-infrastructure projects, and progress on this will be explained.

Improving Nigerian health policymakers' capacity to access and utilize policy relevant evidence: outcome of information and communication technology training workshop.

Science.gov (United States)

Uneke, Chigozie Jesse; Ezeoha, Abel Ebeh; Uro-Chukwu, Henry; Ezeonu, Chinonyelum Thecla; Ogbu, Ogbonnaya; Onwe, Friday; Edoga, Chima

2015-01-01

Information and communication technology (ICT) tools are known to facilitate communication and processing of information and sharing of knowledge by electronic means. In Nigeria, the lack of adequate capacity on the use of ICT by health sector policymakers constitutes a major impediment to the uptake of research evidence into the policymaking process. The objective of this study was to improve the knowledge and capacity of policymakers to access and utilize policy relevant evidence. A modified "before and after" intervention study design was used in which outcomes were measured on the target participants both before the intervention is implemented and after. A 4-point likert scale according to the degree of adequacy; 1 = grossly inadequate, 4 = very adequate was employed. This study was conducted in Ebonyi State, south-eastern Nigeria and the participants were career health policy makers. A two-day intensive ICT training workshop was organized for policymakers who had 52 participants in attendance. Topics covered included: (i). intersectoral partnership/collaboration; (ii). Engaging ICT in evidence-informed policy making; use of ICT for evidence synthesis; (iv) capacity development on the use of computer, internet and other ICT. The pre-workshop mean of knowledge and capacity for use of ICT ranged from 2.19-3.05, while the post-workshop mean ranged from 2.67-3.67 on 4-point scale. The percentage increase in mean of knowledge and capacity at the end of the workshop ranged from 8.3%-39.1%. Findings of this study suggest that policymakers' ICT competence relevant to evidence-informed policymaking can be enhanced through training workshop.

Enhancing Access to and Use of NASA Earth Sciences Data via CUAHSI-HIS (Hydrologic Information System) and Other Hydrologic Community Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Rui, H.; Strub, R.; Teng, W. L.; Vollmer, B.; Mocko, D. M.; Maidment, D. R.; Whiteaker, T. L.

2013-12-01

The way NASA earth sciences data are typically archived (by time steps, one step per file, often containing multiple variables) is not optimal for their access by the hydrologic community, particularly if the data volume and/or number of data files are large. To enhance the access to and use of these NASA data, the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) adopted two approaches, in a project supported by the NASA ACCESS Program. The first is to optimally reorganize two large hydrological data sets for more efficient access, as time series, and to integrate the time series data (aka 'data rods') into hydrologic community tools, such as CUAHSI-HIS, EPA-BASINS, and Esri-ArcGIS. This effort has thus far resulted in the reorganization and archive (as data rods) of the following variables from the North American and Global Land Data Assimilation Systems (NLDAS and GLDAS, respectively): precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, runoff, near-surface specific humidity, potential evaporation, soil temperature, near surface air temperature, and near-surface wind. The second approach is to leverage the NASA Simple Subset Wizard (SSW), which was developed to unite data search and subsetters at various NASA EOSDIS data centers into a single, simple, seamless process. Data accessed via SSW are converted to time series before being made available via Web service. Leveraging SSW makes all data accessible via SSW potentially available to HIS users, which increases the number of data sets available as time series beyond those available as data rods. Thus far, a set of selected variables from the NASA Modern Era-Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications Land Surface (MERRA-Land) data set has been integrated into CUAHSI-HIS, including evaporation, land surface temperature, runoff, soil moisture, soil temperature, precipitation, and transpiration. All data integration into these tools has been conducted in collaboration with their

Transradial access: lessons learned from cardiology.

Science.gov (United States)

Snelling, Brian M; Sur, Samir; Shah, Sumedh Subodh; Marlow, Megan M; Cohen, Mauricio G; Peterson, Eric C

2018-05-01

Innovations in interventional cardiology historically predate those in neuro-intervention. As such, studying trends in interventional cardiology can be useful in exploring avenues to optimise neuro-interventional techniques. One such cardiology innovation has been the steady conversion of arterial puncture sites from transfemoral access (TFA) to transradial access (TRA), a paradigm shift supported by safety benefits for patients. While neuro-intervention has unique anatomical challenges, the access itself is identical. As such, examining the extensive cardiology literature on the radial approach has the potential to offer valuable lessons for the neuro-interventionalist audience who may be unfamiliar with this body of work. Therefore, we present here a report, particularly for neuro-interventionalists, regarding the best practices for TRA by reviewing the relevant cardiology literature. We focused our review on the data most relevant to our audience, namely that surrounding the access itself. By reviewing the cardiology literature on metrics such as safety profiles, cost and patient satisfaction differences between TFA and TRA, as well as examining the technical nuances of the procedure and post-procedural care, we hope to give physicians treating complex cerebrovascular disease a broader data-driven understanding of TRA. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Do It Yourself (DIY) Earth Science Collaboratories Using Best Practices and Breakthrough Technologies

Science.gov (United States)

Stephan, E.

2017-12-01

The objective of published earth science study data results and literature on the Web should be to provide a means to integrate discoverable science resources through an open collaborative-Web. At the core of any open science collaborative infrastructure is the ability to discover, manage and ultimately use relevant data accessible to the collaboration. Equally important are the relationships between people, applications, services, and publications, which capture critical contextual knowledge that enable their effective use. While contributions of either irreproducible or costly data can be a great asset the inability of users being able to use the data intelligently or make sense of it, makes these investments not usable. An ability to describe ad-hoc discoverable usage methodologies, provide feedback to data producers, and identify and cite data in a systematic way by leveraging existing Web-enabled off the shelf technology is needed. Fortunately many break-through advancements in data publication best practices and government, open source, and commercial investments support consumers who can provide feedback, share experiences, and contribute back to the earth science ecosystem.

From Web accessibility to Web adaptability.

Science.gov (United States)

Kelly, Brian; Nevile, Liddy; Sloan, David; Fanou, Sotiris; Ellison, Ruth; Herrod, Lisa

2009-07-01

This article asserts that current approaches to enhance the accessibility of Web resources fail to provide a solid foundation for the development of a robust and future-proofed framework. In particular, they fail to take advantage of new technologies and technological practices. The article introduces a framework for Web adaptability, which encourages the development of Web-based services that can be resilient to the diversity of uses of such services, the target audience, available resources, technical innovations, organisational policies and relevant definitions of 'accessibility'. The article refers to a series of author-focussed approaches to accessibility through which the authors and others have struggled to find ways to promote accessibility for people with disabilities. These approaches depend upon the resource author's determination of the anticipated users' needs and their provision. Through approaches labelled as 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, the authors have widened their focus to account for contexts and individual differences in target audiences. Now, the authors want to recognise the role of users in determining their engagement with resources (including services). To distinguish this new approach, the term 'adaptability' has been used to replace 'accessibility'; new definitions of accessibility have been adopted, and the authors have reviewed their previous work to clarify how it is relevant to the new approach. Accessibility 1.0 is here characterised as a technical approach in which authors are told how to construct resources for a broadly defined audience. This is known as universal design. Accessibility 2.0 was introduced to point to the need to account for the context in which resources would be used, to help overcome inadequacies identified in the purely technical approach. Accessibility 3.0 moved the focus on users from a homogenised universal definition to recognition of the idiosyncratic needs and preferences of individuals and to cater for them. All of

Task-role-based Access Control Model in Smart Health-care System

OpenAIRE

Wang Peng; Jiang Lingyun

2015-01-01

As the development of computer science and smart health-care technology, there is a trend for patients to enjoy medical care at home. Taking enormous users in the Smart Health-care System into consideration, access control is an important issue. Traditional access control models, discretionary access control, mandatory access control, and role-based access control, do not properly reflect the characteristics of Smart Health-care System. This paper proposes an advanced access control model for...

Making connections: Exploring student agency in a science classroom in India

Science.gov (United States)

Sharma, Ajay

situated improvised responses to ongoing dialogues that enabled them to survive, negotiate and maneuver their way through their immediate social world. Inside the science classroom, students negotiated their roles as students in a varied, improvised, and contingent manner. Further, whenever the constraints and affordances of the local situation and the resources at their disposal made it feasible, students exercised their social agency to selectively appropriate school science discourse for their own out-of-school purposes. The science teacher did much to encourage this contingent and situated emergence of students' social agency. However, the extant teacher professional and school science discourses allowed him to achieve only limited success in making science more meaningful and relevant to the students. The study reveals that though much has been accomplished to provide universal access to elementary education in India, the science instruction still persists along traditional lines. Thus, the state is still far from providing access to the type of science education it advocates in its national policy documents. The study urges the state to fulfill its constitutional obligations by providing a science education that enables students to not only build a better future for themselves, but also work for peaceful and progressive social change. The study recommends informed bricolage as a goal for teacher education and professional development.

Open Access to essential health care information

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pandey Manoj

2004-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Open Access publishing is a valuable resource for the synthesis and distribution of essential health care information. This article discusses the potential benefits of Open Access, specifically in terms of Low and Middle Income (LAMI countries in which there is currently a lack of informed health care providers – mainly a consequence of poor availability to information. We propose that without copyright restrictions, Open Access facilitates distribution of the most relevant research and health care information. Furthermore, we suggest that the technology and infrastructure that has been put in place for Open Access could be used to publish download-able manuals, guides or basic handbooks created by healthcare providers in LAMI countries.

Experiencing biodiversity as a bridge over the science-society communication gap.

Science.gov (United States)

Meinard, Yves; Quétier, Fabien

2014-06-01

Drawing on the idea that biodiversity is simply the diversity of living things, and that everyone knows what diversity and living things mean, most conservation professionals eschew the need to explain the many complex ways in which biodiversity is understood in science. On many biodiversity-related issues, this lack of clarity leads to a communication gap between science and the general public, including decision makers who must design and implement biodiversity policies. Closing this communication gap is pivotal to the ability of science to inform sound environmental decision making. To address this communication gap, we propose a surrogate of biodiversity for communication purposes that captures the scientific definition of biodiversity yet can be understood by nonscientists; that is, biodiversity as a learning experience. The prerequisites of this or any other biodiversity communication surrogate are that it should have transdisciplinary relevance; not be measurable; be accessible to a wide audience; be usable to translate biodiversity issues; and understandably encompass biodiversity concepts. Biodiversity as a learning experience satisfies these prerequisites and is philosophically robust. More importantly, it can effectively contribute to closing the communication gap between biodiversity science and society at large. © 2013 Society for Conservation Biology.

Relevance of human anatomy in daily clinical practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Arráez-Aybar, Luis-Alfonso; Sánchez-Montesinos, Indalecio; Mirapeix, Rosa-M; Mompeo-Corredera, Blanca; Sañudo-Tejero, Jose-Ramón

2010-12-20

the aim of this study has been to evaluate the relevance of gross human anatomy in daily clinical practice and to compare it to that of other basic sciences (biochemistry, bioethics, cytohistology, microbiology, pharmacology, physiology, psychology). a total of 1250 questionnaires were distributed among 38 different medical speciality professionals. Answers were analyzed taking into account speciality (medical, surgery and others), professional status (training physician or staff member) and professional experience. the response rate was 42.9% (n=536). Gross human anatomy was considered the most relevant basic discipline for surgical specialists, while pharmacology and physiology were most relevant for medical specialists. Knowledge of anatomy was also considered fundamental for understanding neurological or musculoskeletal disorders. In undergraduate programmes, the most important focuses in teaching anatomy were radiological, topographical and functional anatomy followed by systematic anatomy. In daily medical practice anatomy was considered basic for physical examination, symptom interpretation and interpretation of radiological images. When professional status or professional experience was considered, small variations were shown and there were no significant differences related to gender or community. our results underline the relevance of basic sciences (gross anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology) in daily professional activity. Evidence-based studies such as ours, lend greater credibility and objectivity to the role of gross anatomy in the undergraduate training of health professionals and should help to establish a more appropriate curriculum for future professionals. 2010 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Bradford's Law and Its Relevance to Researchers

Science.gov (United States)

Shenton, Andrew K.; Hay-Gibson, Naomi V.

2009-01-01

Bradford's Law has been the subject of much discussion and analysis in library and information science since its formulation in the 1930s and remains frequently debated to this day. It has been applied to various practices within the discipline, especially with regard to collection development, but its relevance to researchers and the potential it…

Deep-sea genetic resources: New frontiers for science and stewardship in areas beyond national jurisdiction

Science.gov (United States)

Harden-Davies, Harriet

2017-03-01

The deep-sea is a large source of marine genetic resources (MGR), which have many potential uses and are a growing area of research. Much of the deep-sea lies in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), including 65% of the global ocean. MGR in ABNJ occupy a significant gap in the international legal framework. Access and benefit sharing of MGR is a key issue in the development of a new international legally-binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in ABNJ. This paper examines how this is relevant to deep-sea scientific research and identifies emerging challenges and opportunities. There is no internationally agreed definition of MGR, however, deep-sea genetic resources could incorporate any biological material including genes, proteins and natural products. Deep-sea scientific research is the key actor accessing MGR in ABNJ and sharing benefits such as data, samples and knowledge. UNCLOS provides the international legal framework for marine scientific research, international science cooperation, capacity building and marine technology transfer. Enhanced implementation could support access and benefit sharing of MGR in ABNJ. Deep-sea scientific researchers could play an important role in informing practical new governance solutions for access and benefit sharing of MGR that promote scientific research in ABNJ and support deep-sea stewardship. Advancing knowledge of deep-sea biodiversity in ABNJ, enhancing open-access to data and samples, standardisation and international marine science cooperation are significant potential opportunity areas.

Opening science: New publication forms in science

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Scheliga, Kaja

2014-12-01

Full Text Available [english] Digital technologies change how scientists access and process information and consequently impact publication forms in science. Even though the core of scientific publications has remained the same, established publication formats, such as the scientific paper or book, are succumbing to the transitions caused by digital technologies. At the same time, new online tools enable new publication forms, such as blogs, microblogs or wikis, to emerge. This article explores the changing and emerging publications forms in science and also reflects upon the changing role of libraries. The transformations of publishing forms are discussed in the context of open science.

Social and science issues in the local environment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gilbert, L.; Robinson, M.

1992-01-01

This paper discusses the Nevada Science Project (NSP) which is a teacher run program aimed at assisting teachers in Nevada in the task of developing; learning; and teaching science, technology, and society (STS) issues; vital to Nevada; the United States; and the global community. NSP promotes innovative science instruction, and develops curriculum units on topics inherent in science and technology in order to make science more relevant and interesting to all students. The Nevada Science Project wants to prepare teachers and students to understand important science concepts, to see science as a way of thinking, and science as a way of investigating. The NSP believes that science must be an integrated curriculum based on relevant and interesting STS issues that have everyday applications

Scholarly communication in library and information services the impacts of open access journals and e-journals on a changing scenario

CERN Document Server

Mukherjee, Bhaskar

2010-01-01

This book has been written with a view to understand the validity of the perceptions of Open Access (OA) e-journals in the Library and Information Science (LIS) field. Using relevant OA journals this book presents and evaluates journals qualitatively and quantitatively. Over the last three hundred years scholarly journals have been the prime mode of transport in communicating the scholarly research process. However in the last few decades, a changing scenario has been witnessed in their form and format. OA is an innovative idea that attracts a fair amount of support and opposition around the w

Usage Trends of Open Access and Local Journals: A Korean Case Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Seo, Jeong-Wook; Chung, Hosik; Yun, Jungmin; Park, Jin Young; Park, Eunsun; Ahn, Yuri

2016-01-01

Articles from open access and local journals are important resources for research in Korea and the usage trends of these articles are important indicators for the assessment of the current research practice. We analyzed an institutional collection of published papers from 1998 to 2014 authored by researchers from Seoul National University, and their references from papers published between 1998 and 2011. The published papers were collected from Web of Science or Scopus and were analyzed according to the proportion of articles from open access journals. Their cited references from published papers in Web of Science were analyzed according to the proportion of local (South Korean) or open access journals. The proportion of open access papers was relatively stable until 2006 (2.5 ~ 5.2% in Web of Science and 2.7 ~ 4.2% in Scopus), but then increased to 15.9% (Web of Science) or 18.5% (Scopus) in 2014. We analyzed 2,750,485 cited references from 52,295 published papers. We found that the overall proportion of cited articles from local journals was 1.8% and that for open access journals was 3.0%. Citations of open access articles have increased since 2006 to 4.1% in 2011, although the increase in open access article citations was less than for open access publications. The proportion of citations from local journals was even lower. We think that the publishing / citing mismatch is a term to describe this difference, which is an issue at Seoul National University, where the number of published papers at open access or local journals is increasing but the number of citations is not. The cause of this discrepancy is multi-factorial but the governmental / institutional policies, social / cultural issues and authors' citing behaviors will explain the mismatch. However, additional measures are also necessary, such as the development of an institutional citation database and improved search capabilities with respect to local and open access documents.

Usage Trends of Open Access and Local Journals: A Korean Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Chung, Hosik; Yun, Jungmin; Park, Jin Young; Park, Eunsun; Ahn, Yuri

2016-01-01

Articles from open access and local journals are important resources for research in Korea and the usage trends of these articles are important indicators for the assessment of the current research practice. We analyzed an institutional collection of published papers from 1998 to 2014 authored by researchers from Seoul National University, and their references from papers published between 1998 and 2011. The published papers were collected from Web of Science or Scopus and were analyzed according to the proportion of articles from open access journals. Their cited references from published papers in Web of Science were analyzed according to the proportion of local (South Korean) or open access journals. The proportion of open access papers was relatively stable until 2006 (2.5 ~ 5.2% in Web of Science and 2.7 ~ 4.2% in Scopus), but then increased to 15.9% (Web of Science) or 18.5% (Scopus) in 2014. We analyzed 2,750,485 cited references from 52,295 published papers. We found that the overall proportion of cited articles from local journals was 1.8% and that for open access journals was 3.0%. Citations of open access articles have increased since 2006 to 4.1% in 2011, although the increase in open access article citations was less than for open access publications. The proportion of citations from local journals was even lower. We think that the publishing / citing mismatch is a term to describe this difference, which is an issue at Seoul National University, where the number of published papers at open access or local journals is increasing but the number of citations is not. The cause of this discrepancy is multi-factorial but the governmental / institutional policies, social / cultural issues and authors' citing behaviors will explain the mismatch. However, additional measures are also necessary, such as the development of an institutional citation database and improved search capabilities with respect to local and open access documents. PMID:27195948

Usage Trends of Open Access and Local Journals: A Korean Case Study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jeong-Wook Seo

Full Text Available Articles from open access and local journals are important resources for research in Korea and the usage trends of these articles are important indicators for the assessment of the current research practice. We analyzed an institutional collection of published papers from 1998 to 2014 authored by researchers from Seoul National University, and their references from papers published between 1998 and 2011. The published papers were collected from Web of Science or Scopus and were analyzed according to the proportion of articles from open access journals. Their cited references from published papers in Web of Science were analyzed according to the proportion of local (South Korean or open access journals. The proportion of open access papers was relatively stable until 2006 (2.5 ~ 5.2% in Web of Science and 2.7 ~ 4.2% in Scopus, but then increased to 15.9% (Web of Science or 18.5% (Scopus in 2014. We analyzed 2,750,485 cited references from 52,295 published papers. We found that the overall proportion of cited articles from local journals was 1.8% and that for open access journals was 3.0%. Citations of open access articles have increased since 2006 to 4.1% in 2011, although the increase in open access article citations was less than for open access publications. The proportion of citations from local journals was even lower. We think that the publishing / citing mismatch is a term to describe this difference, which is an issue at Seoul National University, where the number of published papers at open access or local journals is increasing but the number of citations is not. The cause of this discrepancy is multi-factorial but the governmental / institutional policies, social / cultural issues and authors' citing behaviors will explain the mismatch. However, additional measures are also necessary, such as the development of an institutional citation database and improved search capabilities with respect to local and open access documents.

Awareness and Use of Open Access Scholarly Publications by ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The study investigated the awareness and use of Open Access scholarly publications by postgraduate students of Faculty of Science in Ahmadu Bello University Zaria (ABU), Kaduna State, Nigeria. The study was guided by four research objectives namely to determine the channels of awareness of Open Access ...

Promoting Translational Research Among Movement Science, Occupational Science, and Occupational Therapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Sainburg, Robert L; Liew, Sook-Lei; Frey, Scott H; Clark, Florence

2017-01-01

Integration of research in the fields of neural control of movement and biomechanics (collectively referred to as movement science) with the field of human occupation directly benefits both areas of study. Specifically, incorporating many of the quantitative scientific methods and analyses employed in movement science can help accelerate the development of rehabilitation-relevant research in occupational therapy (OT) and occupational science (OS). Reciprocally, OT and OS, which focus on the performance of everyday activities (occupations) to promote health and well-being, provide theoretical frameworks to guide research on the performance of actions in the context of social, psychological, and environmental factors. Given both fields' mutual interest in the study of movement as it relates to health and disease, the authors posit that combining OS and OT theories and principles with the theories and methods in movement science may lead to new, impactful, and clinically relevant knowledge. The first step is to ensure that individuals with OS or OT backgrounds are academically prepared to pursue advanced study in movement science. In this article, the authors propose 2 strategies to address this need.

Free access to science... but at what cost?

CERN Multimedia

Anaïs Schaeffer

2011-01-01

At the last meeting of CERN’s Scientific Information Policy Board (SIPB), on 20 October this year, participants were informed of a practice that is disconcerting to say the least: some publishers are compiling books from free access material, which they then market at relatively high prices.   Some theses, which are freely accessible on CDS, are being sold at incredibly high prices on Amazon. The problem is that buyers don't know they are buying theses that are available for free. “When I found out, I was really astonished!” admits Tullio Basaglia, head of the Library Section of CERN’s Scientific Information Service. Tullio was referring to the distinctly unorthodox practice of certain unscrupulous publishers who are selling freely available information! They simply poach articles from Wikipedia, compile them, bind them into a book, and then sell them at a high price under the name of a non-existent author. Thus, for instance, a certain Lambert...

Ocean Drilling Program: Web Site Access Statistics

Science.gov (United States)

web site ODP/TAMU Science Operator Home Ocean Drilling Program Web Site Access Statistics* Overview See statistics for JOIDES members. See statistics for Janus database. 1997 October November December

Youth suicide prevention: does access to care matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Campo, John V

2009-10-01

Recent increases in adolescent suicide rates after a decade of decline highlight the relevance of pediatric suicide prevention. Existing strategies to intervene with youth at risk for suicide are largely based on the premise that access to effective services is of critical importance. This review aims to examine the relationship between youth suicide and access to care. Promising reductions in suicidal thinking and behavior have been associated with the application of manualized psychotherapies, collaborative interventions in primary care, lithium for mood-disordered adults, and clozapine in schizophrenia. Suicide rates correlate inversely with indices of care access across the lifespan, including antidepressant prescription rates. Suicide is a preventable cause of death, and any public health relevant effort to prevent youth suicide must include improving access to effective care for at-risk youth as a strategy. Education and training of professionals and consumers, the integration of mental health services in primary care, and the use of novel technologies to track and maintain contact with at-risk youth are worthy of study. Additional research on the relationship between specific treatments, especially antidepressants, and youth suicide risk reduction is desperately needed.

Measuring Access to Learning Opportunities.

Science.gov (United States)

Hawley, Willis D., Ed.; Ready, Timothy, Ed.

This study examined the continued relevance and adequacy of the Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report (E&S Survey) as a tool for enforcing civil rights laws in education, monitoring quality of access to learning opportunities, and research on other current issues of educational policy and practice. The Committee on…

Southern Africa Journal of Education, Science and Technology

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Southern Africa Journal of Science and Technology is a peer-reviewed journal that seeks to promote original research and disseminated knowledge in the fields of education, science and technology. Vol 3, No 1-2 (2008). DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT Open Access DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT Subscription or Fee Access ...

Open Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact Than Articles Not Freely Available, A review of: Antelman, Kristin. “Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?” College & Research Libraries 65.5 (Sep. 2004: 372-82.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suzanne P. Lewis

2006-09-01

Full Text Available Objective – To ascertain whether open access articles have a greater research impact than articles not freely available, as measured by citations in the ISI Web of Science database. Design – Analysis of mean citation rates of a sample population of journal articles across four disciplines. Setting – Journal literature across the disciplines of philosophy, political science, mathematics, and electrical and electronic engineering. Subjects – A sample of 2,017 articles across the four disciplines published between 2001 and 2002 (for political science, mathematics, and electrical and electronic engineering and between 1999 and 2000 (for philosophy. Methods – A systematic presample of articles for each of the disciplines was taken to calculate the necessary sample sizes. Based on this calculation, articles were sourced from ten leading journals in each discipline. The leading journals in political science, mathematics, and electrical and electronic engineering were defined by ISI’s Journal Citation Reports for 2002. The ten leading philosophy journals were selected using a combination of other methods. Once the sample population had been identified, each article title and the number of citations to each article (in the ISI Web of Science database were recorded. Then the article title was searched in Google and if any freely available full text version was found, the article was classified as open access. The mean citation rate for open access and non‐open access articles in each discipline was identified, and the percentage difference between the means was calculated. Main results – The four disciplines represented a range of open access uptake: 17% of articles in philosophy were open access, 29% in political science, 37% in electrical and electronic engineering, and 69% in mathematics. There was a significant difference in the mean citation rates for open access articles and non‐open access articles in all four disciplines. The

MememxGATE: Unearthing Latent Content Features for Improved Search and Relevancy Ranking Across Scientific Literature

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, B. D.; McGibbney, L. J.; Mattmann, C. A.; Ramirez, P.; Joyce, M.; Whitehall, K. D.

2015-12-01

Quantifying scientific relevancy is of increasing importance to NASA and the research community. Scientific relevancy may be defined by mapping the impacts of a particular NASA mission, instrument, and/or retrieved variables to disciplines such as climate predictions, natural hazards detection and mitigation processes, education, and scientific discoveries. Related to relevancy, is the ability to expose data with similar attributes. This in turn depends upon the ability for us to extract latent, implicit document features from scientific data and resources and make them explicit, accessible and useable for search activities amongst others. This paper presents MemexGATE; a server side application, command line interface and computing environment for running large scale metadata extraction, general architecture text engineering, document classification and indexing tasks over document resources such as social media streams, scientific literature archives, legal documentation, etc. This work builds on existing experiences using MemexGATE (funded, developed and validated through the DARPA Memex Progrjam PI Mattmann) for extracting and leveraging latent content features from document resources within the Materials Research domain. We extend the software functionality capability to the domain of scientific literature with emphasis on the expansion of gazetteer lists, named entity rules, natural language construct labeling (e.g. synonym, antonym, hyponym, etc.) efforts to enable extraction of latent content features from data hosted by wide variety of scientific literature vendors (AGU Meeting Abstract Database, Springer, Wiley Online, Elsevier, etc.) hosting earth science literature. Such literature makes both implicit and explicit references to NASA datasets and relationships between such concepts stored across EOSDIS DAAC's hence we envisage that a significant part of this effort will also include development and understanding of relevancy signals which can ultimately

Social Justice and Out-of-School Science Learning: Exploring Equity in Science Television, Science Clubs and Maker Spaces

Science.gov (United States)

Dawson, Emily

2017-01-01

This article outlines how social justice theories, in combination with the concepts of infrastructure access, literacies and community acceptance, can be used to think about equity in out-of-school science learning. The author applies these ideas to out-of-school learning via television, science clubs, and maker spaces, looking at research as well…

Integrating Brain Science into Health Studies: An Interdisciplinary Course in Contemplative Neuroscience and Yoga

Science.gov (United States)

Wolfe, Uta; Moran, Amy

2017-01-01

As neuroscience knowledge grows in its scope of societal applications so does the need to educate a wider audience on how to critically evaluate its research findings. Efforts at finding teaching approaches that are interdisciplinary, accessible and highly applicable to student experience are thus ongoing. The article describes an interdisciplinary undergraduate health course that combines the academic study of contemplative neuroscience with contemplative practice, specifically yoga. The class aims to reach a diverse mix of students by teaching applicable, health-relevant neuroscience material while directly connecting it to first-hand experience. Outcomes indicate success on these goals: The course attracted a wide range of students, including nearly 50% non-science majors. On a pre/post test, students showed large increases in their knowledge of neuroscience. Students’ ratings of the course overall, of increases in positive feelings about its field, and of their progress on specific course objectives were highly positive. Finally, students in their written work applied neuroscience course content to their personal and professional lives. Such results indicate that this approach could serve as a model for the interdisciplinary, accessible and applied integration of relevant neuroscience material into the undergraduate health curriculum. PMID:29371845

Testing the idea of privileged awareness of self-relevant information.

Science.gov (United States)

Stein, Timo; Siebold, Alisha; van Zoest, Wieske

2016-03-01

Self-relevant information is prioritized in processing. Some have suggested the mechanism driving this advantage is akin to the automatic prioritization of physically salient stimuli in information processing (Humphreys & Sui, 2015). Here we investigate whether self-relevant information is prioritized for awareness under continuous flash suppression (CFS), as has been found for physical salience. Gabor patches with different orientations were first associated with the labels You or Other. Participants were more accurate in matching the self-relevant association, replicating previous findings of self-prioritization. However, breakthrough into awareness from CFS did not differ between self- and other-associated Gabors. These findings demonstrate that self-relevant information has no privileged access to awareness. Rather than modulating the initial visual processes that precede and lead to awareness, the advantage of self-relevant information may better be characterized as prioritization at later processing stages. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Open science, e-science and the new technologies: Challenges and old problems in qualitative research in the social sciences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ercilia García-Álvarez

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Purpose: As well as introducing the articles in the special issue titled "Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences", this article reviews the challenges, problems and main advances made by the qualitative paradigm in the context of the new European science policy based on open science and e-Science and analysis alternative technologies freely available in the 2.0 environment and their application to fieldwork and data analysis. Design/methodology: Theoretical review. Practical implications: The article identifies open access technologies with applications in qualitative research such as applications for smartphones and tablets, web platforms and specific qualitative data analysis software, all developed in both the e-Science context and the 2.0 environment. Social implications: The article discusses the possible role to be played by qualitative research in the open science and e-Science context and considers the impact of this new context on the size and structure of research groups, the development of truly collaborative research, the emergence of new ethical problems and quality assessment in review processes in an open environment. Originality/value: The article describes the characteristics that define the new scientific environment and the challenges posed for qualitative research, reviews the latest open access technologies available to researchers in terms of their main features and proposes specific applications suitable for fieldwork and data analysis.

Welcome to Systems — A New Interdisciplinary Open Access Journal for Systems Science and Engineering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas Huynh

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Natural and human-made systems abound around us. Our solar system, the human body, the food chain, and ecosystems are some examples of natural systems. Some human-made systems are transportation systems, weapon systems, computer systems, software systems, satellite communications systems, ships, missile defense systems, health care systems, the internet, financial systems, and regional economies. Understanding of natural systems is essential to the survival of the human species, which is intertwined with the survival of other species on earth. Having the knowledge and ability to build human-made systems is critical to the employment of systems that effectively serve the needs of their users. To gain such understanding and to acquire such knowledge and ability, it is necessary that cutting-edge research in systems science, systems engineering, and systems-related fields continue. This open access journal aims to achieve quick and global dissemination of results of such research. [...

PATTERN OF ACCESS AND ICT USAGE AMONG SCIENCE ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

specialized classroom/laboratory (Mean = 0.52), library (Mean = 0.52), and science ... training in observation and reasoning for students and enables them to form an objective ...... Pedagogic benchmarks for information and communication.

Collaborative Visualization Project: shared-technology learning environments for science learning

Science.gov (United States)

Pea, Roy D.; Gomez, Louis M.

1993-01-01

Project-enhanced science learning (PESL) provides students with opportunities for `cognitive apprenticeships' in authentic scientific inquiry using computers for data-collection and analysis. Student teams work on projects with teacher guidance to develop and apply their understanding of science concepts and skills. We are applying advanced computing and communications technologies to augment and transform PESL at-a-distance (beyond the boundaries of the individual school), which is limited today to asynchronous, text-only networking and unsuitable for collaborative science learning involving shared access to multimedia resources such as data, graphs, tables, pictures, and audio-video communication. Our work creates user technology (a Collaborative Science Workbench providing PESL design support and shared synchronous document views, program, and data access; a Science Learning Resource Directory for easy access to resources including two-way video links to collaborators, mentors, museum exhibits, media-rich resources such as scientific visualization graphics), and refine enabling technologies (audiovisual and shared-data telephony, networking) for this PESL niche. We characterize participation scenarios for using these resources and we discuss national networked access to science education expertise.

Full-Text Linking: Affiliated versus Nonaffiliated Access in a Free Database.

Science.gov (United States)

Grogg, Jill E.; Andreadis, Debra K.; Kirk, Rachel A.

2002-01-01

Presents a comparison of access to full-text articles from a free bibliographic database (PubSCIENCE) for affiliated and unaffiliated users. Found that affiliated users had access to more full-text articles than unaffiliated users had, and that both types of users could increase their level of access through additional searching and greater…

NUCLEAR STRUCTURE AND DECAY DATA: INTRODUCTION TO RELEVANT WEB PAGES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

BURROWS, T.W.; MCLAUGHLIN, P.D.; NICHOLS, A.L.

2005-01-01

A brief description is given of the nuclear data centres around the world able to provide access to those databases and programs of highest relevance to nuclear structure and decay data specialists. A number of Web-page addresses are also provided for the reader to inspect and investigate these data and codes for study, evaluation and calculation. These instructions are not meant to be comprehensive, but should provide the reader with a reasonable means of electronic access to the most important data sets and programs

Enhancing Public Access to Relevant and Valued Medical Information: Fresh Directions for RadiologyInfo.org.

Science.gov (United States)

Rubin, Geoffrey D; Krishnaraj, Arun; Mahesh, Mahadevappa; Rajendran, Ramji R; Fishman, Elliot K

2017-05-01

RadiologyInfo.org is a public information portal designed to support patient care and broaden public awareness of the essential role radiology plays in overall patient health care. Over the past 14 years, RadiologyInfo.org has evolved considerably to provide access to more than 220 mixed-media descriptions of tests, treatments, and diseases through a spectrum of mobile and desktop platforms, social media, and downloadable documents in both English and Spanish. In 2014, the RSNA-ACR Public Information Website Committee, which stewards RadiologyInfo.org, developed 3- to 5-year strategic and implementation plans for the website. The process was informed by RadiologyInfo.org user surveys, formal stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and usability testing. Metrics were established as key performance indicators to assess progress toward the stated goals of (1) optimizing content to enhance patient-centeredness, (2) enhancing reach and engagement, and (3) maintaining sustainability. Major changes resulting from this process include a complete redesign of the website, the replacement of text-rich PowerPoint presentations with conversational videos, and the development of an affiliate network. Over the past year, visits to RadiologyInfo.org have increased by 60.27% to 1,424,523 in August 2016 from 235 countries and territories. Twenty-two organizations have affiliated with RadiologyInfo.org with new organizations being added on a monthly basis. RadiologyInfo provides a tangible demonstration of how radiologists can engage directly with the global public to educate them on the value of radiology in their health care and to allay concerns and dispel misconceptions. Regular self-assessment and responsive planning will ensure its continued growth and relevance. Copyright © 2016 American College of Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Utilizing Science to Ensure Safe Access to Cultural Resources on Public Lands: The Portland Native American Community and Traditional Gathering of Camas

Science.gov (United States)

Greene, C.

2017-12-01

Native Americans have been conducting and contributing to science for millenia. We have observed nature and passed on evidence-based Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) from generation to generation. Prior to colonization, this knowledge enabled our people to live with ample nutritional resources. Our long-standing relationship to nature continues today in tribal, rural, and urban communities, yet access to cultural resources (traditional food and medicines) proves challenging due to modern land management practices. The Native American community and public land managers in Portland, Oregon are addressing this challenge through the restoration of cultural resources across the landscape. One focus in these efforts is the camas plant (Camssia quamash), which grows in wetland and prairie ecosystems. The harvested bulbs are traditionally pit roasted, converting the indigestible inulin into carbohydrates of high nutritional value. Access to local natural areas has been granted for Native American community members to gather camas, yet pesticide and herbicide application as land management practices have created uncertainty regarding the safety of ingesting the camas bulbs. The Native American community gathered camas bulbs in November 2015 for analysis, which resulted in glyphosate (pesticide) and triclopyr (herbicide). There are various factors which may influence the uptake of pesticide and herbicide residuals in camas which need further investigation, including pesticide/herbicide application details (date, location), preferential uptake of pesticide/herbicides in camas among the present plant community, the impact of pit roasting bulbs on residuals, and traditional land management practices like prescribed burning. Utilizing TEK and science to ensure safe access to cultural resources is paramount in preserving our cultures and enhancing the value of indigenous perspectives on land management practices and policies.

Relevance of Piagetian cross-cultural psychology to the humanities and social sciences.

Science.gov (United States)

Oesterdiekhoff, Georg W

2013-01-01

Jean Piaget held views according to which there are parallels between ontogeny and the historical development of culture, sciences, and reason. His books are full of remarks and considerations about these parallels, with reference to many logical, physical, social, and moral phenomena.This article explains that Piagetian cross-cultural psychology has delivered the decisive data needed to extend the research interests of Piaget. These data provide a basis for reconstructing not only the history of sciences but also the history of religion, politics, morals, culture, philosophy, and social change and the emergence of industrial society. Thus, it is possible to develop Piagetian theory as a historical anthropology in order to provide a basis for the humanities and social sciences.

Revista ORL at Open Science Ecosystem

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tránsito FERRERAS FERNÁNDEZ

2018-05-01

Full Text Available In October 2017 they were held at the University of Salamanca the congress Open Knowledge Ecosystems (ACE 2017 posed as an international meeting point for specialists in open access. The congress allowed to approach the open knowledge from the perspectives I + D + i, offering papers and communications on research related to Open Access, as well as experiences developed in repositories and institutions and approaches to innovative trends in any of the fields of open knowledge.The experience of Revista ORL was present in ECA 2017 through a joint communication of several authors titled Nuevas vías de publicación para revistas biomédicas. Proyecto Revista ORL de Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, offering an overview of the history of the Revista as an open edition project. Although on that occasion it was called a project, now we should call it "reality" fully consolidated because the data on results obtained.Open Science represents a paradigm change in the way to make science. Although this doesn't change substantially with respect to its motivations and objectives, it changes its methods. The change lies in how it is done, not in what is done. It is an open science, collaborative and made with and for society.The concept of Open Science has been preceded by Open Access to academic content and this may have conditioned its understanding. Open Access has been assimilated only with open access to articles, while with Open Science it is considered that what must be open is any research result (articles + data as well as the auxiliary instruments used (for example, laboratory notebooks. However, the double meaning of "open" (free and free is the same for the two concepts.In this paper we pose questions such as What is Open Science? What are the motivations of governments for its promotion? What components does make up this ecosystem? What are the implications for agents of scientific research? What does represent all this for the edition of

Direct access to INIS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zheludev, I.S.; Romanenko, A.G.

1981-01-01

Librarians, researchers, and information specialists throughout the world now have the opportunity for direct access to coverage of almost 95% of the world's literature dealing with the peaceful uses of atomic energy and nuclear science. This opportunity has been provided by the International Nuclear Information System (INIS) of the IAEA. INIS, with the voluntary collaboration of more than 60 of the Agency's Member States, maintains a comprehensive, computer-resident data-base, containing the bibliographic details plus informative abstracts of the bulk of the world's literature on nuclear science and technology. Since this data-base is growing at a rate of 75,000 items per year, and already contains more than 500,000 items, it is obviously important to be able to search this collection conveniently and efficiently. The usefulness of this ability is enhanced when other data-bases on related subjects are made available on an information network. During the early 1970s, on-line interrogation of large bibliographic data-bases became the accepted method for searching this type of information resource. Direct interaction between the searcher and the data-base provides quick feed-back resulting in improved literature listings for launching research and development projects. On-line access enables organizations which cannot store a large data-base on their own computer to expand the information resources at their command. Because of these advantages, INIS undertook to extend to interested Member States on-line access to its data-base in Vienna

Democratizing Computer Science

Science.gov (United States)

Margolis, Jane; Goode, Joanna; Ryoo, Jean J.

2015-01-01

Computer science programs are too often identified with a narrow stratum of the student population, often white or Asian boys who have access to computers at home. But because computers play such a huge role in our world today, all students can benefit from the study of computer science and the opportunity to build skills related to computing. The…

The Joint Fire Science Program Fire Exchange Network: Facilitating Knowledge Exchange About Wildland Fire Science Across the U.S.

Science.gov (United States)

York, A.; Blocksome, C.; Cheng, T.; Creighton, J.; Edwards, G.; Frederick, S.; Giardina, C. P.; Goebel, P. C.; Gucker, C.; Kobziar, L.; Lane, E.; Leis, S.; Long, A.; Maier, C.; Marschall, J.; McGowan-Stinski, J.; Mohr, H.; MontBlanc, E.; Pellant, M.; Pickett, E.; Seesholtz, D.; Skowronski, N.; Stambaugh, M. C.; Stephens, S.; Thode, A.; Trainor, S. F.; Waldrop, T.; Wolfson, B.; Wright, V.; Zedler, P.

2014-12-01

The Joint Fire Science Program's (JFSP) Fire Exchange Network is actively working to accelerate the awareness, understanding, and adoption of wildland fire science information by federal, tribal, state, local, and private stakeholders within ecologically similar regions. Our network of 15 regional exchanges provides timely, accurate, and regionally relevant science-based information to assist with fire management challenges. Regional activities, through which we engage fire and resource managers, scientists, and private landowners, include online newsletters and announcements, social media, regionally focused web-based clearinghouses of relevant science, field trips and demonstration sites, workshops and conferences, webinars and online training, and syntheses and fact sheets. Exchanges also help investigators design research that is relevant to regional management needs and assist with technology transfer to management audiences. This poster provides an introduction to and map of the regional exchanges.

Perceptions versus Realities: Exploring Needs and Science Learning Outcomes In the Mississippi Delta

Science.gov (United States)

Fitts, Lacey S.

The Mississippi Delta (MS Delta) is a high-poverty region in northwestern Mississippi located between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. The Delta is home to sixteen rural counties with over seventy failing or underperforming schools. Many of these schools lack the resources necessary to ensure adequate opportunities for all students. Learning outcomes for the state are among the lowest in the nation, and scores in the rural Delta are far below the state average. Graduating seniors take the ACT college entrance exam, with about 10% of Mississippi seniors scoring as "college-ready" in science. The region has a critical shortage of science teachers, and many schools do not offer advanced science courses. This study assessed teachers' needs, identified key characteristics of the secondary science programs in which they teach, and sought to understand conditions affecting science learning outcomes. An inventory of science teachers' needs was administered to teachers in the region. The greatest needs were material resources, high quality training, and strategies for improving poor reading and problem-solving skills of students. Of the factors examined, the percentage of students receiving free lunch had the strongest correlation with science learning outcomes in the school, higher than access to resources, number of science courses offered, and level of self-reported teacher need. A three-tiered approach to improving science learning outcomes has been developed, emphasizing community relationships, targeted professional development, and relevant science curriculum.

Estimating Open Access in NARCIS

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bode, Emil; Braukmann, Ricarda; Doorn, P.K.

2017-01-01

This poster shows the state of open access in the Netherlands according to NARCIS, the national portal for information on Dutch science. The number of open and closed publications in NARCIS analysed, per type of publication, per year for PhD dissertations and articles, along with a percentage of OA

Archives: Nigerian Journal of Physiological Sciences

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Items 1 - 19 of 19 ... Archives: Nigerian Journal of Physiological Sciences. Journal Home > Archives: Nigerian Journal of Physiological Sciences. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

A requirement for Australian research: access to 'big science' facilities, a report by the Australian National Committee for crystallography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1989-03-01

Two types of 'Big Science' research facility - synchrotron radiation sources and intense neutron beams - are now recognised as essential resources for a wide range of research activities in chemistry, physics and biology. The cost of such facilities and the lack of a sufficiently large user base will probably preclude their construction in Australia in the foreseeable future. The needs of Australian crystallographers for access to such facilities are assessed. In relation to synchrotron radiation sources, the Committee considered only the question of access to such facilities overseas. In relation to neutron beam sources, the Committee's inquiries included not only the question of access to powerful facilities overseas but also the special problems which confront Australian crystallographers as a result of the obsolescence of the HIFAR reactor. The arguments about, and options for, funding Australian use of facilities overseas are presented. The Committee concluded there is a strong case for the purchase of a beam-line at an overseas synchrotron radiation facility and a strong, though less urgent, case for substantial Australian involvement in an overseas neutron beam facility. The Committee recommended that the Australian HIFAR reactor be refurbished in its present shell, retaining the present flux and power levels, and that in the upgrading of the neutron scattering instrumentation at HIFAR special consideration be given to including items which are sufficiently specialised to attract the international neutron scattering community

Caught in the Balance: An Organizational Analysis of Science Teaching in Schools with Elementary Science Specialists

Science.gov (United States)

Marco-Bujosa, Lisa M.; Levy, Abigail Jurist

2016-01-01

Elementary schools are under increasing pressure to teach science and teach it well; yet, research documents that classroom teachers must overcome numerous personal and school-based challenges to teach science effectively at this level, such as access to materials and inadequate instructional time. The elementary science specialist model…

The Single Sex Debate for Girls in Science: a Comparison Between Two Informal Science Programs on Middle School Students' STEM Identity Formation

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, Roxanne M.; Nzekwe, Brandon; Molyneaux, Kristen J.

2013-10-01

Currently, there are policy debates regarding the efficacy and legality of single sex formal and informal education programs. This issue is particularly poignant in science education due to the historical marginalization of women in these fields. This marginalization has resulted in women being positioned as a stigmatized group within many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related fields. Research points to adolescence as the age where this sense of marginalization begins to develop. As a result, policy responses have utilized various frameworks such as: increased access for women, changing pedagogy to address women's learning styles, changing the language and culture of science to prevent marginalization of stigmatized groups, and finally exploring the role that individual identity plays in the marginalization of women. This study adds to the policy debate as it applies to single sex education by comparing middle school participants' STEM identity formation during two informal science learning environments (an all girls' STEM camp and a co-educational STEM camp). Additionally, this study focuses on the influence of camp activities within two informal science education programs: particularly the provision of role models and authentic STEM research activities, as means to improve STEM identity and make these fields relevant to the lives of middle school students. The results indicate that both camps improved girls' STEM identities. These findings suggest that the single sex environment is not as important to STEM identity as the pedagogy used within the program.

Realising Equality in Access to HIV Treatment for Vulnerable and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This article examines the relevance of the concept of equality in improving access to HIV treatment for vulnerable and marginalised groups in Africa. The article argues that though modest achievements have been made in expanding access to HIV treatment for those in need in Africa, this expansion has concentrated on the ...

Social Equity and Access to a Philippine STEM School

Science.gov (United States)

Talaue, Frederick Toralballa

2014-01-01

Like most developing countries in the world, there is a huge gap in opportunities to access quality science education between students from the high- and low-socioeconomic strata of Philippine society. In establishing its own science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) high school, despite limited public funding in 1964, the…

DownloadAccess to Information Request form

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

PC Forms Inc. 834-4048

To apply for information under the Access to. Information Act, complete this form or a written request mentioning the Act. Describe the information being sought and provide any relevant details necessary to help the International. Development Research Centre (IDRC) find it. If you require assistance, refer to Info Source.

The understandings and meanings eight seventh and eighth grade Latinas gave to science

Science.gov (United States)

Parker, Carolyn Ann

My study examined the experiences of eight seventh and eighth grade girls of Central American descent, in and out of the science classroom. The study was interpretive in design and explored the question, "How did the eight participants understand and make meaning of science?" Guided by a sociocultural perspective and a socially critical stance, I explored issues of educational access, particularly to science, mediated by the relationships and experiences formed by families, peers, science classrooms, schools, and society. Data sources included monthly individual interviews, regular focus group meetings, school observations, and interviews with teachers and family members. Findings include the importance of school science experiences that emphasize hands-on activities and the study of topics relevant to students' everyday lives. School influences that I discuss include English-as-a-Second Language learning, English language ability and its effect on classroom interactions, ability grouping, standardized testing, and teachers' instructional practices. Out-of-school influences I examine include the national science education reform movement, familial expectations, and society and the media's portrayal of science and the scientist. The implications and recommendations of the study are particularly germane to practice. Recommendations for the science classroom include a continued emphasis on hands-on science experiences that incorporate high academic expectations for all students, including second-language learners. Moreover, curriculum should be connected and relevant to students' everyday experiences. Recommendations for outside-the-science classroom include a thoughtful examination of the educational environment created by a school's tracking policy and continued support of meaningful professional development experiences for teachers. Future research and the subsequent development of theory should include a further analysis of the influence of gender, ethnicity

Changing struggles for relevance in eight fields of natural science

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hessels, L.K.; Lente, H. van; Smits, R.E.H.M.; Grin, J.

2011-01-01

This paper investigates the consequences of institutional changes on academic research practices in eight fields of natural science in the Netherlands. The authors analyse the similarities and differences among the dynamics of these different fields and reflect on possible explanations for the

Controversy as a Blind Spot in Teaching Nature of Science. Why the Range of Different Positions Concerning Nature of Science Should Be an Issue in the Science Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Kötter, Mario; Hammann, Marcus

2017-07-01

In this article, the argument is put forth that controversies about the scope and limits of science should be considered in Nature of Science (NOS) teaching. Reference disciplines for teaching NOS are disciplines, which reflect upon science, like philosophy of science, history of science, and sociology of science. The culture of these disciplines is characterized by controversy rather than unified textbook knowledge. There is common agreement among educators of the arts and humanities that controversies in the reference disciplines should be represented in education. To teach NOS means to adopt a reflexive perspective on science. Therefore, we suggest that controversies within and between the reference disciplines are relevant for NOS teaching and not only the NOS but about NOS should be taught, too. We address the objections that teaching about NOS is irrelevant for real life and too demanding for students. First, we argue that science-reflexive meta-discourses are relevant for students as future citizens because the discourses occur publicly in the context of sociopolitical disputes. Second, we argue that it is in fact necessary to reduce the complexity of the above-mentioned discourses and that this is indeed possible, as it has been done with other reflexive elements in science education. In analogy to the German construct Bewertungskompetenz (which means the competency to make informed ethical decisions in scientific contexts), we suggest epistemic competency as a goal for NOS teaching. In order to do so, science-reflexive controversies must be simplified and attitudes toward science must be considered. Discourse on the scientific status of potential pseudoscience may serve as an authentic and relevant context for teaching the controversial nature of reflexion on science.

Cultural Memory Banking in Preservice Science Teacher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Handa, Vicente C.; Tippins, Deborah J.

2012-12-01

This study focused on the exemplification of cultural memory banking as an ethnographic tool to understand cultural practices relevant to science teaching and learning in a rural coastal village in a central island of the Philippine archipelago. Using the collaborative action ethnography as a research methodology, 10 prospective science teachers and a science teacher educator/doctoral candidate formed a research team and documented community funds of knowledge relevant to science teaching and learning through their participation in a Community Immersion course. The study employed the use of the cultural memory banking as a meditational tool to analyze, make sense of, and represent interview, focus-group discussion, and observation data, among others, for the development of culturally relevant science lessons. Originally used as an anthropological tool to preserve cultural knowledge associated with the cultivation of indigenous plant varieties, the cultural memory banking, as adapted in science education, was used, both as a data collection and analytic tool, to locate relevant science at the intersection of community life. The research team developed a cultural memory bank exemplar, "Ginamos: The Stinky Smell that Sells," to highlight the learning experiences and meaning-making process of those involved in its development. Dilemmas and insights on the development and use of cultural memory banking were discussed with respect to issues of knowledge mining and mainstreaming of indigenous/local funds of knowledge, troubling the privileged position of Western-inspired nature of science.

Journal of Medical and Biomedical Sciences

African Journals Online (AJOL)

PROMOTING ACCESS TO AFRICAN RESEARCH ... The Journal of Medical and Biomedical Science publishes original, novel, peer-reviewed reports that pertain to medical and allied health sciences; confirmatory reports of previously ...

Open Access Publishing in the Field of Medical Informatics.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuballa, Stefanie

2017-05-01

The open access paradigm has become an important approach in today's information and communication society. Funders and governments in different countries stipulate open access publications of funded research results. Medical informatics as part of the science, technology and medicine disciplines benefits from many research funds, such as National Institutes of Health in the US, Wellcome Trust in UK, German Research Foundation in Germany and many more. In this study an overview of the current open access programs and conditions of major journals in the field of medical informatics is presented. It was investigated whether there are suitable options and how they are shaped. Therefore all journals in Thomson Reuters Web of Science that were listed in the subject category "Medical Informatics" in 2014 were examined. An Internet research was conducted by investigating the journals' websites. It was reviewed whether journals offer an open access option with a subsequent check of conditions as for example the type of open access, the fees and the licensing. As a result all journals in the field of medical informatics that had an impact factor in 2014 offer an open access option. A predominantly consistent pricing range was determined with an average fee of 2.248 € and a median fee of 2.207 €. The height of a journals' open access fee did not correlate with the height of its Impact Factor. Hence, medical informatics journals have recognized the trend of open access publishing, though the vast majority of them are working with the hybrid method. Hybrid open access may however lead to problems in questions of double dipping and the often stipulated gold open access.

The historiography of contemporary science, technology, and medicine writing recent science

CERN Document Server

Söderqvist, Thomas

2006-01-01

As historians of science increasingly turn to work on recent (post 1945) science, the historiographical and methodological problems associated with the history of contemporary science are debated with growing frequency and urgency. Bringing together authorities on the history, historiography and methodology of recent and contemporary science, this book reviews the problems facing historians of technology, contemporary science and medicine, and explores new ways forward. With contributions from key researchers in the field, the text covers topics that will be of ever increasing interest to historians of post-war science, including the difficulties of accessing and using secret archival material, the interactions between archivists, historians and scientists, and the politics of evidence and historical accounts.

Amphibian and reptile road-kills on tertiary roads in relation to landscape structure: using a citizen science approach with open-access land cover data.

Science.gov (United States)

Heigl, Florian; Horvath, Kathrin; Laaha, Gregor; Zaller, Johann G

2017-06-26

Amphibians and reptiles are among the most endangered vertebrate species worldwide. However, little is known how they are affected by road-kills on tertiary roads and whether the surrounding landscape structure can explain road-kill patterns. The aim of our study was to examine the applicability of open-access remote sensing data for a large-scale citizen science approach to describe spatial patterns of road-killed amphibians and reptiles on tertiary roads. Using a citizen science app we monitored road-kills of amphibians and reptiles along 97.5 km of tertiary roads covering agricultural, municipal and interurban roads as well as cycling paths in eastern Austria over two seasons. Surrounding landscape was assessed using open access land cover classes for the region (Coordination of Information on the Environment, CORINE). Hotspot analysis was performed using kernel density estimation (KDE+). Relations between land cover classes and amphibian and reptile road-kills were analysed with conditional probabilities and general linear models (GLM). We also estimated the potential cost-efficiency of a large scale citizen science monitoring project. We recorded 180 amphibian and 72 reptile road-kills comprising eight species mainly occurring on agricultural roads. KDE+ analyses revealed a significant clustering of road-killed amphibians and reptiles, which is an important information for authorities aiming to mitigate road-kills. Overall, hotspots of amphibian and reptile road-kills were next to the land cover classes arable land, suburban areas and vineyards. Conditional probabilities and GLMs identified road-kills especially next to preferred habitats of green toad, common toad and grass snake, the most often found road-killed species. A citizen science approach appeared to be more cost-efficient than monitoring by professional researchers only when more than 400 km of road are monitored. Our findings showed that freely available remote sensing data in combination with a

Bengali-English Relevant Cross Lingual Information Access Using Finite Automata

Science.gov (United States)

Banerjee, Avishek; Bhattacharyya, Swapan; Hazra, Simanta; Mondal, Shatabdi

2010-10-01

CLIR techniques searches unrestricted texts and typically extract term and relationships from bilingual electronic dictionaries or bilingual text collections and use them to translate query and/or document representations into a compatible set of representations with a common feature set. In this paper, we focus on dictionary-based approach by using a bilingual data dictionary with a combination to statistics-based methods to avoid the problem of ambiguity also the development of human computer interface aspects of NLP (Natural Language processing) is the approach of this paper. The intelligent web search with regional language like Bengali is depending upon two major aspect that is CLIA (Cross language information access) and NLP. In our previous work with IIT, KGP we already developed content based CLIA where content based searching in trained on Bengali Corpora with the help of Bengali data dictionary. Here we want to introduce intelligent search because to recognize the sense of meaning of a sentence and it has a better real life approach towards human computer interactions.

Research facility access & science education

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rosen, S.P. [Univ. of Texas, Arlington, TX (United States); Teplitz, V.L. [Southern Methodist Univ., Dallas, TX (United States). Physics Dept.

1994-10-01

As Congress voted to terminate the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) Laboratory in October of 1993, the Department of Energy was encouraged to maximize the benefits to the nation of approximately $2 billion which had already been expended to date on its evolution. Having been recruited to Texas from other intellectually challenging enclaves around the world, many regional scientists, especially physicists, of course, also began to look for viable ways to preserve some of the potentially short-lived gains made by Texas higher education in anticipation of {open_quotes}the SSC era.{close_quotes} In fact, by November, 1993, approximately 150 physicists and engineers from thirteen Texas universities and the SSC itself, had gathered on the SMU campus to discuss possible re-uses of the SSC assets. Participants at that meeting drew up a petition addressed to the state and federal governments requesting the creation of a joint Texas Facility for Science Education and Research. The idea was to create a facility, open to universities and industry alike, which would preserve the research and development infrastructure and continue the educational mission of the SSC.

Data-intensive science

CERN Document Server

Critchlow, Terence

2013-01-01

Data-intensive science has the potential to transform scientific research and quickly translate scientific progress into complete solutions, policies, and economic success. But this collaborative science is still lacking the effective access and exchange of knowledge among scientists, researchers, and policy makers across a range of disciplines. Bringing together leaders from multiple scientific disciplines, Data-Intensive Science shows how a comprehensive integration of various techniques and technological advances can effectively harness the vast amount of data being generated and significan

Science Spots AR: A Platform for Science Learning Games with Augmented Reality

Science.gov (United States)

Laine, Teemu H.; Nygren, Eeva; Dirin, Amir; Suk, Hae-Jung

2016-01-01

Lack of motivation and of real-world relevance have been identified as reasons for low interest in science among children. Game-based learning and storytelling are prominent methods for generating intrinsic motivation in learning. Real-world relevance requires connecting abstract scientific concepts with the real world. This can be done by…

A restatement of recent advances in the natural science evidence base concerning neonicotinoid insecticides and insect pollinators.

Science.gov (United States)

Godfray, H Charles J; Blacquière, Tjeerd; Field, Linda M; Hails, Rosemary S; Potts, Simon G; Raine, Nigel E; Vanbergen, Adam J; McLean, Angela R

2015-11-07

A summary is provided of recent advances in the natural science evidence base concerning the effects of neonicotinoid insecticides on insect pollinators in a format (a 'restatement') intended to be accessible to informed but not expert policymakers and stakeholders. Important new studies have been published since our recent review of this field (Godfray et al. 2014 Proc. R. Soc. B 281, 20140558. (doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.0558)) and the subject continues to be an area of very active research and high policy relevance. © 2015 The Authors.

Ghanaian Junior High School Science Teachers' attitude towards ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Contextualising science instruction has been found to improve pupils' understanding of science content since it links science content to the context of the pupil. Science teachers play vital roles in this effort to make science teaching relevant to the Ghanaian child through contextualisation of science instruction.

Communications among data and science centers

Science.gov (United States)

Green, James L.

1990-01-01

The ability to electronically access and query the contents of remote computer archives is of singular importance in space and earth sciences; the present evaluation of such on-line information networks' development status foresees swift expansion of their data capabilities and complexity, in view of the volumes of data that will continue to be generated by NASA missions. The U.S.'s National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) manages NASA's largest science computer network, the Space Physics Analysis Network; a comprehensive account is given of the structure of NSSDC international access through BITNET, and of connections to the NSSDC available in the Americas via the International X.25 network.

Accessible Earth: Enhancing diversity in the Geosciences through accessible course design

Science.gov (United States)

Bennett, R. A.; Lamb, D. A.

2017-12-01

The tradition of field-based instruction in the geoscience curriculum, which culminates in a capstone geological field camp, presents an insurmountable barrier to many disabled students who might otherwise choose to pursue geoscience careers. There is a widespread perception that success as a practicing geoscientist requires direct access to outcrops and vantage points available only to those able to traverse inaccessible terrain. Yet many modern geoscience activities are based on remotely sensed geophysical data, data analysis, and computation that take place entirely from within the laboratory. To challenge the perception of geoscience as a career option only for the non-disabled, we have created the capstone Accessible Earth Study Abroad Program, an alternative to geologic field camp for all students, with a focus on modern geophysical observation systems, computational thinking, data science, and professional development.In this presentation, we will review common pedagogical approaches in geosciences and current efforts to make the field more inclusive. We will review curricular access and inclusivity relative to a wide range of learners and provide examples of accessible course design based on our experiences in teaching a study abroad course in central Italy, and our plans for ongoing assessment, refinement, and dissemination of the effectiveness of our efforts.

Plasma experiments with relevance for other branches of science

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sanduloviciu, M.; Lozneanu, E.

2000-01-01

A new scenario of self-organization, suggested by plasma experiments, is presented as an enlightening model able to illustrate, on some examples, the necessity of a paradigm shift in science. Thus, self-organization at criticality in fusion devices, differential negative resistance of semi-conductors, generation of complex space charge configurations under controllable laboratory conditions and in nature are mentioned as phenomena potentially explicable in the frame of a unique framework in which self-organization is the central concept. (authors)

The Value of Civic Science Literacy (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Kahan, D.

2013-12-01

The persistence of public conflict over climate change is commonly understood to be evidence of the cost borne by our democracy by the failure of citizens to recognize the best available decision-relevant science. This conclusion is true; what's not is the usual understanding of cause and effect that accompanies this perspective. Ordinarily, the inability of citizens to comprehend decision-relevant science is identified as the source of persistent political conflict over climate change (along myriad other issues that feature disputed facts that admit of scientific investigation). The truth, however, is it is the persistence of public conflict that disables citizens from recognizing and making effective use of decision-relevant science. As a result, efforts to promote civic science literacy can't be expected to dissipate such conflict. Instead, the root, cultural and psychological sources of such conflict must themselves be extinguished (with the use of tools and strategies themselves identified through valid scientific inquiry) so our democracy can realize the value of educators' considerable skills in making citizens science literate.

Physics of the Life Sciences

CERN Document Server

Newman, Jay

2008-01-01

Originally developed for the author's course at Union College, this text is designed for life science students who need to understand the connections of fundamental physics to modern biology and medicine. Almost all areas of modern life sciences integrally involve physics in both experimental techniques and in basic understanding of structure and function. Physics of the Life Sciences is not a watered-down, algebra-based engineering physics book with sections on relevant biomedical topics added as an afterthought. This authoritative and engaging text, which is designed to be covered in a two-semester course, was written with a thoroughgoing commitment to the needs and interests of life science students. Although covering most of the standard topics in introductory physics in a more or less traditional sequence, the author gives added weight and space to concepts and applications of greater relevance to the life sciences. Students benefit from occasional sidebars using calculus to derive fundamental relations,...

African Journal of Science and Technology

African Journals Online (AJOL)

PROMOTING ACCESS TO AFRICAN RESEARCH ... The African Journal of Science and Technology (AJST) is a biannual technical publication ... Le Journal Africain de Science et de Technologie est une revue scientifique du Journal Africain ...

The perspectives and experiences of African American students in an informal science program

Science.gov (United States)

Bulls, Domonique L.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are the fastest growing sectors of the economy, nationally and globally. In order for the United States (U.S.) to maintain its competitiveness, it is important to address STEM experiences at the precollege level. In early years, science education serves as a foundation and pipeline for students to pursue STEM in college and beyond. Alternative approaches to instruction in formal classrooms have been introduced to engage more students in science. One alternative is informal science education. Informal science education is an avenue used to promote science education literacy. Because it is less regulated than science teaching in formal classroom settings, it allows for the incorporation of culture into science instruction. Culturally relevant science teaching is one way to relate science to African American students, a population that continually underperforms in K-12 science education. This study explores the science perspectives and experiences of African American middle school students participating in an informal science program. The research is framed by the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy and shaped by the following questions: (1) What specific aspects of the Carver Program make it unique to African American students? (2) How is culturally relevant pedagogy incorporated into the informal science program? (3) How does the incorporation of culturally relevant pedagogy into the informal science program influence African American students' perceptions about science? The findings to the previously stated questions add to the limited research on African American students in informal science learning environments and contribute to the growing research on culturally relevant science. This study is unique in that it explores the cultural components of an informal science program.

African Journals Online: Aquatic Sciences

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Items 1 - 10 of 10 ... The African Journal of Aquatic Science is an international journal devoted to the ... relevant social science and governance, or new techniques, are all ... ideas and findings on techniques, methodology and research findings ...

EARS: Electronic Access to Reference Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Weise, F O; Borgendale, M

1986-10-01

Electronic Access to Reference Service (EARS) is a front end to the Health Sciences Library's electronic mail system, with links to the online public catalog. EARS, which became operational in September 1984, is accessed by users at remote sites with either a terminal or microcomputer. It is menu-driven, allowing users to request: a computerized literature search, reference information, a photocopy of a journal article, or a book. This paper traces the history of EARS and discusses its use, its impact on library staff and services, and factors that influence the diffusion of new technology.

The Tools Used by Science Teachers and Their Relevance to Objectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ulaş KUBAT

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to reveal the views of science teachers on the use of tools in the learning-teaching process. Well-designed tools provide a rich learning environment. In this research qualitative research method was used. Semi-structured interview form was used as data collection tool. The working group consisted of 16 science teachers. According to the findings of the research, teachers use the most experimental materials as tools and teaching materials and 4 + 4 + 4 system creates problems for tools and materials. In addition, teachers have emphasized the problem of lack of material development. They indicated that well designed tools contribute to the achievement of objectives

Oceans of Data: In what ways can learning research inform the development of electronic interfaces and tools for use by students accessing large scientific databases?

Science.gov (United States)

Krumhansl, R. A.; Foster, J.; Peach, C. L.; Busey, A.; Baker, I.

2012-12-01

The practice of science and engineering is being revolutionized by the development of cyberinfrastructure for accessing near real-time and archived observatory data. Large cyberinfrastructure projects have the potential to transform the way science is taught in high school classrooms, making enormous quantities of scientific data available, giving students opportunities to analyze and draw conclusions from many kinds of complex data, and providing students with experiences using state-of-the-art resources and techniques for scientific investigations. However, online interfaces to scientific data are built by scientists for scientists, and their design can significantly impede broad use by novices. Knowledge relevant to the design of student interfaces to complex scientific databases is broadly dispersed among disciplines ranging from cognitive science to computer science and cartography and is not easily accessible to designers of educational interfaces. To inform efforts at bridging scientific cyberinfrastructure to the high school classroom, Education Development Center, Inc. and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography conducted an NSF-funded 2-year interdisciplinary review of literature and expert opinion pertinent to making interfaces to large scientific databases accessible to and usable by precollege learners and their teachers. Project findings are grounded in the fundamentals of Cognitive Load Theory, Visual Perception, Schemata formation and Universal Design for Learning. The Knowledge Status Report (KSR) presents cross-cutting and visualization-specific guidelines that highlight how interface design features can address/ ameliorate challenges novice high school students face as they navigate complex databases to find data, and construct and look for patterns in maps, graphs, animations and other data visualizations. The guidelines present ways to make scientific databases more broadly accessible by: 1) adjusting the cognitive load imposed by the user

Communication among scientists, decision makers and society: Developing policy-relevant global climate change research

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bernabo, J.C.

1995-01-01

Defining the research most relevant to policy is not simply a technical task that can be answered by scientists. Decision makers need and value information differently than curiosity-driven scientists. In order to link science more effectively to policy, the two communities must gain a greater mutual understanding. Decision makers must define their needs so that scientists can determine how, and by when, research can address these needs. This vital dialogue between communities typically has been more ad hoc than systematic. The complexity and urgency of the global climate change issue necessitate ongoing communication between scientists and decision makers on the information needed for policy development and what research can provide The results of relevant science policy dialogues are discussed herein. Effective communication between researchers and decision makers is a crucial ingredient for successfully addressing society's pressing environmental concerns. The increase in policy makers' demands for research that is relevant to solving societal issues highlights the communication gap between the technical and policy communities. The gap, largely caused by lack of mutual understanding, results in flawed and inadequate communication that hinders decision making and confuses the public. This paper examines the cause of this communication gap and describes the significance of recent efforts to develop more fruitful science-policy dialogues on the issue of global climate change. First, the post-Cold War shift in government priorities for research funding is described; then the underlying relationship between science and policy is explored to identify key sources of ongoing mis-communication. The paper then explains the importance of defining policy-relevant science questions that research can address. Finally, three projects are described involving the elicitation of decision makers' information needs in The United States, The Netherlands, and internationally

Monitoring Accessibility Services in Digital Television

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francisco Utray

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses methodology and tools applied to the monitoring of accessibility services in digital television at a time when the principles of accessibility and design are being considered in all new audiovisual media communication services. The main objective of this research is to measure the quality and quantity of existing accessibility services offered by digital terrestrial television (DTT. The preliminary results, presented here, offer the development of a prototype for automatic monitoring and a methodology for obtaining quality measurements, along with the conclusions drawn by initial studies carried out in Spain. The recent approval of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities gives special relevance to this research because it provides valuable guidelines to help set the priorities to improve services currently available to users.

Carnegie Science Academy Web Site

Science.gov (United States)

Kotwicki, John; Atzinger, Joe; Turso, Denise

1997-11-01

The Carnegie Science Academy is a professional society "For Teens...By Teens" at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. The CSA Web Site [ http://csa.clpgh.org ] is designed for teens who have an interest in science and technology. This online or virtual science academy provides resources for teens in high school science classes. The Web site also allows students around the world to participate and communicate with other students, discuss current events in science, share opinions, find answers to questions, or make online friends. Visitors can enjoy the main components of the site or sign up for a free membership which allows access to our chat room for monthly meeting, online newsletter, members forum, and much more. Main components to the site include a spot for cool links and downloads, available for any visitor to download or view. Online exhibits are created by students to examine and publish an area of study and also allow teachers to easily post classroom activities as exhibits by submitting pictures and text. Random Access, the interactive part of the academy, allows users to share ideas and opinions. Planet CSA focuses on current events in science and the academy. In the future the CSA Web site will become a major resource for teens and science teachers providing materials that will allow students to further enhance their interest and experiences in science.

Integration, Authenticity, and Relevancy in College Science through Engineering Design

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Ken L., Jr.; Hoffman, Adam R.

2018-01-01

Engineering design is an ideal perspective for engaging students in college science classes. An engineering design problem-solving framework was used to create a general chemistry lab activity focused on an important environmental issue--dead zones. Dead zones impact over 400 locations around the world and are a result of nutrient pollution, one…

Marginalized Student Access to Technology Education

Science.gov (United States)

Kurtcu, Wanda M.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a teacher can disrupt an established curriculum that continues the cycle of inequity of access to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curriculum by students in alternative education. For this paper, I will focus on the technology components of the STEM curriculum. Technology in the United States, if not the world economy, is developing at a rapid pace. Many areas of day to day living, from applying for a job to checking one's bank account online, involve a component of science and technology. The 'gap' in technology education is emphasized between the 'haves and have-nots', which is delineated along socio-economic lines. Marginalized students in alternative education programs use this equipment for little else than remedial programs and credit recovery. This level of inequity further widens in alternative education programs and affects the achievement of marginalized students in credit recovery or alternative education classes instead of participation technology classes. For the purposes of this paper I focus on how can I decrease the inequity of student access to 21st century technology education in an alternative education program by addressing the established curriculum of the program and modifying structural barriers of marginalized student access to a technology focused curriculum.

CUAHSI-HIS: an Internet based system to facilitate public discovery, access, and exploration of different water science data sources

Science.gov (United States)

Arrigo, J. S.; Hooper, R. P.; Choi, Y.; Ames, D. P.; Kadlec, J.; Whiteaker, T.

2011-12-01

"Water is everywhere." This sentiment underscores the importance of instilling hydrologic and earth science literacy in educators, students, and the general public, but also presents challenges for water scientists and educators. Scientific data about water is collected and distributed by several different sources, from federal agencies to scientific investigators to citizen scientists. As competition for limited water resources increase, increasing access to and understanding of the wealth of information about the nation's and the world's water will be critical. The CUAHSI-HIS system is a web based system for sharing hydrologic data that can help address this need. HydroDesktop is a free, open source application for finding, getting, analyzing and using hydrologic data from the CUAHSI-HIS system. It works with HydroCatalog which indexes the data to find out what data exists and where it is, and then it retrieves the data from HydroServers where it is stored communicating using WaterOneFlow web services. Currently, there are over 65 services registered in HydroCatalog providing central discovery of water data from several federal and state agencies, university projects, and other sources. HydroDesktop provides a simplified GIS that allows users to incorporate spatial data, and simple analysis tools to facilitate graphing and visualization. HydroDesktop is designed to be useful for a number of different groups of users with a wide variety of needs and skill levels including university faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, K-12 students, engineering and scientific consultants, and others. This presentation will highlight some of the features of HydroDesktop and the CUAHSI-HIS system that make it particularly appropriate for use in educational and public outreach settings, and will present examples of educational use. The incorporation of "real data," localization to an area of interest, and problem-based learning are all recognized as effective strategies for

Socially situated activities and identities: Second-grade dual language students and the social construction of science

Science.gov (United States)

Bryce, Nadine

Latina and Latino American students are among the lowest achievers in science, when compared to European and Asian American students, and are highly underrepresented in science careers. Studies suggested that a part of this problem is students' lack of access to science, due to their status as English language learners and their perceived status as deficient students. This study investigated the social construction of science in a second grade dual language urban classroom that offered bilingual students access to science, while positioning them as competent, capable learners. What participants valued in science was interpreted from their stated beliefs and attitudes, as well as their patterned ways of reading, writing, and talking. A bilingual European American teacher and three Latina and Latino focal students were observed over the course of 10 weeks, as they enacted a science unit, in English, on habitats. Science lessons were videotaped, documented with field notes, and transcribed. Interviews with the teacher and students were audiotaped and transcribed, and relevant curriculum documents, and teacher- and student-generated documents, copied. Gee's (1999) d/Discourse analysis system was applied to the transcripts of science lessons and interviews as a way to understand how participants used language to construct situated activities and identities in science. Curriculum documents were analyzed to understand the positioning of the teacher and students by identifying the situated activities and roles recommended. Students' nonfiction writing and published nonfiction texts were analyzed for linguistic structures, semantic relationships and conventions of science writing. Results indicated that the teacher drew on traditional and progressive pedagogical practices that shaped her and her students' science activities and situated identities. The teacher employed traditional talk strategies to build science themes, while students enacted their roles as compliant

Enabling Data Intensive Science through Service Oriented Science: Virtual Laboratories and Science Gateways

Science.gov (United States)

Lescinsky, D. T.; Wyborn, L. A.; Evans, B. J. K.; Allen, C.; Fraser, R.; Rankine, T.

2014-12-01

We present collaborative work on a generic, modular infrastructure for virtual laboratories (VLs, similar to science gateways) that combine online access to data, scientific code, and computing resources as services that support multiple data intensive scientific computing needs across a wide range of science disciplines. We are leveraging access to 10+ PB of earth science data on Lustre filesystems at Australia's National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) node, co-located with NCI's 1.2 PFlop Raijin supercomputer and a 3000 CPU core research cloud. The development, maintenance and sustainability of VLs is best accomplished through modularisation and standardisation of interfaces between components. Our approach has been to break up tightly-coupled, specialised application packages into modules, with identified best techniques and algorithms repackaged either as data services or scientific tools that are accessible across domains. The data services can be used to manipulate, visualise and transform multiple data types whilst the scientific tools can be used in concert with multiple scientific codes. We are currently designing a scalable generic infrastructure that will handle scientific code as modularised services and thereby enable the rapid/easy deployment of new codes or versions of codes. The goal is to build open source libraries/collections of scientific tools, scripts and modelling codes that can be combined in specially designed deployments. Additional services in development include: provenance, publication of results, monitoring, workflow tools, etc. The generic VL infrastructure will be hosted at NCI, but can access alternative computing infrastructures (i.e., public/private cloud, HPC).The Virtual Geophysics Laboratory (VGL) was developed as a pilot project to demonstrate the underlying technology. This base is now being redesigned and generalised to develop a Virtual Hazards Impact and Risk Laboratory

Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation strategy review recommendations. Final Report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1994-01-01

In May 1994 the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO)'s Board initiated a comprehensive five month review which purpose was to develop a mission for ANSTO and thus define its role both domestically and internationally. The review took into account the needs of ANSTO stakeholders, analysed ANSTO capabilities as well as available international opportunities. Outcomes of the review included an assessment of the priorities and needs of stakeholders, an understanding of how these needs can be meet, and the resulting resource implications. ANSTO's major mission objectives, as defined in the consultants's report should be: to support the Government's nuclear policies (this objective is paramount), support industrial competitiveness and innovation through technology transfer, as well as to maintain a high quality nuclear science base and to enable academic institutions and other science organizations to perform research by providing access to unique facilities and expertise. The consultants also made recommendations on appropriate management arrangements for ANSTO, an implementation plan, progress milestones and operational targets. Details of the relevance-excellence analysis, commercial customer analysis and justification for recommended activity action imperatives are presented in the appendices. 48 figs

Studying Students' Science Literacy: Non-Scientific Beliefs and Science Literacy Measures

Science.gov (United States)

Impey, C.; Buxner, S.

2015-11-01

We have been conducting a study of university students' science literacy for the past 24 years. Based on the work of the National Science Board's ongoing national survey of the US public, we have administered the same survey to undergraduate science students at the University of Arizona almost every year since 1989. Results have shown relatively little change in students' overall science literacy, descriptions of science, and knowledge of basic science topics for almost a quarter of a century despite an increase in education interventions, the rise of the internet, and increased access to knowledge. Several trends do exist in students' science literacy and descriptions of science. Students who exhibit beliefs in non-scientific phenomenon (e.g., lucky numbers, creationism) consistently have lower science literacy scores and less correct descriptions of scientific phenomenon. Although not surprising, our results support ongoing efforts to help students generate evidence based thinking.

Archives: African Health Sciences

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Items 1 - 50 of 67 ... Archives: African Health Sciences. Journal Home > Archives: African Health Sciences. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads. Username, Password, Remember me, or Register · Journal Home · ABOUT THIS JOURNAL · Advanced Search · Current Issue · Archives. 1 - 50 of 67 Items, 1 2 > >> ...

A Survey of Internet Access and Use by Students of Library and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A Survey of Internet Access and Use by Students of Library and Information Science ... access and utilize Internet facilities, level of search skills, reasons for use of Internet, ... Data collected for the study was analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Requirements and Challenges of Location-Based Access Control in Healthcare Emergency Response

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vicente, Carmen Ruiz; Kirkpatrick, Michael; Ghinita, Gabriel

2009-01-01

Recent advances in positioning and tracking technologies have led to the emergence of novel location-based applications that allow participants to access information relevant to their spatio-temporal context. Traditional access control models, such as role-based access control (RBAC), are not suf...... to such settings. We overview the main technical issues to be addressed, and we describe the architecture for policy decision and enforcement points....

PubSCIENCE

CERN Document Server

United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information

PubSCIENCE, a component of EnergyFiles, indexes 1,000 scientific and technical journals. It contains over one million multi-source journal citations dating back over 25 years from DOE's Energy Science and Technology Database. The focus of PubSCIENCE is on those journals where DOE researchers report their scientific discoveries. Frequency of contributions by DOE-sponsored researchers to scientific journals has been analyzed to prioritize data collection efforts. OSTI partners with participating publishers to provide information that is both relevant and useful to the DOE scientific community as well as information that was developed as the result of government sponsored R&D.

42 CFR 51.41 - Access to records.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... other than the facility or program as long as the system has obtained appropriate consent consistent... from service providers or other facilities on residents that they indicate in the release form the... access and authority to interview and examine all relevant records of any facility service recipient...

Bulletin of Materials Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Harnessing renewable solar energy through different technologies is greatly dependent on the advancement of solar grade materials' science and engineering. In this article, the prominent solar energy technologies, namely solarphotovoltaic and concentrated solar power and other relevant technologies, and aspects ...

Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review: Contact

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review: Contact. Journal Home > About the Journal > Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review: Contact. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

African Journal of Neurological Sciences: Journal Sponsorship

African Journals Online (AJOL)

African Journal of Neurological Sciences: Journal Sponsorship. Journal Home > About the Journal > African Journal of Neurological Sciences: Journal Sponsorship. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

African Journal of Political Science: Journal Sponsorship

African Journals Online (AJOL)

African Journal of Political Science: Journal Sponsorship. Journal Home > About the Journal > African Journal of Political Science: Journal Sponsorship. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

The AAS Working Group on Accessibility and Disability (WGAD) Year 1 Highlights and Database Access

Science.gov (United States)

Knierman, Karen A.; Diaz Merced, Wanda; Aarnio, Alicia; Garcia, Beatriz; Monkiewicz, Jacqueline A.; Murphy, Nicholas Arnold

2017-06-01

The AAS Working Group on Accessibility and Disability (WGAD) was formed in January of 2016 with the express purpose of seeking equity of opportunity and building inclusive practices for disabled astronomers at all educational and career stages. In this presentation, we will provide a summary of current activities, focusing on developing best practices for accessibility with respect to astronomical databases, publications, and meetings. Due to the reliance of space sciences on databases, it is important to have user centered design systems for data retrieval. The cognitive overload that may be experienced by users of current databases may be mitigated by use of multi-modal interfaces such as xSonify. Such interfaces would be in parallel or outside the original database and would not require additional software efforts from the original database. WGAD is partnering with the IAU Commission C1 WG Astronomy for Equity and Inclusion to develop such accessibility tools for databases and methods for user testing. To collect data on astronomical conference and meeting accessibility considerations, WGAD solicited feedback from January AAS attendees via a web form. These data, together with upcoming input from the community and analysis of accessibility documents of similar conferences, will be used to create a meeting accessibility document. Additionally, we will update the progress of journal access guidelines and our social media presence via Twitter. We recommend that astronomical journals form committees to evaluate the accessibility of their publications by performing user-centered usability studies.

Journal of Chemical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Chemical Sciences; Volume 128; Issue 6. Triflic Anhydride-Mediated Beckmann Rearrangement Reaction of Β-Oximyl Amides: Access to 5-Iminooxazolines. MANGFEI YU QIAN ZHANG JIA WANG PENG HUANG PENGFEI YAN RUI ZHANG DEWEN DONG. Regular Article Volume 128 Issue 6 ...

Beyond access: a case study on the intersection between accessibility, sustainability, and universal design.

Science.gov (United States)

Gossett, Andrea; Mirza, Mansha; Barnds, Ann Kathleen; Feidt, Daisy

2009-11-01

A growing emphasis has been placed on providing equal opportunities for all people, particularly people with disabilities, to support participation. Barriers to participation are represented in part by physical space restrictions. This article explores the decision-making process during the construction of a new office building housing a disability-rights organization. The building project featured in this study was developed on the principles of universal design, maximal accessibility, and sustainability to support access and participation. A qualitative case study approach was used involving collection of data through in-depth interviews with key decision-makers; non-participant observations at design meetings; and on-site tours. Qualitative thematic analysis along with the development of a classification system was used to understand specific building elements and the relevant decision processes from which they resulted. Recording and analyzing the design process revealed several key issues including grassroots involvement of stakeholders; interaction between universal design and sustainable design; addressing diversity through flexibility and universality; and segregationist accessibility versus universal design. This case study revealed complex interactions between accessibility, universal design, and sustainability. Two visual models were proposed to understand and analyze these complexities.

Making the library accessible for all a practical guide for librarians

CERN Document Server

Vincent, Jane

2014-01-01

Accessibility is becoming an issue that libraries can no longer ignore. Making the Library Accessible for All provides a holistic guide to accessibility that addresses common issues and gives strategies for responding to unique situations. This book is a single-source guide relevant to all library functions that librarians can easily refer to when planning, remediating, or evaluating for accessibility. It has a unique holistic perspective, as well as an emphasis on perceiving people with disabilities as providing resources to meet a common goal rather than as a population to be "served."

Big Opportunities in Access to "Small Science" Data

OpenAIRE

Onsrud, Harlan; Campbell, James

2007-01-01

A distributed infrastructure that would enable those who wish to do so to contribute their scientific or technical data to a universal digital commons could allow such data to be more readily preserved and accessible among disciplinary domains. Five critical issues that must be addressed in developing an efficient and effective data commons infrastructure are described. We conclude that creation of a distributed infrastructure meeting the critical criteria and deployable throughout the networ...

The Use of Online Citizen-Science Projects to Provide Experiential Learning Opportunities for Nonmajor Science Students

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Donna M. Kridelbaugh

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Citizen science is becoming even more accessible to the general public through technological advances in the development of mobile applications, facilitating information dissemination and data collection. With the advent of “big data,” many citizen-science projects designed to help researchers sift through piles of research data now exist entirely online, either in the form of playing a game or via other digital avenues. Recent trends in citizen science have also focused on “crowdsourcing” solutions from the general public to help solve societal issues, often requiring nothing more than brainstorming and a computer to submit ideas. Online citizen science thus provides an excellent platform to expand the accessibility of experiential learning opportunities for a broad range of nonmajor science students at institutions with limited resources (e.g., community colleges. I created an activity for a general microbiology lecture to engage students in hands-on experiences via participation in online citizen-science projects. The objectives of the assignment were for students to: 1 understand that everyone can be a scientist; 2 learn to be creative and innovative in designing solutions to health and science challenges; and 3 further practice science communication skills with a written report. This activity is designed for introductory science courses with nonmajor science students who have limited opportunities to participate in undergraduate research experiences.

Handbook of information science

CERN Document Server

Stock, Wolfgang G

2013-01-01

Dealing with information is one of the vital skills in thetwenty-first century. It takes a fair degree of information savvy to create, represent and supply information as well as to search for and retrieve relevant knowledge. This Handbook is a basic work of information science, providing a comprehensive overview of the current state of information retrieval and knowledge representation. It addresses readers from all professions and scientific disciplines, but particularly scholars, practitioners and students of Information Science, Library Science, Computer Science, Information Management, an

International Journal of Biological and Chemical Sciences ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

International Journal of Biological and Chemical Sciences: Advanced Search. Journal Home > International Journal of Biological and Chemical Sciences: Advanced Search. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Road Safety Education in a Science Course: Evaluation of "Science and the Road."

Science.gov (United States)

Gardner, Paul L.

1989-01-01

A traffic safety instructional package--"Science and the Road"--was assessed. It was designed by the Road Traffic Authority of Victoria (Australia) for use in tenth-grade science courses. Evaluation findings resulted in revision of the unit and implementation of more inservice courses for teachers lacking relevant biology and physics…

The Problem of Subject Access to Visual Materials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heather P. Jespersen

2004-09-01

Full Text Available This article discusses the problem of giving subject access to works of art. We survey both concept-based and content-based access by computers and by indexers/catalogers respectively, as well as issues of interoperability, database and indexer consistency, and cataloging standards. The authors, both of whom are trained art historians, question attempts to mystify fine art subject matter by the creation of clever library science systems that are executed by the naive. Only when trained art historians and knowledgeable catalogers are finally responsible for providing subject access to works of art, will true interoperability and consistency happen.

ScienceDesk Project Overview

Science.gov (United States)

Keller, Richard M.; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

NASA's ScienceDesk Project at the Ames Research Center is responsible for scientific knowledge management which includes ensuring the capture, preservation, and traceability of scientific knowledge. Other responsibilities include: 1) Maintaining uniform information access which is achieved through intelligent indexing and visualization, 2) Collaborating both asynchronous and synchronous science teamwork, 3) Monitoring and controlling semi-autonomous remote experimentation.

Opportunities for web-based indicators in environmental sciences.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sergio Malcevschi

Full Text Available This paper proposes a set of web-based indicators for quantifying and ranking the relevance of terms related to key-issues in Ecology and Sustainability Science. Search engines that operate in different contexts (e.g. global, social, scientific are considered as web information carriers (WICs and are able to analyse; (i relevance on different levels: global web, individual/personal sphere, on-line news, and culture/science; (ii time trends of relevance; (iii relevance of keywords for environmental governance. For the purposes of this study, several indicators and specific indices (relational indices and dynamic indices were applied to a test-set of 24 keywords. Outputs consistently show that traditional study topics in environmental sciences such as water and air have remained the most quantitatively relevant keywords, while interest in systemic issues (i.e. ecosystem and landscape has grown over the last 20 years. Nowadays, the relevance of new concepts such as resilience and ecosystem services is increasing, but the actual ability of these concepts to influence environmental governance needs to be further studied and understood. The proposed approach, which is based on intuitive and easily replicable procedures, can support the decision-making processes related to environmental governance.

Patient access to medicines in two countries with similar health systems and differing medicines policies: Implications from a comprehensive literature review.

Science.gov (United States)

Babar, Zaheer-Ud-Din; Gammie, Todd; Seyfoddin, Ali; Hasan, Syed Shahzad; Curley, Louise E

2018-04-13

Countries with similar health systems but different medicines policies might result in substantial medicines usage differences and resultant outcomes. The literature is sparse in this area. To review pharmaceutical policy research in New Zealand and Australia and discuss differences between the two countries and the impact these differences may have on subsequent medicine access. A review of the literature (2008-2016) was performed to identify relevant, peer-reviewed articles. Systematic searches were conducted across the six databases MEDLINE, PubMed, Science Direct, Springer Links, Scopus and Google Scholar. A further search of journals of high relevance was also conducted. Using content analysis, a narrative synthesis of pharmaceutical policy research influencing access to medicines in Australia and New Zealand was conducted. The results were critically assessed in the context of policy material available via grey literature from the respective countries. Key elements regarding pharmaceutical policy were identified from the 35 research papers identified for this review. Through a content analysis, three broad categories of pharmaceutical policy were found, which potentially could influence patient access to medicines in each country; the national health system, pricing and reimbursement. Within these three categories, 9 subcategories were identified: national health policy, pharmacy system, marketing authorization and regulation, prescription to non-prescription medicine switch, orphan drug policies, generic medicine substitution, national pharmaceutical schedule and health technology assessment, patient co-payment and managed entry agreements. This review systematically evaluated the current literature and identified key areas of difference in policy between Australia and NZ. Australia appears to cover and reimburse a greater number of medicines, while New Zealand achieves much lower prices for medicines than their Australian counterparts and has been more

Archive & Data Management Activities for ISRO Science Archives

Science.gov (United States)

Thakkar, Navita; Moorthi, Manthira; Gopala Krishna, Barla; Prashar, Ajay; Srinivasan, T. P.

2012-07-01

ISRO has kept a step ahead by extending remote sensing missions to planetary and astronomical exploration. It has started with Chandrayaan-1 and successfully completed the moon imaging during its life time in the orbit. Now, in future ISRO is planning to launch Chandrayaan-2 (next moon mission), Mars Mission and Astronomical mission ASTROSAT. All these missions are characterized by the need to receive process, archive and disseminate the acquired science data to the user community for analysis and scientific use. All these science missions will last for a few months to a few years but the data received are required to be archived, interoperable and requires a seamless access to the user community for the future. ISRO has laid out definite plans to archive these data sets in specified standards and develop relevant access tools to be able to serve the user community. To achieve this goal, a Data Center is set up at Bangalore called Indian Space Science Data Center (ISSDC). This is the custodian of all the data sets of the current and future science missions of ISRO . Chandrayaan-1 is the first among the planetary missions launched/to be launched by ISRO and we had taken the challenge and developed a system for data archival and dissemination of the payload data received. For Chandrayaan-1 the data collected from all the instruments are processed and is archived in the archive layer in the Planetary Data System (PDS 3.0) standards, through the automated pipeline. But the dataset once stored is of no use unless it is made public, which requires a Web-based dissemination system that can be accessible to all the planetary scientists/data users working in this field. Towards this, a Web- based Browse and Dissemination system has been developed, wherein users can register and search for their area of Interest and view the data archived for TMC & HYSI with relevant Browse chips and Metadata of the data. Users can also order the data and get it on their desktop in the PDS

Archives: Journal of Medical and Biomedical Sciences

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Archives: African Journal of Science and Technology

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Items 1 - 15 of 15 ... Archives: African Journal of Science and Technology. Journal Home > Archives: African Journal of Science and Technology. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Archives: Journal of Science and Technology (Ghana)

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Items 1 - 38 of 38 ... Archives: Journal of Science and Technology (Ghana). Journal Home > Archives: Journal of Science and Technology (Ghana). Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

An Exploration of Teachers' Efforts to Understand Identity Work and its Relevance to Science Instruction

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, M. Cecil; Darfler, Anne

2012-06-01

US educators express concern that students are turning away from the study of science and have little interest in pursuing science careers. Nationally, science achievement scores for 8th graders are unchanged since 1996, but 12th graders' scores have significantly decreased. A shortcoming of education reform efforts is lack of attention to students' developmental needs. Science study should enable students to learn about themselves—to develop and refine their skills, define their values, explore personal interests, and understand the importance of science to themselves and others. Effective secondary science instruction requires attention to students' identity development—the key developmental task of adolescence. Secondary science teachers participated in an 8-week course focused on understanding adolescent identity development and methods for addressing identity. Transcripts of the teachers' online discussions of salient issues were analyzed to determine their perceptions regarding classroom identity work. Teachers identified several assets and obstacles to identity work that were organized into two broad categories: teacher knowledge, training opportunities, and administrative support, or lack of these; and, presence of inflexible curricula, standardized testing regimes, and increased teacher accountability. Implications for student growth and science teacher professional development are discussed.

When science becomes too easy: Science popularization inclines laypeople to underrate their dependence on experts.

Science.gov (United States)

Scharrer, Lisa; Rupieper, Yvonne; Stadtler, Marc; Bromme, Rainer

2017-11-01

Science popularization fulfills the important task of making scientific knowledge understandable and accessible for the lay public. However, the simplification of information required to achieve this accessibility may lead to the risk of audiences relying overly strongly on their own epistemic capabilities when making judgments about scientific claims. Moreover, they may underestimate how the division of cognitive labor makes them dependent on experts. This article reports an empirical study demonstrating that this "easiness effect of science popularization" occurs when laypeople read authentic popularized science depictions. After reading popularized articles addressed to a lay audience, laypeople agreed more with the knowledge claims they contained and were more confident in their claim judgments than after reading articles addressed to expert audiences. Implications for communicating scientific knowledge to the general public are discussed.

Van Allen Probes Science Gateway: Single-Point Access to Long-Term Radiation Belt Measurements and Space Weather Nowcasting

Science.gov (United States)

Romeo, G.; Barnes, R. J.; Ukhorskiy, A. Y.; Sotirelis, T.; Stephens, G.

2017-12-01

The Science Gateway gives single-point access to over 4.5 years of comprehensive wave and particle measurements from the Van Allen Probes NASA twin-spacecraft mission. The Gateway provides a set of visualization and data analysis tools including: HTML5-based interactive visualization of high-level data products from all instrument teams in the form of: line plots, orbital content plots, dynamical energy spectra, L-shell context plots (including two-spacecraft plotting), FFT spectra of wave data, solar wind and geomagnetic indices data, etc.; download custom multi-instrument CDF data files of selected data products; publication quality plots of digital data; combined orbit predicts for mission planning and coordination including: Van Allen Probes, MMS, THEMIS, Arase (ERG), Cluster, GOES, Geotail, FIREBIRD; magnetic footpoint calculator for coordination with LEO and ground-based assets; real-time computation and processing of empirical magnetic field models - computation of magnetic ephemeris, computation of adiabatic invariants. Van Allen Probes is the first spacecraft mission to provide a nowcast of the radiation environment in the heart of the radiation belts, where the radiation levels are the highest and most dangerous for spacecraft operations. For this purpose, all instruments continuously broadcast a subset of their science data in real time. Van Allen Probes partners with four foreign institutions who operate ground stations that receive the broadcast: Korea (KASI), the Czech republic (CAS), Argentina (CONAE), and Brazil (INPE). The SpWx broadcast is then collected at APL and delivered to the community via the Science Gateway.

Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences

Science.gov (United States)

Snow, Catherine E., Ed.; Dibner, Kenne A., Ed.

2016-01-01

Science is a way of knowing about the world. At once a process, a product, and an institution, science enables people to both engage in the construction of new knowledge as well as use information to achieve desired ends. Access to science--whether using knowledge or creating it--necessitates some level of familiarity with the enterprise and…

Gold or green: the debate on open access policies.

Science.gov (United States)

Abadal, Ernest

2013-09-01

The movement for open access to science seeks to achieve unrestricted and free access to academic publications on the Internet. To this end, two mechanisms have been established: the gold road, in which scientific journals are openly accessible, and the green road, in which publications are self-archived in repositories. The publication of the Finch Report in 2012, advocating exclusively the adoption of the gold road, generated a debate as to whether either of the two options should be prioritized. The recommendations of the Finch Report stirred controversy among academicians specialized in open access issues, who felt that the role played by repositories was not adequately considered and because the green road places the burden of publishing costs basically on authors. The Finch Report's conclusions are compatible with the characteristics of science communication in the UK and they could surely also be applied to the (few) countries with a powerful publishing industry and substantial research funding. In Spain, both the current national legislation and the existing rules at universities largely advocate the green road. This is directly related to the structure of scientific communication in Spain, where many journals have little commercial significance, the system of charging a fee to authors has not been adopted, and there is a good repository infrastructure. As for open access policies, the performance of the scientific communication system in each country should be carefully analyzed to determine the most suitable open access strategy.

Tag-Based Social Image Search: Toward Relevant and Diverse Results

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Kuiyuan; Wang, Meng; Hua, Xian-Sheng; Zhang, Hong-Jiang

Recent years have witnessed a great success of social media websites. Tag-based image search is an important approach to access the image content of interest on these websites. However, the existing ranking methods for tag-based image search frequently return results that are irrelevant or lack of diversity. This chapter presents a diverse relevance ranking scheme which simultaneously takes relevance and diversity into account by exploring the content of images and their associated tags. First, it estimates the relevance scores of images with respect to the query term based on both visual information of images and semantic information of associated tags. Then semantic similarities of social images are estimated based on their tags. Based on the relevance scores and the similarities, the ranking list is generated by a greedy ordering algorithm which optimizes Average Diverse Precision (ADP), a novel measure that is extended from the conventional Average Precision (AP). Comprehensive experiments and user studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.

African Health Sciences

African Journals Online (AJOL)

African Health Sciences is an open access, free online, internationally ... Ebola virus disease: assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice of nursing ... and immune system modulation by aerobic versus resisted exercise training for elderly ...

Accessible Geoscience - Digital Fieldwork

Science.gov (United States)

Meara, Rhian

2017-04-01

Accessible Geoscience is a developing field of pedagogic research aimed at widening participation in Geography, Earth and Environmental Science (GEES) subjects. These subjects are often less commonly associated with disabilities, ethnic minorities, low income socio-economic groups and females. While advancements and improvements have been made in the inclusivity of these subject areas in recent years, access and participation of disabled students remains low. While universities are legally obligated to provide reasonable adjustments to ensure accessibility, the assumed incompatibility of GEES subjects and disability often deters students from applying to study these courses at a university level. Instead of making reasonable adjustments if and when they are needed, universities should be aiming to develop teaching materials, spaces and opportunities which are accessible to all, which in turn will allow all groups to participate in the GEES subjects. With this in mind, the Swansea Geography Department wish to enhance the accessibility of our undergraduate degree by developing digital field work opportunities. In the first instance, we intend to digitise three afternoon excursions which are run as part of a 1st year undergraduate module. Each of the field trips will be digitized into English- and Welsh-medium formats. In addition, each field trip will be digitized into British Sign Language (BSL) to allow for accessibility for D/deaf and hard of hearing students. Subtitles will also be made available in each version. While the main focus of this work is to provide accessible fieldwork opportunities for students with disabilities, this work also has additional benefits. Students within the Geography Department will be able to revisit the field trips, to revise and complete associated coursework. The use of digitized field work should not replace opportunities for real field work, but its use by the full cohort of students will begin to "normalize" accessible field

Accessibility of youths to health care in Nigeria | Ayandiji | Journal of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Accessibility of youths to health care in Nigeria. ... Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and the Social Sciences ... This study examines the accessibility of youths to the various health facilities available, the cost of services provided and also the relationship between the health facilities available and the cost of services provided.

Rwanda Journal of Health Sciences

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Rwanda Journal of Health Sciences, a publication of Kigali Health Institute, publishes original research, short communications, and review articles on current topics of special interest and relevance in various health related fields including public health, allied health sciences, nursing, environmental health, nutrition, ...

International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology ...

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International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology: About this journal. Journal Home > International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology: About this journal. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Implementation science: a reappraisal of our journal mission and scope.

Science.gov (United States)

Foy, Robbie; Sales, Anne; Wensing, Michel; Aarons, Gregory A; Flottorp, Signe; Kent, Bridie; Michie, Susan; O'Connor, Denise; Rogers, Anne; Sevdalis, Nick; Straus, Sharon; Wilson, Paul

2015-04-17

The implementation of research findings into healthcare practice has become increasingly recognised as a major priority for researchers, service providers, research funders and policymakers over the past decade. Nine years after its establishment, Implementation Science, an international online open access journal, currently publishes over 150 articles each year. This is fewer than 30% of those submitted for publication. The majority of manuscript rejections occur at the point of initial editorial screening, frequently because we judge them to fall outside of journal scope. There are a number of common reasons as to why manuscripts are rejected on grounds of scope. Furthermore, as the field of implementation research has evolved and our journal submissions have risen, we have, out of necessity, had to become more selective in what we publish. We have also expanded our scope, particularly around patient-mediated and population health interventions, and will monitor the impact of such changes. We hope this editorial on our evolving priorities and common reasons for rejection without peer review will help authors to better judge the relevance of their papers to Implementation Science.

SciStarter 2.0: A Digital Platform to Foster and Study Sustained Engagement in Citizen Science

Science.gov (United States)

Hoffman, C.

2016-12-01

SciStarter is a popular online hotspot for citizen science. As a Match.com meets Amazon for citizen science projects, we connect the millions of citizen scientists to thousands of projects and events, and to the resources they need to participate. These opportunities represent ways for the general public from kids to adults to get involved in scientific research. Recently, SciStarter developed a new digital infrastructure to support sustained engagement in citizen science, and research into the behaviors and motivations of participants. The new digital infrastructure of SciStarter includes contribution tracking tools to make it easier to participate in multiple projects, enhanced GIS information to promote locally relevant projects, an online personal dashboard to keep track of contributions, and the use of these tools (contribution tracking, GIS, dashboard) by project owners and researchers to better understand and respond to the needs and interests of citizen science participants. We will provide an overview of these tools and the research behind their development. We will then explore how these new tools advance citizen science towards a future with more pathways to participatory policymaking, expanded access to informal STEM experiences, and lowered barriers to citizen science. Finally, we will present the research questions that can and will be answered through the site by practitioners in the diverse science and citizen science fields.

WFIRST Project Science Activities

Science.gov (United States)

Gehrels, Neil

2012-01-01

The WFIRST Project is a joint effort between GSFC and JPL. The project scientists and engineers are working with the community Science Definition Team to define the requirements and initial design of the mission. The objective is to design an observatory that meets the WFIRST science goals of the Astr02010 Decadal Survey for minimum cost. This talk will be a report of recent project activities including requirements flowdown, detector array development, science simulations, mission costing and science outreach. Details of the interim mission design relevant to scientific capabilities will be presented.

Students' Personal Connection with Science: Investigating the Multidimensional Phenomenological Structure of Self-Relevance

Science.gov (United States)

Hartwell, Matthew; Kaplan, Avi

2018-01-01

This paper presents findings from a two-phase mixed methods study investigating the phenomenological structure of self-relevance among ninth-grade junior high school biology students (Phase 1: N = 118; Phase 2: N = 139). We begin with a phenomenological multidimensional definition of self-relevance as comprising three dimensions: the academic…

An analysis of contextual information relevant to medical care unexpectedly volunteered to researchers by asthma patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Black, Heather L; Priolo, Chantel; Gonzalez, Rodalyn; Geer, Sabrina; Adam, Bariituu; Apter, Andrea J

2012-09-01

To describe and categorize contextual information relevant to patients' medical care unexpectedly volunteered to research personnel as part of a patient advocate (PA) intervention to facilitate access health care, communication with medical personnel, and self-management of a chronic disease such as asthma. We adapted a patient navigator intervention, to overcome barriers to access and communication for adults with moderate or severe asthma. Informed by focus groups of patients and providers, our PAs facilitated preparation for a visit with an asthma provider, attended the visit, confirmed understanding, and assisted with post-visit activities. During meetings with researchers, either for PA activities or for data collection, participants frequently volunteered personal and medical information relevant for achieving successful self-management that was not routinely shared with medical personnel. For this project, researchers journaled information not captured by the structured questionnaires and protocol. Using a qualitative analysis, we describe (1) researchers' journals of these unique communications; (2) their relevance for accomplishing self-management; (3) PAs' formal activities including teach-back, advocacy, and facilitating appointment making; and (4) observations of patients' interactions with the clinical practices. In 83 journals, patients' social support (83%), health (68%), and deportment (69%) were described. PA assistance with navigating the medical system (59%), teach-back (46%), and observed interactions with patient and medical staff (76%) were also journaled. Implicit were ways patients and practices could overcome barriers to access and communication. These journals describe the importance of seeking contextual and medically relevant information from all patients and, especially, those with significant morbidities, prompting patients for barriers to access to health care, and confirming understanding of medical information.

Enhancing Ocean Research Data Access

Science.gov (United States)

Chandler, Cynthia; Groman, Robert; Shepherd, Adam; Allison, Molly; Arko, Robert; Chen, Yu; Fox, Peter; Glover, David; Hitzler, Pascal; Leadbetter, Adam; Narock, Thomas; West, Patrick; Wiebe, Peter

2014-05-01

The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) works in partnership with ocean science investigators to publish data from research projects funded by the Biological and Chemical Oceanography Sections and the Office of Polar Programs Antarctic Organisms & Ecosystems Program at the U.S. National Science Foundation. Since 2006, researchers have been contributing data to the BCO-DMO data system, and it has developed into a rich repository of data from ocean, coastal and Great Lakes research programs. While the ultimate goal of the BCO-DMO is to ensure preservation of NSF funded project data and to provide open access to those data, achievement of those goals is attained through a series of related phases that benefits from active collaboration and cooperation with a large community of research scientists as well as curators of data and information at complementary data repositories. The BCO-DMO is just one of many intermediate data management centers created to facilitate long-term preservation of data and improve access to ocean research data. Through partnerships with other data management professionals and active involvement in local and global initiatives, BCO-DMO staff members are working to enhance access to ocean research data available from the online BCO-DMO data system. Continuing efforts in use of controlled vocabulary terms, development of ontology design patterns and publication of content as Linked Open Data are contributing to improved discovery and availability of BCO-DMO curated data and increased interoperability of related content available from distributed repositories. We will demonstrate how Semantic Web technologies (e.g. RDF/XML, SKOS, OWL and SPARQL) have been integrated into BCO-DMO data access and delivery systems to better serve the ocean research community and to contribute to an expanding global knowledge network.

International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology ...

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International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology: Journal Sponsorship. Journal Home > About the Journal > International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology: Journal Sponsorship. Log in or Register to get access to full text downloads.

Young Women, Sports, and Science

Science.gov (United States)

Hanson, Sandra L.

2007-01-01

This article examines young women's access to two traditionally male domains, sport and science, from two perspectives. The structural approach suggests that sport and science are stratified by gender and have historically been chilly climates for women. The Critical approach argues that structure and agency are important in understanding sources…

Communicating science beyond the MMJ

African Journals Online (AJOL)

nanotechnology, fracking, and GMOs, just to name a few hot topics of recent years. In Malawi, levels of poverty, literacy, and access to information are challenges to science communication. However, given that the majority of research conducted in Malawi is medical or social science-related and involves human subjects, ...

A historical introduction to the philosophy of science

CERN Document Server

Losee, John

1993-01-01

This new edition brings up to date this accessible study of the philosophy of science. Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, scientists and philosophers have raised questions about the proper evaluation of scientific interpretations. A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science is an exposition of differing viewpoints on issues such as the distinction between scientific inquiry and other types of interpretation, the relationship between theories and observation reports; the evaluation of competing theories; and the nature of progress in science. The author makes accessible the philosophy of science to readers who may not have extensive knowledge of formal logic or the history of the several sciences. The third edition incorporates an extended discussion of recent developments. Historicist critics of Logical Empiricism have established that evaluative standards and cognitive aims have changed within the history of science. This edition examines these changes, the recent controversies over scientific...