scholarly journals The Changing Uses of Herbarium Data in an Era of Global Change: An Overview Using Automated Content Analysis

BioScience ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (10) ◽  
pp. 812-822 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Mason Heberling ◽  
L Alan Prather ◽  
Stephen J Tonsor
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
New Era ◽  
Dna Analyses ◽  
Societal Relevance ◽  
Automated Content Analysis ◽  
Botanical History ◽  
Herbarium Data

Abstract Widespread specimen digitization has greatly enhanced the use of herbarium data in scientific research. Publications using herbarium data have increased exponentially over the last century. Here, we review changing uses of herbaria through time with a computational text analysis of 13,702 articles from 1923 to 2017 that quantitatively complements traditional review approaches. Although maintaining its core contribution to taxonomic knowledge, herbarium use has diversified from a few dominant research topics a century ago (e.g., taxonomic notes, botanical history, local observations), with many topics only recently emerging (e.g., biodiversity informatics, global change biology, DNA analyses). Specimens are now appreciated as temporally and spatially extensive sources of genotypic, phenotypic, and biogeographic data. Specimens are increasingly used in ways that influence our ability to steward future biodiversity. As we enter the Anthropocene, herbaria have likewise entered a new era with enhanced scientific, educational, and societal relevance.

scholarly journals The Methodological Divide of Sociology: Evidence from Two Decades of Journal Publications

Sociology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten Schwemmer ◽  
Oliver Wieczorek
Keyword(s):  
Text Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Time Trend ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
Quantitative Research Methods ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
Automated Text Analysis

Past research indicates that Sociology is a low-consensus discipline, where different schools of thought have distinct expectations about suitable scientific practices. This division of Sociology into different subfields is to a large extent related to methodology and choices between qualitative or quantitative research methods. Relying on theoretical constructs of the academic prestige economy, boundary demarcation and taste for research, we examine the methodological divide in generalist Sociology journals. Using automated text analysis for 8737 abstracts of articles published between 1995 and 2017, we discover evidence of this divide, but also of an entanglement between methodological choices and different research topics. Moreover, our results suggest a marginally increasing time trend for the publication of quantitative research in generalist journals. We discuss how this consolidation of methodological practices could enforce the entrenchment of different schools of thought, which ultimately reduces the potential for innovative and effective sociological research.

scholarly journals Putting our science to work in the 21st Century: new directions in applied paleobiology?

1992 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 64-64
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Global Change ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Petroleum Industry ◽  
Community Needs ◽  
Societal Relevance ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Historical Viewpoint ◽  
And Training

The scientific community is in great need of input from paleontologists today in two key areas of societal concern: the historical basis of global change and losses of biodiversity. Paleontologists, with their unique perspective on rates of change in biotic communities and their training in filtering signal from noise in the fossil record, are the best placed scientists in biology to approach these problems from an historical viewpoint. In the classroom we give lip service to the central role of paleontology in understanding these problems. Yet with the exclusion of Quaternary (and particularly Recent) paleoecology from the mainstream of our field, we have abrogated this responsibility to other disciplines. Paleontologists are in danger of losing the opportunity to provide guidance on the very issues in paleontology where political interest and funding will lie in the not too distant future. As opportunities for employment of paleontologists in the petroleum industry fade, it is critical that academic paleontologists define new directions for graduate education in our field.The paleontological community needs to reincorporate Quaternary paleoecology into its mainstream, emphasizing the importance of a paleobiological perspective in environmental problem solving. As the developers of theory and methodology in the interpretation of the fossil record it is our responsibility to set the agenda as to how paleobiology should be utilized. Our professional societies should provide leadership as advocates for funding research and training in the new areas of applied paleobiology, lest paleobiology (as we define it) be marginalized and traditional paleontology programs be viewed by their home institutions as increasingly irrelevant. Employment opportunities in biostratigraphy are a thing of the past; applied paleontology must redefine itself for career opportunities at the top of the column, in such areas as recent climate change or the fossil record of human-induced ecological disturbances. The PIRLA Project (Paleoecological Investigation of Recent Lake Acidification) provides an excellent example of applying paleobiology to such problems, using the Recent diatoms, crustaceans, insects and pollen fossils to understand the chronology of the acid rain problem in eastern North America.Academic departments bear a responsibility to bring the important new applications of paleobiology into the classroom, demonstrating its societal relevance and training students to avail themselves of potential opportunities for paleobiologists in global change and biodiversity research. Recent developments in taphonomy or stratigraphic ordering of fossils could be extremely powerful tools if applied to environmental change problem solving. We need to make our students marketable by spending more time in the classroom teaching them about Recent diatom paleoecology and less on brachiopod biostratigraphy. Otherwise paleobiology may go the way of Egyptology.

scholarly journals Beyond Modeling: A Roadmap to Community Cyberinfrastructure for Ecological Data-Model Integration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Istem Fer ◽  
Anthony K. Gardella ◽  
Alexey N. Shiklomanov ◽  
Shawn P. Serbin ◽  
Martin G. De Kauwe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Data Model ◽  
Model Integration ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Model Data ◽  
Ecological Data ◽  
New Era ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
New Knowledge

In an era of rapid global change, our ability to understand and predict Earth's natural systems is lagging behind our ability to monitor and measure changes in the biosphere. Bottlenecks in our ability to process information have reduced our capacity to fully exploit the growing volume and variety of data. Here, we take a critical look at the information infrastructure that connects modeling and measurement efforts, and propose a roadmap that accelerates production of new knowledge. We propose that community cyberinfrastructure tools can help mend the divisions between empirical research and modeling, and accelerate the pace of discovery. A new era of data-model integration requires investment in accessible, scalable, transparent tools that integrate the expertise of the whole community, not just a clique of ‘modelers’. This roadmap focuses on five key opportunities for community tools: the underlying backbone to community cyberinfrastructure; data ingest; calibration of models to data; model-data benchmarking; and data assimilation and ecological forecasting. This community-driven approach is key to meeting the pressing needs of science and society in the 21st century.

scholarly journals Completeness of Digital Accessible Knowledge of the Plants of Ghana

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Asase ◽  
A. Townsend Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Distance ◽  
Northern Ghana ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Herbarium Data ◽  
Research Grade ◽  
Biodiversity Information

Providing comprehensive, informative, primary, research-grade biodiversity information represents an important focus of biodiversity informatics initiatives. Recent efforts within Ghana have digitized >90% of primary biodiversity data records associated with specimen sheets in Ghanaian herbaria; additional herbarium data are available from other institutions via biodiversity informatics initiatives such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. However, data on the plants of Ghana have not as yet been integrated and assessed to establish how complete site inventories are, so that appropriate levels of confidence can be applied. In this study, we assessed inventory completeness and identified gaps in current Digital Accessible Knowledge (DAK) of the plants of Ghana, to prioritize areas for future surveys and inventories. We evaluated the completeness of inventories at ½° spatial resolution using statistics that summarize inventory completeness, and characterized gaps in coverage in terms of geographic distance and climatic difference from well-documented sites across the country. The southwestern and southeastern parts of the country held many well-known grid cells; the largest spatial gaps were found in central and northern parts of the country. Climatic difference showed contrasting patterns, with a dramatic gap in coverage in central-northern Ghana. This study provides a detailed case study of how to prioritize for new botanical surveys and inventories based on existing DAK.

“Homosexuality” in Africa: Issues and Debates

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
Deborah P. Amory
Keyword(s):  
African Studies ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
New Era ◽  
Recent Emergence

This article explores the recent emergence of a new subfield within African Studies: not just the study of sexuality in African contexts, but the study of “homosexuality,” or same-sex erotics and identities. I will outline some of the events that herald this new era of African Studies, and review some of the current research topics and debates. In the end, I hope to convince readers that this research deserves the support of all activist scholars within African Studies.

“Homosexuality” in Africa: Issues and Debates

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
Deborah P. Amory
Keyword(s):  
African Studies ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
New Era ◽  
Recent Emergence

This article explores the recent emergence of a new subfield within African Studies: not just the study of sexuality in African contexts, but the study of “homosexuality,” or same-sex erotics and identities. I will outline some of the events that herald this new era of African Studies, and review some of the current research topics and debates. In the end, I hope to convince readers that this research deserves the support of all activist scholars within African Studies.

scholarly journals A systematic review of psychotherapy research topics (2000-2016): a computer-assisted approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Gennaro ◽  
Omar C. G. Gelo ◽  
Gloria Lagetto ◽  
Sergio Salvatore
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Clinical Efficacy ◽  
Psychotherapy Research ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Automated Content Analysis ◽  
Clinical Relationship ◽  
Over Time

The present work aims to empirically map what has been investigated and which issues (i.e. topics) characterize the debates of psychotherapy research, using a computer-assisted, bottom-up method of content analysis. The abstract of papers (N=13,499), published between 2000-2016 and retrieved from a sample of 10 journals selected as representing the field of psychotherapy research, were subjected to a method of automated content analysis. Five different research topics were identified (clinical relationship, clinical efficacy, clinical practice and research, psychopathology, and neuroscientific approaches to mental disorders) and each abstract was labeled according to the retrieved research topic. Two different Chi-square analyses investigated the distributions of research topics over time and among the selected journals. Results concerning the distribution over time highlighted an increase in the clinical relationship and clinical efficacy topics and a decrease in the others. An examination of the distribution among journals showed that psychopathology and neuroscientific approaches to mental disorders were associated with psychiatric journals, while the others were associated with non-psychiatric journals. The findings are discussed in light of the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications offering pointers for a critical understanding of the current psychotherapy research domain.

scholarly journals Modern Challenges of the Globalized Era: Society and Church in Search of Answers

2013 ◽  
pp. 19-27
Author(s):  
Petro Sauh
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
New World ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
New Era ◽  
World Outlook ◽  
The World ◽  
Universal Values ◽  
Common Destiny ◽  
The Church

The world in which we live for millennia is a breakthrough, entering into a lane of profound changes, in which the whole of our life is rebuilt and rebuilt. Untwisted to the maximum turns the flywheel of transformations has touched and is ready to deform various spheres of existence of man and humanity: the relation between humanity and the planet in which it lives; the interaction between the states, each of which is looking for its own ways to the future and, at the same time, can not but reckon with the interests of other nations and states; the struggle of social groups and the confrontation of religions, in the interrelationships of which they are struggling to realize that humanity has a common destiny and that universal values ​​and ideals must come first, become the main ones in the interaction between people; high pace of scientific and technological progress, which far from unequivocally affect both the knowledge of our lives, and on ourselves. In other words: we are faced with a new world - both in the latest technologies, in new forms of life, in new ways of worldview and world outlook, and most importantly in those global threats, in which the contradiction between the new realities of our existence and the established forms and methods unfolds. an attitude to this world. It is no coincidence that society and the church face an acute problem of adaptation to global change, the formation of a new worldview that corresponds to a new era.

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