Science and Technics on the Threshold of the Fourth Technological Revolution in Modern Technogenic Civilization

The role of science and technics in the life of people and society was different in different periods of civilization’s development. This article examines the specificity and dynamics of science and technics as the most important social institutions of modern civilization, which in philosophy is usually called technogenic. The author analyses the role and degree of influence of science and technics on civilization’s development over several centuries, starting with the modern era. Particular attention is paid to scientific and industrial revolutions; their main results in the social and anthropological dimensions are discussed. Further, the sociocultural functions of science in technogenic civilization are described. It is emphasized that science is gradually becoming the activity and technological foundation for culture. In addition, the paper reveals the specifics of technics as the core of technogenic civilization. The results of the joint evolution of science and technics, which are embodied in the scientific and technological progress and scientific and technological revolution, make the author of this study reflect on the consequences of modern scientific and technological development in terms of major challenges and priorities. It is argued that the key trend of this civilizational process is the Fourth Industrial Revolution based on advanced cyber-physical technologies of Industry 4.0. Moreover, the article emphasizes the acuity, ambiguity, global nature and potential of the development of science, technics and technology in the dynamics of the transition to the next technological order. It is argued that the transformations inherent in the scientific and technological development are coming in the near future and will affect all spheres of human life and society at all levels. Thus, the author concludes that considering the role of science and technics in modern civilization from a philosophical perspective will have a growing worldview and prognostic value.

Citizen-driven participatory research conducted through knowledge intermediary units. A thematic synthesis of the literature on “Science Shops”

A Science Shop acts as a mission-oriented intermediary unit between the scientific sphere and civil society organizations. It seeks to facilitate citizen-driven open science projects that respond to the needs of civil society organizations and which, typically, include students in the work process. We performed a thematic analysis of a systematically selected literature on Science Shops to understand how the scientific literature reflects the historical evolution of Science Shops in different settings and what factors the literature associates with the rise and fall of the Science Shop. We used the PRISMA methodology to search for scientific papers in indexed journals in eight databases published in English, French and Spanish, and employed the thematic theory approach to extract and systematize our results. Twenty-six scientific articles met the inclusion criteria. We identified three meta-categories and ten sub-topics which can serve as key pointers to guide the set-up and future work of Science Shops. Our results identify a major paradox: Science Shops incorporate public values in their scientific agendas but have difficulties sustaining themselves institutionally as they do not fit the current dominant research paradigm. Science shops represent a persuasive complementary approach to the way science is defined, executed and produced today.

Prediction of new scientific collaborations through multiplex networks

The establishment of new collaborations among scientists fertilizes the scientific environment, fostering novel discoveries. Understanding the dynamics driving the development of scientific collaborations is thus crucial to characterize the structure and evolution of science. In this work, we leverage the information included in publication records and reconstruct a categorical multiplex networks to improve the prediction of new scientific collaborations. Specifically, we merge different bibliographic sources to quantify the prediction potential of scientific credit, represented by citations, and common interests, measured by the usage of common keywords. We compare several link prediction algorithms based on different dyadic and triadic interactions among scientists, including a recently proposed metric that fully exploits the multiplex representation of scientific networks. Our work paves the way for a deeper understanding of the dynamics driving scientific collaborations, and validates a new algorithm that can be readily applied to link prediction in systems represented as multiplex networks.

Symbiosis Evolution of Science Communication Ecosystem Based on Social Media: A Lotka–Volterra Model-Based Simulation

Social media has become an important way for science communication. Some scholars have examined how to help scientists engage with social media from operational training, policy guidance, and social media services improving. The main contribution of this study is to construct a symbiosis evolution model of science communication ecosystem (SCE) between scientists and social media platforms based on the symbiosis theory and the Lotka–Volterra model to discuss the evolution of their symbiotic patterns and population size under different symbiosis coefficients. The results indicate that (1) the size of the symbiosis coefficients determines the equilibrium outcome of the symbiosis evolution of scientists and social media platforms; (2) scientists and social media platforms can promote each other’s population size under the mutualism pattern, which can achieve sustainable science communication; (3) “1 + 1 > 2” effect can only be achieved under the symmetric mutualism pattern and the growth of scientists and social media platforms is more stable and sufficient than that of other patterns. The findings will provide additional perspectives for promoting the sustainable development of science communication based on social media.

Scientific research, current guidelines in the European Union and ethical issues

Scientific Research is the main process of evolution of Science. Especially in the Healthcare Sector, the context in which the development of Scientific Research is possible marks both the Legal and the Ethical data of each era. For example, the limits of research, the interventions in Humans, the existence of standards and the continuous control of research data are some of the elements of the ongoing scientific study for the framework within which scientific research can be conducted. In the first part of the present paper, the current in the conduct of Scientific Research in the field of Health at the international level in the field of health are developed through a bibliographic review. The second part of the paper summarizes the rules of the European Union on Scientific Research in Health. Finally, the third part of the work mentions the Ethical issues that have been mentioned in the literature, regarding the conduct of Scientific Research in the Health Sector.

CRISPR technology a silver lining in combating COVID-19 pandemic

Technological advancements have trigged the research arena of life sciences. This has resulted not only in the co-evolution of science and technology but also in building up novel ways to tackle life threatening pandemic like situations. The use of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology in combating the recent COVID-19 pandemic is evidence to this. The technique was originally identified as a microbial adaptive immune system, in which the microbes use RNA-guided nucleases to cleave foreign genetic material. Subsequently, molecular biologists started harvesting this technique in accelerating the genetic engineering/ chimeric DNA methods. During COVID-19 outbreak, the scientists are trying to mould the CRISPR technology in the successful and rapid detection of the virus and also in the treatment of COVID- 19 infection. Thus the application of this technique comes as a ray of hope not only for fighting against COVID but also can be used as weapon for unseen future pandemics.

Futures Studies

This chapter examines and critiques the changing socio-political implications that accompany the shift from the concept of a singular future to the pluralization of futures. From the 1960s onwards, the emergence of multiple futures enabled larger sections of society to envision and create ‘alternative futures’ to the status quo. In this chapter Gidley brings to bear the democratizing effect of multiple possible futures upon the evolution of theory and practice across academic disciplines. In particular, she illuminates how the theory and practice of futures studies has paralleled developments in the evolution of science and the social sciences, to incorporate critical futures, cultural futures, participatory futures, and integral futures. She concludes with reflections about how the field of futures studies will continue to evolve so that it can diversely represent the future conceptualizations and actions of scholars, practitioners, and researchers globally.

Whither Magnetic Hyperthermia? A Tentative Roadmap

The scientific community has made great efforts in advancing magnetic hyperthermia for the last two decades after going through a sizeable research lapse from its establishment. All the progress made in various topics ranging from nanoparticle synthesis to biocompatibilization and in vivo testing have been seeking to push the forefront towards some new clinical trials. As many, they did not go at the expected pace. Today, fruitful international cooperation and the wisdom gain after a careful analysis of the lessons learned from seminal clinical trials allow us to have a future with better guarantees for a more definitive takeoff of this genuine nanotherapy against cancer. Deliberately giving prominence to a number of critical aspects, this opinion review offers a blend of state-of-the-art hints and glimpses into the future of the therapy, considering the expected evolution of science and technology behind magnetic hyperthermia.