Research and Scientific Advice in the Second Modernity: Technology Assessment, Responsible Research and Innovation, and Sustainability Research

The scientific and technological advance has been a major driving force of modernization for centuries. However, the 20th century was full of indications and diagnoses of a deep crisis of modernity. Currently, debates on limits to growth, pollution, and climate change indicate the serious and threatening lack of sustainability of the so-called ‘first modernity’. This crisis of modernity has motivated scholars to develop concepts of modernizing modernity, with the approach of a ‘reflexive modernization’ to reach a ‘second modernity’ being prominent. In this paper, Technology Assessment (TA), Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), and Sustainability Research (SR) are regarded as manifestations of this reflexive modernization in the field of problem-oriented and transformative research. The paper aims to (a) unfold the hypothesis regarding TA, RRI, and SR as scientific approaches within reflexive modernization, (b) clarify the respective meaning of ‘reflexive’ in these approaches, (c) identify commonalities as well as differences between the three approaches, and (d) draw conclusions for the relation and further development of TA, RRI, and SR.

Wie man mehr als 9000 Rezensionen schreiben kann. Lesen und Rezensieren in der Zeit Albrecht von Hallers

Zusammenfassung Albrecht von Haller – Professor für Anatomie, Botanik und Chirurgie in Göttingen, später Politiker und Dichter in Bern und einer der führenden Gelehrten der Aufklärung – war auch als Rezensent bemerkenswert. Die Zeitgenossen waren von der schieren Zahl seiner Buchbesprechungen überaus beeindruckt; ähnlich ergeht es Historikerinnen und Historikern heute. Die Erklärungen, die für seine Produktivität als Rezensent ins Feld geführt wurden und werden, verweisen typischerweise auf Hallers beeindruckend breite Lektüre und sein außergewöhnlich gutes Gedächtnis. Wir argumentieren, dass diese Erklärungen nicht hinreichen: Nur wenn wir auch Hallers Lese- und Exzerpierpraktiken berücksichtigen, gelangen wir zu einer zufriedenstellenden Erklärung seiner Produktivität als Rezensent. Denn es zeigt sich, dass seine erhaltenen Exzerpte und seine veröffentlichten Rezensionen eng miteinander verbunden waren. Wie wir weiter argumentieren, waren die kognitiven Praktiken und der Einsatz von „paper technology“, die Hallers wissenschaftliche Lektüre charakterisierten, zeitgenössisch durchaus üblich. Während die Rhetorik vieler Aufklärer suggeriert, dass sie sich zugunsten des autoptischen Wissens vom Bücherwissen abwandten, sprechen ihre Buchbesprechungen und die erhaltenen Exzerpte oftmals eine andere Sprache. Das aufklärerische Projekt der „Kritik“ baute auf denselben gelehrten Praktiken des Lesens und Exzerpierens auf, die damals oft verpönt waren, und es profitierte von ihnen.

The paper technology of confinement: evolving criteria in admission forms (1850–73)

This paper investigates the role of admission forms in the regulation of asylum confinement in the second half of the nineteenth century. Taking the Toronto Lunatic Asylum as a case study it traces the evolution of the forms’ content and structure during the first decades of this institution. Admission forms provide important material for understanding the medico-legal assessment of lunacy in a certain jurisdiction. First, they show how the description of insanity depended on a plurality of actors. Second, doctors were not necessarily required to indicate symptoms of derangement. Third, patients’ relatives played a fundamental role in providing clinical information. From an historiographical perspective, this paper invites scholars to consider the function of standardized documents in shaping the written identity of patients.

Flexible paper-based label-free electrochemical biosensor for the monitoring of miRNA-21 using core–shell Ag@Au/GQD nano-ink: a new platform for the accurate and rapid analysis by low cost lab-on-paper technology

miRNA-21 is one of the most famous and prominent microRNAs that is important in the development and emergence of cancers.

Light confinement in liquid crystals for optofluidic integrated microsystems -INVITED

In this paper technology to make optical waveguides and microfluidic channels integrated on the same substrate will be reported to envisage novel micro-optofluidic chips. PolyDiMethylSiloxane (PDMS) is used to make microchannels to be filled with biological solutions. Liquid crystals (LC) are used to confine light to produce optical interaction with biological fluidic specimen. Optical waveguides base on PDMS channels filled with LC, named LC:PDMS waveguides, including both straight and bending channels are reported to design photonic devices. Electro-optic effect of LC allows to make tuneable optical waveguides to reconfigure the entire optofluidic microsystem which can include gold nanoparticles for photo-thermal therapies. Coplanar gold electrodes can switch LC molecules with applied voltage of about 2 V. Such electrode configuration can be used to make optical switches and wavelengths demultiplexers. A zero-gap directional coupler based on LC:PDMS waveguides has been designed to switch light from one waveguide to another with an extinction ratio of 16 dB by applying a voltage of just 1.62 V. A multimode interference demultiplexer has been also designed to demultiplex wavelengths at 980 nm and 1550 nm in two output waveguides with an extinction ratio better than 11 dB by applying about 7 V.

Technological aspects of obtaining melanin and powder from buckwheat hull and their use in food technology

In the paper, technology of melanin and powder from buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) hull obtaining is studied. Buckwheat hull is a by-product of buckwheat grain production and has high antioxidant activity. It is a cheap source for raw material with high content of cellulose and brown melanin pigment. In Russia, buckwheat grain is strategical crop used in child and dietary nutrition. Buckwheat hulls, which production volume is about 22% of the total volume of processed grain, are practically not used. At the same time, buckwheat hull can be regarded as a valuable raw material for obtaining of several biologically active substances and technological food ingredients due to its unique chemical composition. The possibility and prospects of using products of buckwheat hulls processing in the formulation of dessert with functional properties, is described. It was found that the implementation of buckwheat processing by-products into the desserts increases their antioxidant activity, and addition of fine powder increases dietary fiber content in them.