Quality Management in Polish Biobanking Network—Current Status Before the Implementation of Unified and Harmonized Integrated Quality Management System

In 2017, Polish Biobanking Network was established in Poland, within BBMRI.pl project titled “Organization of Polish Biobanking Network within the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure BBMRI-ERIC” as a strategic scientific infrastructure concept. One of the key elements of the project was the verification of the current status of QMS in the Polish biobanking institutions and the implementation of common solutions. The main goal was to indicate the current QMS level and determine the starting points for QMS development for each biobank of the Polish Biobanking Network (PBN). Within 3 years, 35 audit visits were performed. The current status and the level of QMS implementation in each biobank were assessed. Five hundred and seventy recommendations were prepared. The data was analyzed using Fischer Exact test to determine whether or not a significant association was observed. Three areas of analysis were covered: (1) BBMRI.pl status, (2) QMS implementation level and (3) private/public party, respectively. The results were discussed within 15 areas. Concluding remarks showed that some differences were observed in the case of subgroups analysis. There is convergence in QMS within the biobanks where Tissue Banks are located. Moreover, some discrepancies between the QMS implementation level in BBMRI.pl Consortium biobanks and PBN biobanks are observed. Nevertheless, the consortium members are obliged to prepare other biobanks willing to enter the PBN as Members/Observers or which already are in the PBN, so that they can meet the requirements of the quality management system that will enable efficient management of biobanking processes in these units. That is why some actions within BBMRI.pl projects are organized to help the whole biobanking community in Poland implement the harmonized solution.

Citation needed? Wikipedia bibliometrics during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Background With the COVID-19 pandemic’s outbreak, millions flocked to Wikipedia for updated information. Amid growing concerns regarding an “infodemic,” ensuring the quality of information is a crucial vector of public health. Investigating whether and how Wikipedia remained up to date and in line with science is key to formulating strategies to counter misinformation. Using citation analyses, we asked which sources informed Wikipedia’s COVID-19–related articles before and during the pandemic’s first wave (January–May 2020). Results We found that coronavirus-related articles referenced trusted media outlets and high-quality academic sources. Regarding academic sources, Wikipedia was found to be highly selective in terms of what science was cited. Moreover, despite a surge in COVID-19 preprints, Wikipedia had a clear preference for open-access studies published in respected journals and made little use of preprints. Building a timeline of English-language COVID-19 articles from 2001–2020 revealed a nuanced trade-off between quality and timeliness. It further showed how pre-existing articles on key topics related to the virus created a framework for integrating new knowledge. Supported by a rigid sourcing policy, this “scientific infrastructure” facilitated contextualization and regulated the influx of new information. Last, we constructed a network of DOI-Wikipedia articles, which showed the landscape of pandemic-related knowledge on Wikipedia and how academic citations create a web of shared knowledge supporting topics like COVID-19 drug development. Conclusions Understanding how scientific research interacts with the digital knowledge-sphere during the pandemic provides insight into how Wikipedia can facilitate access to science. It also reveals how, aided by what we term its “citizen encyclopedists,” it successfully fended off COVID-19 disinformation and how this unique model may be deployed in other contexts.

Scientific infrastructure of social sciences and humanities in European Union

The concept of scientific infrastructure in the interpretation adopted in the European Union is considered. It is indicated that this is a modern form of organization of scientific information services. The structure of European organizations and projects forming the scientific infrastructure of European organizations is described. The activities of European consortia of scientific infrastructure of social and humanitarian profile, including information resources and services implemented in these consortia, are described in particular detail. It is concluded that the European experience can be very useful for the development of scientific information services in Russia.

The technical non-reproducibility of the Earth system: Scale, Biosphere 2, and T.C. Boyle’s Terranauts

The Anthropocene concept draws on a technologically mediated macroscale, allegedly all-encompassing perspective on the interconnectedness of planetary, social and cultural systems. It is thus part of a genealogy traceable to systems thinking and cybernetic imaginaries of planetary-scale controllability; but at the same time, it relies on a techno-scientific infrastructure that is part of the accumulation of technical entities which Peter Haff calls “technosphere.” This oscillation between technology as a means of control and as an autonomous system that is inaccessible to sensual experience constitutes a theoretical challenge. Responding to this challenge, we combine Haff’s “technosphere” theory with a focus on the aspect of scale and the environmental character of technology. We discuss the Biosphere 2 experiment and its literary reflection in T.C. Boyle’s novel The Terranauts (2016) as an example of an attempted lower-scale technological reproduction of the Earth system. We show that the experiment suggests that technology has to be conceived as both scale variant (its functions differ across scales) and independent from its scale (as always already constituted by its respective environment).

Making Science Indian

Science and technology has been an important site of constituting the national-modern. Elites, especially the Tatas, led the way in founding institutions of scientific research and training across the country. Such institutions were supposed to help the country overcome the deficit in scientific infrastructure, institutions, and individuals. Others such as Birlas and Thakurdas took a more pragmatic approach and invested in institutions of applied technologies such as cotton and textiles to fuel India’s industrialization. In addition to funding such ‘big’ science, elites also invested in ‘small’ science—on and off-farms—linking scientific laboratories to the field. Post-1990, elites took on a networking role linking new nexuses across lab–field–policy. At the turn of the twenty-first century, elites are now funding digital infrastructure and platforms over brick-and-mortar institutions from an earlier generation. In their pursuit of modern science, elites’ philanthropy has remained firmly tied to the national question as science has been closely tied to national self-reliance and sovereignty.

Uniting against COVID-19: What our national pandemic response could reveal about science and society in Aotearoa New Zealand

<p><b>Writing in 1954, Hannah Arendt describes crises as an “opportunity[…]to explore and inquire into whatever has been laid bare of the essence of the matter”. Globally, the COVID-19 crisis has torn away at existing facades, bringing to light not only taken-for-granted structures and processes, but new ways of conceptualising them. </b></p> <p>Currently, Aotearoa New Zealand’s national pandemic response to COVID-19 is one of the most highly regarded in the world. This success has predominantly been attributed to our government’s receptivity to the advice of scientific experts. This research thesis therefore endeavours to understand the nature of our ‘science-based’ response. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with fourteen scientific and non-scientific actors involved in our national COVID-19 response, this research investigates how science is involved in interactions between scientists, government and the public, and how it is involved in the way those social groups interact with the underlying systems that produce and maintain our modern society in Aotearoa. Where those systems typically underlie structures and processes of modern Aotearoa, Thomas Gieryn’s theory of ‘boundary work’ is used to draw attention to how typically invisible relationship networks between scientists, scientific knowledge-making processes, scientific legacies of colonialism, and systemic weaknesses in our health and scientific infrastructure have been rendered visible by Aotearoa’s national response to this crisis. By recognising the dynamics of our national response, including factors that enabled and restrained important strategies, this research provides insights into our so far successful crisis response that can be utilised for crises responses in the future.</p>

Uniting against COVID-19: What our national pandemic response could reveal about science and society in Aotearoa New Zealand

<p><b>Writing in 1954, Hannah Arendt describes crises as an “opportunity[…]to explore and inquire into whatever has been laid bare of the essence of the matter”. Globally, the COVID-19 crisis has torn away at existing facades, bringing to light not only taken-for-granted structures and processes, but new ways of conceptualising them. </b></p> <p>Currently, Aotearoa New Zealand’s national pandemic response to COVID-19 is one of the most highly regarded in the world. This success has predominantly been attributed to our government’s receptivity to the advice of scientific experts. This research thesis therefore endeavours to understand the nature of our ‘science-based’ response. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with fourteen scientific and non-scientific actors involved in our national COVID-19 response, this research investigates how science is involved in interactions between scientists, government and the public, and how it is involved in the way those social groups interact with the underlying systems that produce and maintain our modern society in Aotearoa. Where those systems typically underlie structures and processes of modern Aotearoa, Thomas Gieryn’s theory of ‘boundary work’ is used to draw attention to how typically invisible relationship networks between scientists, scientific knowledge-making processes, scientific legacies of colonialism, and systemic weaknesses in our health and scientific infrastructure have been rendered visible by Aotearoa’s national response to this crisis. By recognising the dynamics of our national response, including factors that enabled and restrained important strategies, this research provides insights into our so far successful crisis response that can be utilised for crises responses in the future.</p>

European Concept of Research Infrastructure Development: the Possibility to Adapt the Experience of EU Scientific Infrastructures Formation for Use in Russia

In the article, the authors examine objects of scientific infrastructure, identify four types of large research infrastructures and analyze their functioning. Particular attention has paid to the study of practical experience and the specifics of organizing the work of research infrastructures in the EU, including the category of collective use of megascienceclass scientific complexes. The authors draw conclusions and recommendations on the use of the EU’s positive experience in this area for the organization of research infrastructure in Russia.

Attempts by Avicenna and Ibn alNafīs to Expand the Field of the Transference of Demonstration in the Context of the Relationship Between Geometry and Medicine

This paper aims to deal with the disputes on transferring demonstration between the various sciences in the context of the medicine-geometry relationship. According to Aristotle’s metabasis-prohibition, these two sciences should be located in separate compartments due to the characteristics of their subject-matter. However, a thorough analysis of the critical passage in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics on circular wounds forces a revision of the boundaries of the interactions between sciences, since subsequently Avicenna, on the grounds of this passage, would widen the area of the transference of demonstration. Furthermore, the fact that Avicenna and Ibn al-Nafīs continued to use geometrical demonstrations in their anatomical investigations shows the need to understand kind-crossing prohibition as a reminder to take into account the present scientific infrastructure and logical rules before proceeding onto a scientific investigation instead of accepting it as a mere nominal doctrine. Therefore, whether kind-crossing was possible or not depended on the extent to which the conclusion derived at the end of the scientific investigation, using a different method after taking into account all these reminders, had contributed to the solution of a particular proposition or the achievement of an approximate truth.

Causal inference with observational data: the need for triangulation of evidence

The goal of much observational research is to identify risk factors that have a causal effect on health and social outcomes. However, observational data are subject to biases from confounding, selection and measurement, which can result in an underestimate or overestimate of the effect of interest. Various advanced statistical approaches exist that offer certain advantages in terms of addressing these potential biases. However, although these statistical approaches have different underlying statistical assumptions, in practice they cannot always completely remove key sources of bias; therefore, using design-based approaches to improve causal inference is also important. Here it is the design of the study that addresses the problem of potential bias – either by ensuring it is not present (under certain assumptions) or by comparing results across methods with different sources and direction of potential bias. The distinction between statistical and design-based approaches is not an absolute one, but it provides a framework for triangulation – the thoughtful application of multiple approaches (e.g. statistical and design based), each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and in particular sources and directions of bias. It is unlikely that any single method can provide a definite answer to a causal question, but the triangulation of evidence provided by different approaches can provide a stronger basis for causal inference. Triangulation can be considered part of wider efforts to improve the transparency and robustness of scientific research, and the wider scientific infrastructure and system of incentives.