Disparity between scientific accomplishment and biotechnology availability in Brazil

Despite being among the world’s leaders in scientific output, Brazil ranks 66th among countries in the production of reagents and supplies needed for state-of-the-art scientific analyses. The production of needed reagents and equipment for experimental analyses and patient diagnostics is sorely lacking within Brazil and explicit in this pandemic period caused by SARS-CoV-2. A significant fraction of resources from Brazilian funding agencies is now being transferred to companies in other countries for the purchase of essential scientific-related products. Is this sustainable? Therefore it is necessary to draw the attention of all the world and Brazilian society about this situation

Assembling credibility: Knowledge, method and critique in times of ‘post-truth’

Critical approaches in security studies have been increasingly turning to methods and standards internal to knowledge practice to validate their knowledge claims. This quest for scientific standards now also operates against the background of debates on ‘post-truth’, which raise pressing and perplexing questions for critical lines of thought. We propose a different approach by conceptualizing validity as practices of assembling credibility in which the transversal formation and circulation of credits and credentials combine with disputes over credence and credulity. This conceptualization of the validity of (critical) security knowledge shifts the focus from epistemic and methodological standards to transepistemic practices and relations. It allows us to mediate validity critically as a sociopolitical rather than strictly scientific accomplishment. Developing such an understanding of validity makes it possible for critical security studies and international relations to displace epistemic disputes about ‘post-truth’ with transversal practices of knowledge creation, circulation and accreditation.

American Society of Clinical Oncology 2013: Summary of Scientific Advancements in Gynecologic Cancer

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting was held in Chicago, Ill, from May 31, 2013, to June 4, 2013, and focused on “Building Bridges to Conquer Cancer.” An estimated 25,500 oncology professionals, with a broad range of interests, attended the meeting. Cervical cancer, a gynecologic malignancy with a significant global burden, was prominently featured at this year’s meeting. In a mark of exemplary scientific accomplishment within our specialty, 2 of the 5 general session plenaries investigated advancements in cervical cancer care, extending from improved screening to treatment of metastatic disease. This was followed by the presentation of several important phase 2 and 3 clinical trials in the Gynecologic Oncology Tract, focusing on cervical, ovarian, uterine, and breast cancer, which will be discussed in this report.

A Storage Module Evaluation for the Hydrogen Fuel Cell on Toy Design

The problem of environmental pollution has become worse and worse as the demand for energy has grown. An important aim of modern science is a diligent search for non-polluting methods of energy production. The fuel cell is one of the most important power sources devised in the 21st century and has all the necessary characteristics for environmental protection. The technology is pollution-free and highly efficient, converting the chemical energy of hydrogen gas directly into electricity. The fuel cell can be regarded as a small-scale power plant. The flow of electricity will continue as long as there is a supply of hydrogen. At present the storage of hydrogen is the most important consideration and there is not much information about fuel cells readily available at this time. This study concerns the development of 'The Hydrogen Fuel Cell generates Electricity Module' and demonstrates this in the design and use of a toy. A systemized analysis of power operation using existing fuel cell products and a setup of 'The Hydrogen Fuel Cell generates Electricity Module' was made. The Taguchi Method was used to arrive at the best parameter combination between fuel cell and toy. The best combination of parameters obtained in this experiment provides a power line voltage of 3.0V. An assessment was made of the arrangement of a non-pressurized single fuel cell that will best suit the requirements for use in the toy whale used in this work. This will instill feelings of personal scientific accomplishment and give the toy making industry a new look at the same time. We hope this can be applied on a larger scale in the future to provide non-polluting power for many such applications.

The Relationship Between Thinking Styles and Scientific Giftedness in Korea

This study investigated the thinking styles of Korean gifted students in Korea and examined whether thinking styles based on the theory of mental self-government could predict scientific giftedness based on Korean people's implicit concepts. Participants were 179 students from the two science high schools and 176 students from the general high schools in Korea. Participants responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory (Sternberg & Wagner, 1992) and Scientific Giftedness Inventory (Shim & Kim, 2003). Results indicated that Korean gifted students had higher scores than nongifted students in all factors, including scientific accomplishment, leadership, creativity, morality, motivation, and cognitive experimentalism. In addition, Korean gifted students prefered the legislative, judicial, anarchic, global, external, and liberal styles, whereas Korean nongifted students prefered the executive, oligarchic, and conservative styles. Results from the stepwise multiple regression analysis procedures indicated that the subscales of thinking styles could be significant predictors of scientific giftedness.

Summary

The development of LDMMs is a significant scientific accomplishment. This article provided an overview of the synthesis, structural characterization, and properties of these materials. Hopefully, the reader gained an appreciation for (1) the diverse morphologies of these materials, (2) their unique structure-property relationships, and (3) the difficulty in simultaneously achieving low densities with small cell sizes. This section will briefly discuss the future development of these materials and their potential commercial applications.Although substantial progress has been made in the scientific understanding of the formation of LDMMs, many important questions remain. As mentioned earlier, LDMMs rarely display an ideal spinodal morphology even though many of these structures have been established by phase-separation of polymer/solvent systems. Such morphologies appear to coarsen after the initial structure is established. The question arises — on what length scales is phase-separation taking place and how does its temporal evolution affect LDMM structure? In aerogel processing, polymerlike gels are formed, but certain sol-gels do not behave in accordance with theories on the swelling of conventional polymer gels. Why is this, and what is the effect on the final aerogel morphology? These and other questions can only be answered with a better understanding of gel structures and the dynamics of their formation. This is an important area for future research because the information gained can be used to tailor LDMMs for specific applications.