1,721,308 research outputs found
Cancer cells and adaptive explanations
Full text linkThe aim of this paper is to assess the relevance of somatic evolution by natural selection to our understanding of cancer development. I do so in two steps. In the first part of the paper, I ask to what extent cancer cells meet the formal requirements for evolution by natural selection, relying on Godfrey-Smith’s (2009) framework of Darwinian populations. I argue that although they meet the minimal requirements for natural selection, cancer cells are not paradigmatic Darwinian populations.
In the second part of the paper, I examine the most important examples of adaptation in cancer cells. I argue that they are not significant accumulations of evolutionary changes, and that as a consequence natural selection plays a lesser role in their explanation. Their explanation, I argue, is best sought in the previously existing wiring of the healthy cells
HUMANS, ANIMALS, AND PETRI DISHES: BIOMEDICAL MODELING BETWEEN EXPERIMENTATION AND REPRESENTATION
Full text linkThe use and evaluation of biomedical models – in vitro and in vivo models of diseases – is discussed among scientists, philosophers and science policy-makers, in an attempt to maximize the efficiency and relevance of research and minimize unnecessary moral costs. However, such evaluations raise several methodological issues and have generally been hampered by a lack of attention to the precise functions played by biomedical models. For if biomedical models are ultimately expected to inform us about human pathologies, they seldom do so in isolation, and get there through a wide variety of ways. An epistemological understanding of this process is therefore a precondition for their evaluation, and this thesis
is an attempt at building such an epistemology.
Several of the examples used come from cancer research, especially xenograft models and models used in the context of large-scale drug screenings. Another important set of examples come in vitro models, with a particular focus on disease modeling using induced pluripotent stem cells.
I argue that the notion of model, if conceived as to apply to biomedical models, conflates into that of experimental system. I therefore propose an account of biomedical models that does not presuppose a fundamental divide between modeling and experimentation. I show that biomedical models are not simply scaled-down versions of their target, but instead projections of their target in a different space of representation. I argue for an instrumental role of biomedical models, and use this role to explore the diversity of proximal functions fulfilled by biomedical models. I propose the notion of distributed modeling to draw attention to the relations between model systems, and illustrate this by analyzing the interplay between in vitro and in vivo models. Finally, I explore the implications of this account for the evaluation of biomedical models, and more broadly for the topic of scientific representation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
La classification de Carabes chiliens (genre Ceroglossus Sol.), d'après le mémoire de P. Germain [Col.]
No full textGounelle Émile. La classification de Carabes chiliens (genre Ceroglossus Sol.), d'après le mémoire de P. Germain [Col.]. In: Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France, volume 1 (11),1896. pp. 266-267
La classification de Carabes chiliens (genre Ceroglossus Sol.), d'après le mémoire de P. Germain [Col.]
No full textGounelle Émile. La classification de Carabes chiliens (genre Ceroglossus Sol.), d'après le mémoire de P. Germain [Col.]. In: Bulletin de la Société entomologique de France, volume 1 (11),1896. pp. 266-267
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
