Nuclear science and technology in the Malaysian context: Three phases of technoscientific knowledge transfer (ETTLG)

This essay considers the development of the nuclear science programme in Malaysia from a transnational perspective by examining the interactions between state agents and other external nuclear-knowledge/technology related actors and agents. Going beyond the model of knowledge diffusion that brings together concerns articulated in Harris’s (2011) geographies of long distance knowledge and Reinhardt's (2011) role of the expert in knowledge transfer, the proposed three-phase model of knowledge transfer theorises the pathways undertaken by a late-blooming participant of modern science and technology as the latter moves from epistemic dependency to increasing independence despite the hurdles encountered, and the underdevelopment of many areas of its technoscientific economy. The model considers tensions stemming from the pressures of expediency for meeting national developmental goals on the one side, and the call to support the objectives of basic science on the other. The three phases of the model are epistemic transition, epistemic transplantation and localisation, and epistemic generation (ETTLG). As additional support for the proposed model, three arguments are proffered as deeper explanations of the epistemic goal by using Malaysia as a case study: knowledge transfer for political legitimization, knowledge transfer for countering agnotology, and knowledge transfer for social engineering and science diplomacy.     

The National Science Foundation and philosophy of science's withdrawal from social concerns

At some point during the 1950s, mainstream American philosophy of science began increasingly to avoid questions about the role of non-cognitive values in science and, accordingly, increasingly to avoid active engagement with social, political and moral concerns. Such questions and engagement eventually ceased to be part of the mainstream. Here we show that the eventual dominance of ‘value-free’ philosophy of science can be attributed, at least in part, to the policies of the U.S. National Science Foundation's “History and Philosophy of Science” sub-program. In turn, the sub-program's policies were set by logical empiricists who espoused value-free philosophy of science; these philosophers' actions, we also point out, fit a broad pattern, one in which analytic philosophers used institutional control to marginalize rival approaches to philosophy. We go on to draw on existing knowledge of this pattern to suggest two further, similar, contributors to the withdrawal from value-laden philosophy of science, namely decisions by the editors of Philosophy of Science and by the editors of The Journal of Philosophy. Political climate was, we argue, at most an indirect contributor to the withdrawal and was neither a factor that decided whether it occurred nor one that was sufficient to bring it about. Moreover, we argue that the actions at the National Science Foundation went beyond what was required by its senior administrators and are better viewed as part of what drove, rather than as what was being driven by, the adoption of logical empiricism by the philosophy of science community.     

新中国成立以来科技工作者队伍的发展

 新中国成立以来，中国科技工作者的数量从1949年的26万增长到2016年的5282万，中国从解放初期积贫积弱的国家迈入了世界科技大国的行列。在总结以往对科技工作者研究成果的基础上，运用计量和考证相结合的测算方法，对每一个历史阶段科技工作者的数量、结构进行了分析，结合每一个历史时期社会发展政策背景的影响，探寻了新中国成立以来中国科技工作者队伍的发展脉络，展现了科技、教育与社会发展紧密融合的关系。     

新中国成立以来学科体系的形成、发展与展望

 回顾了新中国成立以来中国学科体系的发展进程，以历史的视角审视了中国学科体系的演化特点，总结了学科体系的发展模式，分析了学科体系的影响因素，提出了未来中国学科体系进一步发展的建议。     

Knowledge transfer in agent-based computational social science

This article addresses knowledge transfer dynamics in agent-based computational social science. The goal of the text is twofold. First, it describes the tensions arising from the convergence of different disciplinary traditions in the emergence of this new area of study and, second, it shows how these tensions are dealt with through the articulation of distinctive practices of knowledge production and transmission. To achieve this goal, three major instances of knowledge transfer dynamics in agent-based computational social science are analysed. The first instance is the emergence of the research field. Relations of knowledge transfer and cross-fertilisation between agent-based computational social science and wider and more established disciplinary areas: complexity science, computational science and social science, are discussed. The second instance is the approach to scientific modelling in the field. It is shown how the practice of agent-based modelling is affected by the conflicting coexistence of shared methodological commitments transferred from both empirical and formal disciplines. Lastly, the third instance pertains internal practices of knowledge production and transmission. Through the discussion of these practices, the tensions arising from converging dissimilar disciplinary traditions in agent-based computational social science are highlighted.     

Between Kepler and Newton: Hooke’s ‘principles of congruity and incongruity’ and the naturalization of mathematics

ABSTRACT

Robert Hooke’s development of the theory of matter-as-vibration provides coherence to a career in natural philosophy which is commonly perceived as scattered and haphazard. It also highlights aspects of his work for which he is rarely credited: besides the creative speculative imagination and practical-instrumental ingenuity for which he is known, it displays lucid and consistent theoretical thought and mathematical skills. Most generally and importantly, however, Hooke’s ‘Principles?…?of Congruity and Incongruity of bodies’ represent a uniquely powerful approach to the most pressing challenge of the New Science: legitimizing the application of mathematics to the study of nature. This challenge required reshaping the mathematical practices and procedures; an epistemological framework supporting these practices; and a metaphysics which could make sense of this epistemology. Hooke’s ‘Uniform Geometrical or Mechanical Method’ was a bold attempt to answer the three challenges together, by interweaving mathematics through physics into metaphysics and epistemology. Mathematics, in his rendition, was neither an abstract and ideal structure (as it was for Kepler), nor a wholly-flexible, artificial human tool (as it was for Newton). It drew its power from being contingent on the particularities of the material world.     

CG的缘起与审美

CG（Computer Graphics）作为商品,带有一定的世俗性或曰通俗性。通过商业传播,CG得以在世界各地快速地普及。但是,单纯地从大众传播学角度来看待CG作品,其审美意义未免有些片面。本文对CG的发展、CG的制作流程、色彩心理的接受程度和艺术品的商业生产及其发展前景等进行叙述,让读者对夹杂在商业和纯艺术之间的CG艺术有一个更明确的认识。     

区域政府科技经费预算流程及其规范化研究

分析了科技经费预算内容与要点,设计预算流程,并针对明确预算依据、设计预算分析方法、意见征集与预案评估等环节提出了历史资料——当前状态——未来规划三维度依据、百分比分析与多因素分析及增量分析结合的预算方法、意见征集表设计与更新方法以及预算评价表设计方法等,旨在为提高科技经费预算管理部门工作规范性与科学性提供有效方法支持。     

Objective styles in northern field science

Social studies of science have often treated natural field sites as extensions of the laboratory. But this overlooks the unique specificities of field sites. While lab sites are usually private spaces with carefully controlled borders, field sites are more typically public spaces with fluid boundaries and diverse inhabitants. Field scientists must therefore often adapt their work to the demands and interests of local agents. I propose to address the difference between lab and field in sociological terms, as a difference in style. A field style treats epistemic alterity as a resource rather than an obstacle for objective knowledge production. A sociological stylistics of the field should thus explain how objective science can co-exist with radical conceptual difference. I discuss examples from the Canadian North, focussing on collaborations between state wildlife biologists and managers, on the one hand, and local Aboriginal Elders and hunters, on the other. I argue that a sociological stylistics of the field can help us to better understand how radically diverse agents may collaborate across cultures in the successful production of reliable natural knowledge.     

元代朱世杰在代数学方面的贡献

从５个方面讨论了元代朱世杰在代数学方面的贡献：推广和提出一些概念；把多元方程化为一元方程化为一元方程；对方程的表达；对高次方程的研究；对朱世杰工作的评论。认为失世杰是一位真正的代数学家，他的工作使中国的代数学在当时达到了顶峰。