Activism, drug regulation, and the politics of therapeutic evaluation in the AIDS era: a case study of ddC and the 'surrogate markers' debate

This paper presents an extended case study to demonstrate that the interpretation of clinical trials of antiviral AIDS drugs is significantly shaped by a widely dispersed allocation of scientific credibility. Specifically, the participation of AIDS activists in claims-making about AIDS trials and AIDS drugs complicates the politics of therapeutic evaluation, even as it challenges the monopolization of credibility by credentialed researchers. The paper tracks the social construction of belief about the efficacy of the combination therapy of AZT and ddC, between 1990 and 1995 in the United States. By intervening simultaneously in interpretative debates about the results of the clinical trials of this therapy and in methodological debates about how efficacy might best be measured in such trials, activists have helped to shape what is believed to be known about these drugs.     

献血反应预防、控制和处理的心理干预

按照国家规定无偿献血并无碍健康,献血反应大多数由于献血者紧张、焦虑等精神因素引起,发生率较低,大多数为轻度反应。献血反应预防、控制和处理与心理干预关系密切,良好的献血环境、气氛、服务、技术、安全设施与管理规范,能有效减轻献血者心理压力和精神负担,减少献血反应,提高血液质量和血液保障,促进无偿献血事业健康发展。     

Local knowledge, environmental politics, and the founding of ecology in the United States. Stephen Forbes and "The Lake as a Microcosm" (1887)

Stephen Forbes's "The Lake as a Microcosm" is one of the founding documents of the science of ecology in the United States. By tracing the connections between scientists and local fishermen underlying the research on floodplain lakes presented in "The Lake as a Microcosm," this essay shows how the birth of ecology was tied to local knowledge and the local politics of environmental transformation. Forbes and the other scientists of the Illinois Natural History Survey relied on fishermen for manual labor, expertise in catching fish, and knowledge of the natural history of the fishes. As Forbes and his colleagues worked in close contact with fishermen, they also adopted many of their political concerns over the privatization of the floodplain and became politically active in supporting their interests. The close connection between scientists and local knowledge forced the ecologists to reframe the boundaries of ecology as objective or political, pure or applied, local or scientific.     

Progress,innovation and regulatory science in drug development: the politics of international standard-setting

This paper examines international standard-setting in the toxicology of pharmaceuticals during the 1990s, which has involved both the pharmaceutical industry and regulatory agencies in an organization known as the International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH). The analysis shows that the relationships between innovation, regulatory science and 'progress' may be more complex and controversial than is often assumed. An assessment of the ICH's claims about the implications of 'technical' harmonization of drug-testing standards for the maintenance of drug safety, via toxicological testing, and the delivery of therapeutic progress, via innovation, is presented. By demonstrating that there is not a technoscientific validity for these claims, it is argued that, within the ICH, a discourse of technological innovation and scientific progress has been used by regulatory agencies and prominent parts of the transnational pharmaceutical industry to legitimize the lowering and loosening of toxicological standards for drug testing. The mobilization and acceptance of this discourse are shown to be pivotal to the ICH's transformation of reductions in safety standards, which are apparently against the interests of patients and public health, into supposed therapeutic benefits derived from promises of greater access to more innovative drug products. The evidence suggests that it is highly implausible that these reductions in the standards of regulatory toxicology are consistent with therapeutic progress for patients, and highlights a worrying aspect embedded in the 'technical trajectories' of regulatory science.     

Gender, politics, and radioactivity research in interwar Vienna: the case of the Institute for Radium Research

This essay explores the significance of political and ideological context as well as experimental culture for the participation of women in radioactivity research. It argues that the politics of Red Vienna and the culture of radioactivity research specific to the Viennese setting encouraged exceptional gender politics within the Institute for Radium Research in the interwar years. The essay further attempts to provide an alternative approach to narratives that concentrate on personal dispositions and stereotypical images of women in science to explain the disproportionately large number of women in radioactivity research. Instead, the emphasis here is on the institutional context in which women involved themselves in radioactivity in interwar Vienna. This approach places greater importance on contingencies of time and place and highlights the significance of the cultural and political context in a historical study while at the same time shedding light on the interrelation between scientific practices and gender.     

科学认识、国际政治利益与环境保护角力下的《京都议定书》

自有科学研究结果显示温室气体排放会导致全球暖化以来,气候变迁议题便广泛地受到国际社会与科学界的重视。本文以《京都议定书》为案例,探讨科学知识与政治利益之间的关系,并对其未来发展进行展望。     

Effect of caffeine on the risk of coronary heart disease— A re-evaluation

The effect of caffeine intake on the risk of coronary heart disease was studied. Twenty-one rats used were randomly divided into three experimental groups, the first group served as the control while the second and third groups were administered caffeine orally at doses of 10mg/kg body weight and 20mg/kg body weight respectively for fourteen days. Caffeine, at 10mg/kg body weight, significantly increased (P<0.05) serum LDL- cholesterol concentration and coronary heart disease risk ratio while it significantly reduced (P<0.05) serum triacylglycerol concentration when compared with controls. At 20mg/kg body weight, caffeine significantly increased (P<0.05) coronary heart disease risk ratio while it significantly reduced (P<0.05) serum HDL-cholesterol concentration and serum triacylgycerol concentration when compared with controls. No dose response effect was observed possibly suggestive of a threshold effect. These results suggest that caffeine predisposes consumers of caffeine containing beverages to coronary heart disease.     

三千弱水，只取一瓢“《自然》百年科学经典”评介

英国的《自然》（Nature）和美国的《科学》（Science）齐名,都是当今学术地位最高,流通最广,最有影响力的全球性科学周刊。它们一方面发表高水平的专业论文,另一方面为大众提供通俗解说,报导最新发现与动态,更刊登大量科学界动态与招聘广告,集合顶尖学刊、科普,与行业新闻三者的角色于一身,更兼不分数理、生化、地质、天文、海洋,涵盖所有科学领域,显出气吞江河,综汇百家的气概。这无疑是科技信息业在全球化形势下充分利用本身优势和适应时代要求的最成功典范了。因此,由北京外语教学与研究出版社、麦克米伦出版集团、自然出版集团等三方面合作推出的煌煌巨篇“《自然》百年科学经典”,无疑是中国科学出版业的蛊事,是值得密切注意和仔细考究的。     

Invoking politics and ethics in the design of information technology: undesigning the design

It is a truism that the design and deployment of information and communication technologies is vital to everyday life, the conduct of work and to social order. But how are individual, organisational and societal choices made? What might it mean to invoke a politics and an ethics of information technology design and use? This editorial paper situates these questions within the trajectory of preoccupations and approaches to the design and deployment of information technology since computerisation began in the 1940s. Focusing upon the dominant concerns over the last three decades, the paper delineates an interest in design and use in relation to socio-technical theories, situated practices and actor-network theory. It is argued that each of these approaches is concerned with a particular form of politics that does not explicitly engage with ethics. In order to introduce ethics into contemporary debates about information technology, and to frame the papers in the special issue, it is argued that Levinas’ ethics is particularly valuable in problematising the relationship between politics and ethics. Levinas provides a critique of modernity’s emphasis on politics and the egocentric self. It is from a Levinasian concern with the Other and the primacy of the ethical that a general rethinking of the relationship between politics, ethics and justice in relation to information and communication technologies can be invoked.     

美国科研机构的利益冲突政策的缘起、现况与争论

为规范科学活动中的利益冲突而制定相关政策,是科研机构和管理部门为防止科学的客观性遭受利益冲突的损害而采取的措施。目前美国大多数科研机构和部分期刊已经制定了有关利益冲突的规范,不过因各机构的性质、职能不同,政策的内容及详略程度亦不尽相同。制定利益冲突政策的举措尽管一开始就遭到了广泛批评,但因这一举措建立在大量事实基础之上,其正当性难以被否认。     

Patterns of preservation, restructuring and survival: science and technology policy in Russia in post-Soviet era

This paper analyses the role of S&T policy in the adjustment and restructuring of Russian S&T system in the post-Soviet period. The principal argument is that the adjustment of S&T system in Russia has been evolving between ‘preservation of S&T potential’, its restructuring, and survival strategies developed by researchers and R&D organisations. Interaction of these factors explains much of the pace and patterns of restructuring of Russian S&T system observed in the post-Soviet period. The model that emerged is the post-Soviet R&D model, which is relevant for Russia and also for other CIS. The paper analyses strategic options available to Russian policy makers.     

The fate of a progressive science: the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory, athletes, the science of work and the politics of reform

In the early twentieth century, fatigue research marked a site of conflicting scientific, industrial, and cultural understandings of working bodies. Many fatigue researchers understood fatigue to be a physiological fact and allied themselves with Progressive-era reformers in urging industrial regulation. Reformers clashed with advocates of Taylorism, who held that productivity could be perpetually increased through managerial efficiency. Histories of this conflict typically cease with the end of the First World War. I examine the work of the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory in the 1920s and 1930s to explore the impact that the introduction of biochemical methods had on the relationship between science and reform. The Laboratory developed sophisticated techniques to study the blood of exercising individuals. In particular, it found that exercising individuals could attain a biochemically "steady state," or equilibrium, and extrapolated from this to assert that fatigue was psychological, not physiological, in nature. In contrast to Progressive-era research, the Laboratory reached this conclusion through laboratory examination, not of workers, but of Laboratory staff members and champion marathon runners. I present the Laboratory's institutional history, scientific work, and finally how common cultural understandings of athletes and work lent plausibility to its efforts to make authoritative statements about industrial conditions.     

浅析南宁市"山水林田湖草"要素关联性

"山水林田湖草"是一个共生共存的整体.现阶段,为实现南宁市"山青、水秀、林茂、田整、湖净、草丰"及人与自然更加和谐,采用定量分析方法浅析"山水林田湖草"的量化关系,并定性剖析"山水林田湖草"各要素间的相互影响程度,结合《南宁市志》与实际情况对南宁市"山水林田湖草"各要素现状做相关分析,对现存的问题提出建议,为更有效地开展生态文明建设提供参考.     

The French defence industry in the knowledge management era: A historical overview and evidence from empirical data

In the defence industry the recent development of a ‘market for technology’, the creation of new European high-technology companies as well as transformations in government agencies have driven firms to reposition their technological and organizational skills. Our objective is to show that the transformations that have occurred in the past 10 years have not only redefined skills and the organization of production, but also have given a more strategic place to knowledge management (KM) practices. We provide a contextual and historical overview based on qualitative interviews, in order to better understand the relation between KM and innovative behaviour in this industry. We build an original industrial and technological database comprising various samples that provides quantitative information concerning KM and innovative practices. The results of the statistical analysis reveal the specificity of firms in this industry. Taking account of the size of these firms and their technological intensity, we show that the behaviour of defence industry firms in terms of KM practices, differs from that of other firms. This is evident from their technological performance, and innovation and patenting intensity. This structural tendency is explained as an innovative behaviour in the French national innovation system rather than merely a ‘trend’.     

风险教育：高校德育的新亮点——基于贝克《风险社会》的思考

在贝克的＂风险社会＂视域中,发展就意味着风险及其积累。大学生在全面发展的过程中,面临着选择、竞争、诱惑等一系列的风险,因此,当前对大学生进行风险教育、研究风险的规避途径是高校德育改革面临的重大课题。