Linguistic influences on professional communication and recognition: A study of chemists and engineers in two Quebec universities

Linguistic influences on networks of professional communication and recognition among engineers at two Quebec universities were examined. It was hypothesized that chemists and engineers affiliated with the French medium University of Montreal and the Ecole Polytechnique would be less active in research and more likely to obtain scientific recognition locally and to feel professionally unrecognized outside Quebec compared to their colleagues at McGill University. The findings suggest that the localizing effects of using a medium of scientific training which is not the predominant language of international scientific communication and recognition (French) are ambiguous. Although chemists and engineers at the French medium institutions were less active researchers, their language of professional communication with other scientific communities was English and there was little sense of isolation.This research has been supported by grants from the Canadian Council and the Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal. The authors also wish to thank Miss Madeleine Palmer, Miss Daniella Quiniou and Miss Rosalba Casas for their help in data collection for this paper.     

A Geohistorical Study of ‘The Rise of Modern Science’: Mapping Scientific Practice Through Urban Networks, 1500–1900

Using data on the ‘career’ paths of one thousand ‘leading scientists’ from 1450 to 1900, what is conventionally called the ‘rise of modern science’ is mapped as a changing geography of scientific practice in urban networks. Four distinctive networks of scientific practice are identified. A primate network centred on Padua and central and northern Italy in the sixteenth century expands across the Alps to become a polycentric network in the seventeenth century, which in turn dissipates into a weak polycentric network in the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century marks a huge change of scale as a primate network centred on Berlin and dominated by German-speaking universities. These geographies are interpreted as core-producing processes in Wallerstein’s modern world-system; the rise of modern scientific practice is central to the development of structures of knowledge that relate to, but do not mirror, material changes in the system.

Climate control through ionization

This paper summarizes some of the experimental evidence of the apparent biological effects produced by atmospheric ionization. Thermionic ion sources are discussed and the results of experimental determinations of their characteristics are presented.     

Concussion research: Moving beyond the natural history

The topic of sports-related concussion has been,and will likely continue to be,one of the most challenging topics in sports medicine.The last 2 decades of resea...