Arquivo para a ‘Scientific Social Network’ Categoria
Work on pandemic network analysis
01
Oct
Chinese scientists have proposed a method of visually showing, in
a simple way, the risk of a pandemic in regions with different degrees of connection, from the databases of infection cases (reported and confirmed by COVID-19) using network analysis, in article published by Elsevier in Journal of Disaster of Infections.
Network analysis has already been used in medical research for studies on gene coexpression, disease co-occurrence and topologies of the dynamics of the spread of infectious diseases.
The study looked at confirmed cases of COVID-19 in China from late January to March 2020 and these cases were divided into 9 time periods.
The graphs of networks constructed based on the correlation of changes in the number of confirmed cases between two geographic areas (for example, in the provinces of China), if the correlation was greater than 0.5 meant that the connected areas were in a network.
The pandemic risk was analyzed based on the frequencies in different regions connected in the network graphs, with this it was possible to assess the levels of co-evolution between the regions and, with this, to take measures according to each case.
What the study demonstrated was not just relying on reported and confirmed cases of COVID-19, network analysis provides data for a powerful and clear view of pandemic risk and network analysis can complement traditional modeling techniques, and seconds the authors of this data can provide more timely evidence to inform future preparation plans.
Future work quantifying the network connection should be considered in research and pandemic plans.
Soa, M.P.K; Tiwarib, Agnes; Chud, Amanda M.Y.; Tsangd , Jenny T.Y.; Chan, Jacky N. L.. Visualizing COVID-19 pandemic risk through network connectedness Mike. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 96, 2020, p. 558-561. Available in: https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30317-9/fulltext , Access: sept. 2020.
Error and better world
08
Sep
Karl Popper was concerned with science, with nature but mainly
with ethics and error, and established twelve principles to be observed in his book “In search of a better world” (Popper, 1995), we only comment here some:
The first is to understand that our knowledge is conjectural, that is, “it always goes beyond what an individual manages to master, therefore there is no authority. This is equally valid when it comes to specializations ”, as authors warn about Transdisciplinarity, specialized knowledge can become a new type of obscurantism, say Edgar Morin, Barsarab Nicolescu and Lima de Freitas in the Arrábida Transdisciplinarity Letter.
A second principle that we highlight is that it is ‘impossible to avoid all mistakes or even all mistakes in themselves avoidable”, idealism and perfectionism lead people to disappointment because they do not consider this essential aspect of human nature.
The third principle states that one must try to avoid mistakes, even if creative scientists who follow intuition can and should avoid mistakes, but it is almost inevitable that they will make it.
Even the most confirmed theories, those that may seem perfect hide errors, this should be thought of for those who live in “bubbles”.
This should lead us to what Popper proposes as an “ethical-practical” reform that leads to a way of thinking that it is impossible to avoid all errors, which changes the old notion that it is possible to avoid errors by “scientific criteria”.
The sixth principle is that the “new basic principle is that in order to learn how to avoid mistakes as much as possible, we have to learn precisely from them”.
So it is healthier to look for mistakes, and the attitude of self-criticism and sincerity are consequences of this duty.
So accepting to understand and accept mistakes, even thanking others to warn us about them, Popper recalls that the greatest scientists made mistakes, and always bear in mind that we make mistakes, that is, not neglecting our vigilance, proposing the author.
We have to understand that we need others (and the rest of us) to be able to understand our mistakes, in particular those that have added with different ideas, but in different environments, which means increasing tolerance. Self-criticism is the best criticism, but criticism through others is the most necessary, according to Popper, as useful as self-criticism.
Here comes the crucial end point of Popperian ethics-practice, rational criticism must always be specific, it must indicate specific reasons why certain statements, certain hypotheses appear to be false and certain arguments cannot seem valid, rational criticism provides an approximation to the truth objective, in this sense it is impersonal, and although Popper does not say, it must be above beliefs and ideologies to be the basis of some ethical truth.
POPPER, Karl (1995). In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years. NY: Routeledge.
Sophisms and fake news
28
Jul
Sophism is a wisdom used for convenience in some situation, it may be, for example,
politically correct, or it may be to favor interest groups that has the greatest correspondence with the historical origin of the word.
They were contemporaries of Socrates, who was opposed to this utilitarian knowledge, the sophists were thinkers who traveled from city to city giving speeches to attract students and charged fees to offer them education, any similarity with modern media is not a coincidence.
Fake News is false news, conspiracy theories and myths that, due to the ease of communication, spread much more quickly, but the half truths of sophisms that spread by sellers of wisdom and maxims without scientific proof and history also exist today, it is just check the price of some speakers who talk about everything, even what they have never studied.
What they sell, happiness with magic formulas, easy success, management models that do not consider the pandemic crisis, although it is true that many make money from it, the honest majority will have difficulties to put their services and products on the market, even with use of the virtual, because the reality is that the economy is in recession worldwide and many aid and solidarity will be needed.
What needs to be said is that easy news, easy success and shallow explanations are often not true, those who seek ease and simplism fall into this trap, but this has happened in all history, Karl Kraus complained in the 1920s that the press it was building a war and it happened, we may be building another, and the leaven of crisis and human difficulties will help this war happen.
Even if we want peace, spreading false news is creating radicalizations, sparking small wars that polarized into big wars, there are well-intentioned people who do this, baseless denunciations and half-truths are there, so at the origin of a fake news is a sophistry, often built by intelligent people who should not favor ignorance.
Dictators know that ignorance favors them, but also those who know the horror of dictatorships and wars can favor them with half truths, to facilitate the exposure of a social, cultural (including religious) and political position is more easy to throw a half-truth, everyone in this or that position is corrupt, fascist or communist, but this is the beginning of a small war.
The truth costs a personal price that is often expensive, but it favors that the war ahead is not waged for an unjust reason, for a stone or a shot fired at an innocent, our daily “wars” against diversity of opinion , they are not dialogues and do not favor peace, in the post-pandemic they need a lot of solidarity and the good will of everyone to overcome difficulties, there is neither happiness nor easy peace.
Nobel Prive in Medicine see problems in science
07
Mar
Would only be a tribute to the 2002 Nobel Prize in Medicine, Sydney Brenner, but an article published on 
February 24 by eMagazine The King ‘s Review of King’s College, University of Cambridge, a pump and an interview became a complaint.
New ideas are bureaucrats science funding , there are magazines articles that are corrupting science because they employ editors who are simply frustrated scientists working for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are petty thieves and the work of others , was the one who said the biggest names in molecular biology south African Sydney Brenner , now 87 , who worked for his doctorate in the 60s , the Laboratory of molecular biology in Cambridge with Francis Crick (pictured center), one of the discoverers of the structure and functioning of DNA.
Brenner received the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2002 with two other colleagues for their discoveries concerning the mechanism of genetic regulation of the development of organisms and cell death.
Graduated in medicine at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, he received his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, where he worked in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge with Francis Crick (at center of picture), one of discoverers of the structure and functioning of DNA.
Software that helps scientific mining
30
Nov
Jaron Lanier wondered about consciousness and about the linguistic possibilities of computing 
as a musician thought in music , but as a researcher can think of the possibilities of support for scientific research , as was done at Baylor College of Medicine in collaboration with IBM .
According to a report in MIT Technology Review website, a software that reads more than 60 000 jobs, can assist in data findings across these studies .
The software parses sentences in the documents, and could build a new understanding of the known enzymes are kinases that are important for cancer treatment .
By analyzing this enzyme , the software it produced a list of other proteins that although the literature mention probably are not discovered kinases , but based on what he already knew , can they be identified .
The software was made in IBM Almanden Colloquium : the cognitive enterprise , on the 19th of November.
Most of his predictions tested so far resulted correct , according to researchers, usually in research spending could reach $ 500 million and $ 1 billion to develop a new drug , and 90 percent of the drugs tested to will never market, says Ying Chen , IBM researcher .
