Kuhnian revolutions in neuroscience: the role of tool development

The terms “paradigm” and “paradigm shift” originated in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn. A paradigm can be defined as the generally accepted concepts and practices of a field, and a paradigm shift its replacement in a scientific revolution. A paradigm shift results from a crisis caused by anomalies in a paradigm that reduce its usefulness to a field. Claims of paradigm shifts and revolutions are made frequently in the neurosciences. In this article I will consider neuroscience paradigms, and the claim that new tools and techniques rather than crises have driven paradigm shifts. I will argue that tool development has played a minor role in neuroscience revolutions.     

The Ship as Laboratory: Making Space for Field Science at Sea

Expanding upon the model of vessels of exploration as scientific instruments first proposed by Richard Sorrenson, this essay examines the changing nature of the ship as scientific space on expedition vessels during the late nineteenth century. Particular attention is paid to the expedition of H.M.S. Challenger (1872–1876) as a turning point in the design of shipboard spaces that established a place for scientists at sea and gave scientific legitimacy to the new science of oceanography. There was a progressive development in research vessel design from “ship as instrument” to “ship as laboratory” and changing spatial practices aboard these vessels were paralleled by changes in shipboard culture. I suggest that the “ship as laboratory” has now in turn been supplanted by a new model, the “ship as invisible technician”, as oceanographic research vessels deploy remote-sensing equipment and gather data that are no longer analyzed on board.     

Introduction to “Moral (and Other) Laboratories”

“Moral (and other) laboratories” is a special issue that draws on Cheryl Mattingly’s notion of the “moral laboratory” to explore the uncanny interface between laboratory ethnography and moral anthropology, and to examine the relationship between experience and experiment. We ask whether laboratory work may provoke new insights about experimental practices in other social spaces such as homes, clinics, and neighborhoods, and conversely, whether the study of morality may provoke new insights about laboratory practices as they unfold in the day-to-day interactions between test tubes, animals, apparatuses, scientists, and technicians. The papers in this collection examine issues unique to authors’ individual projects, but as a whole, they share a common theme: moral experimentation—the work of finding different ways of relating—occurs in relation to the suffering of something or someone, or in response to some kind of moral predicament that tests cultural and historically shaped “human values.” The collection as a whole intends to push for the theoretical status of not merely experience itself, but also of possibility, in exploring uncertain border zones of various kinds—between the human and the animal, between codified ethical rules and ordinary ethics, and between “real” and metaphorical laboratories.     

Adoption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Stoves in Guatemala: A Mixed-Methods Study

Household air pollution is the sixth leading risk factor for premature mortality in Guatemala. Households in Guatemala are gradually adopting liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves, but a strong tradition of woodstove use persists. We conducted a mixed-methods study of LPG stove use in peri-urban Guatemala. We used knowledge, attitudes and practices surveys with 187 LPG stove owners who also used woodstoves to identify perceptions of stove and cooking practices. Barriers to sustained use of LPG stoves were evaluated through focus groups, participant observations with stove users, and key informant interviews with community leaders. Seven themes emerged that explain household decisions to use LPG stoves: (1) The “new technology” should be framed in terms of what the “old technology” lacks, (2) income is not a predictor of gas stove acquisition but may predict sustained use, (3) men are key decision-makers but messages about LPG do not target them, (4) when stoves are viewed as “prize possessions” they may not be used, (5) collective fear about gas stoves is not based on personal experience, but on “stories we hear,” (6) sustained LPG use is hampered by two major factors, seasonally available wood and LPG retailers who are perceived as dishonest, and (7) wood fuel collection is a time to enjoy the company of friends and family and is not “drudgery.” National policies should promote the use of clean cookstove technologies in peri-urban and rapidly urbanizing areas in Guatemala where LPG stoves are in use, but used intermittently, instead of the current plan to install 100,000 “improved” woodstoves by 2032. This could be done by improving dependable cylinder distribution services, targeting gas safety and promoting positive health messages that appeal to men, as well as women.     

Translational Research and Youth Development

Borrowing the term “translational research” (TR) from medicine, along with some of the ideas and practices that define it, holds promise as a way of linking research more closely to the practice of youth development. However, doing so entails substantial adaptation. TR is more than a new name for applied research. It comprehends the sequence of very different kinds of research that connect new knowledge with practice and ultimately with enhanced youth development. Research syntheses and evidence-based programs and practices are central to TR, which draws on a variety of research methods and traditions, including epidemiology, “basic” research, evaluation, and implementation science. Syntheses are needed in all these areas along with communication among researchers representing them as well as with practitioners. The flow of information is bi-directional; research is informed by practice and practitioners conduct research.     

Street Scenes: The Politics of Revolutionary Video in Egypt

Images of mass protests that arose from Egypt in early 2011 enraptured global audiences with unexpected scenes of street politics and unprecedented possibilities for political change. While the presence of thousands of cellphone cameras, perhaps hundreds of thousands, provided the technology for a multitude of witnessing, the hyper-visibility of the street in times of protest made image-making practices both threatening and powerful. The recursive rehabilitation of counter-revolutionary images happened on many fronts. Western journalists have long characterized the “Arab Street” as a “barbarous urban mob” and, despite enchantment with the “Arab Spring,” still perpetuated a simplistic analysis of street politics in the region. Meanwhile local television, advertising, and music videos endlessly recycled revolutionary images in superficial modes of patriotic sentimentality; while the urban poor, unable to realize the aims of “bread, freedom, and social justice,” have suspiciously remained the unclaimed image of the Egyptian revolution. But by attending to the social life of revolutionary street media, this article reviews the potential for emerging image practice to cultivate new kinds of political subjectivity and collectivity.     

Bangladeshi migrant associations in Italy: transnational engagement,community formation and regional unity

Referring to the case studies of two cities in Northern Italy, this article seeks to understand how Bangladeshi migrants use associations to seek transnational “ways of belonging” and “ways of being”. It analyses how this transnational attachment to their home country has played an important role in building their own “community”. The findings reveal that Bangladeshi migrant organizations work to maintain “transnational ways of belonging” by enabling migrants to retain their cultural roots; this is reflected in their observation of festivals, national days, and other practices and rituals. Although, as a relatively new migrant community, they do not share as many economic links through these associations as many other “diasporic” organizations, migrants widely express a sense that these economic connections are with their country of origin. However, there is competition within the community based on regional origin, as well as have many ambivalences and contradictions.     

Being a burden to others and wishes to die: The importance of the sociopolitical context

All articles in May 2019’s special issue of Bioethics offer profound insights into the issue of “being a burden to others” in relation to wishes to die, which are highly relevant for ethical debates about end-of-life care and physician-assisted dying. In this reply, we wish to stress the importance of acknowledging and analyzing the sociopolitical context of the phenomenon “being a burden” in relation to wishes to die and we will show how this analysis could benefit from a care ethical approach. As discussions in care ethics have made clear, caring practices are both social and political practices. An empirical and ethical analysis of “being a burden” therefore needs to take institutional and societal norms and structures into account, in addition to first-person experiences and concepts such as caring needs, relational autonomy, and interdependency. Besides the relevance of the sociopolitical context for the phenomenon “being a burden” as such, the sociopolitical context also seems relevant for the investigation of the phenomenon, which we will illustrate by reflecting on “being a burden” in relation to the practice of physician-assisted dying in the Netherlands.     

Nonself help: how immunology might reframe the Enlightenment

The classical immunological paradigm is predicated on the body's ability to recognize and eliminate “nonself.” However, the “self–nonself” model has yet to facilitate any resolution of the field's major concerns, and may thus prove to be of limited use. Merely discarding it is no solution, as the juxtaposition of “self” and “nonself” persists in research, in clinical settings, and in everyday practice despite the best efforts of theoretical immunologists. Instead, the very conception of “selfhood” may prove to be key. Replacing immunology's prior and persistent “self” with less static concepts derived from non-Western contexts not only resolves immunology's famous paradoxes but also offers a new and more accurate model that allows immunology to reframe what may become an outmoded Enlightenment construct of “self.” In such a new paradigm, immunology's well-known system of protection and defense is replaced with a view in which nonself becomes less the body's enemy than its primary mechanism for the creative assimilation of difference. This incorporative model—in which the “immune system” functions more as a search engine than as an expeller of difference—both resolves outstanding paradoxes, and complies more accurately with contemporary knowledge and research practice.     

Response to Wiedmann

This commentary is prompted by Thomas Wiedmann's “Defining (Urban) Producer and Consumer Sinks” published in this issue. In his article, Wiedmann presents a new framework for categorizing carbon sinks by borrowing practices from carbon emissions accounting and, essentially, proposing a “carbon sink footprint” model for urban inventories. While this is a valuable new concept, we argue that it is difficult to apply accurately given current knowledge and practices in urban life cycle assessment. Instead, a direct versus embodied classification based on where the sequestration service exists, not where the sink is located, is more useful from the perspective of municipal control and influence over creating and managing carbon sinks. This is ultimately important for the development of urban climate change mitigation measures.     

Gender,Photography and Visual Participatory Methods: An Ethnographic Research Project between Colombia and France

This article explores the construction of gender in urban settings, through visual participatory methods. It is argued that gendered experience may be studied, described and visualized through engaged visual practices using photography as a research tool. I suggest that visual participatory methods provide a new support to explore the multidimensionality of the urban experience in which gender acts. By focusing on visual experience and in the process of “doing gender,” we were interested in new ways to depict gender in two cities, Sarcelles, France, and Medellin, Colombia. In that sense, visual cartographies of gender, a technique developed in both cities, strengthens new ways of understanding gendered experience through a multimodal, critical and embodied visual practice.     

High‐Quality Biobanks: Pivotal Assets for Reproducibility of OMICS‐Data in Biomedical Translational Research

Human biospecimen samples (HBS) and associated data stored in biobanks (also called “biotrusts,” “biorepositories,” or “biodistributors”) are very critical resources for translational research. As HBS quality is decisive to the reproducibility of research results, biobanks are also key assets for new developments in precision medicine. Biobanks are more than infrastructures providing HBS and associated data. Biobanks have pioneered in identifying and standardizing sources of preanalytical variations in HBS, thus paving the way for the current biospecimen science. To achieve this milestone, biobankers have successively assumed the role of “detective,” and then “architect,” to identify new detrimental impact of preanalytical variables on the tissue integrity. While standardized methods in omics are required to be practiced throughout research communities, the accepted best practices and standards on biospecimen handling are generally not known nor applied by researchers. Therefore, it is mandatory to raise the awareness within omics communities regarding not only the basic concepts of collecting, storing, and utilizing HBS today, but also to suggest insights on biobanking in the cancer omics context.     

“Thinking a Lot” Among the Khwe of South Africa: A Key Idiom of Personal and Interpersonal Distress

“Thinking too much”, and variations such as “thinking a lot”, are common idioms of distress across the world. The contextual meaning of this idiom of distress in particular localities remains largely unknown. This paper reports on a systematic study of the content and cause, consequences, and social response and coping related to the local terms |x’an n|a te and |eu-ca n|a te, both translated as “thinking a lot”, and was part of a larger ethnographic study among the Khwe of South Africa. Semi-structured exploratory interviews with community members revealed that “thinking a lot” refers to a common experience of reflecting on personal and interpersonal problems. Consequences were described in emotional, psychological, social, behavioral, and physical effects. Coping strategies included social support, distraction, and religious practices. Our contextualized approach revealed meanings and experiences of “thinking a lot” that go beyond a psychological state or psychopathology. The common experience of “thinking a lot” is situated in socio-political, economic, and social context that reflect the marginalized and displaced position of the Khwe. We argue that “thinking a lot” and associated local meanings may vary across settings, may not necessarily indicate psychopathology, and should be understood in individual, interpersonal, community, and socio-political dimensions.     

Individualization Through Standardization: Electronic Orders for Subcutaneous Insulin in the Hospital

ObjectiveThe objective was to design electronic order sets that would promote safe, effective, and individualized order entry for subcutaneous insulin in the hospital, based on a review of best practices.MethodsSaint Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois, a community teaching hospital, was selected as the pilot site for 6 hospitals in the Health Care System to introduce an electronic medical record. Articles dealing with man agement of hospital hyperglycemia, medical order entry systems, and patient safety were reviewed selectively.ResultsIn the published literature on institutional glycemic management programs and insulin order sets, features were identified that improve safety and effectiveness of subcutaneous insulin therapy. Subcutaneous electronic insulin order sets were created, designated in short: “patients eating”, “patients not eating”, and “patients receiving overnight enteral feedings.” Together with an option for free text entry, menus of administra tion instructions were designed within each order set that were applicable to specific insulin orders and expressed in standardized language, such as “hold if tube feeds stop” or “do not withhold.”ConclusionTwo design features are advocated for electronic order sets for subcutaneous insulin that will both standardize care and protect individualization. First, within the order sets, the glycemic management plan should be matched to the carbohydrate exposure of the patients, with juxtaposition of appropriate orders for both glucose monitoring and insulin. Second, in order to convey precautions of insulin use to pharmacy and nursing staff, the prescriber must be able to attach administration instructions to specific insulin orders. (Endocr Pract. 2012;18:976-987)     

MORPHOLOGY AND GENETICS OF A PERIODIC COLONIAL MUTANT OF NEUROSPORA CRASSA

A mutant of strain 69–1113a of Neurospora crassa, which shows periodic growth upon both complete and minimal media, was named “clock,” and some of the morphological and genetic differences between this mutant and the “patch” and “wild” strains were investigated. In contrast to the uniform growth of “wild,” the “clock” mutant produces a series of bands formed by cymelike aggregations of hyphae which become progressively more dense and finally mark the end (front) of a growth band. A new growth band is formed by a number of hyphae which grow out as in “wild” strains and dichotomize and form new cymes which again become progressively more dense and finally form a new front. It is shown that “clock” continues its rhythmic growth when cultured in continuous darkness. Some “wild” strains were induced to grow periodically on appropriate media. A medium containing equal quantities of sorbose and sucrose caused strain 65–811A (a “wild”) to produce the “patch” type growth. Random isolation, as well as ordered isolation, of ascospores following a cross between “wild” and “clock” show a 1: 1 segregation indicating that “clock” differs from “wild” by a single gene.     

The television and the shrine: Towards a theoretical model for the study of mass communications in Nigeria 1

The context in which the new mass media are produced, distributed, and consumed in Nigeria differs as radically from the everyday world of the “developed” nations as it does from traditional Nigerian societies of a century ago. Many sociologists of mass communication have failed to address the issue of cultural difference in their accounts of media and their role in the third world. It is suggested that Weber's concepts of “enchantment” and “rationalization” should both be re‐examined if one wishes to better understand a world in which television and the ancestral shrine exist in both spatial and ideological proximity to one another.     

Whose Turn? Chromosome Research and the Study of the Human Genome

A common account sees the human genome sequencing project of the 1990s as a “natural outgrowth” of the deciphering of the double helical structure of DNA in the 1950s. The essay aims to complicate this neat narrative by putting the spotlight on the field of human chromosome research that flourished at the same time as molecular biology. It suggests that we need to consider both endeavors – the human cytogeneticists who collected samples and looked down the microscope and the molecular biologists who probed the molecular mechanisms of gene function – to understand the rise of the human genome sequencing project and the current genomic practices. In particular, it proposes that what has often been described as the “molecularization” of cytogenetics could equally well be viewed as the turn of molecular biologists to human and medical genetics – a field long occupied by cytogeneticists. These considerations also have implications for the archives that are constructed for future historians and policy makers.     

Extending experimentation: oncology’s fading boundary between research and care

Historians and social scientists view the distinction between research and care as diachronically and synchronically contingent, rather than transcendental, as is often the case in bioethics. Comparing how the notion of total care was used in the 1950s with present-day use of that same term by genomically informed oncology programs, the paper argues that the distinction between research and care needs: to be historicized, by examining its repeated emergence and re-definition, and the shifting relations between these two “ideal-typical” components; and to be problematized, by paying attention to the entities, practices, and institutions that are constitutive of the successive regimens that have punctuated oncology’s development. Shifting to contemporary activities, the paper examines how the recent massive injection of molecular biology and high-throughput genomic technologies in the field of oncology has been accompanied by a reshuffling of the research/care distinction, a process that is leading to new forms of “experimental care”.