• Title/Summary/Keyword: process of scientific observation

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Development Status of the SPICA/FPC

  • Pyo, Jeonghyun;Jeong, Woong-Seob;Lee, Dae-Hee;Matsumoto, Toshio;Moon, Bongkon;Tsumura, Kohji;Park, Kwijong;Park, Sung-Joon;Park, Youngsik;Kim, Il-Jung;Park, Won-Kee;Han, Wonyong;Im, Myungshin;Lee, Hyung Mok;Lee, Jeong-Eun
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.38 no.2
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    • pp.82.1-82.1
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    • 2013
  • The SPICA (SPace Infrared Telescope for Cosmology & Astrophysics) project is a next-generation infrared space telescope optimized for mid- and far-infrared observation with a cryogenically cooled 3m-class telescope. Owing to unprecedented sensitivity and high spatial resolution, the focal plane instruments are expected to perform the confusion-limited observation. The SPICA will challenge to reveal many astronomical key issues from the star-formation history of the universe to the planetary formation. The Korean 5contribution to SPICA as an international collaboration is the development of the near-infrared instrument, FPC (Focal Plane Camera). The Korean consortium for FPC proposed a key system instrument for the purpose of a fine guiding (FPC-G) complementing the AOCS (Attitude and Orbit Control System). The back-up instrument of FPC-G, FPC-S will be responsible for the scientific observations as well. Through the international review process, we have revised the scientific programs and made the feasibility study for the fine guiding system. Here, we report the current status of SPICA/FPC project.

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Definition of Scientific Hypothesis: A Generalization or a Causal Explanation?

  • Jeong, Jin-Su;Kwon, Yong-Ju
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.26 no.5
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    • pp.637-645
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    • 2006
  • This study reviewed and discussed the nature of scientific hypothesis described in philosophy, the philosophy of science, science, and science education. In these descriptions, a hypothesis was defined as one of five types: hypothesis as an assumption, hypothesis as a prediction, hypothesis as a tentative explanation, hypothesis as a tentative law, and hypothesis as a tentative causal explanation. Most scholars agreed that a hypothesis is a proposition or a set of propositions proposed as an explanation for an observed situation. In this view, a hypothesis is a possible answer to or an explanation of a question that accounts for all the observed facts. Also, it is a statement that explains why things happen in nature or an explanation for an observation that can be tested. In the five types of hypothesis meanings, a tentative explanation includes a tentative law and a tentative causal explanation. However, tentative laws are not explanation but description which are general statements drawn from specific experiences by way of a process known as induction. A number of studies also have distinguished hypothesis from assumption, tentative explanation, tentative law, and prediction. Therefore, a hypothesis is concluded to be a proposition or a set of propositions proposed as a tentative causal explanation for an observed situation.

Elementary Students' Awareness about Self-directed Learning Experiments at Science Club (과학 동아리에서 경험한 자기 주도적 실험 학습에 대한 초등학생들의 인식)

  • Ju, Eun Jeong;Kim, Heung-Tae
    • Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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    • v.35 no.2
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    • pp.253-264
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    • 2016
  • The purpose of this study was to investigate implications of self-directed learning experiments in elementary science education through understanding elementary school students' awareness of their experiences in self-directed learning experiments. Twenty students joined the school science club voluntarily and conducted self-directed learning experiments. We collected data through observation of the experiments, interviews, and questionnaires. The students who participated in the club showed high satisfaction with self-directed learning experiments. The participants were aware that their scientific interest and knowledge, and the confidence in conducting experiments were increased. The students felt positive about the inquiry process of conducting self-directed learning experiments with their own subjects. They also felt a sense of achievement in attempting their experiments in defiance of several failures. The participants realized that the self-directed inquires led to increased declarative and procedural knowledge of science. The students stated that they had some difficulties in coping with the different results contrary to expectations and preparing laboratory materials and instruments. Nonetheless, they showed the promotion of their scientific literacy during overcoming those difficulties. We suggest that self-directed learning experiments can be a more effective way in science learning to make students experience the nature of science than existing school experiments. This can be implemented through a creative experience activities such as science clubs.

KVN Performance Evaluation of Simultaneous 4CH Observations

  • Jung, Dawoon;Sohn, Young-Jong;Byun, Do-Young;Jung, Taehyun
    • The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.41 no.1
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    • pp.74.2-74.2
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    • 2016
  • It is important to know how well observation errors are removed in the calibration process prior to ensuing scientific research. In mm-VLBI observations, a radio wave suffers from an atmospheric propagation delay due to the rapid change of atmospheric refraction. It makes phases of VLBI correlation output fluctuate rapidly, which essentially decreases the coherence of phases and reduces the integration time. Consequently, it is challenging to achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio and enhance the quality of scientific output. Among the causes of the atmospheric propagation delay, water vapor in the troposphere is the most decisive factor to affect phase errors in the high frequency range (> 10GHz). It is expected to have the non-dispersive characteristic that enables to introduce new calibration strategy, Frequency Phase Transfer (FPT). This new method utilizes low frequency phases to compensate phase errors in high frequency bands. In addition, Korean VLBI Network (KVN) which benefits from the simultaneous 4-channels (22/43/86/129 GHz) observations is ideal to probe FPT performance. In order to evaluate FPT performance of KVN, we present the results of FPT phase analysis and discuss its performance.

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Body-Images and Visualization Technologies in the Field of Plastic Surgery: Making Scientific Objects, Making Scientific Disciplines (성형외과의 몸-이미지와 시각화 기술: 과학적 대상 만들기, 과학적 분과 만들기)

  • Leem, So-Yeon
    • Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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    • v.11 no.1
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    • pp.89-121
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    • 2011
  • The majority of previous researchers on body management practices including plastic surgery has agreed that there is a strong connection between social demands of plastic surgery and public exposures of beautiful body-images, which this research intends to analyze further. This study, on the one hand, discovers how body-images are produced and consumed through clinical practices of plastic surgery, particularly, surgeon-patient consultation processes based on the researcher's participant observation on a plastic surgery clinic in Korea, and shows how visualization technologies are mobilized to reconstruct not only boundaries of patients' bodies but also those of medical disciplines by viewing plastic surgery practices as knowledge production activities, on the other hand. While revealing that surgeon-patient consultation is the process to transform patient's bodies to "scientific" objects and visualization technologies have been made to help plastic surgeons to make their disciplines "scientific" ones, this article also pays attention to complicated effects of new imaging technology beyond a mere means of "scientification" of plastic surgery.

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The Role of Stem Cells and Gap Junctional Intercellular Communication in Carcinogenesis

  • Trosko, James E.
    • BMB Reports
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    • v.36 no.1
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    • pp.43-48
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    • 2003
  • Understanding the process of carcinogenesis will involve both the accumulation of many scientific facts derived from molecular, biochemical, cellular, physiological, whole animal experiments and epidemiological studies, as well as from conceptual understanding as to how to order and integrate those facts. From decades of cancer research, a number of the "hallmarks of cancer" have been identified, as well as their attendant concepts, including oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, cell cycle biochemistry, hypotheses of metastasis, angiogenesis, etc. While all these "hallmarks" are well known, two important concepts, with their associated scientific observations, have been generally ignored by many in the cancer research field. The objective of the short review is to highlight the concept of the role of human adult pluri-potent stem cells as "target cells" for the carcinogenic process and the concept of the role of gap junctional intercellular communication in the multi-stage, multi-mechanism process of carcinogenesis. With these two concepts, an attempt has been made to integrate the other well-known concepts, such as the multi-stage, multi-mechanisn or the "initiation/promotion/progression" hypothesis; the stem cell theory of carcinogenesis; the oncogene/tumor suppression theory and the mutation/epigenetic theories of carcinogenesis. This new "integrative" theory tries to explain the well-known "hallmarks" of cancers, including the observation that cancer cells lack either heterologous or homologous gap junctional intercellular communication whereas normal human adult stem cells do not have expressed or functional gap junctional intercellular communication. On the other hand, their normal differentiated, non-stem cell derivatives do express connexins and express gap junctional intercellular communication during their differentiation. Examination of the roles of chemical tumor promoters, oncogenes, connexin knock-out mice and roles of genetically-engineered tumor and normal cells with connexin and anti-sense connexin genes, respectively, seems to provide evidence which is consistent with the roles of both stem cells and gap junctional communication playing a major role in carcinogenesis. The integrative hypothesis provides new strategies for chemoprevention and chemotherapy which focuses on modulating connexin gene expression or gap junctional intercellular communication in the premalignant and malignant cells, respectively.

Scientific Empathy Discovered in Scientists' Problem-Solving Process (과학자의 문제 해결 과정에서 탐색된 과학 공감)

  • Yang, Heesun;Kang, Seong-Joo
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.39 no.2
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    • pp.249-261
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    • 2019
  • The purpose of this study is to extract empathy factor in scientists' problem-solving process and to examine how the empathy factor influences scientists' problem-solving situation. In this study, we selected six common persons among the scientists mentioned by creativity researchers. And through their autobiographies and biographies, we extracted elements of empathy from their case of problem-solving and categorized them. We analyzed cases from 12 books and 50 papers using Davis' empathy scale as an analysis framework and extracted common factors. As a result, the scientific empathy elements were extracted from a total of 182 cases, and 33 common elements were found. The validity of this case was verified through the content validity test of the science education specialist group. As a result, the I-CVI average was .86 and the S-CVI average was .90. For the empathy elements that scientists used in problem-solving cases, in cognitive empathy, three elements (empathy through other disciplines, empathy from the perspective of the research object, accommodating others' opinions) were extracted in terms of perspective-taking, and three elements (imagination thought experiment based on observation, thought experiment, feeling like part of object) in fantasy. And in affective empathy, three elements (influenced by fellow researchers' motivation, touching from the subject, excitement studying more) were extracted in terms of empathic concern and two elements (heartache for others' failure in their research, sensitivity to problems) in personal depression. This could not be said to be a perfect match for Davis' empathy, but it would be possible to define the scientific empathy elements based on these common elements found in the scientists' cases.

An Automated Knowledge Acquisition Tool Based on the Inferential Modeling Technique

  • Chan, Christine W.;Nguyen, Hanh H.
    • Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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    • 2002.07b
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    • pp.1165-1168
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    • 2002
  • Knowledge acquisition is the process that extracts the required knowledge from available sources, such as experts, textbooks and databases, for incorporation into a knowledge-based system. Knowledge acquisition is described as the first step in building expert systems and a major bottleneck in the efficient development and application of effective knowledge based expert systems. One cause of the problem is that the process of human reasoning we need to understand for knowledge-based system development is not available for direct observation. Moreover, the expertise of interest is typically not reportable due to the compilation of knowledge which results from extensive practice in a domain of problem solving activity. This is also a problem of modeling knowledge, which has been described as not a problem of accessing and translating what is known, but the familiar scientific and engineering problem of formalizing models for the first time. And this formalization process is especially difficult for knowledge engineers who are often faced with the difficult task of creating a knowledge model of a domain unfamiliar to them. In this paper, we propose an automated knowledge acquisition tool which is based on an implementation of the Inferential Modeling Technique. The Inferential Modeling Technique is derived from the Inferential Model which is a domain-independent categorization of knowledge types and inferences [Chan 1992]. The model can serve as a template of the types of knowledge in a knowledge model of any domain.

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Stochastic nature of magnetic processes studied by full-field soft X-ray microscopy

  • Im, Mi-Young
    • Current Applied Physics
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    • v.18 no.11
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    • pp.1174-1181
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    • 2018
  • In nanomagnetism, one of the crucial scientific questions is whether magnetic behaviors are deterministic or stochastic on a nanoscale. Apart from the exciting physical issue, this question is also of paramount highest relevance for using magnetic materials in a wealth of technological applications such as magnetic storage and sensor devices. In the past, the research on the stochasticity of a magnetic process has been mainly done by macroscopic measurements, which only offer ensemble-averaged information. To give more accurate answer for the question and to fully understand related underlying physics, the direct observation of statistical behaviors in magnetic structures and magnetic phenomena utilizing advanced characterization techniques is highly required. One of the ideal tools for such study is a full-field soft X-ray microscope since it enables imaging of magnetic structures on the large field of view within a few seconds. Here we review the stochastic behaviors of various magnetic processes including magnetization reversal process in thin films, magnetic domain wall motions in nanowires, and magnetic vortex formations in nanodisks studied by full-field soft X-ray microscopy. The origin triggering the stochastic nature witnessed in each magnetic process and the way to control the intrinsic nature are also discussed.

Design and Pilot Application of an Experiment Focusing on the Nature of Scientific Inquiry: Focus on the Epistemological Issues in the Process of Dry Ice Sublimation Experiment (과학 탐구의 본성에 초점을 둔 실험의 설계와 시범 적용 -드라이아이스 승화 실험에서 드러나는 인식론적 논제를 중심으로-)

  • Park, Jeongwoo;Lee, Sun-Kyung;Lee, Gyeong-Geon;Shim, Han Su;Shin, Myeong-Kyeong
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.39 no.2
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    • pp.173-186
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    • 2019
  • The purpose of this study is to design and apply a pilot inquiry experiment focusing on the epistemological issues of scientific activities, and derive educational implications by analyzing experimental activities and reflective discussions. Three graduate students who major in science education participated in the study voluntarily. Participants showed the characteristics of stable enquiry in Experiment 1. However, the small but continuous changes in Experiment 2 led the experiment to a phase of fluid enquiry seeking new theories. Participants mobilized various resources, proposed new hypotheses, and models and requested additional experiments to verify them. In the process of reflective discussions, the participants led to the following three epistemological issues. First, at the beginning of the experiment, their observations were theoretically dependent. Second, when the observations were no longer coherent with theory, they face a crisis, and the adjustment of observation and theory proceeds. Third, stable enquiry and fluid enquiry are performed according to the relationship between observation and theory. The educational implications of school science inquiry based on the above process and results are as follows: First, this study shows that fluid enquiry can follow stable enquiry naturally, and examples of the activities are presented together. Second, in this study, it was confirmed that participants could draw up epistemological issues based on their experiences through reflective discussions following inquiry.