Wordtrade LogoWordtrade.com
Science

 

Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences

 

 

Managing Scientists: Leadership Strategies in Scientific Research (Second Edition) by Alice M. Sapienza (Wiley-Liss) As any scientist working in today’s research environment will tell you, poor management is more than a nuisance at the edges of laboratory work. Scientists are human beings first, and ineffective leadership will wreak havoc. Labs will get thrown into turmoil, personality conflicts will undermine teamwork, discrimination will isolate group members, and the creativity so essential to truly great work will vanish. To say that leadership quality can make or break a research-driven organization is not an overstatement--it is the conclusion of scientists themselves.

Managing Scientists: Leadership Strategies in Scientific Research is the only guide directed at the specific needs of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical research and development industries. It offers practical advice, including real-life case studies, on improving the quality of interactions and fostering creative output in an R&D setting. Moreover, this new Second Edition features primary data from surveys of expert panels of scientists on their perceptions of being led, including:

Attributes of leaders that support novel science, particularly being caring and compassionate about those working for them

The powerfully negative climate created by ineffective leaders, which stifles not only novel science but also basic collaboration within the lab

The crucial importance of dealing with conflict quickly and effectively

The need for skills in active listening

These scientists also describe their own most difficult problems in leadership, such as:

Balancing scientific efforts and administrative responsibilities

Dealing with personality differences in the lab and between labs

Motivating people

Communicating effectively

In addition to addressing topics brought up by the expert panel scientists, this Second Edition provides a new chapter on the issues faced by women scientists in industry and academia; expanded materials on the concepts of motivation, leadership, communication, conflict, and project management; and new case studies for the assessment of organizational culture.

An invaluable go-to for developing the kind of leadership that makes great things possible, Managing Scientists, Second Edition provides a key resource to anyone managing scientific work in a life or medical science organization.

Scholarly Communication in Science and Engineering Research in Higher Education by Wei Wei (Haworth Information Press) Stay on top with the latest developments in scientific and technical journal publications!

In Scholarly Communication in Science and Engineering Research in Higher Education, experts in the academic community propose cost-effective alternatives to commercial publications in the face of increased journal prices and reduced budgets. This book discusses recent technological innovations that can maintain the needs of researchers who need to stay on the cutting edge of science and technology as well as scholars who must be published and peer-reviewed in order to achieve tenure and promotion. This text also examines the latest developments in information retrieval that will effectively cut time and costs for academic researchers in the library.

Scholarly Communication in Science and Engineering Research in Higher Education focuses on the need for the academic community to accept new, economical methods of producing and making available publications such as peer reviews, research papers, letters, technical and experiment reports, preprints, and conference papers. This volume also emphasizes that scientists and engineers—whether graduate students or professionals—must have access to the latest relevant research in their fields and rely on libraries to provide it. Several chapters in this book examine the problem areas of information technology that will need to be fixed, such as bottlenecks to the flow of information, difficulties using information retrieval systems, and the challenges with archiving electronic journals.

Using research and case studies, this book offers strategies for obtaining benefits such as:

more efficient and inexpensive ways to access and navigate information
more cost-effective means of authentication and quality control
new initiative programs in electronic theses and dissertations to assist graduate students
increased dissemination and access for conference papers at significantly less cost
alternative and more effective approaches for solving underlying problems within the scholarly communication circuit of scientists
activities for librarians to help expand utilization of digital technologies at the local level
accurate and reliable retrieval of citation data from online sources

Using Scholarly Communication in Science and Engineering Research in Higher Education, you can play an important role in improving the means and methods in this area of academics. This important guide will help librarians, science and engineering faculty and students, researchers, and publishers maintain funding, improve efficiency, and offer new methods for scientific studies.

Leaving Science: Occupational Exit from Scientific Careers by Anne E. Preston (Russell Sage Foundation Publications) The past 30 years have witnessed a dramatic decline in the number of U.S. students pursuing advanced degrees in science and an equally dramatic increase in the number of professionals leaving scientific careers. "Leaving Science" provides the first significant examination of this worrisome new trend. Economist Anne E. Preston examines a wide range of important questions: Why do professionals who have invested extensive time and money on a rigorous scientific education leave the field? Where do these scientists go and what do they do? What policies might aid in retaining and improving the quality of life for science personnel? Based on data from a large national survey of nearly 1,700 people who received university degrees in the natural sciences or engineering between 1965 and 1990 and a subsequent in-depth follow-up survey, "Leaving Science" provides a comprehensive portrait of the career trajectories of men and women who have earned science degrees. Alarmingly, by the end of the follow-up survey, only 51 percent of the original respondents were still working in science. During this time, federal funding for scientific research decreased dramatically relative to private funding. Consequently, the direction of scientific research has increasingly been dictated by market forces, and many scientists have left academic research for income and opportunity in business and industry. Preston identifies the main reasons for people leaving scientific careers as dissatisfaction with compensation and career advancement, difficulties balancing family and career responsibilities, and changing professional in! terests. Highlighting the difference between male and female exit patterns, Preston shows that most men left because they found scientific salaries low relative to perceived alternatives in other fields, while most women left scientific careers in response to feelings of alienation due to lack of career guidance, difficulty relating to their work, and insufficient time for their family obligations.

"Leaving Science" contains a unique blend of rigorous statistical analysis with voices of individual scientists, ensuring a rich and detailed understanding of an issue with profound consequences for the nation’s future. A better understanding of why professionals leave science can help lead to changes in scientific education and occupations and make the scientific workplace more attractive and hospitable to career men and women.

Nature Knowledge: Ethnoscience, Cognition, and Utility by Glauco Sanga, Gherardo Ortalli (Berghahn Books) (Hardcover) This book presents the materials proposed and the results that emerged during the International Conference Nature Knowledge / Saperi naturalistici, which took place in Venice, from 4 to 6 December 1997, organized by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti and the Centro Interuniversitario di Studi sulla Trasmis­sione del Sapere of the Department of Historical Studies of Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

The purpose of the conference was to compare the main lines of research into nature knowledge over the last few years: the folk, traditional, and local forms of knowledge and uses of nature; and the way nature can be protected and con-served.

This field of study is now very wide and involves anthropologists, historians, economists, linguists, and biologists. It ranges from theoretical problems relating to forms of perception and the classification of the real, to concrete procedures of economic and political intervention in developing countries. The time was thus ripe for a moment of reflection and real comparison, to allow us to assess what has been done and what remains to be done, and to discuss the problems that have emerged from different research projects.

The proceedings were organized in thematic sessions, during which a coordi­nator posed questions and directed the discussion. The participants were already acquainted with both the questions proposed.and the replies sent in by the vari­ous speakers (distributed in pre-prints before the conference), since the intention was to leave ample room for discussion among the scholars present, all from dif­ferent backgrounds and orientations.

The structure of this volume reflects the way in which the conference was organized. The studies and materials presented are ordered according to the same five sessions in which the individual talks were grouped: each session opened with a series of questions, which are reflected in the introductory chapters of each part; these were followed by the papers of the guest-speakers, now presented as the numbered chapters of the volume; the sessions closed with broad ranging and organic discussions, which have been summarized and presented as the con­clusion to each part of the volume.

Session 1. Classification. Ethnotaxonomies: the ways of perceiving, knowing and classifying nature. Ethnotaxonomies are discussed, i.e., the forms of folk and local classification of nature, and new hypotheses and perspectives in the field of classification (polythetical classifications, fuzzy classifications).

Coordinator: Marta Maddalon.

Participants: Brent Berlin, Roy Ellen, Oddone Longo, and John Trumper.

Session 2. Naming. Ethnolinguistics: the ways of naming nature and by means of nature. Linguistic mechanisms (metonymy, metaphor, derivation) through which names are given to animals, plants, parts of the body, atmospheric phe­nomena etc. are discussed, as are the transfers of systems of denomination

from one sphere to another (animal names to name plants, names of parts of the body to denominate land, etc.).

Coordinator: Glauco Sanga.

Participants: Mario Alinei, Brent Berlín, Maurizio Gnerre, Jane Hill, Giovan Battista Pellegrini, Nicole Revel, John Trumper.

Session 3. Thought. Nature as symbol, as model and as metaphor. The sym­bolic uses of nature are discussed, with particular attention to the theme of universals.

Coordinator: Daniel Fabre.

Participants: Jean-Pierre Albert, Marlène Albert-Llorca, Giulio Angioni, Jack Goody, and Francis Zimmermann.

Session 4. Use. Domestication: modification and practical use of nature. Partic­ular attention is paid to the theoretical problem of the practical application of local nature knowledge (Local Technical Knowledge, Indigenous Knowledge Systems) in the contexts of development processes.

Coordinator: Antonino Colajanni.

Participants: Giulio Angioni, Roy Ellen, Tim Ingold, Pier Giorgio Solinas, and Michael Warren.

Session 5. Conservation. Biodiversity, environmentalism, museums and parks. The discussion concerns the problems raised by conservation of the natural environment: dynamics and conflicts between local populations; conservation of resources and farmers' 'rights"; inter-relations between conservation and the transformation of cultures and natural resources.

Coordinator: Cristina Papa.

Participants: Mauro Ambrosoli, Laurence Bérard, Stephen Brush, Philippe Marchenay, Diego Moreno, Gherardo Ortalli.

This book is published several years after the conference, since the editorial work has been long and difficult; nevertheless we trust the proceedings are still relevant and that the conference remains a milestone in the study of folk nature knowledge.

Special Contents

insert content here