The main purpose of this study was to examine the structural relationships between scientific epistemological views (SEVs) and information commitments (ICs) of high school students in Taiwan. Data were collected from 486 Taiwanese high school students via two self-reporting instruments: one was the SEV questionnaire, including five scales for…

Argues that creationism endures in spite of, and because of, the scientific community's response. Analyzes the creationism controversy between 1975 and 1990. Finds scientists unresponsive to the public appeal of creationism which is grounded in empiricist folk epistemology. Discusses implications for the relationship between technical and public…

Discusses the puzzling effects of shadows cast in water. Demonstrates the effects of various objects and surface curvatures on the behavior of light rays transmitted through water. (CW)

Reviews research which indicates that the knowledge structures of professional literatures are systematically different from those of scientific literatures, and that these differences are consistent with theories of scientific knowledge such as those advanced by Kuhn, Polyani, and Zinman. A list of 104 references is included. (MES)

Discussion of impact factors of scientific journals focuses on a study that examined the Institute for Scientific Information's annual listing based upon data from the Science Citation Index. This article presents evidence that the values of the impact factors are often inaccurate due to an inappropriate definition of citable documents.…

Discusses scientific ignorance and uncertainty. Highlights include approaching knowledgeable ignorance, including a taxonomy of ignorance and uncertainty frameworks and measures; social constructivism, subjectivity, and scientific realism; strategies for working with scientific ignorance; and frameworks for ignorance representation. (Contains 43…

Discusses the failure of many human performance technology (HPT) solutions; describes craft solutions as opposed to scientific knowledge and the application of technology; and stresses the need for collaboration for the development of successful HPT solutions. (Contains 21 references.) (LRW)

Maps the dynamics in the field of artificial intelligence during the last five years using the co-word analysis technique. Shows that it is possible to identify the hot topics in a particular scientific research field at one time and to map the dynamics in the topics during a series of periods. (Contains 12 references.) (Author/LRW)

Scientific popularizations are generally considered translations (often dubious ones) of scientific research for a lay audience. This study explores the role popularizations play within scientific discourse, specifically in the development of chaos theory. The methods included a review of the popular and the semipopular books on chaos theory from…

Introduction: The main objective of this paper is to establish a profile of socio-emotional competencies characteristic of a sample of students from each of the big academic areas in higher education: legal sciences, social sciences, education, humanities, science and technology, and health. An additional objective was to analyse differences…

This article reports the results of an investigation to identify the disciplinary strengths and the international standing of the higher education institutions in South Africa. Even though comparative assessments provide valuable information for research administrations, researchers and students such information is not available in South Africa…

These hearings discuss issues concerning the collection and dissemination of scientific and technical information available to the federal government. Prepared statements by the following individuals are included: (1) Melvin S. Day, Herner & Co.; (2) David S. Nathan, U.S. Department of Commerce; (3) Harold Shill, American Library Association;…

This article focuses on the problems of simultaneous translation (SI) of scientific discussion at the Conference on Training Translators and Interpreters in the New Millennium, the development of which greatly depends on extralinguistic, external conference conditions. Text linguistics considers text not only as a grammatical unit larger than a…

Argues that the social construction of the cigarette in divergent synecdochic forms or "representational ideographs" is based on varying degrees of narrative and scientific knowledge. Broadens the existing theoretical perspective derived from Kenneth Burke and Michael McGee to include Jean-Francois Lyotard's view of narrative and…

This special issue is a compilation of documents from the seminar organized by ICSTI (International Council for Scientific and Technical Information), ICSU (International Council for Science), and CODATA (ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology). Focuses on preserving and archiving digital scientific data and discusses electronic…