Science policy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_policy 

 

Graphical summary of a position paper on proposed changes to science policy in the Netherlands around academic incentive and reward structures

Science policy is concerned with the allocation of resources for the conduct of science towards the goal of best serving the public interest. Topics include the funding of science, the careers of scientists, and the translation of scientific discoveries into technological innovation to promote commercial product development, competitiveness, economic growth and economic development. Science policy focuses on knowledge production and role of knowledge networks, collaborations, and the complex distributions of expertise, equipment, and know-how. Understanding the processes and organizational context of generating novel and innovative science and engineering ideas is a core concern of science policy. Science policy topics include weapons development, health care and environmental monitoring.

Science policy thus deals with the entire domain of issues that involve science. A large and complex web of factors influences the development of science and engineering that includes government science policymakers, private firms (including both national and multi-national firms), social movements, media, non-governmental organizations, universities, and other research institutions. In addition, science policy is increasingly international as defined by the global operations of firms and research institutions as well as by the collaborative networks of non-governmental organizations and of the nature of scientific inquiry itself.

History

Main article: History of science policy

State policy has influenced the funding of public works and science for thousands of years, dating at least from the time of the Mohists, who inspired the study of logic during the period of the Hundred Schools of Thought, and the study of defensive fortifications during the Warring States period in China. General levies of labor and grain were collected to fund great public works in China, including the accumulation of grain for distribution in times of famine, for the building of levees to control flooding by the great rivers of China, for the building of canals and locks to connect rivers of China, some of which flowed in opposite directions to each other, and for the building of bridges across these rivers. These projects required a civil service, the scholars, some of whom demonstrated great mastery of hydraulics.

In Italy, Galileo noted that individual taxation of minute amounts could fund large sums to the State, which could then fund his research on the trajectory of cannonballs, noting that "each individual soldier was being paid from coin collected by a general tax of pennies and farthings, while even a million of gold would not suffice to pay the entire army."

In Great Britain, Lord Chancellor Sir Francis Bacon had a formative effect on science policy with his identification of "experiments of ... light, more penetrating into nature [than what others know]", which today we call the crucial experiment. Governmental approval of the Royal Society recognized a scientific community which exists to this day. British prizes for research spurred the development of an accurate, portable chronometer, which directly enabled reliable navigation and sailing on the high seas, and also funded Babbage's computer.

The professionalization of science, begun in the nineteenth century, was partly enabled by the creation of scientific organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and State funding of universities of their respective nations. In the United States, a member of the National Academy of Sciences can sponsor a Direct Submission for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. PNAS serves as a channel to recognize research of importance to at least one member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Public policy can directly affect the funding of capital equipment, intellectual infrastructure for industrial research, by providing tax incentives to those organizations who fund research. Vannevar Bush, director of the office of scientific research and development for the U.S. government in July 1945, wrote "Science is a proper concern of government" Vannevar Bush directed the forerunner of the National Science Foundation, and his writings directly inspired researchers to invent the hyperlink and the computer mouse. The DARPA initiative to support computing was the impetus for the Internet Protocol stack. In the same way that scientific consortiums like CERN for high-energy physics have a commitment to public knowledge, access to this public knowledge in physics led directly to CERN's sponsorship of development of the World Wide Web and standard Internet access for all.

Philosophies of science policy

Basic versus applied research

The programs that are funded are often divided into four basic categories: basic research, applied research, development, and facilities and equipment. Translational research is a newer concept that seeks to bridge the gap between basic science and practical applications.

Basic science attempts to stimulate breakthroughs. Breakthroughs often lead to an explosion of new technologies and approaches. Once the basic result is developed, it is widely published; however conversion into a practical product is left for the free market. However, many governments have developed risk-taking research and development organizations to take basic theoretical research over the edge into practical engineering. In the U.S., this function is performed by DARPA.

In contrast, technology development is a policy in which engineering, the application of science, is supported rather than basic science. The emphasis is usually given to projects that increase important strategic or commercial engineering knowledge. The most extreme success story is undoubtedly the Manhattan Project that developed nuclear weapons. Another remarkable success story was the "X-vehicle" studies that gave the US a lasting lead in aerospace technologies.

These exemplify two disparate approaches: The Manhattan Project was huge, and spent freely on the most risky alternative approaches. The project members believed that failure would result in their enslavement or destruction by Nazi Germany. Each X-project built an aircraft whose only purpose was to develop a particular technology. The plan was to build a few cheap aircraft of each type, fly a test series, often to the destruction of an aircraft, and never design an aircraft for a practical mission. The only mission was technology development.

A number of high-profile technology developments have failed. The US Space Shuttle failed to meet its cost or flight schedule goals. Most observers explain the project as over constrained: the cost goals too aggressive, the technology and mission too underpowered and undefined.

The Japanese fifth generation computer systems project met every technological goal, but failed to produce commercially important artificial intelligence. Many observers believe that the Japanese tried to force engineering beyond available science by brute investment. Half the amount spent on basic research rather might have produced ten times the result.

Utilitarian versus monumental science policy

Utilitarian policies prioritize scientific projects that significantly reduce suffering for larger numbers of people. This approach would mainly consider the numbers of people that can be helped by a research policy. Research is more likely to be supported when it costs less and has greater benefits. Utilitarian research often pursues incremental improvements rather than dramatic advancements in knowledge, or break-through solutions, which are more commercially viable.

In contrast, monumental science is a policy in which science is supported for the sake of a greater understanding of the universe, rather than for specific short-term practical goals. This designation covers both large projects, often with large facilities, and smaller research that does not have obvious practical applications and are often overlooked. While these projects may not always have obvious practical outcomes, they provide education of future scientists, and advancement of scientific knowledge of lasting worth about the basic building blocks of science.

Practical outcomes do result from many of these "monumental" science programs. Sometimes these practical outcomes are foreseeable and sometimes they are not. A classic example of a monumental science program focused towards a practical outcome is the Manhattan project. An example of a monumental science program that produces unexpected practical outcome is the laser. Coherent light, the principle behind lasing, was first predicted by Einstein in 1916, but not created until 1954 by Charles H. Townes with the maser. The breakthrough with the maser led to the creation of the laser in 1960 by Theodore Maiman. The delay between the theory of coherent light and the production of the laser was partially due to the assumption that it would be of no practical use.

Scholastic conservation

This policy approach prioritizes efficiently teaching all available science to those who can use it, rather than investing in new science. In particular, the goal is not to lose any existing knowledge, and to find new practical ways to apply the available knowledge. The classic success stories of this method occurred in the 19th century U.S. land-grant universities, which established a strong tradition of research in practical agricultural and engineering methods. More recently, the Green Revolution prevented mass famine over the last thirty years. The focus, unsurprisingly, is usually on developing a robust curriculum and inexpensive practical methods to meet local needs.

By country

Most developed countries usually have a specific national body overseeing national science (including technology and innovation) policy. Many developing countries follow the same fashion. Many governments of developed countries provide considerable funds (primarily to universities) for scientific research (in fields such as physics and geology) as well as social science research (in fields such as economics and history). Much of this is not intended to provide concrete results that may be commercialisable, although research in scientific fields may lead to results that have such potential. Most university research is aimed at gaining publication in peer reviewed academic journals.

A funding body is an organisation that provides research funding in the form of research grants or scholarships. Research councils are funding bodies that are government-funded agencies engaged in the support of research in different disciplines and postgraduate funding. Funding from research councils is typically competitive. As a general rule, more funding is available in science and engineering disciplines than in the arts and social sciences.

Australia

In Australia, the two main research councils are the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Canada

In Canada, the three main research councils ("Tri-Council") are the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Additional research funding agencies include the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Genome Canada, Sustainable Development Technology Canada and several Tri-Council supported Networks of Centres of Excellence.

Brazil

In Brazil, two important research agencies are the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Portuguese: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico), an organization of the Brazilian federal government under the Ministry of Science and Technology, and São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, Portuguese: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo), a public foundation located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil.

European Union

The science policy of the European Union is carried out through the European Research Area, a system which integrates the scientific resources of member nations and acts as a "common market" for research and innovation. The European Union's executive body, the European Commission, has a Directorate-General for Research, which is responsible for the Union's science policy. In addition, the Joint Research Centre provides independent scientific and technical advice to the European Commission and Member States of the European Union (EU) in support of EU policies. There is also the recently established European Research Council, the first European Union funding body set up to support investigator-driven research.

There are also European science agencies that operate independently of the European Union, such as the European Science Foundation, European Space Agency, and the European Higher Education Area, created by the Bologna process.

The European environmental research and innovation policy addresses global challenges of pivotal importance for the well-being of European citizens within the context of sustainable development and environmental protection. Research and innovation in Europe is financially supported by the programme Horizon 2020, which is also open to participation worldwide.

Germany

German research funding agencies include the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which covers both science and humanities.

India

Research funding by the Government of India comes from a number of sources. For basic science and technology research, these include the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Department of Science and Technology (DST), and University Grants Commission (UGC). For medical research, these include the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), CSIR, DST and Department of Biotechnology (DBT). For applied research, these include the CSIR, DBT and Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC).

Other funding authorities are the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Department of Ocean Development (DOD), the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MEF) etc.

Ireland

Irish funding councils include the Irish Research Council (IRC) and the Science Foundation Ireland. The prior Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) and the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) were merged to form the IRC in March 2012.

The Netherlands

Dutch research funding agencies include Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)  and Agentschap NL. In 2016, the Netherlands began trials for Self-Organized Funding Allocation (SOFA), a novel method of distributing research funds which proponents believe may have advantages compared to the grant system.

Pakistan

The Government of Pakistan has mandated that a certain percentage of gross revenue generated by all telecom service providers be allocated to development and research of information and communication technologies. The National ICT R&D Fund was established in January 2007.

Russia

Under the Soviet Union, much research was routinely suppressed. Now science in Russia is supported by state and private funds. From the state: the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation (http://www.rfh.ru), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (www.rfbr.ru), the Russian Science Foundation (http://rscf.ru)

Switzerland

Swiss research funding agencies include the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the innovation promotion agency CTI (CTI/KTI), Ressortforschung des Bundes, and Eidgenössische Stiftungsaufsicht.

United Kingdom

Main article: Research Councils UK

In the United Kingdom, the Haldane principle, that decisions about what to spend research funds on should be made by researchers rather than politicians, is still influential in research policy. There are several university departments with a focus on science policy, such as the Science Policy Research Unit. There are seven grant-awarding Research Councils:

• Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
• Medical Research Council (MRC)
• Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
• Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)

United States

Main article: Science policy of the United States

The United States has a long history of government support for science and technology. Science policy in the United States is the responsibility of many organizations throughout the federal government. Much of the large-scale policy is made through the legislative budget process of enacting the yearly federal budget. Further decisions are made by the various federal agencies which spend the funds allocated by Congress, either on in-house research or by granting funds to outside organizations and researchers.

Research funding agencies in the United States are spread among many different departments, which include:

• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
• United States Department of Energy Office of Science
• National Institutes of Health: biomedical research
• National Science Foundation: fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering.
• Office of Naval Research

Social history

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_history 

Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and the United States. In the two decades from 1975 to 1995, the proportion of professors of history in American universities identifying with social history rose from 31% to 41%, while the proportion of political historians fell from 40% to 30%. In the history departments of British and Irish universities in 2014, of the 3410 faculty members reporting, 878 (26%) identified themselves with social history while political history came next with 841 (25%).

Charles Tilly, one of the best known social historians, identifies the tasks of social history as: 1) “documenting large structural changes; 2) reconstructing the experiences of ordinary people in the course of those changes; and (3) connecting the two” (1985:P22).

Old and new social history

The older social history (before 1960) included numerous topics that were not part of the mainstream historiography of political, military, diplomatic and constitutional history. It was a hodgepodge without a central theme, and it often included political movements, such as Populism, that were "social" in the sense of being outside the elite system. Social history was contrasted with political history, intellectual history and the history of great men. English historian G. M. Trevelyan saw it as the bridging point between economic and political history, reflecting that, "Without social history, economic history is barren and political history unintelligible." While the field has often been viewed negatively as history with the politics left out, it has also been defended as "history with the people put back in."

New social history movement

The "new social history" movement exploded on the scene in the 1960s, emerged in the UK and quickly become one of the dominant styles of historiography there as well in the US and in Canada. It drew on developments within the French Annales School, was very well organized, dominated French historiography, and influenced much of Europe and Latin America. Jürgen Kocka finds two meanings to "social history." At the simplest level, it was the subdivision of historiography that focused on social structures and processes. In that regard, it stood in contrast to political or economic history. The second meaning was broader, and the Germans called it Gesellschaftsgeschichte. It is the history of an entire society from a social-historical viewpoint.

In Germany the Gesellschaftsgeschichte movement introduced a vast range of topics, as Kocka, a leader of the Bielefeld School recalls:

In the 1960s and 1970s, "social history" caught the imagination of a young generation of historians. It became a central concept -- and a rallying point -- of historiographic revisionism. It meant many things at the same time. It gave priority to the study of particular kinds of phenomena, such as classes and movements, urbanization and industrialization, family and education, work and leisure, mobility, inequality, conflicts and revolutions. It stressed structures and processes over actors and events. It emphasized analytical approaches close to the social sciences rather than by the traditional methods of historical hermeneutics. Frequently social historians sympathized with the causes (as they saw them) of the little people, of the underdog, of popular movements, or of the working class. Social history was both demanded and rejected as a vigorous revisionist alternative to the more established ways of historiography, in which the reconstruction of politics and ideas, the history of events and hermeneutic methods traditionally dominated.

Americanist Paul E. Johnson recalls the heady early promise of the movement in the late 1960s:

The New Social History reached UCLA at about that time, and I was trained as a quantitative social science historian. I learned that "literary" evidence and the kinds of history that could be written from it were inherently elitist and untrustworthy. Our cousins, the Annalistes, talked of ignoring heroes and events and reconstructing the more constitutive and enduring "background" of history. Such history could be made only with quantifiable sources. The result would be a "History from the Bottom Up" that ultimately engulfed traditional history and, somehow, helped to make a Better World. Much of this was acted out with mad-scientist bravado. One well-known quantifier said that anyone who did not know statistics at least through multiple regression should not hold a job in a history department. My own advisor told us that he wanted history to become "a predictive social science." I never went that far. I was drawn to the new social history by its democratic inclusiveness as much as by its system and precision. I wanted to write the history of ordinary people—to historicize them, put them into the social structures and long-term trends that shaped their lives, and at the same time resurrect what they said and did. In the late 1960s, quantitative social history looked like the best way to do that.

The Social Science History Association was formed in 1976 to bring together scholars from numerous disciplines interested in social history. It is still active and publishes Social Science History quarterly. The field is also the specialty of the Journal of Social History, edited since 1967 by Peter Stearns It covers such topics as gender relations; race in American history; the history of personal relationships; consumerism; sexuality; the social history of politics; crime and punishment, and history of the senses. Most of the major historical journals have coverage as well.

However, after 1990 social history was increasingly challenged by cultural history, which emphasizes language and the importance of beliefs and assumptions and their causal role in group behavior.

Subfields

Historical demography

Main article: Historical demography

The study of the lives of ordinary people was revolutionized in the 1960s by the introduction of sophisticated quantitative and demographic methods, often using individual data from the census and from local registers of births, marriages, deaths and taxes, as well as theoretical models from sociology such as social mobility. H-DEMOG is a daily email discussion group that covers the field broadly.

Historical demography is the study of population history and demographic processes, usually using census or similar statistical data. It became an important specialty inside social history, with strong connections with the larger field of demography, as in the study of the Demographic Transition.

African-American history

Black history or African-American history studies African Americans and Africans in American history. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History was founded by Carter G. Woodson in 1915 and has 2500 members and publishes the Journal of African American History, formerly the Journal of Negro History. Since 1926 it has sponsored Black History Month every February.

Ethnic history

Ethnic history is especially important in the US and Canada, where major encyclopedias helped define the field. It covers the history of ethnic groups (usually not including Black or Native Americans). Typical approaches include critical ethnic studies; comparative ethnic studies; critical race studies; Asian-American, and Latino/a or Chicano/a studies. In recent years Chicano/Chicana studies has become important as the Hispanic population has become the largest minority in the US.

• The Immigration and Ethnic History Society was formed in 1976 and publishes a journal for libraries and its 829 members.
• The American Conference for Irish Studies, founded in 1960, has 1,700 members and has occasional publications but no journal.
• The American Italian Historical Association was founded in 1966 and has 400 members; it does not publish a journal.
• The American Jewish Historical Society is the oldest ethnic society, founded in 1892; it has 3,300 members and publishes American Jewish History.
• The Polish American Historical Association was founded in 1942, and publishes a newsletter and Polish American Studies, an interdisciplinary, refereed scholarly journal twice each year.
• H-ETHNIC is a daily discussion list founded in 1993 with 1400 members; it covers topics of ethnicity and migration globally.

Labor history

Main article: Labor history (discipline)

Labor history, deals with labor unions and the social history of workers. See for example Labor history of the United States The Study Group on International Labor and Working-Class History was established: 1971 and has a membership of 1000. It publishes International Labor and Working-Class History. H-LABOR is a daily email-based discussion group formed in 1993 that reaches over a thousand scholars and advanced students. The Labor and Working-Class History Association formed in 1988 and publishes Labor: Studies in Working-Class History.

Kirk (2010) surveys labour historiography in Britain since the formation of the Society for the Study of Labour History in 1960. He reports that labour history has been mostly pragmatic, eclectic and empirical; it has played an important role in historiographical debates, such as those revolving around history from below, institutionalism versus the social history of labour, class, populism, gender, language, postmodernism and the turn to politics. Kirk rejects suggestions that the field is declining, and stresses its innovation, modification and renewal. Kirk also detects a move into conservative insularity and academicism. He recommends a more extensive and critical engagement with the kinds of comparative, transnational and global concerns increasingly popular among labour historians elsewhere, and calls for a revival of public and political interest in the topics. Meanwhile, Navickas, (2011) examines recent scholarship including the histories of collective action, environment and human ecology, and gender issues, with a focus on work by James Epstein, Malcolm Chase, and Peter Jones.

Women's history

Women's history exploded into prominence in the 1970s, and is now well represented in every geographical topic; increasingly it includes gender history. Social history uses the approach of women's history to understand the experiences of ordinary women, as opposed to "Great Women," in the past. Feminist women's historians have critiqued early studies of social history for being too focused on the male experience.

Gender history

Gender history focuses on the categories, discourses and experiences of femininity and masculinity as they develop over time. Gender history gained prominence after it was conceptualized in 1986 by Joan W. Scott in her article "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis." Many social historians use Scott's concept of "perceived differences" to study how gender relations in the past have unfolded and continue to unfold. In keeping with the cultural turn, many social historians are also gender historians who study how discourses interact with everyday experiences.

History of the family

See also: History of the family

The History of the family emerged as a separate field in the 1970s, with close ties to anthropology and sociology. The trend was especially pronounced in the US and Canada. It emphasizes demographic patterns and public policy, but is quite separate from genealogy, though often drawing on the same primary sources, such as censuses and family records.

The influential pioneering study Women, Work, and Family (1978) was done by Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott. It broke new ground with their broad interpretive framework and emphasis on the variable factors shaping women's place in the family and economy in France and England. The study considered the interaction of production, or traditional labor, and reproduction, the work of caring for children and families, in its analysis of women's wage labor and thus helped to bring together labor and family history. Much work has been done on the dichotomy in women's lives between the private sphere and the public. For a recent worldwide overview covering 7000 years see Maynes and Waltner's 2012 book and ebook, The Family: A World History (2012). For comprehensive coverage of the American case, see Marilyn Coleman and Lawrence Ganong, eds. The Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia (4 vol, 2014).

The history of childhood is a growing subfield.

History of education

Main articles: History of education, History of education in the United States § Historiography, and History of childhood care and education

For much of the 20th century, the dominant American historiography, as exemplified by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley (1868-1941) at Stanford, emphasized the rise of American education as a powerful force for literacy, democracy, and equal opportunity, and a firm basis for higher education and advanced research institutions. It was a story of enlightenment and modernization triumphing over ignorance, cost-cutting, and narrow traditionalism whereby parents tried to block their children's intellectual access to the wider world. Teachers dedicated to the public interest, reformers with a wide vision, and public support from the civic-minded community were the heroes. The textbooks help inspire students to become public schools teachers and thereby fulfill their own civic mission.

The crisis came in the 1960s, when a new generation of New Left scholars and students rejected the traditional celebratory accounts, and identified the educational system as the villain for many of America's weaknesses, failures, and crimes. Michael Katz (1939-2014) states they:

tried to explain the origins of the Vietnam War; the persistence of racism and segregation; the distribution of power among gender and classes; intractable poverty and the decay of cities; and the failure of social institutions and policies designed to deal with mental illness, crime, delinquency, and education.

The old guard fought back and bitter historiographical contests, with the younger students and scholars largely promoting the proposition that schools were not the solution to America's ills, they were in part the cause of Americans problems. The fierce battles of the 1960s died out by the 1990s, but enrollment in education history courses never recovered.

By the 1980s, compromise had been worked out, with all sides focusing on the heavily bureaucratic nature of the American public schooling.

In recent years most histories of education deal with institutions or focus on the ideas histories of major reformers, but a new social history has recently emerged, focused on who were the students in terms of social background and social mobility. In the US attention has often focused on minority and ethnic students. In Britain, Raftery et al. (2007) looks at the historiography on social change and education in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, with particular reference to 19th-century schooling. They developed distinctive systems of schooling in the 19th century that reflected not only their relationship to England but also significant contemporaneous economic and social change. This article seeks to create a basis for comparative work by identifying research that has treated this period, offering brief analytical commentaries on some key works, discussing developments in educational historiography, and pointing to lacunae in research.

Historians have recently looked at the relationship between schooling and urban growth by studying educational institutions as agents in class formation, relating urban schooling to changes in the shape of cities, linking urbanization with social reform movements, and examining the material conditions affecting child life and the relationship between schools and other agencies that socialize the young.

The most economics-minded historians have sought to relate education to changes in the quality of labor, productivity and economic growth, and rates of return on investment in education. A major recent exemplar is Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, The Race between Education and Technology (2009), on the social and economic history of 20th-century American schooling.

Urban history

Main article: Urban history

The "new urban history" emerged in the 1950s in Britain and in the 1960s in the US. It looked at the "city as process" and, often using quantitative methods, to learn more about the inarticulate masses in the cities, as opposed to the mayors and elites. A major early study was Stephan Thernstrom's Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (1964), which used census records to study Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1850–1880. A seminal, landmark book, it sparked interest in the 1960s and 1970s in quantitative methods, census sources, "bottom-up" history, and the measurement of upward social mobility by different ethnic groups. Other exemplars of the new urban history included Kathleen Conzen, Immigrant Milwaukee, 1836-1860 (1976); Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (1975; 2nd ed. 2000); Michael B. Katz, The People of Hamilton, Canada West (1976); Eric H. Monkkonen, The Dangerous Class: Crime and Poverty in Columbus Ohio 1860-1865 (1975); and Michael P. Weber, Social Change in an Industrial Town: Patterns of Progress in Warren, Pennsylvania, From Civil War to World War I. (1976).

Representative comparative studies include Leonardo Benevolo, The European City (1993); Christopher R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City, 1450-1750 (1995), and James L. McClain, John M. Merriman, and Ugawa Kaoru. eds. Edo and Paris (1994) (Edo was the old name for Tokyo).

There were no overarching social history theories that emerged developed to explain urban development. Inspiration from urban geography and sociology, as well as a concern with workers (as opposed to labor union leaders), families, ethnic groups, racial segregation, and women's roles have proven useful. Historians now view the contending groups within the city as "agents" who shape the direction of urbanization. The subfield has flourished in Australia—where most people live in cities.

Rural history

Main article: Rural history

Agricultural History handles the economic and technological dimensions, while Rural history handles the social dimension. Burchardt (2007) evaluates the state of modern English rural history and identifies an "orthodox" school, focused on the economic history of agriculture. This historiography has made impressive progress in quantifying and explaining the output and productivity achievements of English farming since the "agricultural revolution." The celebratory style of the orthodox school was challenged by a dissident tradition emphasizing the social costs of agricultural progress, notably enclosure, which forced poor tenant farmers off the land. Recently, a new school, associated with the journal Rural History, has broken away from this narrative of agricultural change, elaborating a wider social history. The work of Alun Howkins has been pivotal in the recent historiography, in relation to these three traditions. Howkins, like his precursors, is constrained by an increasingly anachronistic equation of the countryside with agriculture. Geographers and sociologists have developed a concept of a "post-productivist" countryside, dominated by consumption and representation that may have something to offer historians, in conjunction with the well-established historiography of the "rural idyll." Most rural history has focused on the American South—overwhelmingly rural until the 1950s—but there is a "new rural history" of the North as well. Instead of becoming agrarian capitalists, farmers held onto preindustrial capitalist values emphasizing family and community. Rural areas maintained population stability; kinship ties determined rural immigrant settlement and community structures; and the defeminization of farm work encouraged the rural version of the "women's sphere." These findings strongly contrast with those in the old frontier history as well as those found in the new urban history.

Religion

Main article: Historiography of religion

The historiography of religion focuses mostly on theology and church organization and development. Recently the study of the social history or religious behavior and belief has become important.

Social history in Europe

UK

Social history is associated in the United Kingdom with the work of E.P. Thompson in particular, and his studies The Making of the English Working Class and Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act. Emerging after the second world war, it was consciously opposed to traditional history's focus on 'great men', which it counter-posed with 'History from below' (also known as People's History).

Thus in the UK social history has often had a strong political impetus, and can be contrasted sharply with traditional history's (partial) documentation of the exploits of the powerful, within limited diplomatic and political spheres, and its reliance on archival sources and methods (see historical method and archive) that exclude the voices of less powerful groups within society. Social history has used a much wider range of sources and methods than traditional history and source criticism, in order to gain a broader view of the past. Methods have often including quantitative data analysis and, importantly, Oral History which creates an opportunity to glean perspectives and experiences of those people within in society that are unlikely to be documented within archives. Eric Hobsbawm was an important UK social historian, who has both produced extensive social history of the UK, and has written also on the theory and politics of UK social history. Eric Hobsbawm and EP Thompson were both involved in the pioneering History Workshop Journal.

Ireland has its own historiography.

France

Main article: Annales School

Social history has dominated French historiography since the 1920s, thanks to the central role of the Annales School. Its journal Annales focuses attention on the synthesizing of historical patterns identified from social, economic, and cultural history, statistics, medical reports, family studies, and even psychoanalysis.

Germany

See also: Bielefeld School and Historiography of Germany

Social history developed within West German historiography during the 1950s-60s as the successor to the national history discredited by National Socialism. The German brand of "history of society" - Gesellschaftsgeschichte - has been known from its beginning in the 1960s for its application of sociological and political modernization theories to German history. Modernization theory was presented by Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931-2014) and his Bielefeld School as the way to transform "traditional" German history, that is, national political history, centered on a few "great men," into an integrated and comparative history of German society encompassing societal structures outside politics. Wehler drew upon the modernization theory of Max Weber, with concepts also from Karl Marx, Otto Hintze, Gustav Schmoller, Werner Sombart and Thorstein Veblen.

In the 1970s and early 1980s German historians of society, led by Wehler and Jürgen Kocka at the "Bielefeld school" gained dominance in Germany by applying both modernization theories and social science methods. From the 1980s, however, they were increasingly criticized by proponents of the "cultural turn" for not incorporating culture in the history of society, for reducing politics to society, and for reducing individuals to structures. Historians of society inverted the traditional positions they criticized (on the model of Marx's inversion of Hegel). As a result, the problems pertaining to the positions criticized were not resolved but only turned on their heads. The traditional focus on individuals was inverted into a modern focus on structures, the traditional focus on culture was inverted into a modern focus on structures, and traditional emphatic understanding was inverted into modern causal explanation.

Hungary

Before World War II, political history was in decline and an effort was made to introduce social history in the style of the French Annales School. After the war only Marxist interpretations were allowed. With the end of Communism in Hungary in 1989. Marxist historiography collapsed and social history came into its own, especially the study of the demographic patterns of the early modern period. Research priorities have shifted toward urban history and the conditions of everyday life.

Soviet Union

When Communism ended in 1991, large parts of the Soviet archives were opened. The historians' data base leapt from a limited range of sources to a vast array of records created by modern bureaucracies. Social history flourished. The old Marxist historiography collapsed overnight.

Canada

Main article: Social history of Canada

Social history had a "golden age" in Canada in the 1970s, and continues to flourish among scholars. Its strengths include demography, women, labour, and urban studies.

Political history

While the study of elites and political institutions has produced a vast body of scholarship, the impact after 1960 of social historians has shifted emphasis onto the politics of ordinary people—especially voters and collective movements. Political historians responded with the "new political history," which has shifted attention to political cultures. Some scholars have recently applied a cultural approach to political history. Some political historians complain that social historians are likely to put too much stress on the dimensions of class, gender and race, reflecting a leftist political agenda that assumes outsiders in politics are more interesting than the actual decision makers.

Social history, with its leftist political origins, initially sought to link state power to everyday experience in the 1960s. Yet by the 1970s, social historians increasingly excluded analyses of state power from its focus. Social historians have recently engaged with political history through studies of the relationships between state formation, power and everyday life with the theoretical tools of cultural hegemony and governmentality.

3D reconstruction from multiple images

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_reconstruction_from_multiple_images 

 

A 3D selfie in 1:20 scale printed by Shapeways using gypsum-based printing, created by Madurodam miniature park from 2D pictures taken at its Fantasitron photo booth.

 

3D models are generated from 2D pictures taken at the Fantasitron 3D photo booth at Madurodam

 

Generating and reconstructing 3D shapes from single or multi-view depth maps or silhouettes 

3D reconstruction from multiple images is the creation of three-dimensional models from a set of images. It is the reverse process of obtaining 2D images from 3D scenes.

The essence of an image is a projection from a 3D scene onto a 2D plane, during which process the depth is lost. The 3D point corresponding to a specific image point is constrained to be on the line of sight. From a single image, it is impossible to determine which point on this line corresponds to the image point. If two images are available, then the position of a 3D point can be found as the intersection of the two projection rays. This process is referred to as triangulation. The key for this process is the relations between multiple views which convey the information that corresponding sets of points must contain some structure and that this structure is related to the poses and the calibration of the camera.

In recent decades, there is an important demand for 3D content for computer graphics, virtual reality and communication, triggering a change in emphasis for the requirements. Many existing systems for constructing 3D models are built around specialized hardware (e.g. stereo rigs) resulting in a high cost, which cannot satisfy the requirement of its new applications. This gap stimulates the use of digital imaging facilities (like a camera). An early method was proposed by Tomasi and Kanade. They used an affine factorization approach to extract 3D from images sequences. However, the assumption of orthographic projection is a significant limitation of this system.

Processing

A visual hull can be reconstructed from multiple silhouettes of an object.

The task of converting multiple 2D images into 3D model consists of a series of processing steps:

Camera calibration consists of intrinsic and extrinsic parameters, without which at some level no arrangement of algorithms can work. The dotted line between Calibration and Depth determination represents that the camera calibration is usually required for determining depth.

Depth determination serves as the most challenging part in the whole process, as it calculates the 3D component missing from any given image – depth. The correspondence problem, finding matches between two images so the position of the matched elements can then be triangulated in 3D space is the key issue here.

Once you have the multiple depth maps you have to combine them to create a final mesh by calculating depth and projecting out of the camera – registration. Camera calibration will be used to identify where the many meshes created by depth maps can be combined to develop a larger one, providing more than one view for observation.

By the stage of Material Application you have a complete 3D mesh, which may be the final goal, but usually you will want to apply the color from the original photographs to the mesh. This can range from projecting the images onto the mesh randomly, through approaches of combining the textures for super resolution and finally to segmenting the mesh by material, such as specular and diffuse properties.

Mathematical description of reconstruction

Given a group of 3D points viewed by N cameras with matrices ${\displaystyle \{P^{i}\}_{i=1\ldots N}}$, define ${\displaystyle m_{j}^{i}\simeq P^{i}w_{j}}$ to be the homogeneous coordinates of the projection of the ${\displaystyle j^{th}}$ point onto the ${\displaystyle i^{th}}$ camera. The reconstruction problem can be changed to: given the group of pixel coordinates ${\displaystyle \{m_{j}^{i}\}}$, find the corresponding set of camera matrices ${\displaystyle \{P^{i}\}}$ and the scene structure ${\displaystyle \{w_{j}\}}$ such that

${\displaystyle m_{j}^{i}\simeq P^{i}w_{j}}$ (1)

Generally, without further restrictions, we will obtain a projective reconstruction. If ${\displaystyle \{P^{i}\}}$ and ${\displaystyle \{w_{j}\}}$ satisfy (1), ${\displaystyle \{P^{i}T\}}$ and ${\displaystyle \{T^{-1}w_{j}\}}$ will satisfy (1) with any 4 × 4 nonsingular matrix T.

A projective reconstruction can be calculated by correspondence of points only without any a priori information.

Auto-calibration

Further information: Camera auto-calibration

In auto-calibration or self-calibration, camera motion and parameters are recovered first, using rigidity. Then structure can be readily calculated. Two methods implementing this idea are presented as follows:

Kruppa equations

With a minimum of three displacements, we can obtain the internal parameters of the camera using a system of polynomial equations due to Kruppa, which are derived from a geometric interpretation of the rigidity constraint.

The matrix ${\displaystyle K=AA^{\top }}$ is unknown in the Kruppa equations, named Kruppa coefficients matrix. With K and by the method of Cholesky factorization one can obtain the intrinsic parameters easily:

${\displaystyle K={\begin{bmatrix}k_{1}&k_{2}&k_{3}\\k_{2}&k_{4}&k_{5}\\k_{3}&k_{5}&1\\\end{bmatrix}}}$

Recently Hartley proposed a simpler form. Let ${\displaystyle F}$ be written as ${\displaystyle F=DUV^{\top }}$, where

Then the Kruppa equations are rewritten (the derivation can be found in).

Mendonça and Cipolla

This method is based on the use of rigidity constraint. Design a cost function, which considers the intrinsic parameters as arguments and the fundamental matrices as parameters. ${\displaystyle {F}_{ij}}$ is defined as the fundamental matrix, ${\displaystyle {A}_{i}}$and ${\displaystyle {A}_{j}}$ as intrinsic parameters matrices.

Stratification

Recently, new methods based on the concept of stratification have been proposed. Starting from a projective structure, which can be calculated from correspondences only, upgrade this projective reconstruction to a Euclidean reconstruction, by making use of all the available constraints. With this idea the problem can be stratified into different sections: according to the amount of constraints available, it can be analyzed at a different level, projective, affine or Euclidean.

The stratification of 3D geometry

Usually, the world is perceived as a 3D Euclidean space. In some cases, it is not possible to use the full Euclidean structure of 3D space. The simplest being projective, then the affine geometry which forms the intermediate layers and finally Euclidean geometry. The concept of stratification is closely related to the series of transformations on geometric entities: in the projective stratum is a series of projective transformations (a homography), in the affine stratum is a series of affine transformations, and in Euclidean stratum is a series of Euclidean transformations.

Suppose that a fixed scene is captured by two or more perspective cameras and the correspondences between visible points in different images are already given. However, in practice, the matching is an essential and extremely challenging issue in computer vision. Here, we suppose that ${\displaystyle n}$ 3D points ${\displaystyle A_{i}}$ are observed by ${\displaystyle m}$ cameras with projection matrices ${\displaystyle P_{j},j=1,\ldots ,m.}$ Neither the positions of point nor the projection of camera are known. Only the projections ${\displaystyle a_{ij}}$ of the ${\displaystyle i^{th}}$ point in the ${\displaystyle j^{th}}$ image are known.

Projective reconstruction

Simple counting indicates we have ${\displaystyle 2nm}$ independent measurements and only ${\displaystyle 11m+3n}$ unknowns, so the problem is supposed to be soluble with enough points and images. The equations in homogeneous coordinates can be represented:

${\displaystyle a_{ij}\sim P_{j}A_{i}\qquad i=1,\ldots n,~~j=1,\ldots m}$ (2)

So we can apply a nonsingular 4 × 4 transformation H to projections ${\displaystyle P_{j}}$→${\displaystyle P_{j}H^{-1}}$ and world points ${\displaystyle A_{i}}$→${\displaystyle HA_{i}}$. Hence, without further constraints, reconstruction is only an unknown projective deformation of the 3D world.

Affine reconstruction

See affine space for more detailed information about computing the location of the plane at infinity ${\displaystyle {\Pi }_{\infty }}$. The simplest way is to exploit prior knowledge, for example the information that lines in the scene are parallel or that a point is the one thirds between two others.

We can also use prior constraints on the camera motion. By analyzing different images of the same point can obtain a line in the direction of motion. The intersection of several lines is the point at infinity in the motion direction, and one constraint on the affine structure.

Euclidean reconstruction

By mapping the projective reconstruction to one that satisfies a group of redundant Euclidean constraints, we can find a projective transformation H in equation (2).The equations are highly nonlinear and a good initial guess for the structure is required. This can be obtained by assuming a linear projection - parallel projection, which also allows easy reconstruction by SVD decomposition.

Algebraic vs geometric error

Inevitably, measured data (i.e., image or world point positions) is noisy and the noise comes from many sources. To reduce the effect of noise, we usually use more equations than necessary and solve with least squares.

For example, in a typical null-space problem formulation Ax = 0 (like the DLT algorithm), the square of the residual ||Ax|| is being minimized with the least squares method.

In general, if ||Ax|| can be considered as a distance between the geometrical entities (points, lines, planes, etc.), then what is being minimized is a geometric error, otherwise (when the error lacks a good geometrical interpretation) it is called an algebraic error.

Therefore, compared with algebraic error, we prefer to minimize a geometric error for the reasons listed:

1. The quantity being minimized has a meaning.
2. The solution is more stable.
3. The solution is constant under Euclidean transforms.

All the linear algorithms (DLT and others) we have seen so far minimize an algebraic error. Actually, there is no justification in minimizing an algebraic error apart from the ease of implementation, as it results in a linear problem. The minimization of a geometric error is often a non-linear problem, that admit only iterative solutions and requires a starting point.

Usually, linear solution based on algebraic residuals serves as a starting point for a non-linear minimization of a geometric cost function, which provides the solution a final “polish”.

Medical applications

The 2-D imaging has problems of anatomy overlapping with each other and do not disclose the abnormalities. The 3-D imaging can be used for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.

3-D models are used for planning the operation, morphometric studies and has more reliability in orthopedics.

Projection of P on both cameras

Problem statement & Basics

To reconstruct 3-D images from 2-D images taken by a camera at multiple angles. Medical imaging techniques like CT scanning and MRI are expensive, and although CT scans are accurate, they can induce high radiation doses which is a risk for patients with certain diseases. Methods based on MRI are not accurate. Since we are exposed to powerful magnetic fields during an MRI scan, this method is not suitable for patients with ferromagnetic metallic implants. Both the methods can be done only when in lying position where the global structure of the bone changes. So, we discuss the following methods which can be performed while standing and require low radiation dose.

Though these techniques are 3-D imaging, the region of interest is restricted to a slice; data are acquired to form a time sequence.

Stereo Corresponding Point Based Technique

This method is simple and implemented by identifying the points manually in multi-view radiographs. The first step is to extract the corresponding points in two x-ray images. The second step is to reconstruct the image in three dimensions using algorithms like Discrete Linear Transform (DLT). The reconstruction is only possible where there are Stereo Corresponding Points (SCPs). The quality of the results are dependent on the quantity of SCPs, the more SCPs, the better the results but it is slow and inaccurate. The skill of the operator is a factor in the quality of the image. SCP based techniques are not suitable for bony structures without identifiable edges. Generally, SCP based techniques are used as part of a process involving other methods.

Non-Stereo corresponding contour method (NCSS)

This method uses X-ray images for 3D Reconstruction and to develop 3D models with low dose radiations in weight bearing positions.

In NSCC algorithm, the preliminary step is calculation of an initial solution. Firstly anatomical regions from the generic object are defined. Secondly, manual 2D contours identification on the radiographs is performed. From each radiograph 2D contours are generated using the 3D initial solution object. 3D contours of the initial object surface are projected onto their associated radiograph. The 2D association performed between these 2 set points is based on point-to-point distances and contours derivations developing a correspondence between the 2D contours and the 3D contours. Next step is optimization of the initial solution. Lastly deformation of the optimized solution is done by applying Kriging algorithm to the optimized solution. Finally, by iterating the final step until the distance between two set points is superior to a given precision value the reconstructed object is obtained.

The advantage of this method is it can be used for bony structures with continuous shape and it also reduced human intervention but they are time-consuming.

Surface rendering technique

Surface rendering visualizes a 3D object as a set of surfaces called iso-surfaces. Each surface has points with the same intensity (called an iso-value). This technique is usually applied to high contrast data, and helps to illustrate separated structures; for instance, the skull can be created from slices of the head, or the blood vessel system from slices of the body. Two main methods are:

• Contour based reconstruction: Iso-contours are attached to each other to form iso-surfaces.
• Voxel based reconstruction: Voxels of the same intensity value are used to form iso-surfaces. Popular algorithms are Marching Cubes, Marching Tetrahedrons and Dividing Cubes.

Other methods use statistical shape models, parametrics, or hybrids of the two.