The Cost of Science

Better Read Than Dead

Scientific research is considered a public good. As such the public pays for a great deal of research through their tax dollars. These funds are allocated to scientists and projects in various ways typically involving organizations run at an arms-length from public officials like the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States.

If one were to consider the research budget of a granting agency like the NSF as the input and the number of publications as the output, efficiency as well as an average cost per publication can be estimated. The NSF research budget (corrected to 2006 US dollars) divided by the number of PubMed listings for the same year, rendering an estimate of cost per publication, were plotted by year from the inception of the NSF in 1951 till 2008 (see Figure 1). Following a sharp rise and compensatory undershoot the cost per publication has remained relatively stable around six to eight thousand dollars.


Figure 1. The cost of a scientific paper over the course of the NSF’s existence.

Interestingly the aforementioned sharp rise in the cost of science (see shaded area) is coincident with the US/Soviet space race with the sharp rise beginning with the launching of the Sputnik I in 1957 and the compensatory undershoot beginning around the Apollo 11 moon landing. The earlier phase in the period appears to be driven by a curbing of the increase in publications while the latter phase appears to be driven by larger increases in NSF funding. This could reflect the battle between keeping secrets from the enemy the maintenance of a collaborative scientific environment. If this is true, the latter seems to have pervaded the remainder of the Cold War and beyond.

The Co morbidity Paradigm

Managing Pain, Anxiety & Insomnia

On the 23^rd of April Dr. Martin Katzman from Toronto delivered a lecture on the above at NOSMs East Campus. His primary argument was that pain, anxiety and sleep disorders tend to occur in conjunction with one another and should all be treated since they can greatly affect one another. In an interesting an engaging talk he certainly conveyed the message to the clinicians present.

Sadly the pervasive lapse in logical arguments has not spared the great mind of Dr. Katzman. When trying to describe the ethological relevance of anxiety and when he becomes disordered he said.

"You're more likely to likely to die on the toilet than on an airplane"

Arguing that if people were truly afraid of dying they would avoid toilets, not airplanes. Sadly, Dr. Katzman failed to consider that people who die on toilets would die regardless of where they are as opposed to people who die on airplanes, at least when they crash, generally would not have died if they did not board that flight. Whereas boarding an airplane increases your risk of dying, albeit by a miniscule amount, sitting on a toilet does not.

Despite the excellent research done by Dr. Katzman and the S.T.A.R.T. Clinic I was also saddened that no real attention was given to primary versus secondary and tertiary disorders. Since suffering from chronic pain can cause sleep disturbances and anxiety which would not occur if there was no pain. Therefore, the population who suffers from all three types of disorders is heterogeneous. Since a person's symptoms differ from day to day, asking clients to subjectively describe the severity of their symptoms over an extended period of time (I'd reckon a month would suffice). Using the magic of lag/lead and path analyses one can make predictions about which disorder causes the others, if any since there are likely individuals who suffer from all three independently of one another. Doing this can minimize pharmacological intervention by only treating the primary condition thus avoiding the myriad side-effects of modern drugs, which in some cases will exacerbate the other disorders.

Medical Student Study Habits

Traditional University Pedagogy Conquers All

The much coveted seats in Canada’s medical and veterinary schools are fiercely competed for. The fortunate individuals who gain the opportunity to study medicine are considered to be exemplary students. The mastery of the intricacies of human anatomy and physiology must be accommodated within the first two years of study in addition to the acquisition of myriad clinical skills.

In order to ascertain if this sub-population of super students differ from the general student population by their fundamental study habits a cumulative record of hours of study was prepared (see figure 1). The sample is the first and second year class of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s East Campus. It was assumed that these students comprised a single entity and their hours of study were integrated by the day and tabulated by after hours and weekend laboratory study time only. Students spend significantly more time in the lab a day before a bell ringer than they did the day after [t(7) = 3.07; p<0.05].


Figure 1. Cumulative record of hours of study for students of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (East Campus). Triangles indicate the dates of bell-ringer exams.

Given the typical behavioural pattern elicited by a fixed interval reinforcement schedule of cramming followed by a post-reinforcement pause perhaps the superiority of medical students is not a simply function of good study habits (take that mom!).

Where Did Steve Harper Spend His 4/20?

The first time a Canadian Prime Minister officially spoke in the Jamaican House of Parliament was on April the 20^th. Coincidence?

Nuclear Armament/Disarmament - The Dog Wags the Tail

Presented at a lab meeting on 16 April 2009.

On the 5th of April in Prague Barak Obama made a historic speech highlighting the increased global risk of nuclear weapons. He stated the only safeguard was disarmament. According to the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) there were an estimated 20,190 warheads in existence at the end of 2002. This is down from a peek of 65,056 warheads at the end of 1986. Figure 1 displays the total nuclear arsenal of the United States (US) and the Soviet Union/Russia (SU) by year from 1945 till 2002.


Figure 1. Cold war superpower nuclear arsenals by year.

In order to examine how the two cold war superpowers acquired their arsenals and how they dismantle them lag analyses were performed. The annual change in arsenal size between the two superpowers were not correlated, nor was the Soviet change with the American change lagged from one year to five year. However, the American changes were correlated with the Soviet change lagged from one year to four years (rho(57)=0.85;p<0.01, rho(56)=0.62;p<0.01, rho(55)=0.43;p<0.05, rho(54)=0.28;p<0.05 respectively). Therefore, it appears that Mr. Obama may have the power to reduce both American and Russian nuclear arsenal by taking the first step.


Figure 2. Change in nuclear arsenal size by year.

An Inconvenient Recount - Landslides Win by a Landslide

Here is an amusing thing i prepared for a lab meeting on 02 April 2009.

Earth hour was observed on Saturday 28^th March 2009 at 20h30 local time in 88 countries worldwide. This event was marketed as an international election between the earth and global warming (turning off your lights for the hour constituted a symbolic vote for the earth). Laurentian University participated in this event by requesting building occupants to turn off unnecessary lights in their labs and offices and having physical plant turn off non-essential lights on campus. Cursory observations found that the Willet Green Miller Centre was dark. The Parker Building was dark with the exception of the Student Centre and the Governor’s Lounge. Over half of the windows in the West Residence and Single Student Residence were lit up while just less than half of the windows in the University College Residence were lit. The top two floors of the Mature Student Residence (i.e. all that was visible from my observation point in the pit) were entirely lit. Interestingly, the street lamps lining the University’s roads were deemed non-essential forcing any safe driver, including your humble observer, to activate their high beams when driving on them.

In order to celebrate this monumental event a lovely choral music event was held in the Fraser Auditorium under high efficiency LED lighting. To gage the carbon footprint of this event, ignoring the event itself or its marketing, the number of motorized vehicles entering the science parking lot were recoded 45 minutes prior to and 15 minutes following the onset of this event at five minute intervals. Qualitative evidence indicates that a very high percentage, if not all, of these vehicles arrived for this event. In order to be counted, a vehicle had to either (1) be seen parking in the metered lot or (2) cross over the speed bump past the metered lot and turn left toward the drop-off area and gated parking lot. 139 vehicles were counted. If one were to assume that each vehicle traveled 4.0 mi each way (the distance between the University and downtown Sudbury) and that each vehicle had the fuel efficiency of the champion of this event’s hybrid vehicle (31mpg) 35.87 US gal of petrol were burned. Multiplied by the estimated CO₂ emission factor (10.3 kg/gal) the conservative estimate of a 0.69 tonne carbon footprint emerges.

Peter Rossi who manages the University’s electricity usage indicated that he had observed no qualitatively significant change in energy usage over the weekend, and the University’s monthly hydro bill is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (personal communication). The carbon footprint yielded from a $100,000 monthly hydro bill in Canada is 29.7 tonnes (www.carbonfootprint.com). For a total electric black-out lasting one hour the University’s carbon footprint decreases by 0.0399 tonnes. Please note that this is almost 20-fold less than the footprint generated by the increase in vehicular traffic.

If one were to interpret the above dispassionately as true election results global warming clearly won last Saturday’s election by a landslide (which, ironically, we may see an increase of in coming years if the Al Gores of the world are correct).

So it begins...

After resisting the trends to start a blog for so long; and then discovering a good reason to start one; and then putting it of for too long I've finally caved. Here goes, I have no idea how long this will continue, nor do I know what it will evolve into, nor do I know if anyone other than myself will read it, but I'm excited to see what happens.