NSEC: Nanotechnology in Society Project Imaging, Scientific Change and Public Understanding of Emerging Nanotechnologies

该项目开展四项主要活动;两项是研究工作，两项主要是教育重点。所有的构建和扩展工作都是通过之前的NSF奖项0304448“NIRT：从实验室到社会”开始的。第一项研究工作，“成像，想象和理解纳米尺度”，重点是图像在传播纳米科学，工程和技术方面的作用。这项研究将使利益攸关方和学者参与分析与这些图像和信息有关的问题，并开发关于公众理解和反应的经验数据。这将为基于哲学和美学原则，社会和行为科学的观点，纳米科学家和仪器制造商的经验和不断发展的实践，以及其他利益相关者和公众的经验进行扩展的跨学科调查创造一个新颖而独特的机会。这项研究将为图像及其对理解的影响的研究提供坚实的基础，并为公众理解科学的文献做出贡献。第二项研究工作，“研究文化和纳米结构材料”，重点是纳米技术研究如何改变纳米研究者的科学和工程实践。国家纳米技术倡议预计在公共/私人伙伴关系，模糊学科界限，并重新配置理论，实验和应用之间的关系等领域的变化。为了让从业者与科学研究学者就这项新技术展开对话，本研究首先研究了化学工业愿景2020技术合作路线图和Sematech的国际半导体技术路线图。该项目将为这一对话提供场所，对话的主题沿着《2020年远景规划》文件中提出的路线：（1）基本理解和综合;（2）模拟（与计算纳米技术网络协调完成）;（3）仪器和工具（与先进材料和智能结构中心以及纳米探测中心协调完成）;以及（4）制造和加工。第一个教育工作“纳米文学校园”侧重于开发多学科课程和研究机会，使科学家和工程师与人文主义者和社会科学家（学生和教职员工）进行富有成效的对话。它将每年聘请10名本科生“纳米学者”从事与该计划相关的跨学科研究，支持“来自底层的新闻”，这是一本由学生编辑的关于纳米技术的社会和伦理互动的杂志（http：//schc.sc.edu/nfb/），并聘请三名研究生从事与两个研究项目中的每一个相关的研究，并帮助发展纳米技术的南卡罗来纳州公民学校。

This project undertakes four primary activities; two are research efforts, and two are primarily educational in focus. All build on and extend work started through prior NSF award 0304448 "NIRT: From Laboratory to Society." The first research effort, "Imaging, Imagining and Understanding the Nanoscale," focuses on the role of images in communicating about nanoscale science, engineering, and technology. The research will engage stakeholders and scholars in the analysis of issues associated with these images and messages and develop empirical data on public understanding and response. This will create a novel and unique opportunity for extended cross-disciplinary investigation based on philosophical and aesthetic principles, on perspectives from the social and behavioral sciences, on the experience and evolving practice of nanoscientists and instrument makers, and on the experience of other stakeholders and the public. This research will provide a solid foundation for the study of images and their impact on understanding, as well as contributing to the literature on public understanding of science. The second research effort, "Research Culture and Nanostructured Materials," focuses on how nanotechnology research is changing the scientific and engineering practices of nanoresearchers. The National Nanotechnology Initiative anticipates changes in such areas as public/private partnerships, blurring disciplinary lines, and reconfigured relationships between theory, experiment and applications. To open a dialogue that engages practitioners with science studies scholars about this new technology in the making, this research begins by examining the Chemical Industry Vision2020 Technology Partnership roadmap and Sematech's International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. The project will provide venues for this dialogue, organized topically along lines laid out in the Vision 2020 document: (1) Fundamental understanding and synthesis; (2) Simulations (done in coordination with the Network for Computational Nanotechnology); (3) Instruments and tools (done in coordination with the Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures and the Center for Probing the Nanoscale); and (4) Manufacturing and processing. The first educational effort, "the Nanoliterate Campus," focuses on developing multidisciplinary courses and research opportunities that bring scientists and engineers into fruitful dialog with humanists and social scientists (students and faculty alike). It will engage ten undergraduate "NanoScholars" each year to work on interdisciplinary research tied to this program, support "News from the Bottom," a student-edited journal on societal and ethical interactions with nanotechnology (http://schc.sc.edu/nfb/), and employ three graduate students to pursue research tied to each of the two research projects and to help develop the South Carolina Citizens' School of Nanotechnology.