Cultivating intellectual community in academia: reflections from the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN).

Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). This is paired with insights from 21 network members on aspects that have allowed STSFAN to thrive, even amid a global pandemic. Our hope is that these insights will encourage others to cultivate their own intellectual communities, where they too can receive the support they need to deepen their scholarship and strengthen their intellectual relationships.

Overcoming racism in the twin spheres of conservation science and practice.

It is time to acknowledge and overcome conservation's deep-seated systemic racism, which has historically marginalized Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) communities and continues to do so. We describe how the mutually reinforcing 'twin spheres' of conservation science and conservation practice perpetuate this systemic racism. We trace how institutional structures in conservation science (e.g. degree programmes, support and advancement opportunities, course syllabuses) can systematically produce conservation graduates with partial and problematic conceptions of conservation's history and contemporary purposes. Many of these graduates go on to work in conservation practice, reproducing conservation's colonial history by contributing to programmes based on outmoded conservation models that disproportionately harm rural BIPOC communities and further restrict access and inclusion for BIPOC conservationists. We provide practical, actionable proposals for breaking vicious cycles of racism in the system of conservation we have with virtuous cycles of inclusion, equality, equity and participation in the system of conservation we want.

Determining Top Fully Connected Layer's Hidden Neuron Count for Transfer Learning, Using Knowledge Distillation: a Case Study on Chest X-Ray Classification of Pneumonia and COVID-19.

Deep convolutional neural network (CNN)-assisted classification of images is one of the most discussed topics in recent years. Continuously innovation of neural network architectures is making it more correct and efficient every day. But training a neural network from scratch is very time-consuming and requires a lot of sophisticated computational equipment and power. So, using some pre-trained neural network as feature extractor for any image classification task or "transfer learning" is a very popular approach that saves time and computational power for practical use of CNNs. In this paper, an efficient way of building full model from any pre-trained model with high accuracy and low memory is proposed using knowledge distillation. Using the distilled knowledge of the last layer of pre-trained networks passes through fully connected layers with different hidden layers, followed by Softmax layer. The accuracies of student networks are mildly lesser than the whole models, but accuracy of student models clearly indicates the accuracy of the real network. In this way, the best number of hidden layers for dense layer for that pre-trained network with best accuracy and no-overfitting can be found with less time. Here, VGG16 and VGG19 (pre-trained upon "ImageNet" dataset) is tested upon chest X-rays (pneumonia and COVID-19). For finding the best total number of hidden layers, it saves nearly 44 min for VGG19 and 36 min and 37 s for VGG16 feature extractor.

Hybrid governance and performances of environmental accounting.

Multiple centers of authority in hybrid forms create conditions of radical openness where questions of value and fitness are in flux. Environmental accounting is suggested as a condition for steadying hybrid forms and opening up possibilities for institutional innovations. This paper advances a critical social science analysis of environmental accounting to help specify how, when, and in what ways strengthening accounting capacity advances hybrid governance. Social studies of accounting argue that accounting systems are contingent on institutions: rules and social conventions, not only data or science. Our practice-centered analysis of two cases of building environmental accounting tools to advance high profile institutional innovations in US agri-environmental governance finds that the systems of rules that structure and legitimize accounting protocols are not pre-given. The same radical openness that presents opportunities for hybridity also reinforces uncertainties in building accounting standards. We identify two major frictions: a) Conventions for determining technical consensus and b) Rules for determining levels of transaction costs. We conclude by identifying a need to think about hybrid forms critically. Although hybrid forms are an expression of creativity and collaboration, they are also performances of a certain contemporary political covenant that delegitimizes state-centered governance. The challenge ahead is to understand when and where hybrid arrangements add to socio-ecological regulation and where they undermine the possibility of more functional approaches through a performance of seriousness.

Acoustophoretic separation of infected erythrocytes from blood plasma in a microfluidic platform using biofunctionalized, matched-impedance layers.

Acoustophoresis is rapidly gaining prominence in the field of cell manipulation. In recent years, researchers have extensively used this method for separating different types of cells from the bulk fluid. In this paper, we propose a novel acoustophoresis-based technique to capture infected or abnormal erythrocytes from blood plasma. A typical acoustic device consisting of a transducer assembly, microfluidic cavity, and a reflector is considered. Based on the concept of impedance matching, a pair of antibody-coated polystyrene layers is placed in the nodal regions of an acoustic field within the cavity. This technique allows bi-directional migration of the suspended cells to the biofunctionalized surfaces. Therefore, simultaneous capture of infected erythrocytes on both the layers is feasible. Finite element method is used to model the pressure field as well as the motion of erythrocytes under the influence of acoustic radiation, drag, and gravitational forces. A parametric analysis is done by varying the excitation frequency, driving voltage, and the thickness of the polystyrene layers. The resulting changes in the pressure amplitude and field pattern are investigated. The erythrocyte collection efficiency, rate of collection, and the cell distribution on the layer surfaces are also determined under different field conditions. The occurrence of transient cavitation in the blood plasma-filled cavity at the chosen frequency is taken into account by using its threshold pressure value as the limiting factor of pressure amplitude. The study provides an insight into the phenomenon and serves as a guideline to fabricate low-cost, multifunctional rapid diagnostic devices based on acoustophoretic separation.