The Laser Inertial Fusion Energy (LIFE)

In recent decades, problems related to the accessibility and sustainability of science have increased, both in terms of the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and its generation. Policymakers, academics, and, increasingly, citizens themselves have developed various approaches to this issue. Among them, citizen science is distinguished by making possible the generation of scientific knowledge by anyone with an interest in doing so. However, participation alone does not guarantee knowledge generation, which represents an epistemological challenge for citizen science. Simultaneously, economic and socio-institutional difficulties in science governance and maintenance have grown. To solve those problems, several market elements have been introduced, a solution rejected by those who consider science as a public good that states must guarantee. Alternatively, research and work on the commons are growing worldwide, the concept being extended from natural resources to knowledge resources. In this chapter, we propose science as a commons, underlining the essential role of citizen science. Difficulties also apply to citizen science itself, but the increasing development of a multitude of projects based on cooperation favours the conditions required for its sustainability and quality.Our philosophical proposal is based on empirical knowledge about citizen science coupled with socio-economic concepts, according to a sociopolitical epistemology.

Keywords:Hybrid nuclear reactors Neutron multiplication Reactivity Tritium breeding Coolant selection After reviewing the long-standing tradition on hybrid research, an assessment model is presented in order to characterize the hybrid performance under different objectives. In hybrids, neutron multiplication in the subcritical blanket plays a major role, not only for energy production and nuclear breeding, but also for tritium breeding, which is fundamental requirement in fusion-fission hybrids. All three objectives are better achieved with high values of the neutron multiplication factor (/c-eff) with the obvious and fundamental limitation that it cannot reach criticality under any event, particularly, in the case of a loss of coolant accident. This limitation will be very important in the selection of the coolant. Some general considerations will be proposed, as guidelines for assessing the hybrid potential in a given scenario. Those guidelines point out that hybrids can be of great interest for the future of nuclear energy in a framework of Sustainable Development, because they can contribute to the efficient exploitation of nuclear fuels, with very high safety features. Additionally, a proposal is presented on a blanket specially suited for fusion-fission hybrids, although this reactor concept is still under review, and new work is needed for identifying the most suitable blanket composition, which can vary depending on the main objective of the hybrid.

This paper aims to assess the figuration of local and metropolitan scientific practices and theories in the eighteenth-century Hispanic Empire by focusing on two colonies: New Spain (Mexico) and New Granada (Colombia). In New Spain, Creole and metropolitan scientists negotiated the assimilation of old local wisdom with new European knowledge in their botanical studies of native plants. Through the openness of both groups of scientists to new ideas, the naturalization of standardized procedures, and the verbalization of old problems in new terminology, the globalization process of scientific practices was successfully integrated there at the local level. In New Granada, less favorably, the Royal Botanical Expedition (1783-1816) provoked disagreement between representatives of the viceroy and of the colony's Creole intelligentsia not only about plant classification systems, but about the proper relationship between scientific and political interests. OVER THE LAST TWO DECADES, MUCH RESEARCH HAS BEEN dedicated to the study of the scientific and technological exchanges between different cultures and civilizations.' Within the framework of this literature, several models have been proposed.2 In one of the earliest attempts to describe the expansion of Western science, George Basalla suggested that, in order for countries to reach a third phase of "independent science," they must pass through a phase of "colonial