Bruno Latour & Steve Woolgar - Laboratory Life ... - Pedro P. Ferreira

or con-firmed the structure of another releasing factor known as LRF; in 1972 they discoveredthe structure of a third substance called somatostatin (for general accounts, see Wade, 1978;Donovan et al., forthcoming).The importance of articles specifying the structure of releasing factors is shown by thenumber of other articles which resulted. Papers written by other informants constituted theoutside literature used in conjunction with internally produced inscriptions to generate newpapers. Figure 2.2 shows the relative boom in the number of papers dealing with varioussubstances after the initial specification of structure in so-called breakthrough papers. As aresult of these publication explosions, the proportion of releasing factor publications inneuroendocrinology rose from 17 percent in 1968 to 38 percent in 1975. This suggests that thereleasing factor "specialty" was responsible for the general increase in the importance ofneuroendocrinology as a whole. Because of burgeoning outside interests, the laboratory'sshare of publication in the specialty actually decreased as a result of its success, from 42percent in 1968 to 7 percent in 1975. 9 To put this in perspective, however, it is worth notingthat in 1975 publications in releasing factors represented 39 percent of all publications inneuroendocrinology; neuroendocrinology represented only 6 percent of endocrinology as awhole, and endocrinology is only one of many disciplines within biology. Put another way,publications by members of the laboratory in 1975 represented only 0.045 percent of those inendocrinology. Clearly, some caution should be exercised in general-((57))xxx figur 2.2 start xxxFigure 2.2. This diagram shows the number of articles published per year on each of fourdifferent releasing factors. The computation is based on the SCI, Permuterm and bycombining the various spellings of releasing factors. The names chosen in this diagram arethose used in the laboratory studied. TRF in 1970, LRF in 1971, and somatostatin in 1973, allshow the same abrupt ascending curve. CRF, the structure of which is still unknown, isincluded for comparison.Beskrivelse: Kurvene ligger stort sett rundt 10 artikler per år, men de tre releasing factors somhar sitt gjennombrudd i løpet av perioden stiger plutselig i løpet av få år til 120 eller 175publikasjoner per år.xxx figur 2.2 slutt xxx