Conceptual Challenges Research Articles

Estimation of reproduction numbers in real time: Conceptual and statistical challenges.

The reproduction number has been a central metric of the COVID-19 pandemic response, published weekly by the UK government and regularly reported in the media. Here, we provide a formal definition and discuss the advantages and most common misconceptions around this quantity. We consider the intuition behind different formulations of , the complexities in its estimation (including the unavoidable lags involved), and its value compared to other indicators (e.g.the growth rate) that can be directly observed from aggregate surveillance data and react more promptly to changes in epidemic trend. As models become more sophisticated, with age and/or spatial structure, formulating becomes increasingly complicated and inevitably model-dependent. We present some models currently used in the UK pandemic response as examples. Ultimately, limitations in the available data streams, data quality and time constraints force pragmatic choices to be made on a quantity that is an average across time, space, social structure and settings. Effectively communicating these challenges is important but often difficult in an emergency.

Authors’ Reply to the Discussion of ‘Estimation of Reproduction Numbers in Real Time: Conceptual and Statistical Challenges’ by Pellis et al. in Session 3 of The Royal Statistical Society’s Special Topic Meeting on COVID-19 Transmission: 11 June 2021

Authors’ Reply to the Discussion of ‘Estimation of Reproduction Numbers in Real Time: Conceptual and Statistical Challenges’ by Pellis et al. in Session 3 of The Royal Statistical Society’s Special Topic Meeting on COVID-19 Transmission: 11 June 2021

Moving past the challenges and misconceptions in urban adaptation research.

Although the field of urban evolutionary ecology has recently expanded, much progress has been made in identifying adaptations that arise as a result of selective pressures within these unique environments. However, as studies within urban environments have rapidly increased, researchers have recognized that there are challenges and opportunities in characterizing urban adaptation. Some of these challenges are a consequence of increased direct and indirect human influence, which compounds long-recognized issues with research on adaptive evolution more generally. In this perspective, we discuss several common research challenges to urban adaptation related to (1) methodological approaches, (2) trait-environment relationships and the natural history of organisms, (3) agents and targets of selection, and (4) habitat heterogeneity. Ignoring these challenges may lead to misconceptions and further impede our ability to draw conclusions regarding evolutionary and ecological processes in urban environments. Our goal is to first shed light on the conceptual challenges of conducting urban adaptation research to help avoid the propagation of these misconceptions. We further summarize potential strategies to move forward productively to construct a more comprehensive picture of urban adaptation, and discuss how urban environments also offer unique opportunities and applications for adaptation research.

What kind of prediction? Evaluating different facets of prediction in agent-based social simulation

ABSTRACT Researchers have become increasingly interested in the potential use of agent-based modelling for the prediction of social phenomena, motivated by the desire, first, to further cement the method’s scientific status and, second, to participate in other scenarios, particularly in the aid of decision-making. This article contributes to the current discussion on prediction from the perspective of the disciplinary organisation of agent-based social simulation. It addresses conceptual and practical challenges pertaining to the community of practitioners, rather than individual instances of modelling. As such, it provides recommendations that invite both collective critical discussion and cooperation. The first two sections review conceptual challenges associated with the concept of prediction and its instantiation in the computational modelling of complex social phenomena. They identify methodological gaps and disagreements that warrant further analysis. The second two sections consider practical challenges related to the lack of a prediction framework that, on one hand, gives meaning and accommodates everyday prediction practices and, on the other hand, establishes more clearly the connection between prediction and other epistemic goals. This coordination at the practical level, it is claimed, might help to better position prediction with agent-based modelling within the larger social science’s methodological landscape.

Entrepreneurship education but not as we know it: Reflections on the relationship between Critical Pedagogy and Entrepreneurship Education

The meteoric rise of entrepreneurship education in higher education continues apace. This expansion has however only recently begun to elicit a more critical approach as to its nature and purpose. Using Critical Pedagogy, and specifically Freire's work, we compare aspects of Critical Pedagogy to Entrepreneurship Education drawing attention to five commonalities. These commonalities relate to an action-orientation, transformational potential, freedom orientation, identity development and the power-relationship between educator and student. Overall, the conceptual comparison challenges uncritical assumptions that entrepreneurship education serves only as a means to consolidate rather than question existing socio-economic structures. It supports notions of entrepreneurship education's empowering and emancipatory potential. As one of only few studies to date that theorise the relationship between entrepreneurship education and critical pedagogy it presents a foundation upon which others may build in an expanded understanding of entrepreneurship education, its processes and place within existing educational scholarship. Practical implications are suggested.

Game Development Topics: A Tag-Based Investigation on Game Development Stack Exchange

Video-game development, despite being a multi-billion-dollar industry, has not attracted sustained attention from software engineering researchers and remains understudied from a software engineering perspective. We aim to uncover, from game developers’ perspectives, which video game development topics are the most asked about and which are the most supported, in order to provide insights about technological and conceptual challenges game developers and managers may face on their projects. To do so, we turned to the Game Development Stack Exchange (GDSE), a prominent Question and Answer forum dedicated to game development. On that forum, users ask questions and tag them with keywords recognized as important categories by the community. Our study relies on those tags, which we classify either as technology or concept topics. We then analysed these topics for their levels of community attention (number of questions, views, upvotes, etc.) and community support (whether their questions are answered and how long it takes). Related to community attention, we found that topics with the most questions include concepts such as 2D and collision detection and technologies such as Unity and C#, whereas questions touching on concepts such as video and augmented reality and technologies such as iOS, Unreal-4 and Three.js generally lack satisfactory answers. Moreover, by pairing topics, we uncovered early clues that, from a community support perspective, (i) the pairing of some technologies appear more challenging (e.g., questions mixing HLSL and MonoGame receive a relatively lower level of support); (ii) some concepts may be more difficult to handle conjointly (e.g., rotation and movement); and some technologies may prove more challenging to use to address a given concept (e.g., Java for 3D). Our findings provide insights to video game developers on the topics and challenges they might encounter and highlight tool selection and integration for video game development as a promising research direction.

Approaches to Enhance Integration and Monitoring for Social-Ecological Systems

Integration and monitoring are pressing conceptual and methodological challenges in social-ecological systems (SES) research. This paper follows a social learning process, called participatory self-observation, piloted by a group of action-researchers to improve SES integration and monitoring, using the Tsitsa River Catchment in South Africa as a case study. The participatory self-observation process reflected on lessons to enhance integration and integrated monitoring of biophysical, social, and social-ecological data in SES projects; for adaptive planning and management. Three focal points emerged for improving the challenges of SES integration: the need for participatory people-based processes, the importance of applied praxis tasks to catalyze meaningful integration, and the need for transdisciplinary teams to value non-biophysical research. Five focal areas emerged as major challenges for SES monitoring: the integration of qualitative and quantitative data, data overload, the scale of SES monitoring, the need to center SES monitoring around learning, and good working relationships to enable data flow. Recommendations to further develop integrated monitoring and management of SESs include (i) using people-based approaches that focus on applied work which includes rigorous collection of quantitative, biophysical data, (ii) identifying essential data needs through an essential variable approach, and (iii) combining quantitative monitoring with participatory people-based processes.

Rendering Volumetrically, Rendering Queerly


 
 
 The main aim of this article is to describe the conceptual basis and challenges of the project Volumetric Frictions. Volumetric Frictions is a queer virtual reality resulting from my will to render my ongoing PhD research (“Digital Speculation, Volumetric Fictions. Volumetric/3D CGI within the queer contemporary debate”) differently. To contextualize the project, I start by addressing contemporary debates about the role of queer, and the practice of queering, in academic institutions. Then, I move forward to describe my PhD research and its pro-visional results. I name these results “volumetric frictions”, as they define crossing paths between queer theories and 3D/volumetric aesthetics. Finally, I summarize some of the challenges currently being faced in the design of the project. Throughout the article, I make use of contemporary 3D/volumetric art to illustrate ideas, concepts, and possible solutions.
 
 

Ceasefires in Civil Conflict: A Research Agenda

Ceasefires are arrangements through which conflict parties commit to stop fighting. They are a common part of intra-state conflict. Existing research on intra-state ceasefires is largely limited to case studies and guidance notes for the policy and practice community. What has to date been lacking is a complementing body of comparative quantitative analysis to identify broader ceasefire trends and test the wider applicability of theory. Recent advancements in ceasefire data offer new opportunities to broaden the research agenda on ceasefires. This special section sets out the current state of the art in ceasefire research and provides the intellectual foundations to advance a new sub-field of quantitative ceasefire research. We discuss the conceptual challenges facing the study of ceasefires, offer a brief overview of ceasefire research focusing on the functions, timing, and sustainability of arrangements, and discuss the collective contributions of the articles included within this special section, and the implications for research and practice.

Editorial: Asteroid modeling: Processing and combining diverse datasets

For decades now, we have seen a continuous exponential growth of data in asteroid science resulting 8 from targeted observations as well in data originating from surveys dedicated to other astronomical 9 objects but containing serendipitous asteroid measurements. These measurements are diverse from 10 sparse to dense in time, differ in type (occultations vs. photometry) and are often burdened with 11 different systematic and random errors. Combing and processing those distinct-in-nature data thus 12 becomes a conceptual and computational challenge. Furthermore, comparison of results based on 13 various datasets and methods may also prove problematic. 14 Owing to the rise of big data multiple advances continue to be made in asteroid science in the data 54 processing part, usage of modern machine learning methods, and development of novel methods 55 allowing for incorporation of diverse data types. These approaches often must be tailored to the 56 specific problems at hand. In particular, asteroid science often relies on serendipitous measurements 57 originating from surveys and space missions with other primary targets, thus requiring more 58 ingenuity and creativity in the data processing part. This is reflected in the current Research Topic. 59

Group Creativity

AbstractGroup creativity is vital in overcoming the numerous challenges that the world faces. Yet group creativity is deeply puzzling. It seems plausible that only agents can be creative, so group creativity requires group agency. But how could groups possess the mental states required to be agents, let alone the rich range of them required to be creative? It appears more reasonable to hold that group creativity is not a real phenomenon, but is merely the summed creativity of the individuals forming the group. There is also much empirical evidence that groups are no more creative than their members. In this paper I examine the conceptual and empirical challenges to group creativity, defend its existence, and offer an explanation of how it is possible.

The best interests of the child in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union

The principle that ‘in all actions relating to children (…) the child's best interests must be a primary consideration’ (Article 24(2) EU Charter of Fundamental Rights) is widely applied by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This article considers preliminary rulings in which the CJEU had recourse to the best interests of the child as the criterion for settling the dispute in the main proceeding. For analytical purposes, these cases may be grouped in two clusters: cases resembling child custody disputes, and other cases. It is argued that, in the light of the varied factual circumstances of the judicial disputes, the application of the criterion of best interests of the child as primary consideration warrants further scrutiny. To this end, this article identifies and assesses a practical and a conceptual challenge to the widespread application of the criterion. The former posits that the criterion is indeterminate, and this article considers whether drawing from Article 3 of the Convention on the Right of the Child may help in solving the uncertainty; the latter maintains that the test is unjust and self-defying, a critique that this article finds only partially founded, for cases resembling child custody disputes.

Lost in travelling: Europe’s regional and conceptual challenges linked to tourism

The Covid-19 pandemic, as well as climatic and energy constraints, have heavily impacted Europe’s tourism and culture industries, which account for 4% to 5% of Europe’s gross domestic product. Some European regions have been hit harder than others, as the tourism and travel sectors represent 9% of the gross domestic product in the south. Administrations and companies need to develop a new strategy to anticipate future imbalances and inspire new standards around the world, standards that involve less high-tech hardware, fewer carbon-intensive projects, less worldwide marketing, and a greater focus on the European middle class and its desire for eco-tourism.

Facilitators, barriers and strategies for health-system guidance implementation: a critical interpretive synthesis protocol

BackgroundAs systematically developed statements regarding possible courses of action, health system guidance (HSG) can assist with making decisions about addressing problems or achieving goals in health systems. However, there are conceptual and methodological challenges in HSG implementation due to the complexity of health-system policy-making, the diversity of available evidence and vast differences in contexts. To address these gaps, we aim to develop a theoretical framework for supporting HSG implementation as part of a broader effort to promote evidence-informed policy-making in health systems.MethodsTo develop a theoretical framework about facilitators, barriers and strategies for HSG implementation, we will apply a critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) approach to synthesize the findings from a range of relevant literature. We will search 11 electronic databases and seven organizational websites to identify relevant published and grey literature. We will check the references of included studies and contact experts to identify additional eligible papers. Finally, we will conduct purposively sampling of the literature to fill any identified conceptual gaps. We will use relevance and five quality criteria to assess included papers. A standardized form will be developed for extracting information. We will use an interpretive analytic approach to synthesize the findings, including a constant comparative method throughout the analysis. Two independent reviewers will conduct the literature screening and relevance assessment, and disagreements will be resolved through discussion. The principal investigator will conduct data extraction and synthesis, and a second reviewer will check the sample of extracted data for consistency and accuracy.DiscussionA new theoretical framework about facilitators, barriers and strategies for HSG implementation will be developed using a CIS approach. The HSG implementation framework could be widely used for supporting the implementation of HSG covering varied topics and in different contexts (including low-, middle- and high-income countries). In later work, we will develop a tool for supporting HSG implementation based on the theoretical framework.Registration PROSPERO CRD42020214072. Date of Registration: 14 December 2020.

Beyond Homicide? The Feasibility of Extending the Doctrine of Partial Excuse across all Offence Categories

Harboured between full excuses and mitigatory factors, with its application restricted to murder only, the doctrine of partial excuse presents as both a procedural irregularity and a theoretical outlier. Perhaps owing to its problematic nature and limited reach, the site and scope of the doctrine has received scant scholarly attention. This paper signals the potential of partial excuse as a means of addressing criticisms pertaining to moral injustice at the heart of responsibility attribution. In particular, it aims to set the scene for future theoretical development in this area by dismantling the three familiar arguments against expanding partial defences beyond homicide. First, it clarifies the nature of partial excuse by questioning the apparent dependency of the doctrine on the mandatory life sentence for murder, arguing that partial excuse can function independently of both penalty and offence. Next, it considers the conceptual challenge posed by the notion of “partial responsibility”, before attending finally to the practical obstacles facing an expansion of the doctrine. Ultimately, the paper concludes that the doctrine can apply to all offence categories, and that deeper consideration is needed on the question of whether or not it ought to apply universally.

Rereading Habermas in Times of CRISPR-cas: A Critique of and an Alternative to the Instrumentalist Interpretation of the Human Nature Argument

Habermas’s argument from human nature, which speaks in favour of holding back the use of human germline editing for purposes of enhancement, has lately received criticism anew. Prominent are objections to its supposedly genetic essentialist and determinist framework, which underestimates social impacts on human development. I argue that this criticism originates from an instrumentalist reading of Habermas’s argument, which wrongly focuses on empirical conditions and means-ends-relations. Drawing on Habermas’s distinction of a threefold use of practical reason, I show how an alternative—the ethical—reading avoids essentialist and determinist objections by addressing an existential level of sense making. I present three reasons that speak in favour of the ethical reading and I demonstrate how it incorporates social aspects of character formation. Habermas’s account therefore offers exactly what the critics claim is missing. The paper concludes with a conceptual challenge that the ethical reading has to face within Habermas’s overall approach to genetic engineering.

Conceptual challenges with the graphical representation of the propagation of a pulse in a string

Student difficulties with making sense of graphs in physics have been thoroughly reported. In the study of one-dimensional waves, the issue is even trickier since the amplitude is a function of two variables (position and time). In this work, we investigate students’ reasoning and difficulties with interpreting the graphical representation of the propagation of a pulse in a string. A profile y(x) of the pulse was provided and students were asked to estimate the velocities of several points at the profile. This forced them to consider the time dimension, by focusing their attention on the motion of these points. This turned out to be extremely challenging to the students, who manifested several conceptual challenges which were categorized and analyzed in the first phase of the study. Based on these findings, three levels of scaffolding support were provided, where each level gradually guided the students to draw the wave profile after some time has elapsed. The scaffolding turned out to be effective, since many students managed to identify the new positions of the points successfully. The study reveals how static representations of intrinsically dynamic phenomena can be challenging for students to grasp.7 MoreReceived 31 March 2022Accepted 25 July 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.020119Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasConcepts & principlesInstructional strategiesScientific reasoning & problem solvingPhysics Education Research

Environmental psychology: Challenges and opportunities for a sustainable future

Recent ecological developments and in particular the risks of climate change have led to the emergence of new scientific challenges and fields. One field that has gained momentum over the past decades is environmental psychology. Researching and analyzingenvironmental phenomena itfaces the challenges of connecting conceptual problems, the interdisciplinary use of languages and definitions, different understandings and the use of different methodologies, and the scientific explanation of such phenomena. This paper reflects on the challenges and also the opportunities for establishing a sustainable future from a psychological point of view. The topics addressed are a selection of criteria for adapting to changing environments, perspectives on how to harvest insights from different fields of scientific endeavor and ideas how to make use of the necessary interdisciplinarity. Furthermore, questions are raised concerning personal identity, cultural and spiritual values, the ethical aspects of decision-making in a changing world, and the conceptual challenges facing sustainable ecological development.

Future conceptual challenges of cross-border journalism

In this study we argue that we are entering a period with increasingly complex and dialectical relations between cross-continental and national sentiments and actions. This situation—characterized by multiple centers of political power and conflicts—requires journalism studies to sharpen its skills when examining cross-border journalism using concepts such as foreign, international, global, and transnational journalism, and to be analytically sensitive to their differences and their potentially dynamic relations. This article examines the theoretical definitions and practical use of these four cross-border journalism concepts during the period 2010–2020 in a selected number of academic journals. We critically discuss their potential contribution to future research on global challenges occurring in a paradoxical world where globalization appears to be moving forward and backward simultaneously.

Assessing the health impacts of transnational corporations: a case study of Carlton and United Breweries in Australia

BackgroundThe practices of transnational corporations (TNCs) affect population health through unhealthy products, shaping social determinants of health, or influencing the regulatory structures governing their activities. There has been limited research on community exposures to TNC policies and practices. The aim of this paper was to adapt existing Health Impact Assessment methods that were previously used for both a fast food and an extractives industry corporation in order to assess Carlton and United Breweries (CUB) operations within Australia. CUB is an Australian alcohol company owned by a large transnational corporation Asahi Group Holdings. Data identifying potential impacts were sourced through document analysis, including corporate literature; media analysis, and 12 semi-structured interviews. The data were mapped against a corporate health impact assessment framework which included CUB’s political and business practices; products and marketing; workforce, social, environmental and economic conditions; and consumers’ adverse health impacts. We also conducted an ecological study for estimating alcohol attributable fractions and burdens of death due to congestive heart disease, diabetes mellitus, stroke, breast cancer, bowel cancer and injury in Australia. Beer attributable fractions and deaths and CUB’s share were also estimated.ResultsWe found both positive and adverse findings of the corporation’s operations across all domains. CUB engage in a range of business practices which benefit the community, including sustainability goals and corporate philanthropy, but also negative aspects including from taxation arrangements, marketing practices, and political donations and lobbying which are enabled by a neoliberal regulatory environment. We found adverse health impacts including from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and violence and aggression which disproportionately affect Indigenous and other disadvantaged populations.ConclusionOur research indicates that studying a TNC in a rapidly changing global financialised capitalist economy in a world which is increasingly being managed by TNCs poses methodological and conceptual challenges. It highlights the need and opportunity for future research. The different methods revealed sufficient information to recognise that strong regulatory frameworks are needed to help to avoid or to mediate negative health impacts.