Cross-disciplinary Perspective Research Articles

Honest machines? A cross-disciplinary perspective on trustworthy technology for children

Humans increasingly interact with social robots and artificial intelligence (AI) powered digital assistants in their daily lives. These machines are usually designed to evoke attributions of social agency and trustworthiness in the human user. Growing research on human-machine-interactions (HMI) shows that young children are highly susceptible to design features suggesting human-like social agency and experience. Older children and adults, in contrast, are less likely to over attribute agency and experience to machines. At the same time, they tend to over-trust machines as informants more than younger children. Based on these findings, we argue that research directly comparing the effects of HMI design features on different age groups, including infants and young children is urgently needed. We call for evidence-based evaluation of HMI design and for consideration of the specific needs and susceptibilities of children when interacting with social robots and AI-based technology.

Author self-reference: A cross-linguistic/cultural and cross-disciplinary analysis

This study explored the use of author self-reference from cross-linguistic/cultural and cross-disciplinary perspectives in research articles (RAs). Based on a self-built corpus consisting of two disciplines (Computer Science and Linguistics) and two languages (Chinese and English), this study extracted the self-reference markers and compared their uses across the linguistic/cultural and disciplinary corpora. The cross-linguistic/cultural analysis showed that English RAs contain a higher frequency of first-person pronouns, while Chinese RAs tend to utilize more inanimate NPs in both disciplines. The cross-disciplinary comparison identified that English Computer Science texts are characterized by a more explicit authorial persona, while Chinese RAs display a mitigated authorial presence in the text construction. The findings contribute to our knowledge of how the specific disciplinary community and cultural conventions influence writers’ manifestation of their authorial presence.

Precise activation of C-C bonds for recycling and upcycling of plastics.

The rapid accumulation of plastic waste has led to a severe environmental crisis and a noticeable imbalance between manufacturing and recycling. Fortunately, chemical upgradation of plastic waste holds substantial promise for addressing these challenges posed by white pollution. During plastic upcycling and recycling, the key challenge is to activate and cleave the inert C-C bonds in plastic waste. Therefore, this perspective delves deeper into the upcycling and recycling of polyolefins from the angle of C-C activation-cleavage. We illustrate the importance of C-C bond activation in polyolefin depolymerization and integrate molecular-level catalysis, active site modulation, reaction networks and mechanisms to achieve precise activation-cleavage of C-C bonds. Notably, we draw potential inspiration from the accumulated wisdom of related fields, such as C-C bond activation in lignin chemistry, alkane dehydrogenation chemistry, C-Cl bond activation in CVOC removal, and C-H bond activation, to influence the landscape of plastic degradation through cross-disciplinary perspectives. Consequently, this perspective offers better insights into existing catalytic technologies and unveils new prospects for future advancements in recycling and upcycling of plastic.

Integration of Generative AI in the Digital Markets Act: Contestability and Fairness from a Cross-Disciplinary Perspective

Integration of Generative AI in the Digital Markets Act: Contestability and Fairness from a Cross-Disciplinary Perspective

Wellbeing and schooling: Cross cultural and cross disciplinary perspectives

Wellbeing and schooling: Cross cultural and cross disciplinary perspectives

Workers’ right to the subject: The social relations of data production

The use of data to profile and make decisions about data subjects for citizenship, targeted advertising, job recruitment and other reasons, has been eminently normalised, which is an emerging threat to protected spaces for personal subjectivation and identity formation. The ‘right to the subject’; or to agency via personal subject formation outside bilateral profiling; is at stake. This is especially true for workers. Algorithmic management infused with worker control mechanisms occurs in structurally and objectively unequal conditions within subjective, and unequal, social relations. Data harms protections in European privacy and data protection law, despite being heralded as the strongest in the world, are insufficient to protect workers’ right to the subject. Indeed, structural features of inequality within the capitalist data political economy mean that workers experience different power relations to consumers and citizens. Analysing the social relations surrounding policy features of ‘consent’, and ‘risk’, with focus on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the negotiations for the AI Act, it is not difficult to see that these policies do not protect all data subjects’ rights to the subject identically. Indeed, workers never have the capacity to truly consent at work; and the risks workers face are different from that of other data subjects, such as consumers. Data subjects do not, across categories, have equal access to equality, within, and because of, the social relations of data production. From a cross-disciplinary perspective and with contributions to sociology, critical theory, media and policy studies, this article argues that workers’ right to the subject is at stake, in datafied social relations.

Text-organising metadiscourse markers in academic texts

Abstract This study aims to investigate the use of text-organising metadiscourse markers as a means of the author’s stance expression in academic texts from a cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary perspectives. This comparative study analyses scientific research articles in the fields of technology and social sciences (economics) written in Lithuanian and English. The results of the study revealed that the authors of the studied articles tend to create a coherent text, therefore the markers such as transition, endophorics, and references to the text are quite often. The more frequent evidentials, which are intended to refer to the publications of other authors, show the individual choices of the authors in the field of technology, probably determined by the peculiarities of the discipline or the requirements for publications of the scientific journals regarding the scope and organisation of the text. The results of the quantitative research demonstrated that more text-organising markers were found in the articles written in Lithuanian rather than English. The cross-disciplinary research indicated that authors use text-organising markers in the scientific articles of economics more often than the authors of technological academic texts, which means that disciplinary differences prevail. Qualitative research disclosed cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary similarities, as the analysed examples of markers were employed by authors to perform the same functions. Furthemore, a similar perception of the organisation of the text emerged. No qualitative differences were observed in the use of the text-organising markers.

Multilateral Diplomacy and International Law: 19th Century Great Power Concert and the United Nations in a Comparative Perspective

Abstract This paper focuses on the comparative analysis of 19th century great power concert and the United Nations Security Council as forms of great power management of international affairs. The analysis is conducted from a cross-disciplinary perspective of international politics and international law. The paper explores historical preconditions for each of those forms of great power management to be formed and come into operation, as well as the way in which each of them became subjected to legal restraints in relation to its activities. These historical preconditions are both those which affirmatively enable great-power cooperation through multilateral crisis management, and ones that furnish risks should they not so cooperate, including the occurrence of a general war between great powers. The inter-disciplinary focus adopted here is meant to demonstrate the legal dimension of the matter as well as lessons that could be learned from the behaviour of statesmen and policy-makers.

:Wellbeing and Schooling: Cross Cultural and Cross Disciplinary Perspectives

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Project stakeholder engagement through gamification: what do we know and where do we go from here?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how gamification may be used for project stakeholder engagement.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents the results of a systematic literature review of extant research concerning the gamification of projects. Based on this, an agenda for future studies is outlined.FindingsExtant research on the gamification of projects is scarce and scattered among various disciplines, but the engineering fields dominate. The research performed does indicate that gamification may be used for involving stakeholders in projects, primarily by promoting learning, but also by engaging them, motivating action and solving problems.Research limitations/implicationsIn several cases, extant research display poor quality in research design and a lack in cross-disciplinary perspectives, which means that more research is needed. The users’ perspective is often lacking. Furthermore, the ideas gamification might be “hidden” within other technologies.Practical implicationsThe findings of this research may assist project management practitioners in the endeavor of adopting gamification principles to better involve stakeholders.Originality/valueThe study fills a gap in summarizing the research on how gamification may be used to promote project stakeholder engagement. Based on this, it proposes a research agenda for future research on the use of gamification to promote project stakeholder engagement.

Satisfaction with work–family roles and the relationship with working parents’ life satisfaction: a cross-disciplinary perspective

ABSTRACT In this paper, we provide an innovative conceptualization of the work–family balance, and its implications for mothers’ and fathers’ life satisfaction, by drawing on ‘Self Determination Theory’ and ‘Job Demand-Control–Support’ model for the ‘basic psychological needs’ in partnership, parenting, and work. We analyse whether work and family satisfaction have different meanings for mothers and fathers, and whether it has equal importance in determining overall life satisfaction by gender. Using a sample of dual-earner parents from the third (2010/11) to the eleventh (2018/19) waves of the German Family Panel (pairfam) panel survey. Our results support the idea that self-realization in partnership, parenting, and work are important for both men and for women. However, there is gender difference in the way that work and family satisfaction is conceived and also in the way that the combined satisfaction in these two life spheres affects overall life satisfaction.

What Scene, What’s Seen, What’s in A… Word: Thoughts in and on Artists’ Writings

Abstract While the humanities have become a multimodal domain in which visual culture is immanent and various new cross-disciplinary perspectives and theories are being employed to investigate the relationship between artistic and literary forms of representation, artists’ writings remain understudied and underappreciated. Art/literature studies often proceed by pairing a specific work of art with a particular literary text or an aesthetic style with a poetics or a narrative technique, but they rarely consider situations when both elements of the chosen pair come from the same source — an artist-writer. But questions related to whether and how an artist’s ‘natural’ visual disposition may impact on how she/he approaches and handles verbal language and vice versa need to be asked to illuminate what is still a shadow zone in word and image studies. Citing examples of major representatives of American modernism in art and literature, the essay addresses some of the problematic issues involved in studying verbal expression by visual artists and the cogency of posited correlations between the painterly and writerly intuitions and competences at play in artworks and texts produced by artist-writers.

From toleration to religious freedom. Cross-disciplinary perspectives. Edited by Mariëtta Van der Tol, Carys Brown, John Adenitire and E. S. Kempson. (Histories of Religious Pluralism, 1.) Pp. x + 306 incl. 6 figs. Oxford–New York: Peter Lang, 2021. £50. 978 1 78997 576 5

From toleration to religious freedom. Cross-disciplinary perspectives. Edited by Mariëtta Van der Tol, Carys Brown, John Adenitire and E. S. Kempson. (Histories of Religious Pluralism, 1.) Pp. x + 306 incl. 6 figs. Oxford–New York: Peter Lang, 2021. £50. 978 1 78997 576 5 - Volume 74 Issue 2

Linguistic positivity in soft and hard disciplines: temporal dynamics, disciplinary variation, and the relationship with research impact.

Previous studies have investigated the use of positive/negative language in academic discourse, and have found a tendency toward using more positive language in academic writing. However, little is known about whether the features and dynamics of linguistic positivity vary across disciplines. In addition, the relationship between linguistic positivity and research impact deserves further evaluation. To address these issues, the present study investigated linguistic positivity in academic writing from a cross-disciplinary perspective. Based on a 111-million-word corpus of research article abstracts collected from the Web of Science, the study examined the diachronic trends of positive/negative language in eight academic disciplines, and explored the relationship between linguistic positivity and citation counts. The results demonstrated that the increase in linguistic positivity is a common phenomenon across the examined academic disciplines. In addition, hard disciplines showed a higher and faster-growing degree of linguistic positivity compared with soft disciplines. Last, a significant positive correlation was identified between citation counts and the degree of linguistic positivity. Reasons for the temporal dynamics and disciplinary variation of linguistic positivity were explored, and implications for the scientific community were discussed.

Constructing knowledge at the intersection of disciplines: appraisal in knowledge claims concerning animals in posthumanist discourse

The discursive practices of individual academic disciplines differ in many ways, which is why numerous studies of academic discourse adopt cross-disciplinary perspectives to explore the character and extent of those differences. Less attention has, however, been given to interdisciplinary discourses which incorporate the findings and/or research methods from a number of disciplines. This paper focuses on the discourse of one of the new critical interdisciplinarities: posthumanism. More specifically, it examines how posthumanist discourse integrates knowledge produced by the soft and hard sciences (as well as other sources) to build its perspective on animals and their relations with humans. Using Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework to study knowledge claims collected from selected scholarly monographs adopting a posthumanist perspective, this study demonstrates that posthumanist claims referring to biological knowledge and experiential evidence tend to contain neutral, positive and endorsing formulations, while the knowledge from the soft sciences is reported in more critical ways, which is consistent with the aims of critical interdisciplinarities, i.e. questioning and transforming the dominant knowledge structure within different disciplines. Additionally, this paper provides evidence of the importance of popular science within interdisciplinary research in the humanities. It also sheds some light on the rhetorical practices within the scholarly monograph as a genre, particularly concerning the relative flexibility of its discursive conventions in comparison with those expected from a research article.

The promise of linguistic equity for migrants in Australian courtrooms: a cross-disciplinary perspective

ABSTRACT In human rights studies, much has been written and studied about civil, economic, political and social rights. Little has been explored about the linguistic human rights of migrants and minorities in justice-critical settings. Situated at the nexus of migration, human rights and sociolinguistic studies, this short essay walks through the current perspectives of linguistic equity for migrants and minorities in Australian interpreter-mediated courtroom encounters. The essay leaves the readers with three reflections: (1) clarifications on the use of nuanced terms such as linguistic equality and linguistic equity, (2) updated knowledge of the difficulties in achieving accuracy for migrants and minorities in court interpreting and (3) refreshed understanding of role-related practical challenges in the professional life of interpreters in court and beyond.

Rationalizing AI Governance: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective

Rationalizing AI Governance: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective

Deepa Narayan (ed.). Measuring Empowerment: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Washington, D.C.: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, 2005. Pages xx+475. Paperback. Price not given.

‘Empowerment’ has different meanings in different sociocultural and political contexts, and does not translate easily into all languages. Choosing indicators for measuring empowerment, therefore, depends on the social, economic, political, and cultural environment of the target population, and this multi-dimensional nature of empowerment complicates issues of measurement. This book brings forth the different indicators of empowerment in a cross-disciplinary perspective, underlining the challenge of evaluating empowerment and its contribution to development effectiveness and outcome.

Metadiscourse patterns in academic prose by non-native English writers: A cross-disciplinary perspective

This article scrutinizes metadiscourse in English-medium academic prose by Russian writers from two different discourse communities focusing on the ways they interact with the reader and present themselves and their research results. It is assumed that the distribution of interactional metadiscourse elements varies across disciplines. The theoretical basis of the study is Hyland’s (2005) model of interactional metadiscourse which offers a pragmatically-grounded method of studying metadiscourse in academic texts. The study was carried out on a corpus of 156 abstracts derived from two Russian journals in the field of linguistics and computer engineering. The study confirmed Hyland’s findings about research article abstracts in the humanities and hard sciences, though it revealed some distinctive features of English-medium research article abstracts by Russian writers. The findings can enhance English L2 novice academic writers’ familiarity with the academic writing conventions in the discipline.

Entrepreneurial team diversity – A systematic review and research agenda

Research on entrepreneurial team diversity (ETD) has reached a critical juncture as inconsistent findings hinder further theory development. The main reasons for these inconsistencies are one-dimensional theoretical perspectives that make it difficult to comprehensively theorize the benefits and barriers of ETD from a cross-disciplinary perspective. To address this shortcoming, we systematically identify existing literature and classify 44 studies into an ‘inputs-mediators-outcomes’ (IMO) framework. We find that the field is considerably fragmented, especially with regard to disciplinary perspectives, study contexts, diversity dimensions, and outcome variables. To invigorate and advance the research stream, we highlight unresolved issues and knowledge gaps in the current literature and propose a multi-disciplinary research agenda presented in the form of an IMO framework. We conclude that, while existing research on ETD offers a solid foundation, it is far from having reached its full potential.