General Empirical Methods Research Articles

Fostering Undergraduate Research Through Insider Inquiry: Exploiting Student Work Experiences

Research is typically taught to undergraduates as an analytic activity with a focus on engaging with externalized data. Rarely are undergraduates taught to inquire into settings and situations where they are close to the data and implicated in the setting. Exploring Organizational Experiences is a final-year undergraduate business course that provides an alternative research paradigm that focuses on developing insider inquiry skills. Participants inquire critically into organizational dynamics from the perspective of being an insider-participant and practice a general empirical method that enables them to learn critical insider research skills.

On the estimation of total factor productivity: A novel Bayesian non-parametric approach

This paper provides an alternative general empirical method for the estimation of Total Factor Productivity (TFP). We use a decomposition which allows non-parametric estimation and at the same time addresses the issue of endogeneity of inputs. In this way, we also deal with the unavailability of input prices which is common in the TFP literature. We apply the new techniques to U.S four-digit manufacturing data using a novel Bayesian nonparametric model based on local likelihood. We use Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques organized around the method of Girolami and Calderhead (2011). We compare and contrast the estimates from the proposed new method with standard parametric methods such as the translog, the Generalized Leontief and the Normalized Quadratic and we also propose novel diagnostic tests for correct specification and validity of instruments. We show that parametric methods lead to biased estimation of TFP growth. Our empirical findings reveal that the new model passes successfully a battery of robustness checks including diagnostic testing and tests for weak identification as well as weak instruments. Finally policy implications relating to the nature of TFP growth are also provided.

The First-, Second- and Third-Person Dynamics of Learning History

Learning history is a well delineated action research process consisting of consecutive stages of inquiry where groups and individuals engage in learning and reflecting on their past shared, but often multiple, experiences as these are recorded in a ‘learning history’. Learning history has much in common with other forms of action research in that it configures first-, second- and third-person processes of inquiry in a particular way and enacts research qualities of rigour, relevance and reflexivity. Yet these and other links have as yet been tacit and under articulated - resulting in learning history often conceived as a distinctive linear method with the practice of learning history likewise confined. This reflective article opens out and makes explicit the inherent first- second- and third- person dynamics of learning history. These dynamics are explored from the point of view of different actors – the historian, the participant and the reader - in a learning history process and connections to a general empirical method are made. Finally questions of quality in a learning history are discussed. The aim of this article is to establish firmer methodological foundations for the learning history approach and to provide practical insight into how action researchers might engage more readily in learning history work.

Broadband photon pair generation in green fluorescent proteins through spontaneous four-wave mixing.

Recent studies in quantum biology suggest that quantum mechanics help us to explore quantum processes in biological system. Here, we demonstrate generation of photon pairs through spontaneous four-wave mixing process in naturally occurring fluorescent proteins. We develop a general empirical method for analyzing the relative strength of nonlinear optical interaction processes in five different organic fluorophores. Our results indicate that the generation of photon pairs in green fluorescent proteins is subject to less background noises than in other fluorophores, leading to a coincidence-to-accidental ratio ~145. As such proteins can be genetically engineered and fused to many biological cells, our experiment enables a new platform for quantum information processing in a biological environment such as biomimetic quantum networks and quantum sensors.

European New Legal Realism and International Law: How to Make International Law Intelligible

AbstractInternational law remains in many ways a challenge to legal science. As in domestic law, the available options appear to be exhausted by either internal doctrinal approaches, or external approaches applying more general empirical methods from the social sciences. This article claims that, while these major positions obviously provide interesting insights, none of them manage to make international law intelligible in a broader sense. Instead, it argues for a European New Legal Realist approach to international law accommodating the so-called external and internal dimensions of law in a single more complex analysis which takes legal validity seriously but as a genuinely empirical object of study. This article constructs this position by identifying a distinctively European realist path which takes as its primary inspirations Weberian sociology of law and Alf Ross’ Scandinavian Legal Realism and combines them with insights originating from Bourdieusian sociology of law.

European New Legal Realism and International Law: How to Make International Law Intelligible

International law remains in many ways a challenge to legal science. As in domestic law, the available options appear to be exhausted by either internal doctrinal approaches applying a sui generis legal method in order to identify valid law, or external reductionist approaches applying more general empirical methods, predominantly taken from the social sciences. The claim of this paper is that while these major positions obviously provide interesting insights, none of them manage to make international law (or national law for that matter) intelligible in a broader sense. Instead, the paper argues for a New Legal Realist approach to international law, which accommodates the so-called external and internal dimensions of law in a single more complex analysis, which takes legal validity seriously but as a genuinely empirical object of study.The way the paper constructs this position within New Legal Realism is however not via the well-trodden path of American Legal Realism, but rather by identifying a different, distinctively European path. The approach takes as its primary inspirations Weberian sociology of law and Alf Ross’ Scandinavian Legal Realism and combines them with insights originating from Bourdieusian sociology of law. While these prominent authors are typically viewed as belonging to very different intellectual traditions, the paper demonstrates how there is in fact a distinct intellectual trajectory from Weber over Ross to Bourdieu and European New Legal Realism with regard to developing a rigorous legal science. This approach shares some of its roots with American New Legal Realism as articulated in recent years by a number of scholars, notably via the overall empirical research interest, yet it articulates a different position particularly with regard to the crucial epistemological question of what is legal science. This approach – which is dubbed European New Legal Realism – is however not simply an exegesis of the possibilities of knowledge on law, but rather an operational program for better explaining international law and its institutions.

Teaching statistics to doctoral students with Lonergan's insight-based critical realism

The authors report on the development, implementation, and evaluation of a doctoral level intensive quantitative methods course featuring an integrated orientation to, and practicum in, statistics competence for qualitative researchers. A feature of this integrated approach is the inclusive point of course departure: the general empirical method offered by the insight-based critical realism of Bernard J.F. Lonergan. This epistemology grounds curriculum design, wherein key statistical concepts are presented in the very first session and reinforced throughout the intensive. The practicum component offers guided study in the statistical use of SPSS using a common EU data set. Course evaluations indicate students who had previously felt disinterested or unaware of the significance and role of quantitative studies emerged from the three day intensive with a better understanding and sense of empowerment in both the basic use of statistics as well as the complementary nature of quantitative and qualitative research methods.

The Role of Metaphysical Naturalism in Science

This paper defends the view that metaphysical naturalism is a constitutive ontological principle of science in that the general empirical methods of science, such as observation, measurement and experiment, and thus the very production of empirical evidence, presuppose a no-supernature principle. It examines the consequences of metaphysical naturalism for the testability of supernatural claims, and it argues that explanations involving supernatural entities are pseudo-explanatory due to the many semantic and ontological problems of supernatural concepts. The paper also addresses the controversy about metaphysical versus methodological naturalism.

Action Research: Exploring Perspectives on a Philosophy of Practical Knowing

In the context of management and organization studies, the potential of action research for generating robust actionable knowledge has not been yet realized. While there are historical reasons for this with roots in different philosophies of social science, there are areas of common ground that may be explored fruitfully. This paper works from the insight that there are two key perspectives on action research: one from inside the action research community and one from outside. It explores how action research is a form of science in the realm of practical knowing and that this perspective provides an insight into how the views of action research from inside and from outside may be engaged. It proposes a general empirical method and the notion of interiority, based on the operations of human knowing, with a focus on how we know, rather than on what we know, as a synthesis, whereby the two perspectives on action research may be engaged.

Action Research: Exploring Perspectives on a Philosophy of Practical Knowing

In the context of management and organization studies, the potential of action research for generating robust actionable knowledge has not been yet realized. While there are historical reasons for this with roots in different philosophies of social science, there are areas of common ground that may be explored fruitfully. This paper works from the insight that there are two key perspectives on action research: one from inside the action research community and one from outside. It explores how action research is a form of science in the realm of practical knowing and that this perspective provides an insight into how the views of action research from inside and from outside may be engaged. It proposes a general empirical method and the notion of interiority, based on the operations of human knowing, with a focus on how we know, rather than on what we know, as a synthesis, whereby the two perspectives on action research may be engaged.

Helix Persistence and Breakdown in Oligoureas of Metaphenylenediamine: Apparent Diastereotopicity as a Spectroscopic Marker of Helix Length in Solution

Oligomeric ureas derived from m-phenylenediamine with chain lengths of up to seven urea linkages were made by iterative synthetic pathways. Three families were synthesized: 4 and 20, bearing a terminal chiral sulfinyl group; 24, bearing a terminal rotationally restricted amide group, and 30 bearing a terminal achiral bromophenyl group. The distal end of the oligomers was capped with an N-benzyl group to act as a diastereotopic probe. With a terminal sulfinyl group, the 1H NMR signals arising from the CH2 group of the diastereotopic probe remained anisochronous even when separated from the stereogenic center by up to 24 bonds (in 20c). With a rotationally restricted amide, anisochronicity was no longer apparent beyond 17 bond lengths (in 24c). No anisochronicity was observable with a terminal bromophenyl group. We interpret these results as indicating that the oligoureas of short lengths adopt a defined helical secondary structure in solution, but that in longer oligomers the helicity breaks down and transmission of chirality in these systems is limited to about 24 bond lengths. We propose that "apparent diastereotopicity" (anisochronicity) provides a general empirical method for identifying secondary structure in solution.

The use of scaled moments of inertia in experimental structure determinations of polyatomic molecules

Recently developed procedures for determining near-r e structures (r m p )from scaled ground-state moment of inertia data have been extended to general polyatomic molecules. A simple and general empirical method for correctingl m p moments for the large vibration-rotation effects of deuterium substitution has been proposed and illustrated for a variety of polyatomic molecules. The correction requires utilization of a bond elongation parameter,δr D ,whose experimental value is found to be approximately 0.003 A. A theoretical justification of the approximation has been provided for linear triatomic molecules.

Well-Test Analysis for Vertically Fractured Wells

This paper fills in some existing gaps in knowledge of the behavior ofvertically fractured wells under buildup testing conditions. It describes thegeneral characteristics of all common buildup graphs that deal with such wells. The soundness of the best approaches is substantiated: a Horner-type graph issuperior for determining permeability thickness, and a Muskat graph, properlyused, is permeability thickness, and a Muskat graph, properly used, isapplicable for determining fully static pressure. Introduction The pressure behavior of vertically fractured wells is of great interestbecause of the large number of wells that have been hydraulically fractured. Even though much is known about the mechanics of artificial fracturing, theperformance of wells with fractures is imperfectly understood. Studies of thiscase have been based on analytical, analog, and digital methods. Of the severalinvestigations of vertically fractured wells, the most important was conductedby Russell and Truitt, whose primary objective was to provide methods toanalyze performance of vertically fractured wells for transient andpseudosteady-state flow. They considered a homogeneous isotropic reservoir inthe form of a closed square completely filled with a slightly compressibleliquid of constant viscosity. Pressure gradients were assumed to be smalleverywhere, and gravity effects were neglected. The plane of the fracture waslocated symmetrically within the reservoir and parallel to one of the sides ofthe square boundary. The fracture extended throughout the vertical extent ofthe formation, and production was at a constant rate and was assumed to comeonly through the fracture. Russell and Truitt generated dimensionless pressureat the well as a function of dimensinless time and fracture penetration for awell producing in a reservoir like that described above. They analyzed pressurebuildup behavior by means of a Horner graph and found that significantcorrections were required to obtain correct values of permeability-thicknessproduct. The correction became more important as the fracture penetration(length) increased. They recommended that penetration (length) increased. Theyrecommended that the Muskat graph be used to obtain average pressure. Russelland Truitt indicated that they were interested in the effect of producing timeon pressure buildup analysis. However, all of their remarks seem to relateexclusively to wells that have been produced to pseudosteady state. Also, nomention was made of the pseudosteady state. Also, no mention was made of theshut-in times required to obtain the proper straight line. Thus even though theRussell and Truitt paper provides important information in the form ofdimensionless provides important information in the form of dimensionlesspressure-time data, the interpretations provided in their pressure-time data, the interpretations provided in their paper are limited. Fortunately, a recentstudy presents paper are limited. Fortunately, a recent study presents generalempirical methods that can be used to explore all useful characteristics of thecommon buildup analyses graphically. These methods will be applied to determinecorrect analytical procedures for the vertically fractured well. Transient Flow Information As already mentioned, Russell and Truitt have presented pressure drawdowndata for a vertically presented pressure drawdown data for a verticallyfractured well in the center of a closed square. JPT P. 1014