Heuristic Tool Research Articles

Technologies as Anchors for Societal Confl icts. An Outline of the Concept

This article sketches out the approach of ‘Technologies as Anchors for Societal Conflicts’. TASC is conceived as a heuristic tool to help systematically bring into focus societal conflicts and debates that became anchored to technologies without being directly connected to them. This paper’s main hypothesis is that these anchors were developed, deliberately or unintentionally, to make complex issues seem more tangible and easier to resolve. Technological anchors, therefore, could function as a catalyst for a dispute or even turn into a connecting hub between various societal conflicts and debates. TASC is intended to help identify technologies utilised in this way as an object of research that is of interest for a cultural history of technology. To sketch out the utility of TASC and place it within the existing spectrum of methods and concepts applied by historians of technology, debates anchored to the bicycle, electricity generation, the machines of the early Industrial Revolution and nuclear power plants are discussed as examples.

Individual benefits and collective challenges: Experts’ views on data-driven approaches in medical research and healthcare in the German context

Healthcare provision, like many other sectors of society, is undergoing major changes due to the increased use of data-driven methods and technologies. This increased reliance on big data in medicine can lead to shifts in the norms that guide healthcare providers and patients. Continuous critical normative reflection is called for to track such potential changes. This article presents the results of an interview-based study with 20 German and Swiss experts from the fields of medicine, life science research, informatics and humanities of digitalisation. The aim of the study was to explore expert opinions regarding current challenges and opportunities related to data-driven medicine and medical research and to provide a methodological framework for empirically grounded, continuous normative reflection. To this end, we developed a heuristic tool to map and structure empirical findings for normative analysis. Using this tool, our interview material points to a polarisation between individualistic and collectivistic orientated argumentations among experts. The study shows that a multilevel analysis is required to deal with complex normative implications of data-driven approaches in medical research and healthcare.

Tunisia’s democratisation process: when ‘consensus democracy’ undermines democratic consolidation

ABSTRACT Consensus between moderate Islamists and moderate secularists is usually judged as the touchstone of democracy in Tunisia. However, after a decade, the ‘Tunisian model’ is being questioned, as institutional and economic crises have become the norm in the country. The aim of the article is to look at how consensus adopted in the transition affected long-term democratic consolidation. To answer this question the article unpacks the concept of consensus, considering, on the one hand, the institutional architecture of consensus democracy and, on the other hand, the practice of consensus politics. The case study is used to identify the patterns generated by the interaction of these two dimensions of consensus through time. Two reforms prescribed in the 2014 constitution, the creation of the Constitutional Court and decentralisation, are taken as heuristic tools to examine democratic consolidation. In both reforms the mismatch between institutions and politics of consensus produced deadlock and non-consolidation. It is in this context that, in July 2021, President Saied dismissed the government and suspended the parliament with the intention to put an end to consensus democracy.

Landscape in Theory. The Unexpected Virtue of Archaeological Approach

This contribution offers a perspective on the intimate link that is established between theory, practice and results in the field of contemporary Landscape Archeology. With particular reference to the Anglo-Saxon and Mediterranean academic tradition, the discourse aims to investigate the specific way in which the adoption of broad categories and methodological procedures is key to reading the real and ideal Landscape. This analysis highlights how the many different interpretations of the Landscape represent the reflection of the type of questions pertaining to the context of a specific cultural background. I will pay particular attention to the phenomenological approach that seems to cannibalize the debate. Ultimately, I argues for a vision of landscape as a place of asymmetrical relations between human and non-human that cannot be done justice from too strong a phenomenological or materialistic perspective. Even the neo-materialistic collapse of subject and object must be tempered by this idea of ‘asymmetry,’ in which a landscape beyond the human must be accounted for. It is in this framework that I must consider time and space not only as contextual coordinates but as articulations of one another, with time structuring to one and space giving form to the other. All of this is done ‘in/with/from the landscape’; the landscape is neither solely setting nor actor but can be thought of both as a language, a field in which all resides and of which all is composed, and the sign, the contextual manifestations of this field constantly invoking and at play with the whole, a whole that can never be disassociated from its concretization. A new heuristic tool for investigating landscapes will also be proposed.

Acedia, ‘Bourgeois Ennui’, and Kingship in the Hebrew Bible and The Epic of Gilgamesh

Abstract This article first discusses the concept of acedia/restlessness in Christian monastic and scholastic thought, as well as modern philosophy. Using it as a heuristic tool, it then proceeds to examine this phenomenon in relation to ANE kingship, arguing that a monarch’s unfocused and unchecked energy (one of the manifestations of acedia) could be personally and communally damaging. Focusing on two well-known kings, Gilgamesh and David, it shows how their ‘restless’ rules led to severe repercussions for their subjects. These kings have already been compared in scholarship, but this discussion analyses them specifically through the lens of acedia/restlessness. This line of investigation is prompted by similarities in the depiction of these kings in their respective literary corpora. Thus, The Epic of Gilgamesh casts Gilgamesh, a Babylonian king, as being burdened by a restless heart from the gods; one of the outcomes of this condition is his sexual exploitation of the people of Uruk. 2 Samuel in turn deals with David, an Israelite king, who neglects his duties, becomes restless, and violates Bathsheba, one of his subjects (2 Sam. 11–12).

Om integrationen af videnskabelige og kunstneriske metoder

The paper relects upon the integration of academic-scientiic methods and artistic strategies for art and technology projects that address user participation in a socially deined domain. he paper proposes Luhmann’s relative diference between medium (loosely coupled elements) and form (tightly coupled constituents) as a theoretical and heuristic tool for productive interferences between artistic and scientiic methods. The paper elaborates upon and exemplifies the proposed heuristic through various art and technology projects. (A first (English) version of this paper has been presented at the Art of Research conference in Helsinki 2012 and can be downloaded from the conference website).

Conceptual History of the Near East

Conceptual history holds tremendous potential to address a central issue in Near Eastern Studies, namely the formation of modernity in the Near East, provisionally located between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. The encounter with European powers, primarily Britain and France, was a decisive historical factor in this formation; and European hegemony is, in fact, inscribed into the very concept of “modernity,” which we take as an historical, rather than analytical, concept. The conceptual formation of modernity in Arabic and Turkish was, however, a multilayered process; involving both ruptures and continuities, intersecting various temporalities, and incorporating concepts from several languages. To interrogate this multilayered process, we suggest the metaphor of the Sattelzeit (Saddle Period) as a heuristic tool, precisely because of its being tied to modernity. Finally, the article will show what conceptual history of the Near East has to offer to conceptual history more broadly.

Mathematical experiment as a tool for modeling the freight transportation process

The process of multimodal freight transportation on a railway loop is investigated, for which a multicriteria optimization model with time indicators is created, which is a nonlinear integer programming problem. The developed approach is based on egalitarian and utilitarian principles in the welfare theory and allows (along with Pareto optimal transportation plans) to find other plans that can be considered rational from the point of view of maintaining the balance of interests of the transportation process participants. A mathematical experiment is an effective heuristic tool in research. The algorithm for solving the optimization problem is implemented in the environment of a computer algebra system and brought to numerical results.

First Things First: How to Elicit the Initial Program Theory for a Realist Evaluation of Complex Integrated Care Programs.

The complexity of integrated care and the need for transferable evaluation insights ask for a suitable evaluation paradigm. Realist evaluation (RE), underpinned by the philosophy of critical realism, is a theory-driven approach that addresses what works, how, for whom, and in what circumstances. The current study illustrates the process needed for RE's first step: eliciting the initial program theory (IPT). The TARGET program, a Dutch primary care initiative to facilitate more integrated care for chronically ill patients, i.e., care that is efficient,tailored,and holistic, was taken as a real-world case. An RE approach informed the phased IPT elicitation: (1) identifying an abstract theory framework; (2) formulating the preliminary IPT, building on the abstract theory and informed by previous scientific studies that underpin TARGET; and (3) refining the preliminary IPT, informed by RE expert interviews (n = 7). An RE heuristic tool, specifying the interplay between intervention-context-actors-mechanisms-outcomes (ICAMO) and retroductive reasoning, was applied to synthesize the underlying theory of individual TARGET components into TARGET's IPT. Separate but related IPTs were identified for the two main types of actors involved in TARGET: primary care professionals (PCPs) and patients. For both actors, two sorts of mechanisms are assumed to be activated by TARGET, which-via instrumental outcomes-contribute to long-term quadruple aim targets. The first is confidence to enhance PCPs' person-centered conversational skills and to increase patients' active engagement in TARGET. The second is mutual trust, between PCPs and patients and between PCPs and their network partners. A supportive context is assumed crucial for activating these mechanisms-for example, sufficient resources to invest in integrated care. Although the IPT elicitation process is time intensive and requires a mind shift, it facilitates a deeper insight into program functioning than accommodated by the prevailing experimental designs in integrated care. Furthermore, the design of a realist-informed evaluation process can be informed by the IPT.

Animal Farm as a Heuristic Tool for Classroom Teaching of Social Movements

Social movements are a part of the curriculum of Anthropology and Sociology in higher education institutions in India. Traditionally, these courses are taught via snippets of social movements accompanied by theoretical texts and there is little scope for individual teachers to change course content. While these texts are valuable, I found students struggled to make initial engagement with many of the prescribed texts and often became tense or anxious about the material. Students viewed social movements with antipathy and as a hindrance to stability, influenced by the political narratives and media representation of social movements as a disruption to solidarity. They often struggled to connect to the themes and issues of the Social Movement course, positioned within their own prisms of religion, caste, class, gender, and political sympathies. In this article, I vindicate the use of Animal Farm by George Orwell as a heuristic tool, taught alongside standard texts, to help students grasp the nature of social movements in theory and praxis. Teaching and learning social movements require a certain amount of empathy and openness to untangle students from their own biases. Turning to fiction can help because students can connect and become invested in the story, after which point parallels to the academic texts or real-life social movements can be drawn. Set in the animal world, Animal Farm is a parable that is equidistant to human orientations and consequently makes an excellent starting point to distance students from their preconceived ideas. This in turn helps students develop a reflexive understanding from which to engage with the core texts.

Can morphotaxa be assessed with photographs? Estimating the accuracy of two-dimensional cranial geometric morphometrics for the study of threatened populations of African monkeys.

The classification of most mammalian orders and families is under debate and the number of species is likely greater than currently recognized. Improving taxonomic knowledge is crucial, as biodiversity is in rapid decline. Morphology is a source of taxonomic knowledge, and geometric morphometrics applied to two dimensional (2D) photographs of anatomical structures is commonly employed for quantifying differences within and among lineages. Photographs are informative, easy to obtain, and low cost. 2D analyses, however, introduce a large source of measurement error when applied to crania and other highly three dimensional (3D) structures. To explore the potential of 2D analyses for assessing taxonomic diversity, we use patas monkeys (Erythrocebus), a genus of large, semi‐terrestrial, African guenons, as a case study. By applying a range of tests to compare ventral views of adult crania measured both in 2D and 3D, we show that, despite inaccuracies accounting for up to one‐fourth of individual shape differences, results in 2D almost perfectly mirror those in 3D. This apparent paradox might be explained by the small strength of covariation in the component of shape variance related to measurement error. A rigorous standardization of photographic settings and the choice of almost coplanar landmarks are likely to further improve the correspondence of 2D to 3D shapes. 2D geometric morphometrics is, thus, appropriate for taxonomic comparisons of patas ventral crania. Although it is too early to generalize, our results corroborate similar findings from previous research in mammals, and suggest that 2D shape analyses are an effective heuristic tool for morphological investigation of small differences.

American Association of Clinical Endocrinology And Associazione Medici Endocrinologi Thyroid Nodule Algorithmic Tool.

The first edition of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology/American College of Endocrinology/Associazione Medici Endocrinologi Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Thyroid Nodules was published in 2006 and updated in 2010 and 2016. The American Association of Clinical Endocrinology/American College of Endocrinology/Associazione Medici Endocrinologi multidisciplinary thyroid nodules task force was charged with developing a novel interactive electronic algorithmic tool to evaluate thyroid nodules. The Thyroid Nodule App (termed TNAPP) was based on the updated 2016 clinical practice guideline recommendations while incorporating recent scientific evidence and avoiding unnecessary diagnostic procedures and surgical overtreatment. This manuscript describes the algorithmic tool development, its data requirements, and its basis for decision making. It provides links to the web-based algorithmic tool and a tutorial. TNAPP and TI-RADS were cross-checked on 95 thyroid nodules with histology-proven diagnoses. TNAPP is a novel interactive web-based tool that uses clinical, imaging, cytologic, and molecular marker data to guide clinical decision making to evaluate and manage thyroid nodules. It may be used as a heuristic tool for evaluating and managing patients with thyroid nodules. It can be adapted to create registries for solo practices, large multispecialty delivery systems, regional and national databases, and research consortiums. Prospective studies are underway to validate TNAPP to determine how it compares with other ultrasound-based classification systems and whether it can improve the care of patients with clinically significant thyroid nodules while reducing the substantial burden incurred by those who do not benefit from further evaluation and treatment.

The micropolitical life of energy projects: A collaborative exploration of injustice and resistance to small hydropower projects in the Wallmapu, Southern Chile

This article contributes to an emerging body of literature about the micropolitics of the transition to renewable energy by examining how community leaders, in order to protect their territories, contest the energy transition. We present findings from two ethnographic case studies of small hydropower plants (SHPs) in indigenous Mapuche territory. As SHPs up to 20 MW are considered renewable projects by law, Chilean national authorities consider them as a non-invasive eco-friendly solution and, consequently, most of these projects are approved without carrying out an indigenous consultation and, thus, ignoring community leaders’ demands for territorial autonomy. Following a micropolitical ecology approach, this paper analyses community leaders’ resistance towards SHPs in Mapuche territories by discussing three key aspects: 1) access to information, 2) participation in decision-making processes, and 3) changes in community politics. These are different dimensions of the ‘micropolitical life of SHPs’, a heuristic tool, defined in collaboration with community leaders to explore the contentious political dynamics that community leaders experience in their resistance against SHPs on the one hand, and to describe how community leaders’ political practices shape and are shaped by contingent encounters and alliances in specific historical and territorial settings on the other. We conclude that despite the anguish that SHPs cause, community leaders bring about hope that may create possibilities to transform their territories.

Geometric-control formulation and averaging analysis of the unsteady aerodynamics of a wing with oscillatory controls

Differential-geometric-control theory represents a mathematically elegant combination of differential geometry and control theory. Practically, it allows exploitation of nonlinear interactions between various inputs for the generation of forces in non-intuitive directions. Since its early developments in the 1970s, the geometric-control theory has not been duly exploited in the area of fluid mechanics. In this paper, we show the potential of geometric-control theory in the analysis of fluid flows, exemplifying it as a heuristic analysis tool for discovery of symmetry-breaking and unconventional force-generation mechanisms. In particular, we formulate the wing unsteady aerodynamics problem in a geometric-control framework. To achieve this goal, we develop a reduced-order model for the unsteady flow over a pitching–plunging wing that is (i) rich enough to capture the main physical aspects (e.g. nonlinearity of the flow dynamics at large angles of attack and high frequencies) and (ii) efficient and compact enough to be amenable to the analytic tools of geometric nonlinear control theory. We then combine tools from geometric-control theory and averaging to analyse the developed reduced-order dynamical model, which reveals regimes for lift and thrust enhancement mechanisms. The unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations are simulated to validate the theoretical findings and scrutinize the underlying physics behind these enhancement mechanisms.

Improving access to primary health care: a cross-case comparison based on an a priori program theory

BackgroundInequitable access to primary health care (PHC) remains a problem for most western countries. Failure to scale up effective interventions has been due, in part, to a failure to share the logic and essential elements of successful programs. The aim of this paper is to describe what we learned about improving access to PHC for vulnerable groups across multiple sites through use of a common theory-based program logic model and a common evaluation approach. This was the IMPACT initiative.MethodsIMPACT’s evaluation used a mixed methods design with longitudinal (pre and post) analysis of six interventions. The analysis for this paper included four of the six sites that met study criteria. These sites were located in Canada (Alberta, Quebec and Ontario) and Australia (New South Wales). Using the overarching logic model, unexpected findings were reviewed, and alternative explanations were considered to understand how the mechanisms of each intervention may have contributed to results.ResultsEach site addressed their local access problem with different strategies and from different starting points. All sites observed changes in patient abilities to access PHC and provider access capabilities. The combination of intended and observed consequences for consumers and providers was different at each site, but all sites achieved change in both consumer ability and provider capability, even in interventions where there was no activity targeting provider behaviors.DiscussionThe model helped to identify, explore and synthesize intended and unintended consequences of four interventions that appeared to have more differences than similarities. Similar outcomes for different interventions and multiple impacts of each intervention on abilities were observed, implying complex causal pathways.ConclusionsAll the interventions were a low-cost incremental attempt to address unmet health care needs of vulnerable populations. Change is possible; sustaining change may be more challenging. Access to PHC requires attention to both patient abilities and provider characteristics. The logic model proved to be a valuable heuristic tool for defining the objectives of the interventions, evaluating their impacts, and learning from the comparison of ‘cases’.

A heuristic tool to assess regional impacts of renewable energy infrastructure on conservation areas

Wind and hydropower are important renewable components of national energy portfolios, but their infrastructure negatively affects biodiversity. Regional development requires identification of scenarios that minimize the cumulative impacts of multiple facilities. We introduce the cumulative impact plot (CIP) to quantify cumulative impacts of renewable energy development within a region. Summed impacts of facilities are plotted as a function of the number of facilities, with facilities ranked by increasing (the best-case scenario) or decreasing (worst-case scenario) individual impact. These curves represent lower and upper bounds to which alternative development scenarios (e.g., facilities ranked by generating capacity) can be compared. We used CIPs to assess overlap of potential wind and hydropower facilities with two types of conservation area in the United States: (1) federally protected lands and (2) critical habitats of federally threatened and endangered species. We evaluated two alternative scenarios: facilities ranked by (A) decreasing generating capacity and (B) increasing distance from urban centers. Differences between the best-case and worst-case scenarios were large, thus revealing opportunities to develop facilities with limited impact on conservation areas. Alternative scenarios maximizing energy density generally resulted in conservation area overlap intermediate to best-case and worst-case scenarios. CIPs can also identify the proportion of wind versus hydropower favored under alternative scenarios. Build-out scenarios aimed at minimizing conservation area overlap favor hydropower, whereas alternative scenarios favor wind power. We conclude that CIPs can (1) complement—but should not replace—project-level environmental impact assessment, (2) integrate strategic, cumulative, and scenario-based assessments, and (3) harness rapidly growing geospatial data.

Complexity-informed interpretation of social innovation

IMPACT Complexity concepts help to open the black box of social innovation for public sector managers and policy-makers and to understand why social innovation can simultaneously be both a solution and problem. Complexity thinking guides formulating essential questions and helps to imagine the desired future and, in so doing, it also provides heuristic tools to address the paradox of social innovation.

Virtual Reality from the Standpoint of Complexity Science

An extended approach to the comprehension of virtual reality is developed in the article. Virtual reality is understood not only as a logically possible or cybernetically constructed reality but also as continuous turbulence of potencies of the complex natural and social world we live in, the wandering of complex systems and organizations over a field of possibilities, such a realization of forms and structures in which many formations remain in latent, potential forms, and are in the permanent process of making and multiplying a spectrum of possibilities, lead to the growth of the evolutionary tree of paths of development. It is shown that such an understanding of virtual reality corresponds to concepts and notions developed in the modern science of complexity. The most significant concepts are considered, such as the nonlinearity of time, the relationship of space and time, the uncertainty of the past and the openness of the future, the choice and construction of the future at the moments of passing the bifurcation points. Some cultural and historical prototypes of these modern ideas of virtual reality are given. It is substantiated that the vision of virtual reality being developed today can play the role of a heuristic tool for understanding the functioning and stimulation of human creativity.

On the needs for combining physiological principles and mathematics to improve crop models

• Basic concepts of crop modelling founders are fading into oblivion since the mid-1990s. • The multi-model ensemble approach does not facilitate the models as a heuristic tool. • A bottom-up approach that assembles all biological elements is not conducive to simulating the crop. • An intermediate approach combining physiology and mathematics is recommended. • Leaf area index and radiation use efficiency are used as showcases. • Outstanding areas for further model development and caveats are outlined. Major crop models were developed before the 1990s and many of their algorithms are (semi-)empirical. In the recent two decades, the number of models has grown rapidly, but the increase in their quality does not match the growth in number. Often, an ensemble of multiple models is required to make a useful prediction. This ensemble approach does not facilitate the improvement of models as a tool to understand crop physiological mechanisms. On the other hand, following a bottom-up approach that tries to assemble all elements along different scales of biological organisation may result in numerically clumsy models that are not necessarily more robust than existing models in simulating phenotypes at the crop scale. We argue that to model complex crop phenotypes in a simple yet accurate manner, crop modellers should be inspired by experiences in some fundamental sciences. For example, physicists used sound theories and solid mathematics in thought experiments, and came up with seemingly simple equations to explain the behaviour of very diverse systems, from sub-atomic particles to the largest clusters of galaxies. We review examples, where biological insights and mathematics are combined to derive simple equations that apply to different processes of crop growth. The essence of this modelling approach is a combination of simplicity , elegance and robustness . Models integrating those equations can predict crop phenotypes as well as generate hypotheses or emerging properties to assist in knowing the unknowns. Thus, crop models should not only provide practical predictions, but should especially be considered as a research tool for data interpretation, system design, and heuristic understanding.

Evaluation of a High-Risk Clinical Guideline through implementation of Usability Evaluation

This paper des cribes the use of heuristic evaluation on a clinical guideline for the treatmentof diabetic ketoacidosis, a medical emergency. After an hour of instruction, two novices tousability testing applied a heuristic tool revealing numerous usability issues in the dom ainsof metaphor, organization, typology and layout. When compared to Nielsen’s principles ofheuristics, the findings identified multiple sources of potential error. A dditionally, thispaper demonstrates that novices to usability testing can perform effective heuristicevaluation with limited training and the use of a heuristic tool. The findings will guideredesign of the studied guideline as well as prompt and more readily accessible usabilitytesting of other high-risk and high-volume clinical guidelines.