Interdisciplinary Research Group Research Articles

Back to the future - 20 years of progress and developments in photonic microscopy and biological imaging.

In 2023, the ImaBio consortium (imabio-cnrs.fr), an interdisciplinary life microscopy research group at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, celebrated its 20th anniversary. ImaBio contributes to the biological imaging community through organization of MiFoBio conferences, which are interdisciplinary conferences featuring lectures and hands-on workshops that attract specialists from around the world. MiFoBio conferences provide the community with an opportunity to reflect on the evolution of the field, and the 2023 event offered retrospective talks discussing the past 20 years of topics in microscopy, including imaging of multicellular assemblies, image analysis, quantification of molecular motions and interactions within cells, advancements in fluorescent labels, and laser technology for multiphoton and label-free imaging of thick biological samples. In this Perspective, we compile summaries of these presentations overviewing 20 years of advancements in a specific area of microscopy, each of which concludes with a brief look towards the future. The full presentations are available on the ImaBio YouTube channel (youtube.com/@gdrimabio5724).

Perspective: Food Access at Dollar Stores and Its Implications for Public Health: Report of a Workshop on Identifying Research Priorities

The rapid growth of dollar stores as retail sources of food in the United States is a phenomenon with implications for diets, nutrition, and well-being. We convened a broadly interdisciplinary group of researchers and experts from government and academia at the 2-day Food Access at Dollar Stores (FADS) workshop, held in Boston, MA in 2022. The event brought together economists, social scientists, public health researchers, and advocates to discuss the concerns and research questions raised by the growth of dollar stores and their increased role in food retail and access. In-person, moderated discussions on day 2 of the workshop generated a range of topics considered important for future research. A subsequent survey, using a modified Delphi approach, identified priority research areas. Nine research area categories emerged as a result of discussion at the FADS workshop and received prioritization from the experts: Local Community Impacts; Health and Nutrition Impacts; Policy and Programs; Systemic Issues – Racism, Poverty, and Food Access; Store Offerings and Locations; Shoppers and Customers; Employees and Employment; Corporate Distribution, Strategy, and Marketing; and Dollar Stores compared with Other Food Sources. The growth of dollar stores as food retailers remains an under-researched area of study for food access and nutrition that requires interdisciplinary expertise and collaboration to understand.

Investing in the Future of Nursing: Insights From the AcademyHealth Interdisciplinary Research Group on Nursing Issues Preconference

Investing in the Future of Nursing: Insights From the AcademyHealth Interdisciplinary Research Group on Nursing Issues Preconference

Digital health and mobile health: a bibliometric analysis of the 100 most cited papers and their contributing authors

Aim: This study aimed to identify and analyze the top 100 most cited digital health and mobile health (m-health) publications. It could aid researchers in the identification of promising new research avenues, additionally supporting the establishment of international scientific collaboration between interdisciplinary research groups with demonstrated achievements in the area of interest. Methods: On 30th August, 2023, the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) electronic database was queried to identify the top 100 most cited digital health papers with a comprehensive search string. From the initial search, 106 papers were identified. After screening for relevance, six papers were excluded, resulting in the final list of the top 100 papers. The basic bibliographic data was directly extracted from WOSCC using its “Analyze” and “Create Citation Report” functions. The complete records of the top 100 papers were downloaded and imported into a bibliometric software called VOSviewer (version 1.6.19) to generate an author keyword map and author collaboration map. Results: The top 100 papers on digital health received a total of 49,653 citations. Over half of them (n = 55) were published during 2013–2017. Among these 100 papers, 59 were original articles, 36 were reviews, 4 were editorial materials, and 1 was a proceeding paper. All papers were written in English. The University of London and the University of California system were the most represented affiliations. The USA and the UK were the most represented countries. The Journal of Medical Internet Research was the most represented journal. Several diseases and health conditions were identified as a focus of these works, including anxiety, depression, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Conclusions: The findings underscore key areas of focus in the field and prominent contributors, providing a roadmap for future research in digital and m-health.

Who ought to look towards the horizon? A qualitative study on the collective social responsibility of scientific research

There is a growing concern for the proper role of science within democratic societies, which has led to the development of new science policies for the implementation of social responsibility in research. Although the very expression ‘social responsibility of science’ may be interpreted in different ways, many of these emerging policy frameworks define it, at least in part, as a form of anticipative reflection about the potential impacts of research in society. What remains a rather under-discussed issue is the definition of the bearer of the social responsibility of science. In other words, it is not clear who is supposed to engage in such an anticipative reflection, whether individual researchers or research groups. In the past few years, philosophers of science have begun to use qualitative research methods to fill the gaps between normative models of the organisation of ideal scientific communities and the reality of actual scientific practices. In this article, I follow this approach to discuss the issue of the collective dimension of the social responsibility of science. I rely on a qualitative study conducted on an interdisciplinary research group and I describe how group dynamics position individuals and distribute duties and roles, including social responsibility. Qualitative descriptions of the distribution of duties within actual research groups should inform the formulation of general prescriptive theories on the collective responsibility of science.

Health data social licence: An inclusive process to learn more about the perspectives of experienced public and patient advisors

The term "social licence" has been used to describe which uses and users of health data the public supports - and under what conditions. From November 2022 to January 2023, Health Data Research Network Canada was funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada to explore whether there was consensus among experienced public and patient advisors on: (i) uses of health data that all members supported or opposed and (ii) what constitutes an essential requirement for a health data use or user to be within social licence. The project was conducted in English and French in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Research Group in Health Informatics (GRIIS) at the University of Sherbrooke. It involved 20 public/patient advisor "participants" and an additional 13 public/patient advisors who served as peer-reviewers, all of whom had prior experience working in a health-related field and/or with health data. The process followed inclusive design principles in that it captured views held by the majority and minority of participants, including views expressed by only one or two participants. After two 2-hour facilitated sessions, participants agreed that it is within social licence for health data to be used (i) by healthcare practitioners to improve patient care, (ii) by governments and administrators to improve the health system, and (iii) by university-based researchers to understand disease and well-being. There was consensus opposition to (i) an individual or organisation selling someone else's identified health data and (ii) health data being used for a purpose that has no public or societal benefit. There was no consensus about what constitutes an essential requirement for a use or users of health data to be with social licence. The results of the process have been published in a non-peer-reviewed report co-authored with participants. This paper has been co-authored with a subset of the participants and peer-reviewers to present a high-level summary of the findings, methodological details, and templates to enable other groups to adapt the process to their own settings. It also presents the results of an anonymous evaluation of the process using the Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool (PPEET), which were mostly positive and identified some areas for improvement.

Analysis of Pros and Cons in Using the Water–Energy–Food Nexus Approach to Assess Resource Security: A Review

The water–energy–food (WEF) nexus is drawing much attention in scholarly literature as a novel alternative to address complex resources and achieve resource security. The aim of this study is to analyze and review existing nexus studies to investigate the current status of nexus research worldwide. This study used a narrative review approach to provide a comprehensive overview on the WEF nexus using a variety of databases. It is indicated that the majority of studies in Asia and Africa focused on the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus. China and Brazil had the largest nexus research. Based on the existing literature, most of attention has been paid to food production. However, food consumption patterns and dietary change are rarely evaluated, and there is a lack of study on impacts of dietary change on the WEF nexus. Moreover, there is a lack of frameworks for the evaluation of the WEF nexus under dietary change scenarios. The major challenge of the nexus approach is data availability in crop production, which can be solved by using remote sensing data. There is a lack of standard and conceptual frameworks for nexus assessment and, then, an essential need to provide a new holistic and standard approach that be applicable worldwide to increase connections between researchers and decision makers, as well as the applicability of nexus approaches. Future research must couple the development of a holistic standard approach with experimental tests in different areas, involving interdisciplinary research groups able to carry out all the experimental activities, the numerical simulations, and the statistical analyses of climatic time series (in a climate change perspective) indispensable to demonstrate the real benefits of using a WEF-derived nexus approach.

Children Don't Like Eating What They're Supposed to Eat… A Study of Public Catering for Children in Hungary from a Historical Perspective

AbstractChildhood nutrition is an important element of lifestyle research, since the regularity and nutritional content of our meals as children, and the way in which they are eaten, determine our physical and mental health throughout our lives. Prior to 2018, there was no basic interdisciplinary research on this topic in Hungary, thus to fill the gap, an interdisciplinary research group was established in 2018 at the Institute of Ethnography, which carried out nationwide research. The present study is based on fieldwork undertaken by the author in two schools — the János Lenkey Primary School in Eger (formerly Primary School No. 1) and the Tamás Bolyki Primary School in Ózd — as well as a large amount of information gleaned from questionnaires and interviews. My research was also extended in terms of a historical and geographical perspective: I studied archival sources and expanded the field of my investigations by including Salgótarján, a research location familiar from my earlier research, which provided a vantage point alongside Ózd and Eger, as a third city typical of Northern Hungary. Public catering for children has undergone significant changes in the last six to seven years, although prior to this it had appeared relatively uniform, in line with the ingredients available at the time. The obligation to provide public catering and the general obligation to work, which began in the Rákosi era and culminated in the Kádár era, significantly changed family eating habits. Traditional elements typical of a particular locality disappeared as the globalization efforts of socialism were accomplished. The ever-decreasing amount of time devoted to preparing, cooking, and consuming food moved society in the direction of canteens, fast-food restaurants, and later, after the regime change, global fast-food chains. Education on proper nutrition is not currently part of academic teacher training, thus for want of a better alternative, teachers organize children's school meals based on their own experience and socialization or following the school's regulations (where they exist), without having a unified concept. The number of meals eaten at home has been reduced to light breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, with families mostly sitting down together at the table for dinner, when they often consume ready meals. Lack of contact with foodstuffs and with the person preparing the food has a negative impact on children's psychological development. Relying on extensive basic research and participant observation, and through the joint efforts of specialists from several fields of the social sciences, a significant improvement could be achieved in both public catering and education on healthy nutrition.

Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Research on School Catering

AbstractIn Hungary, about half of the 3–18 age group has regularly used school food service. This paper focuses on the operation and social embeddedness of school canteens and the at-home eating habits of the families involved. My conclusions are based on the findings of my interdisciplinary research group. Ethnographers from the RCH Institute of Ethnology and dietitians from the National Institute of Pharmacy and Nutrition have been studying school food from 2018 to 2023. We selected a few model settlements: in addition to the capital, Budapest, three smaller towns, and two villages. Through questionnaires, interviews, and fieldwork observations, we investigated cooking, serving, meal courses, meal time, eating habits, preferences, as well as the nutritional knowledge of students, teachers, kitchen staff, and parents. Our goal, among other things, is to collect best practices and facilitate communication between participants. Some examples from our research highlight the special role of the centrally regulated school food in local food culture, and difficulties with social and historical roots can occasionally hamper school lunches in becoming a socially accepted model of a healthy diet. The school canteen works best at sites where cooking takes place within the school premises. There is a strong connection between the kitchen staff and the teachers, and they work together in the interest of the children. The value of food and its appreciation is demonstrated by how it is treated and how it is talked about. Communication about food in the canteen should be based on food preparation at home, where parents and children work together. The operation of canteens has become particularly problematic following the measures introduced during the coronavirus pandemic. A sustainable, enjoyable canteen can only be realized through the regular communication of schools and school kitchens, as well as children and their parents. Our findings are presented to our respondents, along with providing them with a comparison of different examples.

Automated responses to the coronavirus disease-19 pandemic: An overview

The pandemic response was a thoroughly mediated phenomenon – one that paired digital information technologies with automated logistical systems to address inter-related crises of circulation. In the logistical sphere, automated media were used to manage flows of people, commodities and even (in the case of ‘smart’ ventilation systems) air itself. In the media realm, automated systems played a role in circulating timely notifications and alerts and in detecting and responding to false information. This theme issue brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers focused on the analysis of automated control and response systems, including the networked devices and infrastructures that supported them, and the digital forms of data collection and processing they enabled. This introductory essay focuses on some organizing themes that emerge from the theme issue contributions, including the relationship between automation and the temporality of viral contagion, logics of pre-emptive intervention and forms of atmospheric and environmental control.

Reinforcing the humanity in healthcare: The Glasgow Consensus Statement on effective communication in clinical encounters

Contemporary healthcare is characterized by multidisciplinary teamwork across a vast array of primary, secondary and tertiary services, augmented by progressively more technology and data. While these developments aim to improve care, they have also created obstacles and new challenges for both patients and health professionals. Indeed, the increasingly fragmented and transactional nature of clinical encounters can dehumanize the care experience across disciplines and specialties. Effective communication plays a pivotal role in reinforcing the humanity of healthcare through the delivery of person-centered care – compassionate, collaborative care that focuses on the needs of each patient as a whole person. After convening at the International Conference on Communication in Healthcare (Glasgow, 2022), an interdisciplinary group of researchers, educators and health professionals worked together to develop a framework for effective communication that both acknowledges critical challenges in contemporary health services and reinforces the humanity of healthcare. The Glasgow Consensus Statement is intended to function as a useful international touchstone for the training and practice of health professionals, fully recognizing and respecting that different countries are at different stages when it comes to teaching, assessment and policy. It also provides a vocabulary for monitoring the impact of system-level challenges. While effective communication may not change the structure of healthcare, it can improve the process if health professionals are supported in infusing the system with their own innate humanity and applying the framework offered within this consensus statement to reinforce the humanity in everyday practice.

Productive interactions without impact? An empirical investigation of researchers’ struggle to improve the elderly’s oral health

Background:Achieving impact of research is often seen as requiring productive interaction between researchers and stakeholders. Still, interactions are sometimes not ‘productive’ and lead to no visible impacts. Aims and objectives:This article studies repeated attempts by researchers to involve different stakeholders to facilitate pathways to societal impact. We look in particular at possible explanations for the lack of impacts. Methods:This is a longitudinal case study of an interdisciplinary group of researchers where we acted as participant observers over a period of close to six years. The studied researchers have in various ways targeted the societal challenge of oral healthcare for the elderly. Findings:We see the societal challenge as a ‘problem area’ where researchers are one of many stakeholder groups, and where the different stakeholders vary in salience, legitimacy and power. A lack of funding for the research led to continuous efforts to involve new stakeholders, envision new forms of impact, and establish a sense of urgency of the societal challenge. Discussion and conclusion:The case highlights different gaps in the problem area that are organisational, social, and institutional. We also find that there are gaps in how the fundamental societal issue is described and prioritised, and in how responsibilities for finding solutions are distributed. This seems to lead researchers away from extensive interaction and towards more traditional forms of impact through randomised controlled trials and technology push initiatives.

Recovery Support and Capacity Assessment Using the Calculating an Adequate System Tool: Two Case Studies.

There are multiple, reliable, and authoritative federally managed data sources for understanding the incidence and prevalence of substance use disorder (SUD) and its sequela. However, there remains a gap in metrics representing the need and capacity for treatment and related supports within local communities. To address this challenge, Calculating an Adequate System Tool (CAST) was developed in 2016 by an interdisciplinary group of researchers at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality to assess the capacity of the SUD care system within a defined geographic area. It allows for risk assessment of local social and community determinants of substance abuse, as well as an assessment of local service needs across the continuum of SUD care. This article describes the application of the CAST to 2 counties in Ohio and 1 county in Montana. The purpose of using CAST for each area, results of the application, and experiences in utilizing the tool are described. Application of the CAST demonstrated unique findings within each of the geographic areas. In Ohio, recovery support services were lacking in both counties assessed, while differences in crime rate and alcohol outlet density were attributed to varying rates of drug-related hospitalization. Notable findings in Montana included an oversaturation of coalitions focused on substance use prevention and gaps in the areas of detoxification services, partial day treatment, recovery residences, and peer support specialists. CAST is a useful tool for guiding decision-making relative to substance use care needs and capacities for local geographic areas. Findings should be interpreted thoughtfully and in the context of data availability. CAST continues to be enhanced and further expanded for assessing capacity of local and statewide substance use care systems.

What are Older Adults’ perspectives and experiences of care transition and outcomes of care after discharge from the Emergency Department? A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis.

Background: Older adults account for 25% of all Emergency Department (ED) attendances and experience high rates of adverse outcomes after being discharged from the ED. Internationally, health policy is promoting Integrated Care for older adults where, ED visits are considered as an integral part of the older adult’s continuum of care. Evidence suggests that by bridging care interventions before and after ED discharge it, can lead to better outcomes for older adults. Currently, it is not known if these bridging care interventions respond to the needs of older adults transitioning from the ED. A comprehensive understanding of older adults’ experiences of transition home from the ED is required. Therefore, a systematic review and synthesis of qualitative studies was completed to describe older adult’s experiences of transition from the ED.
 Who is it for? Policy Makers, Health Care Professionals, Older Adults, Stakeholder Groups, Non-Profit Organisations, Researchers (Older Adults and Integrated Care).
 Who did you involve and engage with? The topic was identified as a priority by an Older Person Panel and the study was conceived by an interdisciplinary group of health researchers. Analysis is on-going currently. Preliminary findings of the qualitative synthesis will be shared and identified themes discussed and refined with this Older Person Panel. Further meetings will be convened to discuss key implications of the findings and to develop a lay summary of the findings for dissemination to relevant stakeholders.
 What did you do? The research question was developed and a protocol for a Qualitative Evidence Synthesis (QES) was registered on PROSPERO. This QES included qualitative studies of older adults (65+) experiences and perspectives of transition from the ED. A full database search was completed using three key search terms: Qualitative Research, ED, and Older Person. 4373 articles were retrieved and 9 articles were included after screening. Included articles were quality assessed using the CASP quality appraisal checklist. Data from the included studies was synthesized using the six-stage approach to meta-ethnography described by Noblit and Hare.
 Findings and Impact: Key findings/themes of this study include: Fragmented Care when transitioning from the ED, the value of communication, risk of readmission to the ED and symptom management. These findings are relevant for those developing interventions for this population.
 Learning for International audience: Address ways to improve the delivery of care for the complex needs among older persons when transitioning between Emergency Department and Integrated Care. Assist with the Clinical Pathway Development of older persons between ED and Integrated Care/Community.
 What are the next steps? A Qualitative Descriptive study using semi structed interviews with older adults to examine their experiences and perspectives of GP Integrated Service i

ÂNIMA HUB: New Research to Business Model for the Development of Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Universities in Partnership With Companies

Many efforts have been made to create a mutually beneficial environment for the development of innovation with interactions between universities, industry and government, for innovation. But there's still a lack of methodologies that design a journey for university students. This paper presents a proposal of a Research to Business (R2B) model called ÂNIMA HUB. A case study was developed with the Brazilian education group Ânima Educação (26 higher education institutions throughout Brazil). ÂNIMA HUB has been applied in these institutions, and it has been able to create 247 interdisciplinary research groups with more than 209 professors and 3500 students. The results show the scalability of the model and its ability to present a well-defined methodology that helps an idea to become a project, be published and become a business plan. In addition, 35 papers have been published and projects have been linked to companies for investment prospects and new business.

The student in higher education: a new perspective on learning experience in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

This article briefly discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the perception of higher education students in Brazil. It initiates a new discussion on the theme following the work of Santos and Lopes (2022), with a post-pandemic perspective. The article delves into the challenges and possibilities that emerged during and after the pandemic, particularly with the shift from in-person to remote learning in higher education and how ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) were utilized in the teaching and learning process. It highlights the limitations and challenges faced by institutions and educators, as well as the identification of opportunities for the incorporation of Digital Culture at this educational level. The paper addresses the term "experience" and the concept of "student experience," with a focus on learning. It discusses and analyzes a segment of the research conducted by the Interdisciplinary Study and Research Group on Curriculum and Society (GEICS) at Mackenzie Presbyterian University (UPM), regarding students' perceptions of their learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, and outlines paths for change and renewal of teaching practices.

Working with roubles and failures in conversation between humans and robots: workshop report.

This paper summarizes the structure and findings from the first Workshop on Troubles and Failures in Conversations between Humans and Robots. The workshop was organized to bring together a small, interdisciplinary group of researchers working on miscommunication from two complementary perspectives. One group of technology-oriented researchers was made up of roboticists, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) researchers and dialogue system experts. The second group involved experts from conversation analysis, cognitive science, and linguistics. Uniting both groups of researchers is the belief that communication failures between humans and machines need to be taken seriously and that a systematic analysis of such failures may open fruitful avenues in research beyond current practices to improve such systems, including both speech-centric and multimodal interfaces. This workshop represents a starting point for this endeavour. The aim of the workshop was threefold: Firstly, to establish an interdisciplinary network of researchers that share a common interest in investigating communicative failures with a particular view towards robotic speech interfaces; secondly, to gain a partial overview of the "failure landscape" as experienced by roboticists and HRI researchers; and thirdly, to determine the potential for creating a robotic benchmark scenario for testing future speech interfaces with respect to the identified failures. The present article summarizes both the "failure landscape" surveyed during the workshop as well as the outcomes of the attempt to define a benchmark scenario.

Developing interdisciplinary research teams in neurosurgery: key elements to success in brachial plexus and peripheral nerve surgery.

The highest-impact medical literature is increasingly produced by interdisciplinary teams. The field of neurosurgery, which involves complex pathologies and recoveries, is particularly amenable to interdisciplinary research approaches. However, research in the medical context regarding the characteristics of effective teams, as well as how to develop and maintain interdisciplinary teams, remains lacking. Here, the authors used the business literature to identify the characteristics of effective teams. They then used the University of Michigan Brachial Plexus and Peripheral Nerve Program, founded under the leadership of the late Dr. Lynda Yang, as a case study for how these principles can be applied to build and operationalize a successful interdisciplinary team. They suggest that these same techniques can be used to create interdisciplinary research groups in other areas of neurosurgery.

Using <em>OpenBIS</em> as Virtual Research Environment: An ELN-LIMS Open-Source Database Tool as a Framework within the <em>CRC 1411 Design of Particulate Products</em>

The digital transformation and consequent use of new digital technologies not only have a substantial impact on society and companies, but also on science. Analog documentation as we have known it for centuries will eventually be replaced by intelligent and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) systems. In addition to the actual research data and results, metadata now plays an important role not only for individual, independently existing projects, but for future scientific use and interdisciplinary research groups and disciplines as well. The solution presented here, consisting of an electronic laboratory notebook and laboratory information management system (ELN-LIMS) based on the openBIS (open Biology Information System) environment, offers interesting features and advantages, especially for interdisciplinary work. The Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1411 ‘Design of Particulate Products’ of the German Research Foundation is characterized by the cooperation of different working groups of synthesis, characterization, and simulation, and therefore serves as a model environment to present the implementation of openBIS. OpenBIS, as an open source ELN-LIMS solution following FAIR principles, provides a common set of general entries with the possibility of sharing and linking (meta-)data to improve the scientific exchange between all users.

Water education, ocean literacy and arts integration

Life below water, as well as at waters, is threatened due to human activity that has caused global warming. As UNESCO stresses, “the time to learn and act for our planet is now”. This article reports on a literature review of existing action research on water education, ocean literacy and arts integration carried out by an emerging interdisciplinary research group stretching across the fields of marine science, arts and science education. Joined by a concern for water education and ocean literacy, the interdisciplinary teams screened 368 research articles with the assistance of the program Covidence which helps with streamlining the literature review processes in a team. Ending up with 14 relevant articles that were analysed in-depth, the authors argue that arts-integrated water education projects take place locally across higher education, formal education and informal education in collaborative teams. The action research projects screened promote and develop open-ended, inquiry-based and creative pedagogies, seeking to foster the capacity to act for sustainable living in a more-than-human world. However, all research projects screened in the review seemed to develop water education more generally. There is a lack of literature researching how the connection to ocean literacy including life below water specifically, can be nurtured.