Interdisciplinary Research Program Research Articles

The biopolitics of algorithmic governmentality: How the US military imagines war in the age of neurobiology and artificial intelligence

With the objective to predict and pre-empt the emergence of political violence, the US Department of Defence (DoD) has devoted increasing attention to the intersection between neurobiology and artificial intelligence. Concepts such as ‘cognitive biotechnologies’, ‘digital biosecurity’ and large-scale collection of ‘neurodata’ herald a future in which neurobiological intervention on a global scale is believed to come of age. This article analyses how the relationship between neurobiology and AI – between the human and the machine – is conceived, made possible, and acted upon within the SMA programme, an interdisciplinary research programme sponsored by the DoD. By showcasing the close intersection between the computer sciences and the neurosciences within the US military, the article questions descriptions of algorithmic governmentality as decentring the human, and as juxtaposed to biopolitical techniques to regulate processes of subjectivity. The article shows that within US military discourse, new biotechnologies are seen to engender algorithmic governmentality a biopolitical dimension, capable of monitoring and regulating emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and subjectivity on population level, particularly targeting the minds and brains of ‘vulnerable’ populations in the global South.

Stormwise: Innovative Forest Management to Promote Storm Resistance in Roadside Forests

Abstract A growing proportion of forested landscapes are interspersed with human infrastructure, such as utility lines and roads, increasing the potential for tree-failure consequences due to storms and other causes. Utilities and other institutions have strong incentives to reduce such interactions and allocate substantial resources to risk reduction, but trees and forests in densely populated landscapes also provide significant amenities to society. We present a generalized framework for “Stormwise” forest management, focused on resistance of roadside forests to storms, based on elements of arboricultural and silvicultural practice and tree biomechanics and architecture. We detail results of a multidisciplinary research program focused on management outcomes, opportunities and barriers to implementation, and allocation of investment based on physical and social landscape characteristics. We discuss initial findings, the potential for widespread adoption of resilience-focused management in roadside and infrastructure-adjacent forests, and the importance of such work, considering a changing climate. Study Implications: The research and implementation program we detail here illustrates the potential for “Stormwise” forest management to reduce storm-damage recovery costs, result in fewer and shorter-duration power and transportation interruptions, and allow for low-investment ground-based management in future forest entries. We illustrate a multifaceted, interdisciplinary research program that links the geospatial, social, and biophysical components of understanding forest infrastructure systems. We illustrate how implementation of Stormwise management has the potential to benefit stakeholders such as residents and utilities, offset the substantial economic costs of tree-related power outages, and reduce societal disruptions associated with interactions between trees and infrastructure during storms.

Chat Bot

Chatbots are becoming increasingly important as gateways to digital services and information used in areas such as customer service, healthcare, education, and workplace support. However, there is limited knowledge about the impact of chatbots on individual, collective, and societal levels. Moreover, there are still many challenges that must be overcome before chatbots can realize their full potential. Correspondingly, chatbots have become an important research area in recent years. To support the advancement of knowledge in this emerging research area, we propose a research agenda in the form of future directions and issues to be addressed through chatbot research. This proposal culminates years of discussion in the CONVERSATIONS workshop series on chatbot research. After thorough exploratory analysis among workshop participants, we explore future directions around six topics of interest: (a) users and their impact; (b) user experience and design; (c) Frameworks and Platforms, (d) Collaborative Chatbots, (e) ) Democratization of Chatbots, and (e) Ethics and Privacy. For each of these topics, we provide an overview of the state-of-the-art, discuss key research challenges, and suggest promising directions for future research. The six themes are detailed from a five-year perspective and should be considered as elements of an interdisciplinary research program co-developed by passionate researchers in the field.

Research based youth care?!: An equal partnership between youth, their network, professionals, and researchers in youth care.

In the interdisciplinary research program VOICe (Voicing youth at social risk) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, we focus on developing collaborative research practices with young people ‘at social risk’. We share the mission to enable young people and professionals to enter a dialogue in an equal and investigative manner about what they really find important in their daily life context and to adjust this together if necessary. For the past ten years we have been developing collaborative research practices in education in collaboration with schools under the name ‘Research based School?!' to enhance the learning and well-being of students. We would like to further explore, adapt, and possibly roll out this experience with a collaborative model in the context of youth care. This project is based on the idea that quality of care stands or falls with the expertise and commitment of the facility. 
 “Research based youth care?!” sees a facility as an environment in which everyone bears a responsibility in each other's development. The focus is on the provision that dares to come forward as a learning community. This learning community enhances the growth of all involved by challenging them to tackle questions in partnership.
 This project embraces a collaboration model in which care providers, researchers, young people, and their network adopt an investigative attitude together. The use of problem-solving strategies and the exchange of knowledge through participation in a learning community with structured research activities are paramount in this project. It is important that the youth, their network, and the professionals realizes that a problem he/she is confronted with in the facility also affects others (colleagues, management, parents, other youth…). By including these different perspectives, the problem is supported within the entire social context and the chance of carrying out improvement actions is greater.
 In a first step, we will build a basis for the collaborative model within youth care, in which we will bring involved parties together to discuss the conditions for equal participation between young people, their network, professionals, and researchers. We have started experience experts and managers sharing their experiences in a professional learning community and to enter a dialogue to design a workable model to further involve other professionals and youth in subsequent phases.
 With this trajectory, the university and the professional field join forces with the aim of professionalizing themselves and promoting the development of young people, starting from their own practice; relevant for the facility, the care provider, the youth, and their network; as a full partner; and in dialogue between practice and theory.

The role of community energy systems to facilitate energy transitions in Ethiopia and Mozambique

AbstractPolicymakers and academics are focusing on energy transition to provide affordable, sustainable, and green energy for everyone. This is being driven by a combination of the lack of electricity access to millions of people particularly in the African continent and the requirement for the reduction of environmental impact through the use of greener energy resources and systems. This paper summarizes an interdisciplinary research program investigating community energy systems in Ethiopia and Mozambique to facilitate energy transitions. Specifically, it compares community energy landscapes, progress made, and existing challenges and opportunities. To determine the status of community energy development in the two countries, recent publications and official policies were reviewed, and community energy managers were interviewed. The review showed that renewable energy sources are the dominant focus for community energy developments, which is key to achieving a cleaner energy future. However, progress in community energy development has been slow in these countries. There are several reasons that hinder community energy systems from driving the necessary energy transition to a cleaner, modern, and affordable energy. Some of these reasons are the absence of favorable regulatory frameworks, incentive package, knowledge on business models, weak commitments from stakeholders, and insufficient community involvement. These issues vary in degree between the two countries.

Adaptation in the Scientific Method: An Outline for Mutual Learning and Knowledge Co-production in Climate Science

Climate change is taken as a new site of scientific inquiry across the disciplines against the backdrop of the global discourses of the crisis human society confronts today. Our inability to predict and forecast the future and the problems of climate change led to a theoretical vacuum and thereby burden on the scientific communities. Climate change-induced uncertainties manifested in the manifold and their implications on human society, livelihood and ecosystem have increasingly become the objects of analysis for devising empirical tools for field enquiry. It challenges the specificities while looking at the events of uncertainties in context. The new set of evidence on climate change has also redefined the role of the scientific community. This paper discusses climate-related events in the lives of people and the changes in the ecosystem and explores how such factors became an object of scientific inquiry. With the ideas of political ecology, the domain of scientific practices is transformed into an arena of co-production of knowledge in which place, social context and agencies become central. This study explores (1) how the scientific community adapted to outline an interdisciplinary research programme to systematically investigate and register climate-change-affected areas and (2) how the local people in Ladakh Himalaya have participated and reflected on the changing pattern of livelihood and ecosystem through this research enquiry. It has further complicated the analysis on nature-culture dialectics to adapt a robust scientific method to signify the importance of mutual learning and knowledge co-production in climate science.

Reproducible science of science at scale: pySciSci

Abstract Science of science (SciSci) is a growing field encompassing diverse interdisciplinary research programs that study the processes underlying science. The field has benefited greatly from access to massive digital databases containing the products of scientific discourse—including publications, journals, patents, books, conference proceedings, and grants. The subsequent proliferation of mathematical models and computational techniques for quantifying the dynamics of innovation and success in science has made it difficult to disentangle universal scientific processes from those dependent on specific databases, data-processing decisions, field practices, etc. Here we present pySciSci, a freely available and easily adaptable package for the analysis of large-scale bibliometric data. The pySciSci package standardizes access to many of the most common data sets in SciSci and provides efficient implementations of common and advanced analytical techniques.

Art in water and sanitation research in Nepal: a performance with sanitation workers

This paper documents and discusses the creation of a performance (dance and song) by 12 sanitation workers in Nepal working with artists Alice Fox (UK) and Ashmina Ranjit (Nepal). This creative work was one element within an international, interdisciplinary research programme that explored shit flow, wastewater and marginality in five rapidly developing off-grid towns. Performed at the Lumbini Peace Park as part of the 2022 Women of the World Festival, an important objective of the work was raising awareness of issues affecting sanitation workers, who are among the most precarious workers in the world. Using photos and artist commentary, ‘we’ (geographers and artists) show how the performance (un)seen (un)clean opened a creative space through which to engage and circulate the lived experiences of workers.

Recenzió a Tánc – Tananyag – Módszer című módszertani jegyzetről

In our study, we present a plan for folk dance training and its methodological background within the framework of a larger interdisciplinary research program. Our aim is to provide a brief overview of the táncház-method (also known as the dance house method), discuss its practical pedagogical antecedents and describe the teaching process used in the approach, which consists of 32 sessions. In doing so, we provide guidance for implementing the táncház-method in the folk dance classroom.

Toward a New Era of Coral Reef Monitoring.

Coral reefs host some of the highest concentrations of biodiversity and economic value in the oceans, yet these ecosystems are under threat due to climate change and other human impacts. Reef monitoring is routinely used to help prioritize reefs for conservation and evaluate the success of intervention efforts. Reef status and health are most frequently characterized using diver-based surveys, but the inherent limitations of these methods mean there is a growing need for advanced, standardized, and automated reef techniques that capture the complex nature of the ecosystem. Here we draw on experiences from our own interdisciplinary research programs to describe advances in in situ diver-based and autonomous reef monitoring. We present our vision for integrating interdisciplinary measurements for select "case-study" reefs worldwide and for learning patterns within the biological, physical, and chemical reef components and their interactions. Ultimately, these efforts could support the development of a scalable and standardized suite of sensors that capture and relay key data to assist in categorizing reef health. This framework has the potential to provide stakeholders with the information necessary to assess reef health during an unprecedented time of reef change as well as restoration and intervention activities.

Echo chambers, polarization, and “Post-truth”: In search of a connection

ABSTRACT The US populace appears to be increasingly polarized on partisan lines. Political fissures bifurcate the country even on empirical matters like vaccine safety and anthropogenic climate change. There now exists an ever-expanding interdisciplinary research program in which theorists attempt to explain increases in political polarization and myriad other phenomena collected under the “post-truth” heading by appeal to social-epistemic structures, like echo chambers and epistemic bubbles, that affect the flow and uptake of information in various communities. In this paper, I critically analyze C. Thi Nguyen’s important and popular analysis of echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. As I demonstrate, the explanatory mechanisms on which Nguyen focuses are, arguably, overly cognitive and obscure significant effects of social-epistemic structures on our affective lives. The broader lesson to draw from my discussion is the following: commonly used expressions intended to refer to social-epistemic problems, like “political polarization”, possess no univocal definition across theorists, and various ways of making the terms precise are differentially successful in characterizing verifiable phenomena. Theorizing about social-epistemic structures should be responsive to relevant empirical work on various phenomena that we have good reason to believe constitute real and substantive problems that result from the flow and uptake of information.

A Missed Opportunity. A review on Dimitris Xygalatas, Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living, London: Profile Books, 2022.

This review recognizes that Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living has many good qualities and relates a story of scholarship that, according to the assertions of the author, heralds a brave new world of interdisciplinary examination of research objects heretofore the traditional and exclusive province of anthropology, comparative religion, and the humanities in general. But despite the seemingly broad sense of acceptance this book claims for the Cognitive Science of Religion, the decades-old field upon which the tenets of this book are based, in reality it betrays itself as a microcosm of a niche-driven interpretation often found in the social sciences and humanities, i.e. dismissing some and ignoring other extant work in order to claim unique subject matter expertise. Unfortunately, that exercise results in the sacrifice of (1) parsimonious explanatory claims and (2) veritable engagement with the already existing and robust interdisciplinary and well-funded research programs addressing ritualized behavior, all to the detriment of the ostensible claims the book makes championing a robust, interdisciplinary epistemological pluralism.

A mixed-methods analysis to understand the implementation of a multistakeholder research consortium: Environmental influences on child health outcomes (ECHO).

Large, transdisciplinary research consortia have increasingly been called upon to address complex and challenging health problems. The National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program developed multisite collaboration strategies to promote impactful collaborative observational research on child health. Team science and implementation science offer theoretical and methodological structure to answer questions about the strategies that facilitate successful consortia. We sought to characterize the elements and conditions that influence the implementation of a complex, interdisciplinary longitudinal research program, ECHO. Informed by the Practical, Robust, Implementation and Sustainability Model, our ethnographic research included semi-structured interviews with internal stakeholders and program evaluation metrics. We conducted template and matrix analysis and triangulated the qualitative and quantitative data to understand the implementation of ECHO. Between February and May 2022, we conducted 24 virtual interviews with representatives from ECHO components. The main cross-cutting topics that emerged from thematic analysis were collaboration and team science; communication and decision-making; data processes and harmonization; and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Both the qualitative and secondary quantitative evaluation data provided insights into the reach, adoption, implementation, and effectiveness of the program. A large, multidisciplinary research consortium such as ECHO has produced conceptual, instrumental, capacity building, and connectivity impact for internal and external stakeholders. Facilitators included infrastructure that supported collaboration and learning, alignment of data processes, and harmonization. Opportunities for enhanced impact include multidisciplinary, multimethod communication strategies, and alignment of research priorities.

Guest Editorial: Ecological knowledge co‐production and the contested imaginaries of development in Southeast Asia

Guest Editorial: Ecological knowledge co‐production and the contested imaginaries of development in Southeast Asia

VALUES AND PRACTICES OF THE SLAVIC-TURKIC UNITY OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA AND THE COUNTRIES OF CENTRAL ASIA

Hundreds of archeological monuments are concentrated on the territory of the Great Altai, connectedwith all stages of the history of the Turkic community (the second half of the 5th — 11th centuries AD).They are represented by funerary and memorial objects, rock carvings, stone statues, objects of materialand spiritual culture, and samples of writing. The available materials testify to the significant prospects forfurther comprehensive study of the archaeological sites of the Turkic period in Altai. The implementation ofa program of interdisciplinary research, including a series of humanitarian and natural-science analyzes ofanthropological and osteological materials from archaeological complexes, seems to be relevant.

ENGAGED RESEARCH: HUMILITY, LISTENING, BETTER QUESTIONS, BETTER ANSWERS

Abstract The expansive field of aging science comprises diverse disciplines, perspectives, and approaches to address questions that extend from strengthening our understanding of biological aging to promoting wellbeing among diverse aging populations. Engaged research practices represent a cross-cutting series of diverse epistemological beliefs and pragmatic practices in the conduct of research with broad relevance to areas of inquiry across the translational aging research continuum. This presentation will describe experiences with the establishment, maintenance, and continual evolution of engaged research practices in an interdisciplinary program of health services research focused on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD). Specifically, this presentation will discuss: a) conceptualizations of engagement and its relationship to equitable research, b) engagement as praxis for the conduct of equitable research, c) personal reflections on experiences with and the practice of humility, listening, and valuing stakeholders’ distinctive expertise, and d) practical recommendations for early career scholars approaching engaged research.

Researchers’ Public Engagement in the Context of Interdisciplinary Research Programs: Learning and Reflection from Boundary Crossing

Outreach activities might facilitate researchers’ boundary crossing not only between science and society but also between disciplines. This offers opportunities for learning and reflection on the individual and the organizational level, resulting in what we call retroactive effects. We questioned N = 75 researchers of two interdisciplinary research programs. Researchers reported positive retroactive effects on their enjoyment of and skills for engaging in outreach activities (OA) and partly agreed that OA had benefited interdisciplinary communication and networking within the research program. However, doctoral researchers were hesitant toward public engagement, compared with postdoctoral researchers and professors. This research allows implications for fostering the role of researchers in institutional communication efforts.

Toward "Electrochemical/Materials Processing for Space Engineering" Symp

Several symposium have been hosted such as “Electrochemistry in Space”, 236th ECS Atlanta(2019) and “ISRU”, Call for Papers: ACS Earth and Space Chemistry for Special Issue: Materials of the Universe : the Final Chemical Frontier(2020). However, their scopes are rather shifted to space exploration concept, primarily led by the Space Agency. Those are not geared toward training graduate students for the future space engineering using basic science, especially Space Environmental Utilization Research is not intensively covered. It is our thought that the Electrochemical Society (ECS) shall organize such an interdisciplinary education & research program collaborating with TMS society (Light Metal and Materials Processing Divisions). The research subjects on Space Energy & Resources must be newly stimulated to make recognize and support the field of Electrochemical/Materials Processing, encompassing:[1] Basic Science with Drop Tower, Rocket & ISS(for example: Nucleation & Growth of Ice in Space, Gas Electrode Behavior)[2] Microgravity Research like Protein or Semiconductor Crystallization[3] Energy Conversion and Storage System for Space Engineering(Unitized Regenerative FC), LIB, Nuclear Battery)[4] Sensor System for Rover Eng. & X-ray Astrophysics[5] Life Supporting System including Desalination Technology and CO2 Reduction[6] ISRU, Materials Processing/Thermodynamic Measurement with ELF[7] Computational Chemistry/Interfacial Reaction Dynamics[8] Ion Transfer through Cell Membrane in Bio-physics[9] Global Environmental Observation System[10] Others

Editorial introductions.

Current Opinion in Anesthesiology was launched in 1988. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The fields of anesthesiology is divided into 16 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Journal's Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Anthony AbsalomAnthony AbsalomProf. Anthony Absalom studied medicine at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and underwent specialist training in East Anglia and Scotland in the UK. He is currently Professor of Anaesthesiology at the University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands. His clinical interests are procedural sedation, anaesthesia for neurosurgery, and intravenous anaesthesia techniques. His research interests are mostly in the domains of pharmacology and neuroscience. He is an editor of the British Journal of Anaesthesia, past President of the Society for Intravenous Anaesthesia, and a former vice-president of the World Society for Intravenous Anaesthesia. He is currently Chairman of the Neuroanaesthesia Section of the Dutch Association of Anaesthetists and past-Chair of the General Anaesthesia Scientific Sub-committee of the European Society of Anesthesiology. Ellen SoffinEllen SoffinEllen M. Soffin, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, USA and an anesthesiologist at Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, USA. She is the Director of the Anesthesia-Spine Service, and Co-Director of the Hospital for Special Surgery's interdisciplinary spine research program. Dr Soffin earned her medical degree at King's College Medical School, London, UK and PhD in neuroscience at Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, UK, before moving to the United States. She completed residency training in anesthesiology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, USA and a fellowship in regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine at Hospital for Special Surgery. Dr Soffin's research interests include evaluating the role and value of field and fascial plane blocks for the spine surgery patient; optimizing surgical outcomes using enhanced recovery pathways for total joint arthroplasty and spine surgery; and implementation of regulatory, institutional, and clinical strategies for opioid stewardship programs. She has published extensively on outcomes related to pathway-based care, regional analgesia techniques, and opioid-minimizing approaches to the perioperative care of the orthopedic surgery patient. Dr Soffin serves on the editorial board of Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine and is the Section Editor, Acute Pain and Perioperative Care, for Journal of Pain Research. She is an active faculty member of American Society of Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine, the American Academy of Pain Medicine, and the Society of Anesthesia & Sleep Medicine, where she is the co-chair of the research committee.

Building an interdisciplinary program of cardiovascular research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology– the ETHeart story

In this backstory, researchers from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) who initiated an interdisciplinary program to generate innovative solutions for different cardiovascular diseases, such as myocardial infarction, valvular replacement, and movement-based rehabilitation therapy, discuss the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary research.