Interdisciplinary Research Project Research Articles

Re-wilding the Night: Understanding How Darkness Is Valued Through the Nighttime Light Ecology of Bonn Botanical Gardens

Rewilding the Night is an interdisciplinary research project that aims to reimagine the urban night by capturing and communicating the qualities and rhythms of both artificial and natural light at night. Through a collaborative and experimental approach, the project seeks to make the urban night legible by employing sensor technologies and data visualization techniques, thus fostering a deeper engagement with and appreciation for urban darkness. The project has three aims—first, to capture and analyse environmental light data in Bonn Botanical Gardens, Germany to create an accessible understanding of the variations in natural and artificial nighttime light. Second, to use this groundwork to inform subsequent workshops to capture public perceptions and values regarding darkness; and third, to develop lighting prototypes that respond to light data and the insights gained through the workshops. Central to the project is the re-evaluation of urban darkness by questioning and expanding the normative frameworks surrounding urban lighting. The project underscores the importance of interdisciplinary research and design in addressing complex urban challenges, offering a model for future research aimed at creating more livable, sustainable, and inclusive urban night environments for both humans and non-humans.

Knowledge sharing through scenario development: Experiences of an interdisciplinary and international research project

This paper discusses knowledge sharing through scenario development as applied in the interdisciplinary and international research project uVITAL. It focused on user-oriented upgrading of the social housing stock. The aim was to gain deeper insights into the specificities and commonalities of the four country case studies involved. Two online workshops, which included various steps for scenario development, were particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic when face-to-face exchanges were not possible. A Miro whiteboard was very useful as a technical communication and collaboration tool. This paper outlines the benefits and challenges of scenario development to facilitate communication and collaboration between researchers from different disciplines and national and cultural backgrounds, particularly in online and hybrid settings. The well-structured process of scenario development was an important step in the project, moving from passive to active knowledge sharing. This included issues of content, geographical and cultural diversity and methodological openness.

5.X.2. Improving indoor air quality: a public health challenge

Abstract Indoor air quality (IAQ) may have a profound effect on a person’s physical and mental health and well-being. The Knowledge for Indoor Air Quality and Health (K-HEALTHinAIR) project (grant no 101057693) is an interdisciplinary European research project that brings together 15 partners across 8 countries to study the sources, determinants and health outcomes related to IAQ. We aim to increase knowledge and provide input for more accurate monitoring and interventions, promoting healthy indoor air quality across several public health settings. The main aim of this workshop is to engage the public health community in the relevance of IAQ as a public health concern. We will share the innovative and new methodologies applied in the K-HEALTHinAIR project to study IAQ and health and discuss opportunities as well as challenges in this field of research to support shared learning. This workshop highlights IAQ pollutant sources and determinants, seasonal variation in IAQ, older people’s IAQ and health, and presents the project’s open access platform that is developed to share knowledge. We will zoom in on the evidence available for the sources and determinants of exposure to indoor air pollutants. This activity, a systematic review, was fundamental to identify the gaps of knowledge and guide the preparation of data collection tools. It also depicts the main pollutants present in indoor settings and the respective sources and determinants of exposure. Then, one of the 9 public health scenarios studied in the project is presented. We will focus on the first results regarding (determinants of) IAQ variation in primary schools at several locations in Poland. Next, the pilot study in older people living in senior homes in the Netherlands presents first findings of IAQ and health data in this vulnerable population. Finally, the project will deliver an open-access platform aiming to be the one-stop-shop for IAQ Knowledge. The user-profiles identified are presented. At the end, the workshop participants will be up to date on the project’s activities, its relevance for public health and the open access platform via which all output will be shared. Participants will leave with increased understanding of public health research needed to further study IAQ and its impact on health and well-being. Key messages • Indoor air quality is a public health concern impacting health and well-being, especially in vulnerable populations such as children and older people. • The K-HEALTHinAIR project is a multidisciplinary research project in which innovative methodologies are applied to increase knowledge on indoor air quality and health.

Interdisciplinary Recommendations for the Development of Health Kiosks as Low-Threshold, Community Care Structures.

In a termsheet released on 31st of August 2022, the Federal Ministry of Health in Germany proclaimed its intention to establish 1,000 health kiosks across the country. The aim of this innovation was to improve and coordinate access to healthcare, especially for people with higher requirements for support and in rural areas. Communes hold the right to initiate the local establishment of health kiosks while being funded mainly by health insurance companies. However, ways of regional implementation of these health kiosks are yet to be sorted out. In the following interdisciplinary mixed-methods research project, health-related social work and design sciences examine how health kiosks can be arranged under current conditions. Our study provides local authorities with a catalogue of methods for promoting interdisciplinary cooperation as well as practical recommendations and prototype design proposals in the form of a blueprint for the independent development and implementation of locally adapted health kiosks.

When ‘atypical’ is the new typical: a critical analysis of the representation of virginity among neurodivergent men characters in TV series

ABSTRACT This article critically reflects on a television trend that remains poorly documented, namely that of representing male virginity as being caused by a form of neurodivergence. As part of an interdisciplinary research project on sexually inexperienced emerging adults (SIEA) in North American films and TV series, a textual analysis has been conducted for four TV series portraying sexually inexperienced men on the spectrum (The Good Doctor, Atypical, The Big Bang Theory, L’Heure bleue). Our research shows that this tendency to associate men’s sexual inexperience with autism is an important issue that reveals the persistence of gender and ableist norms in TV series. For instance, TV series contribute to the reproduction of the stereotype that a man on the spectrum is de facto sexually inexperienced, and then prioritize a “virginity loss” narrative. Characters also acquire maturity after their first sexual encounter, resulting in increased masculine capital. Considering that such series seek to represent neurodiversity, the lack of diversity when it comes to representing sexual inexperience is questioning. The fact that narratives invariably allow neurodivergent men to gain sexual experience seems to reinforce the cultural norm that sexual activity is mandatory, especially for adult men.

Noise sensors - Part 1: Usage for the redesign of neighbourhoods

An interdisciplinary research project at the Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences with participation of the departments of urban planning, surveying and geoinformatics, business psychology and acoustics, present alternative urban scenarios. Different aspects for the redesign of the district, especially measures to reduce the individual motorised transport, were investigated. Virtual reality and augmented reality experiments are used in public spaces, to show redesign possibilities. Surveys of people, who had the experience of the future scenarios via the AR application and VR application, were carried out. Additionally, acoustical surveys and measurements in this research project were performed using so called noise sensors. These sensors based on MEMS microphones were developed for a simple and cost-effective measurement of external noise in a citizen sciences project. The measurement results of the noise sensors are saved online and can be accessed on the homepage "Sensor.Community". One of the noise sensors was used in the project area over a longer period. Measurement values were generated in third octave bands at intervals of 5 s and are available for further evaluations, e.g. for the calculation of indoor noise levels. The paper presents the research project and reports about the application of the noise sensor.

Loudness and preference judgments for noises of a heat pump

An increasing number of heat pumps have recently been installed to replace conventional heating systems to provide more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient indoor heating. Most commonly, air-to-water heat pumps are chosen. However, the sounds of their fan and compressor can lead to noise complaints and can reach the limit of noise emission regulations. To achieve a more pleasant environment, research is conducted to reduce the perceived noise of heat pumps. As part of an interdisciplinary research project, this study aims to investigate the annoyance ratings of a heat pump and characterize them in terms of equivalent loudness and preference penalties. The study uses a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) method with a 1-up-1-down rule to measure the point of subjective equality for six stimuli representing different operation states of the investigated device. This experiment aims to identify differences between loudness and preference, and combined with an evaluation of psychoacoustic parameters, its results are used to improve the acoustics of heat pumps and the overall user experience.

Цифровой образовательный контент для современного урока: технология экспертизы качества

Widely and universally used e-learning systems (ELS) remain the subject of close attention of researchers. An integral and most important part of the ELS is digital educational content. This is a key element for both distance and full-time education, and in recent years it has been widely used not only in higher education, but also in general education. Assessing the quality of educational content for the expert community is a delicate issue, the complexity of which is due to the examinator subjectivity. Modern automation tools, developed within the framework of the artificial intelligence paradigm, which have already demonstrated the ability to solve various problems, allow us to approach this issue from a new position. The purpose of the article is to present the results of a preliminary study of approaches to increasing the accuracy and objectivity of the examination of the quality of digital educational content through partial automation of expert procedures. The leading research methods are analysis, examination, modeling, ascertaining experiment, description. As a result, a theoretical justification for automating the examination of the quality of digital educational content as a new interdisciplinary scientific research area is presented, tasks are set, goals and methods are defined, and the first results obtained within this area are presented. It is shown that the development goal will be the formation of an expanded description of the process of examination of the quality of digital educational content, including proposals for expert procedures implemented only by automation means, description of the examination information model and interpretation of the results of automatic examination. The novelty of the results obtained lies in the formation of the theoretical foundations for automatic analysis of the digital educational content quality. This will form a fundamentally new quality of assessment procedures in relation to electronic means of teaching and education, based on objective and measurable qualitative characteristics and indicators, formalized stages (processes) of examination, and quantitatively qualified assessment results.

Understanding disciplinary perspectives: a framework to develop skills for interdisciplinary research collaborations of medical experts and engineers

BackgroundHealth professionals need to be prepared for interdisciplinary research collaborations aimed at the development and implementation of medical technology. Expertise is highly domain-specific, and learned by being immersed in professional practice. Therefore, the approaches and results from one domain are not easily understood by experts from another domain. Interdisciplinary collaboration in medical research faces not only institutional, but also cognitive and epistemological barriers. This is one of the reasons why interdisciplinary and interprofessional research collaborations are so difficult. To explain the cognitive and epistemological barriers, we introduce the concept of disciplinary perspectives. Making explicit the disciplinary perspectives of experts participating in interdisciplinary collaborations helps to clarify the specific approach of each expert, thereby improving mutual understanding.MethodWe developed a framework for making disciplinary perspectives of experts participating in an interdisciplinary research collaboration explicit. The applicability of the framework has been tested in an interdisciplinary medical research project aimed at the development and implementation of diffusion MRI for the diagnosis of kidney cancer, where the framework was applied to analyse and articulate the disciplinary perspectives of the experts involved.ResultsWe propose a general framework, in the form of a series of questions, based on new insights from the philosophy of science into the epistemology of interdisciplinary research. We explain these philosophical underpinnings in order to clarify the cognitive and epistemological barriers of interdisciplinary research collaborations. In addition, we present a detailed example of the use of the framework in a concrete interdisciplinary research project aimed at developing a diagnostic technology. This case study demonstrates the applicability of the framework in interdisciplinary research projects.ConclusionInterdisciplinary research collaborations can be facilitated by a better understanding of how an expert’s disciplinary perspectives enables and guides their specific approach to a problem. Implicit disciplinary perspectives can and should be made explicit in a systematic manner, for which we propose a framework that can be used by disciplinary experts participating in interdisciplinary research project. Furthermore, we suggest that educators can explore how the framework and philosophical underpinning can be implemented in HPE to support the development of students’ interdisciplinary expertise.

INTRODUCTION TO JUDICIAL SPECIALTY: BASIC SCIENTIFIC INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY

The article describes the main scientific results of the study, taking into account the author’s modern representations, which consist in the formation of the basis of the new direction in the system of general theory of forensic science-forensic accounting on the implementation of special knowledge beyond forensic expertise (Forensic Specialty or Special Science) and the development of an integrated interdisciplinary framework that develops forensic science. This article is a continuation of the requirements for the publication of the main results of the thesis for the degree of doctor of legal sciences, and also reflects the empirical basis of the research. On the basis of the research carried out by the author, including those published in the scientific works of the author: a) the expediency and timeliness of the development of the forensic doctrine on the implementation of special knowledge outside the forensic expertise has been substantiated. In this connection, the concept, object, subject, structure, principles, tasks and functions of the Teaching are first disclosed and scientifically substantiated, as well as the language of forensic doctrine on the implementation of special knowledge beyond forensic expertise allowing to enter into scientific circulation a new forensic term «specialty» and clarify the concepts of «specialist», «special knowledge», «expert opinion», «expert testimony» et al. b) the original scientific hypothesis for the adoption of the new codified act-the federal law «On the activity of a specialist in the Russian Federation», which determines the legal basis, the principles of the organization of the activity of a specialist in the Russian Federation and the procedure for its implementation in constitutional, civil, arbitration, administrative and criminal proceedings, as well as the introduction of amendments and additions to the current legislation of the Russian Federation concerning the powers and activities of individuals, Having specialized knowledge outside forensic expertise, taking into account the needs and support of some practitioners of law enforcement and other bodies of the Russian Federation; c) developed scientifically based proposals and practical recommendations, aimed at improving the activities of law enforcement agencies to implement special knowledge outside of forensic expertise, taking into account the specifics of the subject of the study, modern realities and new approaches to problem solving; r) proved the prospect of formation and trends in the development of forensic science on the implementation of special knowledge outside forensic expertise as a new complex interdisciplinary scientific research, as well as the development and introduction into law enforcement activities of the universal forensic information system «Spez» in the conditions of digitalization. The methodology of the study is composed of a dialectic-materialistic approach, which made it possible to study the nature and nature of the implementation of specialized knowledge outside of forensic expertise, creating a theoretical basis for forensic learning about the implementation of specialized knowledge outside forensic expertise. In the course of the study, a number of private scientific methods, traditional for studying legal phenomena, were used: historical-in the analysis of factors that determine the formation of the forensic doctrine on the implementation of specialized knowledge outside the forensic examination; formal-logical, Comparative-legal, systemic-structural methods-in the complex study of forensic science on the implementation of specialized knowledge outside forensic expertise, as well as the study of the mechanism of its legal regulation; statistical method-for the generalization of forensic science, Procuratorial, investigative, legal, expert, forensic and intelligence-gathering practices; a method of generalizing practice-which makes it possible to identify typical, Similar, concordant in the main directions of forensic science on the implementation of special knowledge outside of forensic expertise; sociological method-when conducting a questionnaire and interview on current aspects of the study. In general, general scientific methods were mainly used in the theoretical substantiation of the forensic doctrine on the implementation of special knowledge outside the forensic examination as a new complex interdisciplinary scientific research. Specific (private) methods have been applied in an integrated manner to the study of specific forms and types of implementation of expertise outside forensic expertise.

The Glass Mosaic of S. Agnese fuori le mura: New Tesserae in the Puzzle of Early Medieval Rome

The present study, which is part of a wider inter-disciplinary research project on Medieval Rome funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, focuses on the archaeometric characterisation of glass tesserae from the apse mosaic of the church of S. Agnese fuori le mura, dated to the 7th century AD and never analysed until now. The main aims of the study are the identification of chemical compositions of glassy matrices and colouring/opacifying techniques by means of the combination of micro-textural, chemical, and mineralogical data. In S. Agnese tesserae, the results show the presence of glassy matrices and opacifiers/pigments, typical of both Roman and Late Antique/Early Medieval periods. The technological features identified (in particular, glassy matrices and opacifiers/pigments) allow us to discriminate not only new-production tesserae, i.e., those probably produced in the 7th century for the realisation of the S. Agnese mosaic, but also those obtained from recycling or re-using previous glass. This testifies to a quite complex “puzzle”, unusual in other glass mosaics from the same city and coeval with S. Agnese, supporting further the potentiality of archaeometric studies on glass to uncover the technical and socio-cultural knowledge that underpins its manufacturing, use, re-use, and recycling in the Early Medieval Rome.

Model of competency development of professional group leaders (PGL) in higher vocational colleges in Fujian province

This study aims to take Chinese higher vocational colleges professional group leaders as the research subjects to analyze the components of their key competencies, develop the competency model of professional group leaders (PGL), and analyze the main factors influencing the model. It provides a powerful help for improving the scientific level of the construction and management of the teaching staff in higher vocational colleges and filling the gap in the research on the quality and ability of Chinese professional group leaders. A mixed research method is deployed in this study. Data are collected with the help of a self-administrated questionnaire and a semi-structured interview based on grounded theory. Data analysis involves structural equation modeling using AMOS, complemented by qualitative coding in NVivo. It concludes that the competency development model of professional group leaders comprises two main dimensions: explicit competencies and implicit competencies. Explicit competencies include cross-border adaptability (CBA), resource integration ability (RIA), innovation and development practice ability (IDPA), management leadership ability (MLA), and interdisciplinary scientific research ability (ISRA). Implicit competencies include personality attitude (PA), and intrinsic motivation (IM). The study fills a significant gap in the literature by providing a detailed model of competency for professional group leaders in the context of higher vocational education, offering a practical framework for improving the training and management of teaching staff and promoting the development of professional groups effective in vocational colleges.

Fields of Interdisciplinarity

This paper provides an empirical account of the problem of interdisciplinarity in the field sciences, considering it as a driver of ontological change. Our case study is an ongoing interdisciplinary research project in environmental science. Its objective is to trace the long-term histories of European old-growth forests. To account for the mechanisms involved when researchers seek to do interdisciplinary science in the field, we describe 1/ four research practices that take advantage of the spatial order of the study site in order to make forests temporal processes knowable, thereby producing a field site crisscrossed by multiple spatiotemporal orders; 2/ those practices geared towards articulating these spatiotemporal orders and the limits faced by the consortium towards their complete integration; 3/ how such articulation transforms the conception of old-growth forests as spaces shaped by historical processes integrating human activities and valued ecological processes. We argue that interdisciplinary research practice in environmental field sciences does not lead to a synthesis of pre-existing domains of knowledge production. Rather, it does tend to transform both the object of study and the disciplines involved. The field, as both an object of study and a research place, becomes a broker toward ontological changes.

Incorporating lived experience narratives into interdisciplinary environmental communication projects: A technique for better environmental communication

This paper describes how lived experience research, a qualitative research method based on phenomenology, can be modified and incorporated into interdisciplinary environmental risk communication projects. Lived experience methods can give insight into stakeholders’ needs and concerns, enabling development of better communication products and potentially helping overcome disciplinary barriers on project teams. We describe the purposes and methods of lived experience research, draw upon two cases from our own experiences to outline how methods can be adapted for the contexts of interdisciplinary research projects, and describe potential barriers to and opportunities for using this research method in team communication projects, including co-production of knowledge, internal research team acceptance, and making project products more responsive to user needs.

Robotic-assisted versus video-assisted lobectomy for resectable non-small-cell lung cancer: the RVlob randomized controlled trial

The long-term survival and perioperative outcomes of robotic-assisted lobectomy (RAL) and video-assisted lobectomy (VAL) in resectable non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were found to be comparable in retrospective studies, but they have not been investigated in a randomized trial setting. We conducted the RVlob trial to investigate if RAL was non-inferior to VAL in patients with resectable NSCLC. In this single-center, open-label, and parallel-arm randomized controlled trial conducted in Ruijin Hospital (Shanghai, China) between May 2017 and May 2020, we randomly assigned patients with resectable NSCLC in a 1:1 ratio to receive either RAL or VAL. One of the primary endpoints was 3-year overall survival. Secondary endpoints included 3-year disease-free survival. The Kaplan-Meier approach was used to calculate overall survival and disease-free survival at 3 years. This study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03134534. A total of 320 patients were randomized to receive RAL (n=157) or VAL (n=163). The baseline characteristics of patients were well balanced between the two groups. After a median follow-up of 58.0 months, the 3-year overall survival was 94.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 91.0-98.3) in the RAL group and 91.5% (95% CI, 87.2-96.0) in the VAL group (hazard ratio [HR] for death, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.33-1.28; P=0.21); noninferiority of RAL was confirmed according to the predefined margin of-5% (absolute difference, 2.96%; a one-sided 90% CI,-1.39% to ∞; P=0.0029 for noninferiority). The 3-year disease-free survival was 88.7% (95% CI, 83.6-94.1) in the RAL group and 85.4% (95% CI, 80.0-91.2) in the VAL group (HR for disease recurrence or death, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.50-1.52; P=0.62). This study is the first randomized trial to show that RAL resulted in non-inferior overall survival compared with VAL in patients with resectable NSCLC. Based on our results, RAL is an equally oncologically effective treatment and can be considered as an alternative to VAL for resectable NSCLC. National Natural Science Foundation of China (82072557), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFC2500900), Shanghai Municipal Education Commission-Gaofeng Clinical Medicine Grant (20172005, the 2nd round of disbursement), program of Shanghai Academic Research Leader from Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (20XD1402300), Novel Interdisciplinary Research Project from Shanghai Municipal Health Commission (2022JC023), and Interdisciplinary Program of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (YG2023ZD04).

ECOSENSE - Multi-scale quantification and modelling of spatio-temporal dynamics of ecosystem processes by smart autonomous sensor networks

Global climate change threatens ecosystem functioning worldwide. Forest ecosystems are particularly important for carbon sequestration, thereby buffering climate change and providing socio-economic services. However, recurrent stresses, such as heat waves, droughts and floods can affect forests with potential cascading effects on their carbon sink capacity, drought resilience and sustainability. Knowledge about the stress impact on the multitude of processes driving soil-plant-atmosphere interactions within these complex forest systems is widely lacking and uncertainty about future changes extremely high. Thus, forecasting forest response to climate change will require a dramatically improved process understanding of carbon and water cycling across various temporal (minutes to seasons) and spatial (leaf to ecosystem) scales covering atmosphere, biosphere, pedosphere and hydrosphere components. Many relevant processes controlling carbon and water exchange occur at small scales (e.g. rhizosphere, single leaf) with a high spatial and temporal variability, which is poorly constrained. However, interactions and feedback loops can be key players that amplify or dampen a system’s response to stress. Moreover, spatial and temporal scaling rules for these non-linear processes in structurally and functionally diverse ecosystems are unknown. Legacy effects, for example, altered response after previous stress and retarded recovery of forests after climate extremes, are not captured in state-of-the-art models. Currently, we are lacking the appropriate and interconnected measurement, data assimilation and modelling tools allowing for a comprehensive, real-time quantification of key processes at high spatio-temporal coverage in heterogeneous environments. Moreover, since climate impacts are highly unpredictable with respect to timing and location, future research will require novel mobile, easily deployable and cost-efficient approaches. ECOSENSE, therefore, assembles expertise from environmental and engineering sciences, both being excellently paired at the University of Freiburg. Our interdisciplinary research project will investigate all relevant scales in a next-generation ecosystem research assessment (ECOSENSE). Our vision is to detect and forecast critical changes in ecosystem functioning, based on the understanding of hierarchical process interaction. In the first phase, ECOSENSE will explore these process interactions by investigating pools and fluxes of water and carbon, i.e. CO2 exchange, isotope discrimination and volatile organic compounds (VOC), as well as stress indicators by remotely and in situ sensed chlorophyll fluorescence. To address these research tasks, ECOSENSE will develop, implement and test a distributed, autonomous, intelligent sensor network, based on novel microsensors tailored to the specific needs in remote and harsh forest environments. They will measure the spatio-temporal dynamics of ecosystem pools and fluxes in a naturally complex structured forest system with minimal physiological impact. Measured data will be transferred in real-time into a sophisticated database, which will be explored for process analysis, conducted by Artificial Intelligence and close to real-time process-based ecosystem models for now- and forecasting applications. Thereby, ECOSENSE will: i) break new ground for integrative ecosystem research by identifying hierarchies and interactions of abiotic and physiological processes of forest carbon and water exchange, ii) provide a profound understanding of complex ecosystem responses to environmental stressors and iii) enable the prediction of process-based alterations in ecosystem functioning and sustainability. Our novel ECOSENSE toolkit, tested and validated in controlled climate extreme experiments and our ECOSENSE Forest, will open new horizons for rapid assessment in vast and remote ecosystems. Thereby, ECOSENSE will allow for a unique avenue of data acquisition and, consequently, for unprecedented scale-crossing ecosystem understanding and modelling.

L’ordine corinzio nei disegni di Francesco di Giorgio Martini

This contribution offers a detailed exploration of an interdisciplinary research project focused on developing an original method for interpreting the drawings in the manuscript versions of Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s Treatise on Architecture. The research primarily centers on the Ashburnham 361 manuscript, housed at the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence. This work pays special attention to the drawings in the chapter on columns found in the mentioned manuscript. These drawings serve as examples Martini uses to illustrate his translation or vernacular version of Vitruvius’ Architecture. Upon closer examination, these images reveal the extensive technical and artistic knowledge that Francesco di Giorgio possessed. By using the Corinthian capital as the guiding theme of this work, it is possible to trace this extensive knowledge, which was prevalent in medieval art and architecture, particularly in Siena, the author’s homeland, as well as in Tuscany and throughout central Italy.

Monitoring the progress and impact of a multicountry, interdisciplinary research project on childhood stunting: the UKRI GCRF Action Against Stunting Hub MEL protocol

IntroductionMonitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) is an integral part of research, programme and policy development and implementation. However, MEL methods used to monitor and evaluate interdisciplinary research projects are often...

Notes On Artificial Intelligence And The Rise Of New Images

Pamela Breda’s (Digital Arts) contribution "Notes On Artificial Intelligence And The Rise Of New Images" explores how hyper-realistic computer-generated images (CGI) reshape our perception of reality and its implications for human creativity. Her considerations stem from an ongoing interdisciplinary artistic research project that combines positions from visual cultural studies, cognitive psychology, and perceptual theory with historical perspectives. Breda’s contribution reflects on the historical background of CGI, its influence on various domains of individual and collective life, and its philosophical implications, her contribution provides current viewpoints on the position of AI and its past implications.

Preface

The 20th issue year 2024 of Icon of Faith (Icoana Credinței), International Journal of Interdisciplinary Scientific Research (IFIJISR) encompasses a group of articles on various themes, dedicated to the areas of Theology and Christian life.