Research-based Knowledge Research Articles

Resources and Practices to Improve Diatom Data Quality.

Environmental programs in the United States face technical challenges that inhibit the ability to use diatoms in water quality monitoring and assessment projects. Specifically, inconsistent taxonomy can obscure diatom responses to environmental variables. Problems are the result of (1) limited access to a common set of taxonomic references, especially those that are geographically relevant, (2) inefficient enumeration protocols, (3) lack of complete and transparent documentation of taxa, and (4) limited opportunities for continued education, training, and knowledge sharing. However, robust resources and practices are available to improve diatom data quality and interpretation. Several resources improve diatom data quality, including a publicly accessible taxonomic reference (diatoms.org) and recommended practices. These practices include adoption of the voucher floras, random sample assignment, replicate microscope slides, and improved quality control. Finally, the Society for Freshwater Science Diatom Taxonomic Certification Committee is developing educational materials and certification exams to support practitioner training and to increase the diatom research knowledge base. The resources and practices in this article are broadly applicable to improving basic and applied research on diatoms worldwide.

Living a Meaningful Life While Struggling with Mental Health: Challenging Aspects Regarding Personal Recovery Encountered in the Mental Health System.

Based upon academic and clinical experience from Denmark, this article aims to highlight international research-based knowledge concerning challenging aspects about the understanding and implementation of recovery-oriented practice. Three key points are located: (a) An integrative biopsychosocial approach considering both the clinical and personal recovery perspectives is relevant for research and practice. (b) Barriers in implementing a recovery-oriented approach include both individual and systemic challenges. This is well documented in the research-based literature, highlighting the need for changes. (c) A shift from professional control to a service-user orientation is seen as crucial. Examples of a positive shift are seen, helping the health professionals in their development and practicing of skills and competences through education and personal formation. Within these perspectives, a paradigm shift from a one-dimensional biomedical approach to a biopsychosocial approach is suggested. Instead of focusing on rapid stabilisation and symptom relief as a clinical outcome, a humanistic approach building on social- and person-oriented values is fundamental for social and personal recovery leading to a meaningful life.

Evaluating the effects of a first communion preparation program on parent-participants: a parish-based analysis

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to assess how adult education sessions impacted the faith lives of the parents (N = 43) of children enrolled in a First Communion Preparation Program for Catholics. To do this, the strength of the parents’ relationship with Jesus and their belief in his Real Presence in the Eucharist were measured at the beginning and the end of the program. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed. From a quantitative perspective, the results indicated statistically significant increases in both the strength of the participants’ relationship with Jesus and their belief in the Real Presence. Analysis of the qualitative data resulted in the emergence of several dominant themes which pertained to the participants’ impressions of the program. While further investigation is definitely warranted, this study began to lay a foundation of research-based knowledge in an area very much aligned with the Church’s mission.

The traffic light pilot study: assessing the level of evidence for interventions in obstetrics and gynaecology

Evidence-based medicine tries to support clinicians through research, integrated with clinical skill and patient values. This pilot study aimed to assess appropriateness and level of evidence of current clinical practices, through evaluating availability and quality of guidelines. A prospective observational study in a large tertiary hospital network was performed, sampling diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in obstetrics and gynaecology. Interventions performed were justified against knowledge in the published literature, and guideline recommended practice. We collected 58 patient observations, 40(69%) in obstetrics, 18(31%) in gynaecology. There were local guidelines relevant in 52%, national in 22%, and international guidelines in 12%. In 50 interventions with available guidelines, 54% provided strong and clear recommendations for practice, and were supported by research-based knowledge. Similarly, 66% of encounters were thought to be in concordance with research-based knowledge. There was good concordance between interventions and guideline recommendations. However, half of guidelines reviewed had limited or no knowledge to justify their recommendations. IMPACT STATEMENT What is already known on this subject? Evidence based medicine should aim to improve patient outcomes. However, available trials assessing effectiveness of established practices suggest that they convey little to no benefit to patients. There remains a paucity of evidence for established practices in obstetrics and gynaecology What do the results of this study add? This pilot study assesses the usefulness of interventions in obstetrics and gynaecology and confirms the feasibility of collecting and coding our interventions and clinical practices with a traffic light system. What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? These findings demonstrate the feasibility of our traffic lights grading system within obstetrics and gynaecology. It demonstrates this method is useful to assess what knowledge base is guiding clinical practice, how well practice concords with guidelines and literature, as well as the presence and significance of any gaps in knowledge. These early findings will be used in an expanded study and have implications on the way healthcare effectiveness is evaluated, as well as reducing healthcare expenditure in obstetrics and gynaecology.

Reviewing equity investors’ funding criteria: a comprehensive classification and research agenda

ABSTRACT Venture capitalists and angel investors usually apply a set of assessment criteria to evaluate the key elements of entrepreneurial projects. However, since each investor considers different criteria, previous researchers who analysed investors’ decision making, ended up analysing a variety of divergent aspects. In this paper, a systematic literature review on the assessment criteria applied by equity investors was carried out. The purpose of this study was to identify and classify all the criteria considered by previous researchers to determine whether some aspects were investigated more extensively than others and to understand the reasons for this type of approach. After screening the abstracts of 894 journal publications, 53 articles were selected for a detailed analysis. In total, 208 unique criteria were identified and were subsequently classified into 35 specific categories, 11 generic classes and 4 main domains of analysis. The high level of detail and granularity of this work is one of its added values and can provide a knowledge base for future researchers who intend to apply new methodologies for the analysis of investors’ decision-making. Starting from the results obtained so far, a new agenda for future research is suggested to encourage a more data-driven approach leveraging data science techniques.

Managing Strong Emotions: Nurses’ Recognition and Responses to Personal Emotions When Approaching Parents With Cancer and Their Dependent Children

Care for sick parents and their dependent children (<18 years) has become a pertinent issue in health care. Nurses play an important role in caring for parents with cancer as well as their children. By utilizing a constructivist grounded theory approach, the aim of this study was to expand the research-based knowledge of nurses' experiences of personal emotions in this research field and to develop a subsequent explanatory theory extending the existing concept of emotional labor. Interviews with 12 nurses were conducted and analyzed. The nurses experienced this area of work as particularly emotionally challenging and attempted to manage personal emotions through regulating and processing strategies. Through this process, they sought for emotional strength by balancing their private lives and work lives to manage work-related emotions. An increased awareness of emotional labor may strengthen nurses' emotional competence in nursing.

Exploring network dynamics in science: the formation of ties to knowledge translators in clinical research

From an evolutionary economics perspective, knowledge networks are self-organizing systems. Therefore, studying changes of these systems requires an understanding of how such changes are influenced by both the behaviors and characteristics of key individual actors and the network structure. We apply this perspective to a network of investigators (i.e. lead scientists) and a sample of 9543 Phase 2 cancer clinical trials during the period 2002–2012, in order to examine the structure and explore the dynamics of the clinical trial network. Using temporal exponential random graph models, we examine whether preferential attachment, multi-connectivity, or homophily drive the formation of new collaborative relations to knowledge translators - i.e. investigators with basic and clinical research knowledge. Our results suggest that despite some increased connectivity over time the network remains fragmented due to the considerably growing number of investigators in the network. This fragmentation limits opportunities for knowledge transfer to advance clinical trials. We find that homophily in research fields and investigators’ country of affiliation and heterophily in terms of publication output promote the formation of ties to knowledge translators. We find also that multi-connectivity increases the probability of tie formation with knowledge translators while preferential attachment reduces this probability.

Of lions and Yakshis

Vladimir Propp’s theory Morphology of the Folktale identifies 31 invariant functions, subfunctions, and seven classes of folktale characters to describe the narrative structure of the Russian magic tale. Since it was first published in 1928, Propp’s approach has been used on various folktales of different cultural backgrounds. ProppOntology models Propp’s theory by describing narrative functions using a combination of a function class hierarchy and characteristic relationships between the Dramatis Personae for each function. A special focus lies on the restrictions Propp defined regarding which Dramatis Personae fulfill a certain function. This paper investigates how an ontology can assist traditional Humanities research in examining how well Propp’s theory fits for folktales outside of the Russian–European folktale culture. For this purpose, a lightweight query system has been implemented. To determine how well both the annotation schema and the query system works, twenty African tales and fifteen tales from the Kerala region in India were annotated. The system is evaluated by examining two case studies regarding the representation of characters and the use of Proppian functions in African and Indian tales. The findings are in line with traditional analogous Humanities research. This project shows how carefully modelled ontologies can be utilized as a knowledge base for comparative folklore research.

A more sustainable urban future calls for action: the city of Lahti as European Green Capital 2021

Abstract In 2020, a small urban center from southern Finland, the City of Lahti, was awarded the 2021 European Green Capital, which recognizes and rewards local efforts that seek to improve the urban environment, together with its economy and the quality of life for its inhabitants, further posing ambitious goals for ecological improvement. In this commentary, we describe some of the key elements that made Lahti the 2021 European Green Capital, as well as some of the future plans for the city. We also highlight the importance of research-based knowledge as the foundation for achieving better outcomes in urban decision making.

Academe vs. Hollywood: Sweet Liberty, or the Dilemmas of Historical Representation on Film

In Sweet Liberty, writer and director Alan Alda dramatizes the process of turning a scholarly study about the American Revolutionary War into a Hollywood film; he does so in ways that bring out the ethical complexities of adaptation, and eventually takes them to a meta-filmic level rarely seen in non-experimental cinema. While Sweet Liberty initially comes off as a light comedy with a predictable plot and ending, on closer inspection it compels us to reflect on the relationship between historical research and the popular entertainment industry. Although Alda appears to chastise the makers of period films who seek to capitalize on “history” without paying heed to historical facts, his professorial hero is not particularly critically minded either. Intentionally or not, Alda demonstrates that evaluating a mainstream history film cannot be reduced to a dichotomy between truth and fiction, and that research-based knowledge should also be viewed with a healthy skepticism.

Innovations in the Management of E-Commerce Entities Operating on the Slovak Market – Analysis of Customer Interactions during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper deals with the issue of innovation in e-commerce, specifically with the application of innovative methods of evaluating customer interactions in the environment of the virtual social network Facebook. The first part presents the results of desk research on the issue of the utilization of virtual social media Facebook in e-commerce in order to approach the knowledge base of the analysed issues. The aim of the second part of the study presented in the paper was to describe and evaluate the activities of customer groups of the five largest e-commerce entities operating in the Slovak virtual market. The data needed for the analysis were collected during the state of emergency declared in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. From the point of view of findings, the initial trends in the customers interactions were declining online activity over the weekend and an increase in online activity at the beginning of the working week. In general, it can be stated that data were analysed in a highly non-standard market situation. With respect to the social media e-communication of selected e-commerce entities, it was possible to outline specific patterns of consumer behaviour. As a result, it was possible to create a qualitative knowledge base for further research into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on national and international economies, for both economics and management sciences.

Bibliometric evaluation of research on political risks in construction projects

The current study aims to provide an overview of the research on political risk using the Web of Science（WoS）database as well as summarize research results and put forward some suggestions for research directions of political risk in international construction projects. It is the first time scientometric analysis of political risk research is executed. In this regard, the papers related to political risk in the WoS database have been retrieved and the literature is sorted out by visual and content analysis methods. Visual analysis is used to analyze the research overview, knowledge base, and research hotspots of this field. The content analysis method is adopted to expound the current research focus from three perspectives inducing the influence of political risk, risk assessment, and risk management measures. The results show that in the political risk context, the number of publications has experienced an increasing trend in recent years. Based on the existing literature on political risk for all companies, this overview provides some suggestions to address the political risk in international construction projects in the future. The results contribute to the scholars understanding of the research overview, research hotspots, and future research directions of political risk research in construction projects.

Evaluation of the Health Management Research Capabilities and Learning Needs of Hospital Management Personnel

The new era puts forward higher requirements on the quality of hospital management personnel, so it is significant to improve their health management research capabilities and encourage them to solve practical difficulties through scientific research as well as make innovations to their management thinking. In this article, a questionnaire survey of 100 hospital management personnel was carried out in a tertiary hospital in Guangzhou, China, to identify their health management research capabilities and learning needs for related knowledge. The results showed that most of the interviewees were young and middle-aged women with relatively high academic qualifications, mainly in medical and management majors. Their scientific research knowledge base and learning needs are on the average, and their scientific research method foundation is relatively ideal. There are significant differences in scientific research knowledge base, scientific research training needs, and scientific research methods among those with different ages and educational levels (p&lt;0.05).

The Publicness of Publicly Funded Research

In this paper, we chronicle key U.S. legislative initiatives during the post-World War II history of public policy related to the ownership of publicly funded research-based knowledge. Our motivation for recording this history is the observation that many scholars, who are appropriately concerned about taxpayer rights, have argued for the need for public policy to clarify ownership of the publicness or openness of publicly funded research results when in fact such public policies have long been in place. We conclude this historical trace with the proposition that if the past is prologue to the future, one might expect future administrations to continue to acknowledge the importance of public access to findings from publicly funded research, be that research having occurred in federal laboratories, universities, or private-sector organizations.

Termien kontekstin rakentaminen oppi- ja tietokirjallisuudessa

Kielitietoisuuden ajatus on noussut keskeiseksi valtakunnallisissa opetussuunnitelmissa ja koulussa, ja olennainen osa sitä on eri tiedonaloille ominaisen kielenkäytön sekä tiedonalakohtaisten termien tunteminen. Artikkeli tarkastelee kriittisen kielitietoisuuden näkökulmasta ja kielitieteellisen diskurssianalyysin menetelmin, millä eri tavoilla erikoisalan termeille rakennetaan kontekstia peruskoulun oppikirjoissa ja tiedettä yleistajuistavissa tietokirjoissa. Tekstiin rakentuvat kontekstit jaotellaan kategorioihin sen mukaan, mitä elementtejä termin taustasta kirjoitetaan tekstissä näkyviin. Analyysi osoittaa, että oppi- ja tietokirjojen kirjoittajilla on valittavanaan monenlaisia resursseja kontekstin diskursiiviseen konstruointiin: esimerkiksi nimettyyn tai implisiittiseksi jäävään yhteisöön, henkilöön, aikaan ja paikkaan kytkeminen. Konteksti voi myös jäädä tekstissä näkymättömäksi. Termien kontekstin rakentaminen tekee näkyväksi eri tiedonalojen sosiaalista todellisuutta ja luo siten pääsyä tiedonalojen tiedonmuodostusprosesseihin. Kontekstointiin käytetyt strategiat soveltuvat kielitietoisiksi käytänteiksi paitsi koulumaailmassa myös laajemmin tieteen vuorovaikuttaessa muun yhteiskunnan kanssa.

A Competency Model for the Selection and Performance Improvement of Project Managers in Collaborative Construction Projects: Behavioral Studies in Norway and Finland

Collaborative work practices are getting more common in construction projects. Consequently, new project delivery models have emerged and new practices have also entered the world of traditional delivery models. The resultant collaborative construction projects provide a different working environment compared to the traditional construction delivery models. This different environment seems to require project managers with certain types of competencies, but there is currently very limited research-based knowledge concerning this subject. This study aims at identifying such competencies, which project managers of collaborative construction projects need to possess to succeed. For this purpose, a human behavioral approach was employed where project managers’ behavior in their everyday work was the main source for understanding their competencies. Accordingly, the survey strategy was utilized, where a self-evaluation questionnaire was sent to 33 project managers of collaborative construction projects, and a response rate of 73% was achieved. The findings present four groups of competencies within a matrix model, structured based on their contribution to project managers’ successful performance in collaborative construction projects and the degree to which they can develop those competencies. The developed model can provide a baseline for selecting project managers and for enhancing the performance of the current ones.

Mobile futures knowledge: From research policy to research and public policy?

Futures knowledge is critical for developing knowledge-based policies that can guide societies in turbulent and uncertain times. Knowlede mobilisation and cocreation processes ensure that research-based futures knowledge is applicable to public sector decision-making; however, this mobilisation is challenging and empirical research regarding futures knowledge mobilisation is lacking. This article describes how futures knowledge was cocreated and mobilised in three projects that were part of a new Finnish Strategic Research Council (SRC) funding instrument. The SRC aims to cocreate and mobilise futures knowledge between three groups: research policy actors, researchers, and public sector stakeholders. We interviewed 23 actors from these groups. The results demonstrate three types of mobilisations/immobilisations: (1) mobilisations from themes (established by research policy actors) to projects (realised by researchers and stakeholders), (2) successful mobilisations of futures knowledge through researcher–stakeholder cocreation processes, and (3) immobilisations due to the unrealistic expectations of stakeholders who believed that researchers could transfer knowledge ‘as is’ and at the right time to stakeholders. Such expectations could cause a ‘catch-up paradox’ relating to the reactive use of futures knowledge in decision-making processes.

Research Priorities for Preventing Unsafe Abortions in the WHO Africa Region

Background: Unsafe abortion is a commonly neglected sexual and reproductive health and rights issue despite the serious health problems it causes to women and girls in their reproductive ages. It is classified as a main cause of maternal mortality and morbidity. This paper has considered questions that have the greatest potential to successfully reduce unsafe abortions in the resource poor settings. Methods: We adapted the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) to identify and prioritize many competing sexual and reproductive health and rights research ideas that impact the health of the populations. The implementation was done in three phases which included generation and collection of research ideas from various experts virtually in August 2019 consolidation of the potential questions through thematic analysis conducted in September 2019. Finally, scoring and ranking of the research questions was done in a workshop of experts. Results: Out of a list of 45 priority research questions, two questions were ranked the highest scoring 28 out of the possible 30. The research priorities include: “The effectiveness of interventions (e.g. counseling or incentives or home visits) to increase post abortion uptake and continuance”, “Reducing repeat abortion on improving maternal health outcomes” and “Evaluation of community-based awareness programs to reduce unwanted pregnancies and encourage women to seek help early”. Conclusions: Ten key research priorities in preventing unsafe abortion were identified. The priority list covers areas of focus that could effectively impact preventing unsafe abortions while also acting as a knowledge base for researchers, policy makers and other interested stakeholders who would want to invest in this area.

Challenges and achievements in student learning experiences in a business school’s at-home internationalization programs in China

Purpose The purpose of this ontologically qualitative research study was to (a) explore student narratives regarding their educational experiences in at-home internationalization programs; (b) provide an in-depth narrative analysis of student learning challenges and achievements; and (c) add valuable research-based knowledge of student-described experiences for use by program administrators. Design/methodology/approach Participants were selected with a form of four-stage non-proportional stratified sampling. 29 participants were interviewed using a basic demographic questionnaire and an episodic interview protocol. Data were analyzed in QSR NVivo software through open, axial, and selective coding stages under the framework of grounded theory. Findings The findings focus on student-identified links between the challenges they encountered and their achievements. In addition, student performance level and gender were associated with the challenges and achievements reported by students. In understanding the results, the student-learning concepts found in the learned optimism, growth mindset, grit and expectancy theory approaches provide potentially fruitful insights. Originality/value The findings of this research have instructive implications for program administrators regarding how student challenges can be strategically chosen and shaped to generate specific, positive student achievements.

The FLORSYS crop-weed canopy model, a tool to investigate and promote agroecological weed management

Abstract Crop diversification, both in time and in space, is essential for agroecological pest management. Process-based weed dynamics models are valuable tools to investigate this issue. Indeed, (1) weeds are the most harmful pest in arable crops and are essential for biodiversity, and (2) the processes driving crop-weed interactions are similar to those for crop-crop interactions in crop mixtures and crop rotations. Such models (3) synthesize existing and produce emergent knowledge on agroecological levers such as crop diversification, (4) mobilize this knowledge for cropping-system design, and (5) transfer research-based knowledge to stakeholders. The present paper illustrates these five items with the FLORSYS model. Its inputs are a detailed list of cultural operations over several years (crop succession including cover crops and crop mixtures, management techniques), together with daily weather data, soil characteristics and a regional weed species pool. FLORSYS runs at a daily time step, (1) focusing on processes leading to plant emergence and establishment of crop and weed species with different ecological requirements (essential for crops sown in different seasons and in mixtures where timing often determines the fate of a species), (2) representing and modelling the functioning of heterogeneous crop-weed canopies including diverse plant ages, morphologies and shade responses (as in crop mixtures), (3) including a carry-over effect on future cropping seasons (which is essential for crop rotations), and (4) assessing weed contribution to biodiversity. Detailed biophysical model outputs allow understanding the performance of a given crop, management technique or cropping system. Together with stakeholders, detailed model outputs were aggregated into indicators of crop production as well as weed benefits and harmfulness to simplify the multicriteria comparison of cropping systems. To facilitate decision support, FLORSYS was used as a virtual farm-field network, and the resulting simulation outputs were aggregated into a faster and easier-to-use metamodel ( DECIFLORSYS ) using machine learning techniques. These models were used to evaluate and promote the benefits of crop diversification for agroecological weed management, by (1) identifying crop ideotypes, (2) tracking crop-diverse solutions in farm-field networks, (3) evaluating crop-diverse solutions proposed by experts and stakeholders, and (4) feeding participatory workshops with farmers. The case studies demonstrate that the benefits of crop diversification depend on the production situations and cropping systems, and thus the need for flexible rules on crop diversification and the usefulness of models such as FLORSYS to establish these rules.