Unknown Unknowns Research Articles

HIGH-DIMENSIONAL FORECASTING WITH KNOWN KNOWNS AND KNOWN UNKNOWNS

Abstract Forecasts play a central role in decision-making under uncertainty. After a brief review of the general issues, this article considers ways of using high-dimensional data in forecasting. We consider selecting variables from a known active set, known knowns, using Lasso and One Covariate at a time Multiple Testing, and approximating unobserved latent factors, known unknowns, by various means. This combines both sparse and dense approaches to forecasting. We demonstrate the various issues involved in variable selection in a high-dimensional setting with an application to forecasting UK inflation at different horizons over the period 2020q1–2023q1. This application shows both the power of parsimonious models and the importance of allowing for global variables.

Applying the Rumsfeld Matrix: Unknown Unknown Climate Risks in an AMOC Collapse Scenario

This paper investigates scientific research using Rumsfeld’s typology to grasp uncertainties in an era of ‘catastrophic climate change and the risk landscape of a ‘2°C-3°C world’. The study highlights the importance of 'unknown unknowns' and the emergence of 'Black Swan' climate events, such as frequent 500-year droughts and discusses how adaptive strategies can be crafted today, building on the “unknown knowns” of the past, such as the Great American Dust Bowl. It emphasizes the need for a structured approach to uncertainty in water resource management, relevant for understanding climate change’s significant impact on water cycles, evident in phenomena like cloudbursts and prolonged droughts. Additionally, research into abrupt climate change, such as the potential mid-century collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is analyzed using the Rumsfeld matrix to understand research gaps and generate insights for further study.

The Safety Paradox: Unknown Knowns, Ungrieved Grief, and Collective Agreements not to Know

The discussion between the developing and developed world in Egypt during COP27 brought the history of colonialism and its impact on climate change to the table, as did the earlier floods in Pakistan. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of unacknowledged grief, shame and guilt, accruing over centuries, on our ability to move forward to a more sustainable future. At stake is not only a question of ‘loss and damage’ for those who have suffered disproportionately in the past and present, but also the need to acknowledge how past practice has set the stage for inequality and climate change in the global future. In this article we develop concepts of unknown knowns and ungrieved grief, and explore the mechanisms by which populations collectively turn away from uncomfortable or shameful truths. The failure to look at the past has transgenerational consequences, as present distractions contribute to an inability to ‘see’ the consequences of past and present action for future generations. The final section explores the safety paradox that arises from the fragmented safety of turning to conflict and war, and a holistic safety that requires grieving for the global whole.

Visioning strategy through the “Johari window”: discovering critical “unknowns” in a rapidly evolving context

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine the interaction of strategy formulation with the intelligence variation of the Johari window. Formulating firm strategy with an understanding of these four knowledge-awareness areas can help a company understand their own strengths and weakness in relation to the dynamics of the industry in which they operate while also developing a greater awareness and understanding of their competition, environmental considerations, and future implications. Through this interaction, a firm can identify factors impacting the organization's future success and can develop a comprehensive strategic plan that adapts to changes and uncertainties in the environment.Design/methodology/approachExtant literature and available tools are explored to develop a usable framework in conducting an extensive SWOT analysis as related to the four knowledge-awareness areas, known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns.FindingsIt is crucial for businesses to acknowledge the significance of integrating all four categories of knowledge-awareness, known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns, into their strategic formulation, as this can facilitate the development of adaptable and effective strategic plans that consider the constantly evolving business landscape. This approach can equip organizations with the necessary tools to thrive over the long term, even with unforeseen obstacles and uncertainties. It is imperative that businesses do not overlook the importance of considering all four categories during analysis to enable them to achieve strategic planning that is both effective and adaptable.Originality/valueFocusing only on the knowns that are already identified, while disregarding the unknowns that have not been discovered, can lead to blind spots and oversights that can be detrimental to the organization's growth and sustainability. By being aware of all four categories of knowledge, an organization can adapt to changes and uncertainties in the business environment, and make informed decisions based on a fuller picture of the situation.

NO UNMEASURED CONFOUNDING: KNOWN UNKNOWNS OR… NOT?

Journal Article Accepted manuscript No unmeasured confounding: Known unknowns or... not? Get access Juliana Schulz, Juliana Schulz HEC Montréal Department of Decision Sciences Montreal, QC, Canada 514-340-7041 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Erica E M Moodie, Erica E M Moodie McGill University Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health Montreal, QC, Canada 514-398-5520 Corresponding Author E-mail: erica.moodie@mcgill.ca Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Susan M Shortreed Susan M Shortreed Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute Biostatistics Division Seattle, WA, USA 206-473-2512 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar American Journal of Epidemiology, kwad133, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwad133 Published: 06 June 2023 Article history Received: 27 March 2023 Revision received: 24 May 2023 Published: 06 June 2023

Electric double layer of Pt(111): Known unknowns and unknown knowns

The electric double layer is one of the most fundamental concepts in electrochemistry. Nevertheless, its exact structure is still often unresolved. In this contribution, we discuss what we, at present, believe to know and what we believe not to know about the structure of the Pt(111) double layer close to the potential of zero charge. To this end, we discuss and compare several models put forward in the last few years in order to explain recent (and less recent) experimental observations. Through a discussion of several models, we conclude that water adsorption at the interface likely plays an important role in correctly interpreting capacitance features observed close to the potential of zero charge (pzc). The capacitance features at low electrolyte concentration, which show important deviations from Gouy-Chapman diffuse layer theory, are, to date, not yet resolved beyond doubt, but we critically analyze and compare the various models that have been put forward to model the interface. We thereby point out weaknesses in the models as well as similarities and differences between the models.

From the Editors

From the Editors

Architectural Biography in Area A at Tell es-Safi/Gath: From Unknown Unknowns to Unknown Knowns and Known Knowns, in Order to Arrive at the Known Unknowns

ABSTRACT This contribution aims to understand the history and function of a rectangular structure, probably domestic in nature and located in the early Philistine sector of Area A at Tell es-Safi/Gath. Tell es-Safi/Gath is one of the five cities of the Philistine pentapolis, located in modern Israel, mentioned in the Old Testament, and popularly associated with the legendary giant Goliath. The understanding of this building is achieved through presenting a building biography. This will include a discussion of the building’s complicated construction history, construction styles, associated features, and later disturbances. Although there is a substantial amount of research on object biography, most of that work deals with the reuse and modification or design of contemporary buildings, or megalithic monuments of the European prehistoric eras. A building biography situates the Area A structure within its role in preserving early Philistine identity, history, memory, and imbuing the landscape with symbolic meanings.

TEVAR and EVAR, the unknown knowns of the cardiovascular hemodynamics; and the immediate and long-term consequences of fabric material on major adverse clinical outcome.

This review discusses the impact of endovascular aneurysm repair on cardiovascular (CV) hemodynamics and the role of stent-graft material, i.e., polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) vs. polyester in post-procedural outcomes. Endovascular aneurysm repair has been widely employed in the last decades for thoracic and abdominal aneurysm repair. However, aortic endografts are stiff and alter the native flow hemodynamics. This failure to simulate the native aorta could lead to added strain on the heart, manifesting as increased left ventricular strain, higher pulse pressure, and congestive heart failure later. This could result in adverse CV outcomes. Also, evidence is mounting to support the implication of stent-graft materials, i.e., PTFE vs. polyester, in adverse post-procedural outcomes. However, there is an absence of level one evidence. Therefore, the only way forward is to plan and perform a randomised controlled trial to demonstrate the alterations in the CV hemodynamics in the short and long run and compare the available stent-graft materials regarding procedural and clinical outcomes. We believe the best solution, for now, would be to reduce the stented length of the aorta. At the same time, in the longer term, encourage continuous improvement in stent-graft materials and design.

Knowledge claims in European Union energy policies: Unknown knowns and uncomfortable awareness

Despite the concerted efforts of the scientific community and politicians to contain greenhouse gas emissions, the CO2 level in the atmosphere continues to increase monotonically. This raises the question whether the scientific representations and related knowledge claims used to inform energy policy have been incomplete or incorrect. Are there alternative relevant knowledge claims that have been overlooked or ignored in the discussion of energy policies and if so, why? We answer these questions by elaborating three case studies, energy efficiency improvements, liquid biofuels, and decarbonization of electricity, and using a novel procedure for quality checking policy narratives that is based in post-normal science and developed in the EU project Moving Towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing NEXUS Security (MAGIC). The focus of our approach is on the coherence of the why (concerns or justifications), what (“solution”), and how (“scientific evidence”) of energy policies. We show that for all cases studied alternative knowledge claims, mostly derived from the relatively new field of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, would be available for better informing energy policy, but that they are unknown knowns in the chosen framing of the issues. We conclude that the idea that the various concerns identified in EU energy policy can be solved simultaneously is unrealistic. This idea can only persist by virtue of banishing uncomfortable knowledge and the creation of implausible socio-technical imaginaries. When considering different aspects of the problem and integrating different narratives and knowledge claims, a smooth and painless transition to a zero-carbon economy seems unlikely.

Los desconocidos conocidos de “El Licenciado Vidriera” y las manoplas de Bernie Sanders

This essay examines character development toward an extreme marginalization through the lens of eccentricity in the form of the “Licenciado Vidriera” as compared to the treatment of marginalized cultural phenomena of the B7st-century. The Cervantine character, Tomás Rodaja, represents a literary figure who is used to point out societal absurdities by dint of his madman worldview. The examination of this character in parallel with B7st-century phenomena unearths the theatricality of cultural norms, thereby signaling a fluidity in ideological understandings of society and culture. Key to this understanding is the theoretical underpinnings of the study, which take the form of Slavoj EiFek's observations on the unknown knowns of ideology.

Zebrafish and idiopathic scoliosis: the ‘unknown knowns’

The etiology and heterogeneity of idiopathic scoliosis (IS) are poorly understood. Studies using scoliotic zebrafish models have indicated a potential link between ciliary defects and scoliosis. They may further explain the onset of IS partially. However, it is necessary to further interpret the link between this progress and clinical medicine.

Irregular adoptions and infrastructures of memory in Spain: remnant practices from the Franco Regime

The irregular adoption of displaced children during the Spanish Civil War, the Franco dictatorship, and the early years of Spanish democracy remains silent and unrecognised. The difficulty in recognising these irregular practices is linked to remnant infrastructures of memory ( Rubin, 2018 ). We propose that the time to speak openly about irregular adoptions of forcibly disappeared children in Spain is arriving, and doing so could be a way of exposing a series of “unknown knowns” ( Simmel, 1906 ; Bellman, 1981 ; Taussig, 1999 ).

Iterative Human-in-the-Loop Discovery of Unknown Unknowns in Image Datasets

Automatic predictions (e.g., recognizing objects in images) may result in systematic errors if certain classes are not well represented by training instances (these errors are called unknowns). When a model assigns high confidence scores to these wrong predictions (this type of error is called unknown unknowns), it becomes challenging to automatically identify them. In this paper, we present the first work on leveraging human intelligence to discover unknown unknowns (UUs) in an iterative way. The proposed methodology first differentiates the feature space generated by crowd workers labelling instances (e.g., images) in an active learning fashion from the space learned by the prediction model over a batch training phase, and thus identifies the predictions most likely to be UUs. Next, we add crowd labels collected for these discovered UUs to the training set and re-train the model with this extended dataset. This process is then repeated iteratively to discover more instances of both unknown and under-represented classes. Our experimental results show that the proposed methodology is able to (1) efficiently discover UUs, (2) significantly improve the quality of model predictions, and (3) to push UUs into known unknowns (i.e., the model makes mistakes but at least its classification confidence on those instances is low so those predictions can be discarded or post-processed) for further investigation. We additionally discuss the trade-off between prediction quality improvements and the human effort required to achieve those improvements. Our results bear implications on building cost-effective systems to discover UUs with humans in the loop.

The unknown knowns: a graph-based approach for temporal COVID-19 literature mining

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a remarkable volume of research literature, and scientists are increasingly in need of intelligent tools to cut through the noise and uncover relevant research directions. As a response, the authors propose a novel framework. In this framework, the authors develop a novel weighted semantic graph model to compress the research studies efficiently. Also, the authors present two analyses on this graph to propose alternative ways to uncover additional aspects of COVID-19 research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors construct the semantic graph using state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) techniques on COVID-19 publication texts (>100,000 texts). Next, the authors conduct an evolutionary analysis to capture the changes in COVID-19 research across time. Finally, the authors apply a link prediction study to detect novel COVID-19 research directions that are so far undiscovered.FindingsFindings reveal the success of the semantic graph in capturing scientific knowledge and its evolution. Meanwhile, the prediction experiments provide 79% accuracy on returning intelligible links, showing the reliability of the methods for predicting novel connections that could help scientists discover potential new directions.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to propose a holistic framework that includes encoding the scientific knowledge in a semantic graph, demonstrates an evolutionary examination of past and ongoing research and offers scientists with tools to generate new hypotheses and research directions through predictive modeling and deep machine learning techniques.

‘Unknowing’ and mental health system reform in Palestine

In this Think Piece we argue that mental health system reforms are not mainly driven by scientific evidence and international standards, but rather by concrete political constellations, national and international development agendas, local and global socioeconomic contexts, and the interactions between differently positioned actors. We further argue that these forces gain their influence not by being openly discussed, but precisely because they are rendered invisible and turned into what Geissler (2013) calls ‘unknown knowns’. To illustrate these complex processes, we present a case study that examines how mental health system reform processes in the West Bank are shaped by the Israeli occupation, particular political events, and unequal power relations between international and local institutional actors. Furthermore, we present critical reflections by mental health providers related to these processes, and their visions for a more sustainable mental health system. We end with an appeal to aid providers to stop characterising their work with abstract catchphrases such as ‘evidence-based’ or ‘best practice’, and call on them to be transparent about how political, economic, and social contexts shape their work on the ground.

Cryptic or Silent? The Known Unknowns, Unknown Knowns, and Unknown Unknowns of Secondary Metabolism.

Microbial natural products, particularly those produced by filamentous Actinobacteria, underpin the majority of clinically used antibiotics. Unfortunately, only a few new antibiotic classes have been discovered since the 1970s, which has exacerbated fears of a postapocalyptic world in which antibiotics have lost their utility. Excitingly, the genome sequencing revolution painted an entirely new picture, one in which an average strain of filamentous Actinobacteria harbors 20 to 50 natural product biosynthetic pathways but expresses very few of these under laboratory conditions. Development of methodology to access this "hidden" biochemical diversity has the potential to usher in a second Golden Era of antibiotic discovery. The proliferation of genomic data has led to inconsistent use of "cryptic" and "silent" when referring to biosynthetic gene clusters identified by bioinformatic analysis. In this Perspective, we discuss this issue and propose to formalize the use of this terminology.

Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, and Unknown Unknowns

Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, and Unknown Unknowns

Unknown knowns: implicit epistemological hierarchies in the evaluation of widening participation activities

Comparing guidance documents issued by the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Office for Students (OfS) over the course of 15 years, I argue that the introduction of a new higher education regulator in 2018 caused a shift in the positioning of widening participation evaluation in HE policy. I suggest that the resulting changes have significant implications for the configuration of key evaluation stakeholder groups and that these reconfigurations, in turn, have implications for the epistemic relationships at play in the evaluation process. In particular, the way in which a mode of evaluation is framed by policy can determine who has the power to shape dominant definitions of meaningful evidence and whose situated forms of knowledge are considered to constitute robust evidence. The ongoing tension between positivist and post-positivist approaches can be eased, I argue, by focusing on the role of delivery practitioners as producers of evidence about 'what works' in their own contexts. I conclude by drawing on other practice-based disciplines such as social work and nursing to suggest that we might learn from work that is already advanced in these areas, which appears to have found a balance between evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence.

Commentary: Quantifying the unknown unknowns.

Commentary: Quantifying the unknown unknowns.