Frame Problem Research Articles

“The toxic substance has killed all ducks”: framing of chemical risks related to the 2021 summer flood in German news media

BackgroundThe public understanding of environmental issues, such as chemical pollution due to flooding, is reflected and shaped by media representations and how these issues are framed. This study aims to identify how local, regional, and national German newspapers pick up and frame the issue of chemical pollution and related environmental and health risks regarding the 2021 summer flood using content analysis.ResultsThe analysis shows that chemical pollution is rarely addressed compared to other flood-related topics. We identified 189 newspaper articles published in the months following the flood, which specifically mention chemical emissions. Of these articles, 50 report only marginally on chemical pollution, while 36 focus on the factual description of chemical emissions without addressing the consequences of pollution. The remaining 103 articles address impacts of certain pollutants such as oil, pesticides, heavy metals, or dioxins. Using content analysis, we identified four narratives that were common in their broad storylines and used to create a problem frame: (i) Highlighting severe contamination of the environment with chemical pollutants causing serious environmental damage (31 articles), (ii) describing possible contamination but with uncertainty about the extent and consequences (39 articles), (iii) tending to give the all-clear and emphasizing that there is no severe long-term contamination (25 articles), and (iv) indicating continuous contamination that does not allow the all-clear to be given (8 articles).ConclusionsThe results suggest that flood-related chemical pollution does not receive much media attention. Where it does, coverage focuses primarily on the description of the “tangible parts” of pollution, and thus contamination by oil, depicted by both smell and oil streaks, is frequently addressed Articles indicating severe contamination suggest threats to human and environmental health as likely consequences. However, most articles only report the results of chemical monitoring in the contaminated regions, which are evaluated by experts. This contrasts with other topics of controversy related to the flood, such as climate change as a potential cause. In light of our study, we propose that media and science communication need to pay more attention to chemical pollution—in general and as a result of flood events.

Conceptualizing a transdisciplinary nexus for addressing complex problems

We envision opening a way of perceiving the transdisciplinary Hidden Third as a transcendental nexus of both passive and active causal powers reflecting and engaged with the external structures that create the complex social realities in which we live. It is in these realities and their possible worlds that the revealing of our relational capacities and activating (actualising) potentialities occurs. We propose that innovative and co-created solutions to complex problems can emerge when something at work within each person helps very differently minded people with a stake in an issue to realise that they have capabilities and potential that can be actualised situationally. To facilitate this idea, we adopt a notion of transindividuality, which is constitutive through relationality. This is a futural process of imaginal thinking and imaginary thinking. We suggest that when temporarily functioning in an intermediate inner universe (mundus imaginalis), and by operating between the empirical (concrete facts) and the abstract (e.g., meditative thinking), active imaginal powers foster emergent solutions unbounded by the positivistic framing problems and their future consequences. We conceptualized a transdisciplinary nexus that draws from the mundus imaginalis and the Hidden Third to provide deeper insights into the role that people’s inner images of the world play when engaging in transdisciplinary problem solving.

Towards collaborative planning: deliberative knowledge utilisation and conflict resolution in urban regeneration in South China

Urban regeneration in post-reform China has become a fertile ground for the transition towards collaborative planning, which serves as a powerful tool for managing conflicts and addressing complex urban challenges. This article aims to delve into the micro-level processes that underpin the emergence of collaborative planning in practical urban regeneration projects in China. By shedding light on these micro-level processes of conflict resolution, we aim to provide a deeper understanding of how collaborative planning is implemented within the Chinese authoritarian context. Deliberative knowledge utilisation is intricately interwoven with the process of problem framing, exerting a significant influence on how conflicts are approached and ultimately resolved. We employ framing analysis as an analytical approach to demonstrate how problem framing is shaped by deliberative knowledge utilisation and is discursively constructed, drawing on empirical studies of the contentious Enning Road case in Guangzhou. Regarding the problem framing related to the legitimacy of demolition and planning, institutional knowledge pertaining to planning leg islation and administrative procedures was intentionally wielded by the media and local residents to challenge the legitimacy of demolition. Concerning the problem framing related to the preservation of historic buildings, local knowledge was actively harnessed and deliberately employed by residents and the media to underscore the historical and cultural significance of the neighbourhood. Regarding problem framing centred on resistance to resettlement and eviction, residents intentionally incorporated institutional knowledge when composing and submitting petition letters. These three lines of problem framing, grounded in deliberative knowledge utilisation, significantly impact power dynamics and facilitate the incremental transition towards collaborative planning, which emerges as a gradual process marked by experimentation and the resolution of conflicts.

Measuring Behaviors for Assessing Design Expertise: A Comprehensive Framework for Professional Development

Increasing attention has been paid to understanding expert design behavior to help novice students enhance their knowledge and abilities for their professional development. However, an integrative framework must still be created to identify expert-based design behavior. Using an international web-based survey, this study identifies major expert design behaviors, and reports on the development of a unique behavioral multiple scale that measures central behaviors in the design process for assessing design expertise. Considering theoretically grounded behaviors of experts in the design literature, a 29-item scale is formulated for capturing key expert design behaviors based on exploratory factor analysis. Evidence for construct validity and reliability is presented, suggesting seven primary expert diversified behaviors in the design process. Nevertheless, using a structural equation modeling, it is concluded that the behavioral multiple scale represents only six significant behaviors of design expertise. Moreover, a path analysis of this comprehensive framework shows that some behaviors are central, directly related to design expertise (i.e., strategic approach to design complexity and framing of design problems), and act as mediators for other behaviors (i.e., reflection on design problems and solutions, systematically breaking the design into sub-problems, application of conceptual thinking, and reuse of previous solutions). Findings can be implemented by intervention programs in the design studio aiming to support professional development in design education by training students to enhance their expertise.

Wicked facets of the German energy transition – examples from the electricity, heating, transport, and industry sectors

ABSTRACT We shed light on wicked problems in the German energy transition. Our methods consist of a multiple-case study and multi-criteria analysis, utilising the wicked problems theoretical framework introduced by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber [1973. “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning.” Policy Sciences 4 (2): 155–169. Accessed August 20, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01405730]. Results from the energy supply, heating/cooling, transport, and industry sectors illustrate where and how the 10-point frame of wicked problems manifests in the German energy transition. The four cases exhibit more wicked tendencies in the governance domain than the technical domain and differ in their degrees of technology maturity, policy regulation, and knowledge states. We do not find that the German energy transition is inherently wicked. However, wickedness unfolds through the social setting into which technical solutions of the energy transition are embedded. We aim to highlight these intricacies and encourage scrutinising these wicked facets early on.

Learning hyperparameter predictors for similarity-based multidisciplinary topology optimization

Topology optimization (TO) plays a significant role in industry by providing engineers with optimal material distributions based exclusively on the information about the design space and loading conditions. Such approaches are especially important for current multidisciplinary design tasks in industry, where the conflicting criteria often lead to very unintuitive solutions. Despite the progress in integrating manufacturing constraints into TO, one of the main factors restricting the use of TO in practice is the users’ limited control of the final material distribution. To address this problem, recently, a universal methodology for enforcing similarity to reference structures in various TO methods by applying scaling of elemental energies was proposed. The method, however, requires an expensive hyperparameter sampling, which involves running multiple TO processes to find the design of a given similarity to a reference structure. In this article, we propose a novel end-to-end approach for similarity-based TO, which integrates a machine learning model to predict the hyperparameters of the method, and provide the engineer, at minimal computational cost, with a design satisfying multidisciplinary criteria expressed by the similarity to a reference. The training set for the model is generated based on an academic linear elastic problem, but the model generalizes well to both nonlinear dynamic crash and industrial-scale TO problems. We show the latter by applying the proposed methodology to a real-world multidisciplinary TO problem of a car hood frame, which demonstrates the usefulness of the approach in industrial settings.

Learning through participation processes

Abstract. The Site Selection Act (StandAG) defines the selection of a repository as a learning process (lernendes Verfahren) in § 1. Learning is also an essential aspect of transdisciplinary (td) research projects – apart from capacity and network building in addition to supporting change. Transdisciplinarity means that different academic disciplines (interdisciplinary) work together with practitioners (e.g. citizens, NGOs and government officials) to integrate the knowledge, interests and values from various sources to solve a real-world problem (Klein et al., 2001). Joint working involves a functional dynamic collaboration of disciplines and societal actors, starting with problem framing (co-design) through problem analysis and exploring the impact at the end (co-production). Learning can take place during all phases of the research process and at all levels (i.e. from the individual to the institution). Moreover, how and what is learnt is specific to the project context, topic (e.g. renewable energy) and coincidence of different knowledge types (system, transformation and target knowledge). The Transdisciplinarity Lab (TdLab) carries out the accompanying research in TRANSENS. TRANSENS is one of the few td research projects found internationally in the field of nuclear waste management. The TdLab analyses, amongst other things, the learning that stems from participation activities. Therefore, we would like to identify the manifold learning experiences of stakeholder integration during the site selection procedure, on the one hand, and of td research projects, on the other hand. Taking into account the perspectives of citizens, practitioners and scientists, this interactive workshop seeks to accomplish the following (see Fig. 1): make visible the learning areas from participation processes in the “real world” (practice; e.g. site selection process) and under “laboratory conditions” (research projects; e.g. TRANSENS), identify the transferability of learning areas from science to practice (including limitations), determine useful learning areas from research projects for practice, and identify knowledge gaps in the “real world” for research projects in the future. From the interactive workshop, we expect the identification of key learning areas, their specific relevance for nuclear waste management and the identification of topics for future research.

Thinking in alternatives and reflecting possible futures in German nuclear waste management: insights from technology assessment

Abstract. The disposal of highly radioactive waste in Germany is a task that extends beyond the near future and is a task on which high demands are placed. In addition to the central paradigm of “safety first”, the quality characteristics of being science-based, transparent, participatory, step by step, and facilitating learning are defined as guiding principles for the process in the German law on site selection. In a project of the TRANSENS (transdisciplinary research on the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in Germany) research network, the boundary conditions for these quality characteristics are being analysed. The focus is on the question of how the ability to act flexibly can be ensured in the German site selection procedure without jeopardising the goal of nuclear waste disposal in the deep geological underground. It is taken into account that, in modern Western societies, contradiction and protest are continuously to be expected as part of ongoing processes of interest aggregation. Stakeholders and collective actors from civil society will also participate with self-confidence over time, with respect to the system of multi-level governance, just as politicians and experts traditionally do in the established system of radioactive waste (Radwaste) governance (Hocke and Brunnengräber, 2019). In order to be able to ensure the capability to act flexibly, it seems sensible to think of the future in terms of being an open space that can be shaped in a particular way. In this context, it is advantageous to recognise that thinking in alternatives (even with a fixed goal such as deep underground nuclear waste disposal) can be a reflexive practice by all interested actors. Conceptually, and in terms of planning, this changes the present and, from the perspective of the technology assessment, removes the restriction of the principle path dependency through collective learning processes (Grunwald, 2019; Böschen et al., 2021). In this respect, various futures are possible that provide orientation, especially in the case of technical infrastructures that must be created, operated, and monitored over several decades. Mid-term futures, which are to be operated until 2080 or possibly into the next century, thus become designable spaces. In the TRANSENS sub-project “Capability to act and flexibility in a reversible site selection process”, these analyses serve to provide knowledge about possible futures in the form of orientation knowledge. Following the existing research about socio-technical processes, imagination and narratives are very influential, as they steer the framing of problems in the public debate. Initial empirical results show that representatives of the interested public in addition to young adults are able to play through images for the future and think about the boundary conditions for different decision paths. Based on explorative and evaluative methods, intermediate results were empirically determined, which are linked with path heuristics to three plausible and goal-oriented selected disposal paths (Scheer et al., 2023). This showed that repository-related narratives are nodes that can support the processes of understanding about collective action, according to the Repository Site Selection Act (StandAG). At the same time, they are also sites of hegemonic disputes. Regardless of this, young adults can deal with images for the future without being hindered by dystopian fantasies. These results based on the images and narratives are furthermore integrated into a political–sociological innovation model, which integrates the socio-technical processes of decision preparation and decision-making.

Human-centred design thinking and public health education: A scoping review.

Human-centred design thinking (HCDT) is gaining traction to develop appropriate public health interventions. The HCDT process helps frame problems with intention and encourages experimentation through collaboration. Public health graduates need an expanded toolkit to solve both the complex known problems of today, and the adaptability to solve the unknown problems of tomorrow. But how is the health promotion workforce being prepared with this innovation capability? This scoping review aims to provide a pedagogical understanding of teaching HCDT in public health education. The Arksey & O'Malley framework is used to structure this review. Peer-reviewed articles written from 2000 to 2023 across eight databases were analysed. The data extracted included: author/year, setting, aim/purpose, participants, HCDT framework, HCDT methods, outcomes and challenges. Nine relevant publications were included from a total of 208 records. The first reported use of HCDT in public health and health promotion teaching was in 2015. Teaching inspiration drew from established HCDT frameworks: d.school and IDEO which promote the iterative process of empathy/inspiration, ideation and testing/implementation. HCDT has been used for both designing public health curricula and for teaching students to apply it in their practice. First, HCDT methods can be used to problem-solve teaching and learning issues such as creating inviting learning environments and designing an HCDT unit. Second, the teaching of HCDT can prepare and equip the public health workforce to solve problems requiring tailored solutions from an empathetic and iterative stance working as a team. The teaching and practice of HCDT exemplifies the process of social innovation in health promotion. SO WHAT?: As an emerging field, future studies and applications should include clarifying and evaluating the HCDT stages used. More publications will enable a fuller understanding and potentially advocate the necessity of teaching and learning HCDT in public health and health promotion.

Indian Railways: enhancing northeast connectivity with Half-Y connection

Research methodology The case has been developed as an illustrative case study using primary data. The data and images used for developing the case have been collected from the Alipurduar Division of Indian Railways with suitable permissions. The specific newspaper studies used in developing the case content have been referenced as footnotes on the relevant pages of the case study document. Case overview/synopsis Train operations in Alipurduar Division of Northeast Frontier Railway zone of Indian Railways are difficult. The division provides the vital rail link between the northeast states and the rest of India. Railway lines in the Alipurduar Division pass through several forests with a significant elephant population. As an outcome of train–elephant conflicts, train operations on one of the railway lines operate under severe speed restrictions. Moreover, the region is known for heavy rainfall and thunderstorms for almost six months every year. For the Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), the protagonist of the case, this implied repeated congestion, traffic disruptions, inadvertent delays and lack of time for critical maintenance of the tracks. A solution was planned several years ago for creating an alternative path to de-congest the traffic; however, it ran into a roadblock due to land acquisition issues.With all these limitations, could a solution be found and implemented? How could it be executed?The case illustrates how a simple yet innovative solution was proposed by the DRM in 2015 and implemented in 2016.With this case, students will be able to understand the innovation process that is embedded within long-term infrastructure projects. The case will help students understand how innovation can take place even in the later stages of project implementation, and how simple and creative solutions can have a long-term impact. Complexity academic level The case can be used in graduate and executive education courses in General Management and in Public Policy Management. It can also be used in Doctoral-Level Programmes such as those taught to scholars pursuing Fellow Programme in Management. Since the case brings out elements of problem framing and critical thinking, the case can be used for courses in strategic management. Many professionals, particularly those working in large organizations dealing with large infrastructure projects, will identify with the DRM and the challenges faced by him.

Framing water problems with global statistics is both powerful and misleading

Framing water problems with global statistics is both powerful and misleading

Transnational Curriculum Studies: A Postcolonialist Perspective

This essay offers a postcolonialist standpoint on transnational and international curriculum studies, addressing such concepts as “Asia as method”, the politics of “helping”, the “post-reconceptualisation” of curriculum studies, decolonising curriculum, and the contemporary relevance of love and care in framing curriculum problems and issues.

Separability, Contextuality, and the Quantum Frame Problem

Separability, Contextuality, and the Quantum Frame Problem

Shaping smart cities: problem framing, vertical selection and governance in UK smart cities

ABSTRACT As urban governments adopt smart city strategies for delivering services, the need to understand how – and in whose interests – these strategies are formed is imperative. The selection of smart city verticals (or areas of focus for smart city programs) within processes of urban governance has implications for which aspects of the urban agenda become prioritized. Through a study of seven UK smart cities, the paper investigates the framing of city problems, selection of smart verticals, and decision-making logics. The findings highlight that the selection of smart city verticals within the case study cities is rooted in four key considerations: challenges in service delivery, pragmatism, entrepreneurialism, and broader national and global events and policy agendas. These considerations transcend different spatial scales and governance arrangements, raising questions around democratic accountability and transparency. The study concludes that caution is warranted when framing smart cities as a solution to city problems.

MFF-YOLO: An Accurate Model for Detecting Tunnel Defects Based on Multi-Scale Feature Fusion.

Tunnel linings require routine inspection as they have a big impact on a tunnel's safety and longevity. In this study, the convolutional neural network was utilized to develop the MFF-YOLO model. To improve feature learning efficiency, a multi-scale feature fusion network was constructed within the neck network. Additionally, a reweighted screening method was devised at the prediction stage to address the problem of duplicate detection frames. Moreover, the loss function was adjusted to maximize the effectiveness of model training and improve its overall performance. The results show that the model has a recall and accuracy that are 7.1% and 6.0% greater than those of the YOLOv5 model, reaching 89.5% and 89.4%, respectively, as well as the ability to reliably identify targets that the previous model error detection and miss detection. The MFF-YOLO model improves tunnel lining detection performance generally.

Media Framing of the Refugee Crisis at the Periphery of Europe

The recent European refugee crisis, which began in 2015, has generated academic interest in how media portray and frame migrations and refugees, specifically in their influence on how “We” perceive and accept “Them” in “Our” societies. However, research primarily focuses on EU member states and destination/receiving countries. Therefore, our study examines media framing of the refugee crisis in Serbia between 2015 and 2016. Building on frames previously identified in the Western context, we pre-defined three frames: viewing the refugee crisis as a problem for the political system, society, or refugees. These frames were coded as external/internal based on whether the media text discussed the crisis outside/inside Serbia. Our deductive análisis shows that framing differs from destination countries, with a minimal emphasis on social problems in Serbia. Political issues and challenges faced by refugees were dominant but externalized, showing a slight decline over time compared to the social problem frame, which followed real events. Furthermore, our inductive thematic analysis reveals a new way of framing refugees as a problema for the free movement of our citizens. It also reveals a meta-frame of “Us” (in Serbia) as acting in a humanitarian manner amid hard circumstances created by “Them” (Western politicians) who are not handling the crisis in line with the EU values.

Nutrition policy reforms to address the double burden of malnutrition in Zambia: A prospective policy analysis.

The evolution of nutrition patterns in Zambia has resulted in the coexistence of undernutrition and overnutrition in the same population, the double burden of malnutrition. While Zambia has strong policies addressing undernutrition and stunting, these do not adequately address food environment drivers of the double burden of malnutrition and the adolescent age group, hence the need for nutrition policy reforms. We conducted a theory-based qualitative prospective policy analysis involving in-depth interviews with nutrition policy stakeholders and policy documents review to examine the feasibility of introducing nutrition policy options that address the double burden of malnutrition among adolescents to identify barriers and facilitators to such policy reforms. Using the multiple streams theory, we categorized the barriers and facilitators to prospective policy reforms into those related to the problem, policy solutions, and politics stream. Using a life course approach in nutrition programming could facilitate policy reforms as adolescence is one of the critical invention points in a person's lifecycle. Another key facilitator of policy reform was the availability of institutional infrastructure that could be leveraged to deliver adolescent-focused policies. However, the lack of evidence on the burden and long-term impacts of adolescent nutrition problems, the food industry's strong influence over governments' policy agenda setting, and the lack of public awareness to demand better nutrition were perceived as critical barriers to policy reforms. In addition, the use of the individual responsibility framing for nutrition problems was dominant among stakeholders. As a result, stakeholders did not perceive legislative nutrition policy options that effectively address food environment drivers of the double burden of malnutrition to be feasible for the Zambian context. Policy entrepreneurs are required to broker policy reforms that will get legislative policy options on the government's agenda as they can help raise public support and re-engineer the framing of nutrition problems and their solutions in Zambia.

Health Equity in Climate Change and Health Policies: A Systematic Review

The complex interconnections between climate change policies and health equity are well established, and policy research to understand the health impacts of climate change in multiple domains is growing. Policy analysis theories/frameworks are an important aspect of policy analysis. Many frameworks exist to understand the health equity considerations in policies across various disciplines and the health impacts of climate change-related policies in the health and climate change sectors. However, a closer examination is required to understand whether there is explicit attention to health equity issues in relation to climate change policies in an integrated way. This systematic review attempted to identify existing health equity-focused policy analysis frameworks for understanding health equity considerations in climate change and public health policies. Eight papers were identified through five database searches. Policy analysis frameworks exploring the integration of health equity and climate change are fragmented, and frameworks encompassing several aspects of the policy-making process could not be found. Problem framing and policy-focused solutions were common approaches to understanding health equity in climate change policies. Concepts of social determinants of health and social justice were central to the intersection of climate change and health equity.

All-electric ship operations and management: Overview and future research directions

The grim shipping emission situation and stringent environmental regulations are key drivers for the shift from conventional vessels to all-electric ships (AESs). Currently, hindrances to AESs promotion are primarily attributable to operational and managerial challenges, as opposed to technological limitations. Despite a growing focus on AES operations and management, there appears to be a lack of specific reviews, making the literature on this subject fragmentary and immethodical. This paper systematically defines the problem of AES operations and management regarding ship design and planning, navigation, and energy refuelling. It also presents a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art solutions and research trends. Through the reorganization and analysis of existing research, we expect to improve the understanding of the problem of AES operations and management and encourage more research and applications to overcome the existing obstacles and promote better development. Moreover, we identify five potential issues for future directions based on the gap between the proposed problem frame and existing research.

A SPECTRUM OF STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVE TAKING IN EARLY-STAGE DESIGN

AbstractStakeholder perspective taking is a critical skill in early-stage problem exploration and framing. We examined stakeholder perspective taking within an early-stage design team of engineers at NASA to begin to understand in what ways and under what conditions designers adopt stakeholder perspectives in the context of professional engineering organizations. Our findings identify a spectrum of perspective taking during problem framing deliberations that ranges from (1) fully taking the stakeholder's point of view (POV), (2) interpreting the stakeholder's POV using the designer's POV, (3) implanting the stakeholder's POV into the designer's POV, to (4) fully taking the designer's own POV. We also identify and describe conditions that appeared to encourage or hinder perspective taking in this setting. These findings are significant because they suggest ways to gauge and encourage the skill of stakeholder perspective taking among professional engineers working on real-world design challenges with societal implications.