Transdisciplinary Evaluation Research Articles

Exploratory study of handwriting disorders in school-aged children for a better nosography

IntroductionHandwriting disorders (HDs) are prevalent in elementary school children, but their nature is poorly understood. Moreover, the diagnosis of dysgraphia is often too quickly concluded on a single assessment.ObjectivesIn the present study, we aimed to use a transdisciplinary assessment approach. We looked for to provide objective data to better understand the nature and aetiology of HDs.Methods27 school aged children with HDs aged 6-11 years were included in the study and were compared to typically developing children. They performed a normed prescriptural task of copying cycloid loops. Postural and gestural inter-segmental coordination of arm movements were recorded with two video cameras allowing 2D reconstruction of the gesture. Spatial/temporal kinetic and kinematic measures were recorded with a digital pen. All children underwent normed and standardized clinical assessments of neuropsychomotor, neuropsychological and oculomotor functions. The handwriting test (BKK) were used.ResultsHandwriting disorders seem very heterogeneous. However, there is a significantly poorer gestural of inter-segmental coordination and of kinetic/kinematic performances of the tracings in HDs. Furthermore, it was possible to highlight three levels of HDs: mild HD not detected by the BHK test (26% of children), moderate HD with the BHK (33%), dysgraphia identified by the BHK (41% of children). The mild nature of HDs not dectected by the BHK seems to occur to a relatively low frequency with associated disorders identified during clinical assessments. On the contrary, dysgraphia appears linked to a high frequency of the associated disorders with a majority of oculomotor disorders (55% of children) leading to visual-perceptual difficulties (44%).ConclusionsHDs appear to be multifactorial but have a common characteristics of immaturity of gestural synergy of the arm, associated with poorer spatio-temporal kinetic and kinematic parameters. Dysgraphia occurs with more severe disorders as oculomotor and visual perception impairments. Our findings highlight the importance to identified a nosography of HDs with a transdisciplinary evaluation to better understand the nature and aetiology of the disorders in order to better clinical decision-making processes for handwriting remediations.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Sustainable Modern Agricultural Technology Assessment by a Multistakeholder Transdisciplinary Approach

With the rise of emerging technology in the fourth industrial revolution, modern agricultural technologies are gradually adopted to increase the yield and efficiency. Meanwhile, they also may bring the negative effect to social and environment sustainable development. Ignoring the requirement of sustainability will have an impact on the development of the country and society. Besides, the uncertainty and multistakeholder on sustainable modern agricultural technology assessment (SMATA) have made this appraisal much more complex, including their entanglement with rapidly changing cultural norms and social relations. Thus, in order to address these concerns, this article develops a holistic multistakeholder transdisciplinary approach with supporting SMATA. More precisely, due to the uncertainty of environment and vague knowledge possessed by stakeholders, we first investigate the evaluation measure of SMATA by introducing <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$q$</tex-math></inline-formula> -rung orthopair fuzzy set ( <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$q$</tex-math></inline-formula> -ROFS). Second, group opinion of stakeholders is fused by developing a new transdisciplinary evaluation aggregation operator. Third, to achieve more robust weights of key factors, three extended best worst method models from three different comparative perspectives of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$q$</tex-math></inline-formula> -ROFS are established. The final weight of key factors is further obtained by utilizing the variable entropy method. Fourth, we design a new decision approach of SMATA by improving evaluation based on distance from average solution method. Finally, a modern agricultural project base of Xichang city in China is used to demonstrate the effectiveness and rationality of our proposed SMATA method, including the simulation experiments on sensitivity analysis and comparative analysis. These results provide some exploratory insight and guidelines of SMATA for government and organization.

Travel scenario workshops for geographical accessibility modeling of health services: A transdisciplinary evaluation study.

Limited geographical access to quality Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (EmONC) is a major driver of high maternal mortality. Geographic access to EmONC facilities is identified by the global community as a critical issue for reducing maternal mortality and is proposed as a global indicator by the Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM) initiative. Geographic accessibility models can provide insight into the population that lacks adequate access and on the optimal distribution of facilities and resources. Travel scenarios (i.e., modes and speed of transport) used to compute geographical access to healthcare are a key input to these models and should approximate reality as much as possible. This study explores strategies to optimize and harmonize knowledge elicitation practices for developing travel scenarios. Knowledge elicitation practices for travel scenario workshops (TSW) were studied in 14 African and South-Asian countries where the United Nations Population Fund supported ministries of health and governments in strengthening networks of EmONC facilities. This was done through a mixed methods evaluation study following a transdisciplinary approach, applying the four phases of the Interactive Learning and Action methodology: exploration, in-depth, integration, and prioritization and action planning. Data was collected in November 2020-June 2021 and involved scoping activities, stakeholder identification, semi-structured interviews (N = 9), an evaluation survey (N = 31), and two co-creating focus group discussions (N = 8). Estimating realistic travel speeds and limited time for the workshop were considered as the largest barriers. The identified opportunities were inclusively prioritized, whereby preparation; a favorable composition of attendees; validation practices; and evaluation were anticipated to be the most promising improvement strategies, explaining their central place on the co-developed initial standard operating procedure (SOP) for future TSWs. Mostly extensive preparation-both on the side of the organization and the attendees-was anticipated to address nearly all of the identified TSW challenges. This study showed that the different identified stakeholders had contradicting, complementing and overlapping ideas about strategies to optimize and harmonize TSWs. Yet, an initial SOP was inclusively developed, emphasizing practices for before, during and after each TSW. This SOP is not only relevant in the context of the UNFPA EmONC development approach, but also for monitoring the newly launched EPMM indicator and even in the broader field of geographic accessibility modeling.

Gardens of life: Multifunctional and ecosystem services of urban cemeteries in Central Europe and beyond—Historical, structural, planning, nature and heritage conservation aspects

Cemeteries are often seen as monofunctional spaces for burial and mourning and, within the dynamically changing urban fabric, as a planning conundrum. Long periods of stability have also turned these untouched and hidden places into refugia for nature and wildlife. In booming and dense cities with high land use pressures and housing shortages, in particular, as the amount of burial ground needed per citizen decreases and burial cultures change, the cemetery has become a contested nature, as a simultaneous space of emotion, commerce and community. We revisited the diversity and ontogenesis of cemeteries, and the interactions with neighboring uses of the urban matrix. Our review demonstrates a wide range of different ecosystem services of urban cemeteries, beyond potential as hotspots of culture and biodiversity. We highlight their multifunctional character and the need for a holistic and trans-disciplinary evaluation using multistakeholder approaches to further develop cemeteries as a crucial element of sustainable urban landscapes.

Incidence Moments: A Simple and Accurate Method to Study the Memory and Short Term Forecast of the COVID-19 Incidence Time-Series

Summary: The ability to predict COVID-19 dynamic has been very low, because of unexpected changes in the number of cases. Here we study the temporal memory of the reported daily incidence time series and propose a simple model for short-term forecast of the incidence.Methods: We propose a new concept called incidence moments that allows exploring the memory of the reported incidence time series, based on successive products of the incidence and the reproductive number that allow a short term forecast of the future incidence. We studied the correlation between the predictions of the first five incidence moments and the reported incidence determining the best predictor. We compared the predictions and observed COVID incidences with correlation analysis and Bland-Altman diagrams for the world, for Chile and its regions, and for 43 other countries.Findings: We find that the best predictor is the third moment of incidence, determining a temporal prediction window of incidence of 15 days. After 15 days the correlation between the observed and expected values ​​decrease under r = 0.8. The incidence series of the world, Chile and its regions and the rest of the countries show a high correlation between observed-expected values, with 8 countries with very high correlations. The method is better when the population size is high and presents distortions when there are abrupt changes in incidence.Interpretation: This study shows that the epidemic dynamics of COVID 19 has a very short prediction window, probably associated with an intrinsic chaotic behavior of its dynamics. The present analyzes also show that the incidence moments modeling approach could be useful as a simple tool for decision makers to short-term monitor the course of an epidemic. The simplicity of the proposed method is appealing since it allows a rapid implementation in different settings, even with limited technical epidemiological capacities and without requiring extensive computational.Funding Information: ANID COVID 0960 Grant “Impact of COVID-19 in Chile. A transdisciplinary evaluation of the response to the pandemic and its consequences”.Declaration of Interests: The authors have completed the ICMJE declaration of conflicts of interest form, and declare that they have not received funding to prepare the report; not have financial relationships with organizations that may have an interest in the published article, in the last three years; and not having other relationships or activities that could influence the published article. The forms can be requested by contacting the responsible author or the editorial direction of the Journal.Ethics Approval Statement: Our study is based on official secondary data reported by the Ministry of Health of Chile; therefore, it did not require approval from the Faculty of Medicine ethics committee.

Neuropsychological profile associated with an alpha-synuclein gene (SNCA) duplication

Objective: The alpha-synuclein gene (SNCA) is implicated in both Parkinson’s disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). The purpose of this case study was to describe the neuropsychological profile, clinical trajectory, and treatment course of an individual with a known SNCA gene duplication who was followed over the course of three years. Methods: The patient was a healthy man who developed olfactory changes in early adulthood followed by parkinsonism and cognitive concerns around age 40. He underwent serial neurologic and neuropsychological evaluations and neuroimaging, as well as genetic testing for PD gene mutations. He consented to share his medical information to increase awareness of his condition. Results: Initial neuropsychological evaluation (age 44) revealed mild cognitive impairment primarily affecting executive and frontal/subcortical functions. Follow-up evaluations showed rapid cognitive decline that far surpassed the patient’s Parkinsonism, which responded well to carbidopa-levodopa. As symptoms progressed, he also developed features characteristic of DLB, including cognitive fluctuations, rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, and visual hallucinations. Conclusion: SNCA gene duplication has classically been associated with a slowly progressive syndrome closely resembling idiopathic PD, but less frequently it can cause rapidly progressive dementia. This case study is the first to describe this rare phenotype in terms of its full neuropsychological profile and trajectory. The case highlights the value of a transdisciplinary evaluation and treatment and brings up important ethical and practical issues that should be considered when working with patients who have suspected or known genetic disorders.

Concepts and Contexts of Creative Evaluation Approaches

Background: Creative Evaluation (CE) is an unformed constellation of evaluation approaches that is based on varied understandings of creativity. Although creativity in evaluation has been consistently valued and needed by evaluation practitioners and researchers, the use of the term CE is currently limited in its applications as it has been developed inconsistently and often in isolation to the broader evaluation practice. The authors review examples where the term CE is being used, to present this constellation of approaches and group them under concepts and contexts, aiming at fostering an exploration into CE.&#x0D; Purpose: This paper examines the use of term Creative Evaluation by reviewing a set of examples from varied settings like educational programmes, cultural industries and social work and to present the reader with a better understanding about the contexts and concepts associated with CE. The authors discuss the transdiciplinary nature of evaluation along with a review of historical developments in evaluation theory and practice that help identify the emergence of responsive, flexible and problem-solving driven approaches to evaluation that can showcase a growing connection between creativity and evaluation.&#x0D; Setting: Not applicable.&#x0D; Intervention: Not applicable.&#x0D; Research Design: Desk review was utilised for the preparation of this paper.&#x0D; Findings: There are different conceptualisations of the term CE applied in a variety of disciplinary and practice contexts. The term CE is used to describe both the process of applying creative thinking and the process of employing creative methods in the evaluation process. Creative thinking indicates a broader application of creativity that shapes the evaluation process and often results in the development of novel methods while creative methods indicate a more targeted use of methods that employ creative practices to achieve a specific evaluation goal like increasing engagement in the evaluation process.&#x0D; Keywords: creative evaluation; creative methods; creative approaches; transdisciplinary evaluation; evaluation

Synchronous Colorectal Cancer: Improving Accuracy of Detection and Analyzing Molecular Heterogeneity-The Main Keys for Optimal Approach.

Background: In patients with synchronous colorectal cancer (SCRC), understanding the underlying molecular behavior of such cases is mandatory for designing individualized therapy. The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of transdisciplinary evaluation of the pre- and post-operative assessment of patients with SCRCs, from imaging to molecular investigations. Methods: Six patients with SCRCs presented with two carcinomas each. In addition to the microsatellite status (MSS), the epithelial mesenchymal transition was checked in each tumor using the biomarkers β-catenin and E-cadherin, same as KRAS and BRAF mutations. Results: In two of the patients, the second tumor was missed at endoscopy, but diagnosed by a subsequent computed-tomography-scan (CT-scan). From the six patients, a total of 11 adenocarcinomas (ADKs) and one squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) were analyzed. All the examined carcinomas were BRAF-wildtype microsatellite stable tumors with an epithelial histological subtype. In two of the six cases, KRAS gene status showed discordance between the two synchronous tumors, with mutations in the index tumors and wildtype status in the companion ones. Conclusions: Preoperative CT-scans can be useful for detection of synchronous tumors which may be missed by colonoscopy. Where synchronous tumors are identified, therapy should be based on the molecular profile of the indexed tumors.

A transdisciplinary evaluation framework for the assessment of integration in boundary-crossing collaborations in teacher education

This study provides a) an evaluative framework for boundary-crossing collaboration in teacher education which is inspired by the discourse of transdisciplinarity. In addition, it offers b) empirical insights about so-called Transdisciplinary Development Teams, which comprise practitioners, researchers, and student teachers. The framework bases on (1) epistemic, (2) social, and (3) organisational integration characteristics such as (1a) mutual learning, (1b) knowledge integration, (2a) perceived trustworthiness, (2b) appreciation within the team, and (3a) collective ownership of goals. Drawing on a written survey with n = 62 participants, the empirical study provides findings on three research questions. First, all dimensions of integration characteristics have been rated high on average. Second, the results of a one-way ANOVA establish that the main actor groups perceive the work in Transdisciplinary Development Teams as integrative with regard to previously stated characteristics. Third, the analysis of a manifest path model substantiates theoretically assumed effect relationships. Subsequently, transdisciplinary dimensions of integration characteristics appear suitable for assessing boundary-crossing collaboration in teacher education.

Screening-level evaluation of marine benthic dinoflagellates toxicity using mammalian cell lines.

Complementary studies at different levels of the biological organization are fundamental to fully link environmental exposure to marine benthic dinoflagellate toxins and their effects. In order to contribute to this transdisciplinary evaluation, and for the first time, the present study aims to study the effects of Gambierdiscus excentricus, Ostreopsis cf. ovata, Prorocentrum hoffmannianum and Prorocentrum lima extracts on seven functionally different mammalian cell lines: HEK 293, HepG2, HNDF, H9c2(2-1), MC3T3-E1, Raw 264.7 and SH-SY5Y. All the cell lines presented cell mass decrease in a concentration-dependence of dinoflagellate extracts, exhibiting marked differences in cell toxicity. Gambierdiscus excentricus presented the highest effect, at very low concentrations with EC50,24h (i.e., the concentration that gives half-maximal response after a 24-h exposure) between 1.3 and 13cells mL-1, followed by O. cf. ovata (EC50,24h between 3.3 and 40cells mL-1), and Prorocentrum species (P. lima: EC50,24h between 191 and 1027cells mL-1 and P. hoffmannianum: EC50,24h between 152 and 783cells mL-1). Cellular specificities were also detected and rat cardiomyoblast H9c2(2-1) cells were in general the most sensitive to dinoflagellate toxic compounds, suggesting that this cell line is an animal-free potential model for dinoflagellate toxin testing. Finally, the sensitivity of cells expressing distinct phenotypes to each dinoflagellate extract exhibited low relation to human poisoning symptoms.

Collaborative lessons towards marine sustainability: a long-term collective engagement

Collective engagement and inclusiveness have been in growing demand particularly within the context of managing natural resources. Here, a natural and a social scientist report on a case that the two have participated over the past decade, supported by a transdisciplinary evaluation framework. With the aid of a boundary scientist external to the process, analysis focuses on the delivery and update of spatial regulation and fishery management rules in a Marine Protected Area (Marine Park professor Luiz Saldanha) in Arrabida, Portugal, the temporal dynamics in key elements of collaboration and the building up of social, intellectual and political capital in the system. Long-term collective engagement showed that the emergence of key actors and the progression towards an outcome-driven agenda might have the downside to partially demobilize less active members. Further, the increased legitimacy of group action provided by institutional recognition may diminish adaptive capacity and group resilience. Nevertheless, negotiated group proposals to alter the bundles of fishing rights in the system and shaping of boundary objects with relevance to marine sustainability demonstrate that collective action by a community of practice can operate for long periods and deliver more than a compilation of individual wish-lists or noncommittal declarations.

Towards an Inclusive Systemic Evaluation for the SDGs: Gender equality, Environments and Marginalized voices (GEMs)

With the advent of the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, there is a call for more methodologies to understand and evaluate combinations of these global challenges, their integrated nature and their complexities. Accordingly, UN Women Independent Evaluation Office along with Australian and American researchers have written and piloted a new evaluation guide: Inclusive Systemic Evaluation for Gender equality, Environments and Marginalized voices (ISE4GEMs): A new approach for the SDG era (2018). Referred to as the ‘ISE4GEMs’, this guide is an original piece of work that brings together transdisciplinary evaluation methods, re-thinks systemic evaluation methodology and introduces the Gender equality, Environments and Marginalized voices (GEMs) framework. This article provides a summary of the key theoretical concepts that have been synthesized from systems thinking, social and ecological sciences to produce process guidance.

Positioning Animal Welfare in the One Health Concept through Evaluation of an Animal Welfare Center in Skopje, Macedonia.

The Animal Welfare Center (AWC) in Macedonia was established in 2009. The objectives of the center are animal welfare (AW) education, research, raising public awareness of AW, and increasing cooperation between the stakeholders. One Health (OH) was not the major focus of the AWC work initially, but, rather, a focus that evolved recently. The objective of this study was to evaluate the AWC from the OH perspective as an example case for positioning the AW within the overall OH concept. Three types of evaluation were performed: (1) assessment of OH-ness, by quantitative measurement of the operational and infrastructural aspects of the AWC; (2) impact evaluation, by conducting quantitative surveys on stakeholders and students; and (3) transdisciplinary evaluation, using semi-quantitative evaluation of the links of cooperation between the AWC and the stakeholders in society by the custom designed CACA (Cooperation, Activities, Communication, and Agreement) scoring system. Results for the OH-ness of the AWC showed relatively high scores for OH thinking, planning and working and middle scores for OH learning and sharing dimensions, i.e., dominance of the operational over infrastructural aspects of the AWC. The impact evaluation of the AWC shows that familiarity with the OH concept among stakeholders was low (44% of the respondents). However, there was a commonality among stakeholder’s interest about AW and OH. According to the stakeholders’ and students’ opinions, the influence of AW on Animal, Environmental, and Human Health is relatively high (in the upper third of the 1–10 scale). The transdisciplinary evaluation of the AWC indicated the presence of transdisciplinarity work by the AWC, with a higher focus on the Universities and Research Institutions and some governmental institutions, and less linked with the Non-Governmental Organizations and Professional Associations (Chambers), e.g., the Veterinary Chamber in Macedonia. The evaluations conducted indicated that the AWC’s work is closely dedicated to improving animal, environmental, and human health and has a considerable OH role among the stakeholders in the society. This study describes the significant role and importance that AW has in OH.

OPALesence: Epistemological pluralism in the evaluation of a systems-wide childhood obesity prevention program

The evaluation of complex systems-wide public health interventions requires evaluation research that is underpinned by theory. This article presents and discusses the trans-disciplinary evaluation research framework developed to support the evaluation of a South Australian program called OPAL (Obesity Prevention and Lifestyle). The aim is to provide insights into the research design, methods and implementation of the evaluation and contribute to the debate on how to evaluate community-based interventions with complicated and complex aspects. In an attempt to capture the complexity of childhood obesity and the intervention, the OPAL evaluation research employs post positivist, interpretive and critical epistemologies, valuing epistemological pluralism. Each component of the multi-phase mixed methods evaluation captures different yet complementary information concerning the context, process, cost effectiveness and outcomes providing a more complete understanding of the impacts of the complex program. Evaluation research is not without challenges. Some of the tensions and challenges that arose in the establishment, planning and conduct of the OPAL program and evaluation are discussed.

Transdisciplinary Evaluation of Energy Scenarios for a German Village Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) can assist local decision processes towards selecting renewable energy systems as it is able to manage qualitative data and offers opportunities to integrate knowledge from local stakeholders. However, little experience is available regarding practical applications of MCDA in real decision processes in communities on their path towards a renewable energy supply. Within the “Bioenergy-Region Ludwigsfelde” project, an MCDA evaluation has been applied to a small village on its way to becoming a “bioenergy village”. Here, MCDA has been combined with already established tools accompanying the process to becoming a “bioenergy village”, such as planning workshops, citizens’ meetings and best-practice trips. A comprehensive set of sustainability criteria was applied aimed at addressing the questions of local actors. An emphasis was placed on social criteria that comprise the perceived values of local impacts. In general, it was observed that MCDA provides many benefits for this application context. In particular, the group weighting using the SIMOS method demonstrated good results in the process. However, for real-world applications of MCDA, the challenge of data compilation in particular must be addressed.

Afterword: the emergent literature on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research evaluation

The complexity of evaluating interdisciplinary (ID) and transdisciplinary (TD) research defies a single standard. Yet, common elements appear in the emergent literature. Five overriding themes stand out. (1) Quality is a relative concept, driven by variability of goals and criteria. (2) A coaching model of evaluation nurtures the research process. (3) Integration is central to the process. (4) Social and cognitive factors interact, requiring management of information and decision-making. (5) The need for change in peer review has led to a variety of strategies. ID and TD evaluation is a generative activity that entails acts of “capitalizing” and “harvesting” expertise while “calibrating” standards to produce new “cultures of evidence”.