Transdisciplinary Perspective Research Articles

Research Priorities of Applying Low-Cost PM2.5 Sensors in Southeast Asian Countries.

The low-cost and easy-to-use nature of rapidly developed PM2.5 sensors provide an opportunity to bring breakthroughs in PM2.5 research to resource-limited countries in Southeast Asia (SEA). This review provides an evaluation of the currently available literature and identifies research priorities in applying low-cost sensors (LCS) in PM2.5 environmental and health research in SEA. The research priority is an outcome of a series of participatory workshops under the umbrella of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project–Monsoon Asia and Oceania Networking Group (IGAC–MANGO). A literature review and research prioritization are conducted with a transdisciplinary perspective of providing useful scientific evidence in assisting authorities in formulating targeted strategies to reduce severe PM2.5 pollution and health risks in this region. The PM2.5 research gaps that could be filled by LCS application are identified in five categories: source evaluation, especially for the distinctive sources in the SEA countries; hot spot investigation; peak exposure assessment; exposure–health evaluation on acute health impacts; and short-term standards. The affordability of LCS, methodology transferability, international collaboration, and stakeholder engagement are keys to success in such transdisciplinary PM2.5 research. Unique contributions to the international science community and challenges with LCS application in PM2.5 research in SEA are also discussed.

The Morphosynthesis of Event Portfolios: Connecting Networks and the Community.

Despite the increasing employment of event portfolios by cities and regions to obtain a number of gains, there is a rather slow response from the academic community to fully understand this complex phenomenon and its potential social value. To address this asymmetry furthering the gap between scholarship and practice, the purpose of this article is to theorize the generative mechanisms that shape portfolios as social systems. Based on up-to-date theoretical development, I attempt in this paper to formulate a comprehensive theory of the integrative portfolio nature that interconnects its contextual, policy, operational, and sociocultural dimensions. I do so, by delineating the connective properties of portfolios to assemble different events and enable stakeholders to work toward the accomplishment of common portfolio goals, and by elaborating on the exigencies of portfolios for contributing to the strengthening of the host community's social fabric. This relational analysis operationalizes latest event portfolio elaborations integrated with the perspectives of community capacity-building and quality of life in order to underpin the formulation of a broader framework accounting for the intersection between strategic portfolio planning and the dynamics of stakeholder attitudes, participation in, and community engagement with portfolios. On these grounds, I suggest a new conceptual lens named “morphosynthesis” to explain the multilevel integration processes that shape event portfolios and enable the interlinking of social networks and the community through the array of events. Morphosynthesis constitutes a transdisciplinary perspective that situates the study of event portfolios as a new autotelic subdiscipline across event management, leisure, sport, culture, and tourism. It provides solid but flexible theoretical logics and heuristic means to navigate in the over-fragmented landscape of events and allied industries with the purpose to enhance their compound social value.

Museums in Universities: Predicaments and Potentialities

This paper summarises an analysis of university museums, pinpointing the debates that have framed these institutions both as objects that can be studied and as a field of research that continues to evolve. Twenty years after the first conference held by UMAC in 2001, it is time to reflect upon what has been a fruitful period of research and attempt to map out future directions. The results of this study are founded on a comprehensive analysis of published works, primarily in English and Spanish, and take a thematic approach. Analysis of the academic debates reveals a core theme concerning the historical links of university museums with disciplinary knowledge and the crises these institutions have experienced because of changes that have occurred, especially within scientific disciplines. In addition to discussing how to best manage them, much attention has been given to the dichotomy between university museums and their parent institutions, epitomised by the challenge of reconciling differing roles in outreach, research, and teaching. It is argued here that there is a need for more intensive study of university museums, both in terms of their history and their current circumstances. Such an approach offers the possibility of gaining insights into their practices by combining transdisciplinary perspectives. It could also underpin the proposal that university museums have the potential to take a lead role in combatting denialism and the abandonment of humanistic thinking by articulating the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge to a wide range of audiences inside and outside the university.

Educação Alimentar e Nutricional integrada a um modelo educacional holístico

ABSTRACT: Objective: To propose elements for the development of Food and Nutrition Education practices integrated to pedagogical activities for children. Methods: This is a qualitative case study, with participant observation and semi-structured interviews, carried out in a non-formal learning space, that is inspired in anthroposophy, Slow Food movement and Pikler approach. Participants were 13 children aged one to four years and three educators, and the data were interpreted by reflexive thematic analysis, using the Complex Thought as a theoretical framework. Results: The Food and Nutrition Education was consolidated in different pedagogical activities, such as cultivation practices, reverence in dealing with food, rituals and sharing, in an environmental and transdisciplinary approach. Conclusion: Nutrition education activities as part of a relationship with the environment and the planet, seen from a transdisciplinary perspective, is a differential in the formation of principles and values in early childhood education.

Harmonious Discourse Analysis and Its Application in CCTV Documentary <i>Amazing China</i>

This thesis aims to present Harmonious Discourse Analysis (HDA) and its application in CCTV documentary Amazing China. HDA is a new attempt embedded with Chinese characteristics. The theory was first proposed by Huang Guowen on the basis of reviewing and comparing western dominant approaches, and the necessity of localizing linguistic theory in a Chinese context, as well as the emphasis of developing ecolinguistics from a transdisciplinary perspective. Combined with ecological philosophy and linguistic theory, the analytical framework of HDA is designed as an integrative one. One the one hand, HDA places harmony at its core position, and the whole research is conducted under its general assumption (human-orientedness) and three principles (conscience, proximity and regulation). On the other hand, Systemic Functional Linguistics (henceafter SFL) is taken as the theoretical basis of HDA, and the language system also takes three variables of the register (field, tenor, mode) as the entry point of the research to analyze the ecological discourses. The transitivity analysis of documentary field exhibits the rationality of ecological behaviors guided by the conscience principle. The identity-status analysis of documentary tenor exhibits the authority of ecological discourses guided by the proximity principle. The word-sentence-paragraph analysis of documentary mode exhibits the effectiveness of publicity communication guided by the regulation principle. This thesis has realized its research values of exploration localization, data publicity, and image ecologicalization in the ecological discourses analysis of overseas publicity documentary. It is expected that this study can provide some necessary references for discourse analysis of overseas publicity documentaries in the future, and with wider application of HDA, the ecological consciousness will see its further development in our society, which also undoubtedly benefits ecological protection in various contexts.

A learning design framework for community resilience: International and transdisciplinary perspectives on a boundary object

To equip graduates to respond to sustainability challenges, higher education institutions are developing programs and innovative pedagogical approaches that target new types of 21st century knowledge and skills. Resilience is a core concept in sustainability discourse, and one that is also driving pedagogical innovation that targets specific learner attributes. We argue that the topic of community resilience – as a theoretical boundary object – presents rich opportunities for transdisciplinary Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). This paper highlights international and cross-disciplinary trends in learning design for community resilience-focused university programs. The results outline the survey responses of 111 educators, researchers, and practitioners from a range of disciplines. One-way analysis of variance showed consistent results across the different groups of participants, regardless of geographic location, disciplinary background, or employment context. The research offers a learning design framework for teaching community resilience in higher education institutions, highlighting the importance of academic—practitioner collaboration in program development, disciplinary expertise to inform transdisciplinary learning, hybridised pedagogical approaches, and fostering student agency through assessment tasks.

Informing at the Crossroads of Design Science Research, Academic Entrepreneurship, and Digital Transformation: A Platform Ecosystem Roadmap

Aim/Purpose: Developing Digital Platform Ecosystems (DPE) to transform conventional Knowledge Management Systems (KM/KMS) scenarios promises significant benefits for individuals, institutions, as well as emerging knowledge economies. Background: The academic entrepreneurship project presented is aiming for such a KMS-DPE configuration. Having consolidated this author’s own and external re-search findings, realization is currently commencing with a start-up in a business incubator. Methodology: Design science research applying mixed one-sample case study and illustrative scenario approach focusing on conceptual analysis and entrepreneurship. Contribution: Although (academic) entrepreneurship is a young research area with recently growing interest, publications focusing on this transitional stage between maturing research and projected commercial viability of digital technologies are rare. Findings: A roadmap looking beyond the immediate early-start-up perspective is out-lined by integrating recent development-stage-related DPE-research and by addressing stakeholders diverse informing needs essential for system realization. Recommendations for Practitioners and Researchers: As this transdisciplinary perspective combines KM, informing, design science, and entrepreneurial research spaces, it may assist other researchers and practitioners facing similar circumstances and/or start-up opportunities. Impact on Society: The article advances the understanding of how DPE communities may serve members with highly diverse skills and ambitions better to gainfully utilize the platform’s resources and generative potential in their personal and local settings. Future Research: As the entrepreneurial agenda will complement (not substitute) the academic research, research priorities have been highlighted aligned to three future stages.

Research with children from a transdisciplinary perspective: coproduction of knowledge by walking

ABSTRACT Based on a transdisciplinary perspective, this contribution aims to describe the methodological issues presenting themselves when walking is deployed as a tool to co-produce knowledge in a research project conducted with children. An analysis of two projects, one in Switzerland and the other in Spain, shows the relevance of working across a number of disciplines to study the movement of children and adolescents in their living environment. These research projects use a participatory methodological device, combining the interview and walking technique (mobile interview or accompanied itineraries) as a method of analysing and understanding the experiences of young social actors by prioritising their viewpoints. We also show how adopting a transdisciplinary approach to data co-production enables the participants to inhabit the research through their physical presence and their words.

Marine plastic debris in the Arabian/Persian Gulf: Challenges, opportunities and recommendations from a transdisciplinary perspective

In recent years, the amount of plastic waste entering the marine environment around the world has gained increasing attention. Yet certain areas and regions remain relatively undocumented. Research findings on this topic within the countries adjacent to the Arabian/Persian Gulf comprised of Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates is relatively sparse. Significant gaps remain regarding the precise details on the quantity, sources and impacts of plastic marine debris as well as appropriate management responses. This article addresses these shortcomings from a transdisciplinary perspective, drawing on science, engineering and law. Based on an analysis and overview of the scientific research on plastic pollution in the region, an estimate of mismanaged waste is developed, both on a national level as well as for selected coastal cities. The article then explores the applicable international and regional regulatory framework to address marine debris in the Arabian/Persian Gulf region. It provides one of the first accounts of this regional sea from a comprehensive marine litter regulatory perspective, incorporating scientific findings as well as modelling techniques. The article suggests possible ways to achieve synergies and cooperation among actors and proposes novel approaches on methods to address the problem with a view to the transboundary nature of the issue. The key to success lies in dedicated cooperative efforts within the region, both between the public and private sector and between government and civil society.

Museums as Places: Two review cases and a transdisciplinary perspective

In this essay, we theorize the differences and similarities between rhetorical and cultural geographic approaches to the study of one example of a memory place: museums. We use two major museum research studies to illustrate the findings. We argue that the relationship between memory and place render one major difference between these approaches: vertical versus horizontal readings. We refer to reading as the range of practices employed when studying places. Vertical reading comes mainly from the rhetoricians’ emphasis on hierarchy of meaning and horizontal reading comes mainly from geographers’ emphasis on representation and flexibility. Despite these differences, the disciplines share important similarities with respect to conceptualization and approach; both maintain that places are selective, contextual, and constitutive of identity. Studying museums as places requires both approaches, as we must attend to both how places are made (geographical) and what they do (rhetorical).

Rebels Without a Cause? Polish Rock and Metal Music After 1989

The 1980s are considered the boom of Polish rock music which over time has become glorified thanks to extensive journalistic and scientific literature. However, there are still few resources about Polish music from the 1990s, after the political transformation. Yet since 1989, profound changes have taken place in Polish popular music. The predominant influences of punk rock and New Wave gave way to grunge, Britpop, thrash metal and rapcore. At the same time, the mainstream of Polish rock underwent market standardization and commercialization, leading to a loss of its raw sound and heroic character. For many, it was a time of great commercial success. What had previously been sown, blossomed and gave way to the second boom of Polish rock. The aim of this article is to explore this rich creativity in a broad, transdisciplinary perspective. It is also an attempt to answer the questions: Does rock work only in times of political crisis? Can rebellion become a commodity for sale?

A Transdisciplinary Perspective on Dog-Handler-Client Interactions in Animal Assisted Activities for Children, Youth and Young Adults

Abstract A growing body of research has linked the inclusion of dogs in Animal-Assisted Activities (AAA) for children and young adults to a diverse range of positive social emotional and cognitive outcomes. However, many studies have focused exclusively on aspects directly related to dog-client interactions. There is a need to gain a better understanding of how dog-handler teams have been described, conceptualized and incorporated into the analysis in previous research. In addition, few studies have investigated the mutual adjustments inherent to dog-handler-client triadic relationships. This paper explores if and how the unique characteristics of dog-handler teams have been conceptualized and measured in previous studies. First, this paper undertakes a scoping review to map what, if any, characteristics of dogs, handlers, and dog-handler teams have been described and incorporated into the assessment of AAAs from 2004 to 2019 including: demographic characteristics, formal training and certification, handlers’ or dogs’ behavioral and physiological responses to AAAs, handlers’ roles during activities, and configuration of AAA teams. This scoping review also highlights key features of AAA teams requiring further investigation. In addition, this paper proposes the incorporation of a transdisciplinary framework to the analysis of AAAs. Such a holistic framework can inform the field of human-animal interactions by prioritizing a relational and contextual focus to the study of AAAs.

Policies and community participation for integrated natural resource management: a review of transdisciplinary perspective

Policies and community participation for integrated natural resource management: a review of transdisciplinary perspective

Teaching Digital Sustainability in Higher Education from a Transdisciplinary Perspective

Sustainability is gaining importance in society, government, and the economy, particularly during today’s rapidly changing environment, due to digitalization and digital transformation. Awareness, as well as systematic and critical thinking, are crucial to address the great societal challenges postulated within the SDGs, and thus should be reflected in contemporary education. Consequently, higher educational institutions face a high level of responsibility to prepare their students properly. Postgraduate programmes for professional training, in particular, have great potential, as the in-depth work experience of students can be leveraged to engage with them as co-leaders towards sustainable solutions in the digital age, from a transdisciplinary perspective. Thus, this paper introduces a teaching framework for digital sustainability in higher education under the light of transdisciplinarity. The framework and its inherent methods are discussed, followed by an exploratory analysis, covering the experiences of over 100 students over the course of two years in a postgraduate master’s programme. We present the results of the students’ learning and ideation process towards digital products/services to tackle challenges within the SDGs. In addition, we provide a critical reflection of prerequisites for teaching the framework, challenges experienced during teaching, and potential solutions, as well as ideas towards the future expansion of the framework.

Research on China's holistic teaching design: Theme evolution, realistic confusion and strategy optimization

The introduction of subject literacy, the promulgation of "new curriculum standards", and the implementation and promotion of new teaching materials drive the transformation of school education methods and directly affect the transformation of research on teaching design. Therefore, the research on holistic teaching design focusing on the transformation of classroom teaching methods and pointing to the reform of classroom teaching is of important theoretical value and practical significance. By combing the researches on holistic teaching design of different subjects and different perspectives in the basic education stage, it is found that the relevant theoretical analysis and the holistic teaching design model or strategy provide a certain sense of guidance or reference for teaching practice. However, with the deepening of the holistic teaching design research, the problems in its research have gradually emerged: collaborative research needs to be deepened; the research horizon can be further expanded; the standardization of experimental research needs to be strengthened. Therefore, in terms of holistic teaching design research, it is necessary to explore new collaborative research models and innovate research methods to optimize collaborative research models, so as to promote the effectiveness and in-depth research; it needs to be integrated into interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives, so as to enhance the innovation of research by deepening discipline research and strengthening interdisciplinary research; experimental research needs to pay attention to the selection of experimental objects, the scientificity of experimental design, and the control of experimental factors, and the standardized analysis of experimental data is required, so as to effectively optimize the holistic teaching design model or strategy and improve the effectiveness and reliability of experimental research.

Illuminating the ethical tensions in the obesity Canada website: a transdisciplinary social justice perspective

ABSTRACT Even though considerable resources have been allocated to the study of obesity, there is no consensus on its definition, causes, or solutions. Amidst ongoing debates over understandings of obesity, Obesity Canada (OC) was established to enhance the quality of life of Canadians with obesity through the advancement of anti-discrimination, policy change, and obesity prevention and treatment. Drawing upon a transdisciplinary social justice framework, we use critical thematic analysis to examine the OC website, which is the organization’s primary knowledge mobilization platform. We will address the following research question: To what extent does OC serve social justice goals that promote the best interests of larger people? We argue that the social justice potential of OC ultimately falls short and conclude with some recommendations on how the site content could be enhanced with social justice principles.

Transdisciplinarity and three mindsets for sustainability in the age of cyber-physical systems

Cyber-physical systems (CPS), such as collaborative robots, smart cities, and autonomous vehicles, are seen as decisive contributions to addressing many societal challenges. These systems have the power to provide solutions to cope with an aging population, address climate change, and improve issues of health, public safety and mobility. As a product of the fourth industrial revolution, these systems are currently inviting much interest. However, there are barriers that need to be considered and understood to be able to optimise the potential of these systems to support a more sustainable future. To this end, transdisciplinary skills and a combination of different mindsets are needed to be able to ask the right questions at the right time.There are several approaches that can help us to initiate constructing innovative, transformative, future-oriented and systematic ideas and questions. The three important approaches that are suggested in this article are systems mindset, design mindset and futuristic mindset. These mindsets combined with the transdisciplinary perspective – where different disciplines work jointly to create sustainable solutions not only for today but also for tomorrow – have the power to change the world. This article underlines the importance of transdisciplinarity, presents the three mindsets and illustrates a hypothetical use case on how to blend these three mindsets to enable creative work in the future's transdisciplinary world for human-centred and sustainable future.

The code of targeted poverty alleviation in China: A geography perspective

Geography is suitable for the study of sustainability from a transdisciplinary perspective, which takes the human-land relationship as the core research. As a key obstacle to rural sustainability, poverty is an external manifestation of the coupling maladjustment of elements in human-land territorial systems. As the world's largest developing country, China eradicated extreme poverty in 2020 and made significant contributions to global poverty reduction. Especially over the last eight years, China has implemented a targeted poverty alleviation (TPA) strategy and has continuously promoted theoretical, organizational and institutional innovations for poverty reduction. From the perspective of geography, this paper extracts the experiences of China's TPA strategy, represented by the "5W2H" mode. The research concludes that: (1) Precise identification, as the foundation of TPA, aims to introduce a registration system to obtain records of all poor households and then answer the "5W" (what, where, why, who, when) issues of the geography of poverty. (2) Precise assistance is the key of TPA, which aims to solve the issue of "how to offer help and support". The barriers to escaping poverty can be accomplished through policies and measures that focus on the diverse causes of poverty and considering different situations. (3) Accurate assessments are an essential means of TPA, relevant to solve "how to measure the end of poverty alleviation", and third-party evaluations play an important role in improving the accuracy of poverty alleviation. (4) The TPA mechanism lies in reconstructing the human-land-industry structures in the impoverished areal system. It is urgent to introduce China's successful experience and typical modes of TPA for global human-earth system coordination and sustainable development and contribute to building a community of human destiny.

Expanding the transdisciplinary conversation towards pluriversal distributive disaster recovery: development ethics and interculturality

PurposeFrom a Latin American decolonial and transdisciplinary perspective, this article expands the increasingly relevant conversation about disaster ethics, not only in depth and scope but also both interdisciplinarily and interculturally. By reviewing key points of development ethics that are closely related but underexplored, it makes the case for focusing on disaster recovery as a relevant distributive phase for improving future prevention and mitigation, while remedying long-standing injustices.Design/methodology/approachTo do so, against the backdrop of recently emerging postcolonial, decolonial and structural approaches to disaster and vulnerability studies, the article presents a theoretical conversation between decolonial studies, development ethics, intercultural practice and philosophy, and disaster ethics beyond utilitarian approaches.FindingsSo far, development and disaster ethics remain worlds apart, despite their relevant convergence around the key notion of “recovery” and its underlying normative determination. This article identifies that prevailing utilitarian ethics in emergency response, in addition to their problematic universalization, have prevented further engagement with deontological and process-based principles, including a nuanced distributive sensitivity. As a result of such cross-fertilization, methodological individualism in an intercultural encounter is suggested, as well as continued engagement with pluriversal deliberation about key ethical values and notions regarding disaster risk and response.Originality/valueCalling for distributive bottom-up engagement beyond professional and academic boundaries, this article presents a new direction for decolonising disaster ethics, so far unexplored, seeking to bridge the value gap between development and disaster efforts, planning and prevention.

The psychology of sustainability and sustainable development: Transdisciplinary perspectives

The study outlines the pillars of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development. It applies a transdisciplinary approach to explore how the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development provides a common language for constructing well-being and quality-of-life of populations, regarding the natural, personal, social, organisational environments. The article also provides insights on the value of psychological variables in relation to natural environment as well as to other kinds of environments, promoting a prevention perspective focused on strengths amenable to trainings. Based on these analyses, the study makes a contribution to sustainability issues by introducing a psychological perspective and promoting the transdisciplinary framework at the basis of Sustainability Science.