A Meta-analysis of the Uncanny Valley's Independent and Dependent Variables

The uncanny valley (UV) effect is a negative affective reaction to human-looking artificial entities. It hinders comfortable, trust-based interactions with android robots and virtual characters. Despite extensive research, a consensus has not formed on its theoretical basis or methodologies. We conducted a meta-analysis to assess operationalizations of human likeness (independent variable) and the UV effect (dependent variable). Of 468 studies, 72 met the inclusion criteria. These studies employed 10 different stimulus creation techniques, 39 affect measures, and 14 indirect measures. Based on 247 effect sizes, a three-level meta-analysis model revealed the UV effect had a large effect size, Hedges’ g = 1.01 [0.80, 1.22]. A mixed-effects meta-regression model with creation technique as the moderator variable revealed face distortion produced the largest effect size, g = 1.46 [0.69, 2.24], followed by distinct entities, g = 1.20 [1.02, 1.38], realism render, g = 0.99 [0.62, 1.36], and morphing, g = 0.94 [0.64, 1.24]. Affective indices producing the largest effects were threatening, likable, aesthetics, familiarity , and eeriness , and indirect measures were dislike frequency, categorization reaction time, like frequency, avoidance , and viewing duration . This meta-analysis—the first on the UV effect—provides a methodological foundation and design principles for future research.

Rethinking the Methodological Foundation of Historical Political Science

The basis of a methodology determines whether a research method can fit the core characteristics of a particular academic tradition, and thus, it is crucial to explore this foundation. Keeping in mind the controversy and progress of the philosophy of social sciences, this paper aims to elaborate on four aspects including the cognitive model, the view of causality, research methods, and analysis techniques, and to establish a more solid methodological basis for historical political science. With respect to the “upstream knowledge” of methodology, both positivism and critical realism underestimate the tremendous difference between the natural world and the social world. This leads to inherent flaws in controlled comparison and causal mechanism analysis. Given the constructiveness of social categories and the complexity of historical circumstances, the cognitive model of constructivism makes it more suitable for researchers to engage in macro-political and social analysis. From the perspective of constructivism, the causality in “storytelling,” i.e., the traditional narrative analysis, is placed as the basis of the regularity theory of causality in this paper, thus forming the historical–causal narrative. The historical–causal narrative focuses on how a research object is shaped and self-shaped in the ontological historical process, and thus ideally suits the disciplinary characteristics of historical political science. Researchers can complete theoretical dialogues, test hypotheses, and further explore the law of causality in logic and evidence, thereby achieving the purpose of “learning from history” in historical political science.

Innovative Ecosystem Model of Vaccine Lifecycle Management

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely tested humanity, revealing the need to develop and improve the medical, economic, managerial, and IT components of vaccine management systems. The vaccine lifecycle includes vaccine research and development, production, distribution, and vaccination of the population. To manage this cycle effectively the proper organizational and IT support model of the interaction of vaccine lifecycle management stakeholders is needed—which are an innovation ecosystem and an appropriate virtual platform. A literature review has revealed the lack of methodological basis for the vaccine innovation ecosystem and virtual platform. This article is devoted to the development of a complex approach for the development of an innovation ecosystem based on vaccine lifecycle management and a virtual platform which provides the data exchange environment and IT support for the ecosystem stakeholders. The methodological foundation of the solution, developed in the article, is an enterprise architecture approach, CALS technologies, supply chain management and an open innovation philosophy. The results, presented in the article, are supposed to be a reference set of models for the creation of a vaccine innovation ecosystem, both during pandemics and periods of stable viral load.

The Population Census: a Tool for Consolidating or Irritating Society?

The article provides a historical digression into the population census as the only tool that makes it possible to assess the current socio-economic and socio-demographic situation in a particular territory. The possible factors causing distrust and fear among the population that arise in the process of organizing and conducting this labor-intensive process are listed. Among them: legal support; methodological foundation; consciousness and responsibility of scribes; psychological attitude of respondents.

TECHNIQUE AND QUALITY TRANSLATION OF IDHAFI PHRASES IN THE POETRY OF ASYHADU AN LA IMRAATA ILLA ANTI BY NIZAR QABBANI

The translation process is an activity of transferring one language to another, from the translation process the researcher examines the translation techniques and translation quality of the collection of translation poems by Nizar Qabbani entitled Asyhadu An La Imraata Illa Anti. The methodological foundation that the researcher uses is a qualitative method. In this study, the researcher found 160 Idhafi phrases which were translated using 15 translation techniques, and 2 translation techniques that had good quality in conveying the intent, message, and purpose to the reader into the target language. That is, the equivalent technique generally has the highest value on three aspects of assessment for the quality of translation, among others, the accuracy aspect has a score of 83.3%, then the acceptability aspect has a score of 85.7%, and in the readability aspect, it has a score of 78.6% for further research. The researcher can discuss in more detail the translation method of Nizar Qabbani's Poetry

Saberes matemáticos na orientação de professores paranaenses: expertises e contribuições (1970-1980)

A pesquisa aqui apresentada, de caráter investigativo, aponta evidências presentes em documentos produzidos por professores paranaenses para responder a uma demanda de pesquisa manifesta das décadas de 1970 e 1980: como se apresentaram os saberes para ensinar matemática nas orientações para os professores do ensino de 1º Grau no estado do Paraná? Procurou-se responder à essa questão tomando por base a teoria e metodologia da história cultural, a leitura e análise de documentos como a Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação (1971), o Projeto HAPRONT (modelo curricular de formação de professores), “Revista Currículo” (PARANÁ, 1977; 1978; 1979) da SEC do PR, e a “Revista A voz da Escola” (PARANÁ, 1981) do IEP. A organização e abordagem das propostas educativas que fizeram parte do contexto de produção de manuais didáticos para a orientação de formação, tanto inicial quanto continuada de professores, tiveram a participação de educadores cuja expertise associou os saberes para ensinar às teorias educacionais e métodos de ensino em voga na educação brasileira, traduzindo as expectativas para o período em questão. A fundamentação teórico-metodológica da história cultural nas teorias de Julia, Chervel e Chartier deram sustento às argumentações aqui expostas.Mathematical knowledge in the teacher’s orientation of Paraná: expertises and contributions (1970-1980)The research presented here, of an investigative nature, points to evidence present in documents produced by teachers from Paraná to respond to a clear demand for research from the 1970s and 1980s: how was presented the knowledge for teaching mathematics in the guidelines for teachers of elementary school in the state of Paraná? We sought to answer this question based on the theory and methodology of cultural history, the reading and analysis of documents such as Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação (1971), the HAPRONT Project (curricular model for teacher education), “Curriculum magazine” (1977, 1978, 1979), from Education Secretary of Paraná, and “The voice of the school magazine” (1981) from Educational Institute of Paraná. The organization and approach of educational proposals that were part of the context of the production of textbooks to guide both initial and continuing teacher education had the participation of educators whose expertise associated the knowledge to teach with the educational theories end teaching methods in vogue in Brazilian education translating expectations for the period in question. The theoretical methodological foundation of cultural history in the theories of Julia, Chervel and Chartier supported the arguments presented here.Keywords: Education; Teachers’ training; Mathematics knowledge.

New Instruments for Popular Understandings of Democracy

This chapter reviews pertinent research on varying understandings of democracy to assess the empirical challenges in studying this elusive concept and to propose some new survey instruments (i.e., the PUD instruments) with theoretical justification. In particular, it emphasizes the embedded tensions and critical trade-offs as people view and assess democracy and brings such tensions and trade-offs to the center of instrument selection. The chapter further examines the validity and reliability of the PUD instruments using both survey experiments and different psychometric models to establish a solid methodological foundation for subsequent empirical analysis.

A Systematic Framework of KPIs for Measuring High-Rise Modular Integrated Construction

Modular integrated construction (MiC) has been introduced in high-rise construction for achieving sustainable development. As high-rise MiC disruptively transforms the construction process compared with conventional construction, it is imperative to systematically understand its performance, which however has not been sufficiently reported in previous literature. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a new framework of key performance indicators (KPIs) for project stakeholders to comprehensively measure and effectively benchmark the performance of high-rise MiC projects. This framework is developed based on the concept of sustainable construction that covers social, environmental and economic aspects. Through a comprehensive literature review, expert interviews, and a focus group meeting, 32 KPIs are established in the three sustainability aspects. An eight-step process is suggested for project stakeholders to adopt these KPIs to measure MiC performance in three tiers, i.e., overall building, off-site and on-site, and modular works. A case study is then presented which demonstrates that the framework is effective in measuring the sustainability of high-rise MiC and applicable for comparing MiC with conventional practices. The framework fills the knowledge gap of performance measurement on high-rise modular construction and contributes a methodological foundation for future quantitative benchmarking of MiC sustainability.

The Effect of Hybrid Attributes on Property Prices

This study focuses on the sales comparison and the adjustment grid methods, under the framework of the market approach to valuation. The literature mostly focuses on the structural qualities of the properties, referring to the buildings and their locational characteristics, which pertain to their positioning within the urban fabric. Here we focus on a particular set of attributes which depend on how a building is placed in a specific land plot and relate to the surrounding environment. The term «hybrid» is used to identify this class of attributes. It is shown that hybrid attributes affect property prices and should not be disregarded by practitioners and appraisers. The role played by hybrid characteristics is analyzed based on the methodological foundation of the hedonic and the adjustment grid methods. The derived linear and log-linear models are tested by means of a case study. The models prove to have high explanatory power. The weight of each hybrid attribute is estimated to vary between 1% and 10%. Overall, these attributes contribute to 17-23% of the property prices. The validation performed using the grid adjustment method shows that the estimated marginal prices are effective in adjusting the prices per unit area of the comparables.

Metaphysics of the History of Music in the Scientific Area: Challenges of the Time

The relevance of the article is determined by the desire to consider the understanding of the scientific discipline “The History of Music” in its metaphysical dimension. “Metaphysics of the History of Music” appears as a modern discipline that opens new layers of meaning. It deals with problems that combine the musical art with philosophy, anthropology, culturology, aesthetics, but its foundation is determined by the musicological view on the musical artifacts. Scientific novelty. For the first time, the principles of Aristotle's teaching appear as the methodological foundation of the new discipline “Metaphysics of the History of Music”. This allows us to consider the history of music as a special way of understanding existence. The intersections of synchronous and diachronic parameters of understanding musical texts open new horizons of awareness of his “I” to the man of the 21st century. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the essential characteristics of the metaphysics of the history of music as a new scientific discipline and to determine the peculiarities of the implementation of synchronous and diachronic dimensions of musical texts in a given problem field. The research methodology includes the use of metaphysical, historical, comparative methods. Main results and conclusions. The history of music gives man endless opportunities to ask himself about the essential principles of existence, so at the present stage he is looking for ways in a new direction, which could be called “Metaphysics of the History of Music”. “Metaphysics of the History of Music” establishes the connection of phenomena each time in a new way, which reveals incomprehensible (to the superficial view of) the laws of the musicaltemporal spiral. Then each fact doesn’t remain a part of the information “herbarium” but is clarified by a living perception of “here and now”. Due to this context, it is necessary to emphasize that the main factor in making such connection is the live reproduction of all possible combinations. The history of music must unfold in such way as to enable modern man not only to feel the true “taste” of musical events, but also to illuminate them by itself, that is, to create an act that M. Mamardashvili calls the “fullness of interaction”. Such direction of everyone's spiritual efforts corresponds to the acute challenges of the time. It defines a new position of a human being at the intersection of what is fixed in the narrative about what has “already happened” and what is unfolding through the meanings of the “here and now”. So, it’s established when nothing exists in the automatic mode of perception. In a model of linear coupling that is fundamentally not amenable to horizontal configuration, it is important to have a vertical dimension, which creates Homo Metafisicus as a person who asks essential questions.