Rigour and reproducibility in Canadian research: call for a coordinated approach

Shortcomings in the rigour and reproducibility of research have become well-known issues and persist despite repeated calls for improvement. A coordinated effort among researchers, institutions, funders, publishers, learned societies, and regulators may be the most effective way of tackling these issues. The UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) has fostered collaboration across various stakeholders in research and are creating the infrastructure necessary to advance rigorous and reproducible research practices across the United Kingdom. Other Reproducibility Networks, modelled on UKRN, are now emerging in other countries. Canada could benefit from a comparable network to unify the voices around research quality and maximize the value of Canadian research.

What are the Barriers to Taxing Wealth? The Case of a Wealth Tax Proposal in the UK

Over the past decade there have been repeated calls for the greater taxation of wealth. These calls have had little impact on policy. There has been a global trend to reduce or abolish taxes on wealth. The contrast suggests that it may be better now to explore how taxes on wealth may be made a reality rather than designing new tax proposals. What are the barriers to tax wealth? This paper addresses this by conducting a case study of a high profile plan for introducing a one-off wealth tax in the UK. It identifies a tyranny of the status quo, framing and the policy process as key barriers to tax reform. It uses thematic analysis to study how the plans for a one-off wealth tax were discussed in the media and the UK Parliament. This paper argues that there were important shortfalls in both the way the case for a wealth tax was framed as well as the engagement with the policy process. It claims that a stronger framing would have discussed wealth inequality in greater depth and there was a need for a less equivocal case to Parliamentarians.

It’s time to eliminate the mismatch between pediatric training and practice

The quality of pediatric clinical practice is dependent on the training received during residency. It is assumed that the content of the training will adequately prepare pediatricians for the sorts of problems and issues they will be asked to manage in community settings. While over the past several decades there have been major changes in pediatric morbidity, there is evidence that training and service delivery models have not evolved; there is a significant mismatch between training and evidence-based clinical practice. A recent paper published in this journal (1) drew attention to the inadequacy of pediatricians’ training in child development. The reality of major gaps in the content and experiences of pediatric training in Israel are widely held, and there have been repeated calls for an increased focus on community child health and developmental and behavioural pediatrics. While it appears that finally there are some small initial steps to this end, it is strongly recommended that there be a long overdue, radical rethink of pediatric training programs.

Carrots or sticks in debt collection services? A voice metrics and text analysis of debt collection calls

PurposeAlthough phone calls are widely used by debt collection services to persuade delinquent customers to repay, few financial services studies have analyzed the unstructured voice and text data to investigate how debt collection call strategies drive customers to repay. Moreover, extant research opens the “black box” mainly through psychological theories without hard behavioral data of customers. The purpose of our study is to address this research gap.Design/methodology/approachThe authors randomly sampled 3,204 debt collection calls from a large consumer finance company in East Asia. To rule out alternative explanations for the findings, such as consumers' previous experience of being persuaded by debt collectors or repeated calls, the authors selected calls made to delinquent customers who had not been delinquent before and were being called by the company for the first time. The authors transformed the unstructured voice and textual data into structured data through automatic speech recognition (ASR), voice mining, natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning analyses.FindingsThe findings revealed that (1) both moral appeal (carrot) and social warning (stick) strategies decrease repayment time because they arouse mainly happy emotion and fear emotion, respectively; (2) the legal warning (stick) strategy backfires because of decreasing the happy emotion and triggering the anger emotion, which impedes customers' compliance; and (3) in contrast to traditional wisdom, the combination of carrot and stick fails to decrease the repayment time.Originality/valueThe findings provide a valuable and systematic understanding of the effect of carrot strategies, stick strategies and the combinations of them on repayment time. This study is among the first to empirically analyze the effectiveness of carrot strategies, stick strategies and their joint strategies on repayment time through unstructured vocal and textual data analysis. What's more, the previous studies open the “black box” through psychological mechanism. The authors firstly elucidate a behavioral mechanism for why consumers behave differently under varying debt collection strategies by utilizing ASR, NLP and vocal emotion analyses.

From education to welfare – A historical-exploratory approach for examining the role of madrassas

Much is written on the history of madrassas and their contributions to scholarship. In addition, several scholars have done considerable research to identify the causes of madrassas' growth, determine the linkage of madrassa education with breeding extremist ideologies and suggested possible areas for reforms. This particular aspect has been the topic of scholarly debates and a policy problem faced by many governments and international agencies, i.e., how madrassas can be reformed. However, not much literature could be located that draws parallels and dissimilarities between the madrassas of the golden age and the current era. This is important because any reform or policy is unlikely to succeed without considering a problem's historical and contextual factors. Hence this study adopts a historical-exploratory approach to identify the similarities and differences between the madrassas of the golden age of Islam and present times and explore the causes of such differences by utlising the case study of madrassas in Pakistan. Addressing these issues will make the following contributions: First, identifying the similarities and dissimilarities between the madrassas of the golden age and modern times requires a detailed exploration of madrassas' current state and their role, of which little is known. Second, identifying the factors responsible for the differences in madrassas' role from the golden age to modern times will help understand the implications of such differences on madrassas and society. Lastly, such implications will answer the repeated calls in the literature of formulating policies for reforming the madrassas that have been a significant policy problem faced by many countries.

Geopolitical Reflections of Sino-Indian Conflict and its Implication on Nepal’s Survival Strategy

Border disputes between China and India in June 2020 almost lead South Asian countries to take a side. But, Nepal, situated between India and China, has always expressed a stern belief in neutrality and non-alignment. Even though New Delhi doubted Nepal’s neutrality and non-alignment citing China’s growing footprints in Nepal, Kathmandu reckoned such suspicion as the result of a new map row between two countries connected by open borders. While Nepal’s repeated calls to diplomatically resolve India-Nepal border problems remained unheeded by New Delhi, it provided room for the ruling communist party in Nepal to reap geopolitical benefits out of the Sino-Indian dispute. But, interestingly, such geopolitical benefits are usually targeted in tempering Indian influence in Nepal, by getting closer with China. Apprehending the same, this study aims to assess the geopolitical implication of Sino-Indian conflict on the survival strategy of Nepal. To fulfill the same objectives, the Chinese perception of Nepal-India relations, and Indian perception of Sino-Nepal ties have been critically assessed in this study. This study is methodologically based on the information collected from the secondary sources. In order to critically evaluate the geopolitical expression of Sino-Indian conflict in Nepal, this study reviews India’s perception of Nepal-China relations, and China’s perception of Nepal-India relations. Also, the reports and the press releases of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, historical facts, treaties, government reports and decisions have been studied and analyzed. Media sources are also reviewed to understand the diverse narratives produced on the geopolitical reflection of Sino-Indian conflict. The themes that emerged from the reviews are thematically analyzed and interpreted, to discover that cultivating relations with one country at the expense of the other may be counterproductive to Nepal’s survival strategies.

The impact of non-medical cannabis legalization and other exposures on retention in longitudinal cannabis research: a survival analysis of a prospective study of Canadian medical cannabis patients

Background Despite repeated calls by medical associations to gather evidence on the harms and benefits of cannabis, there are ongoing methodological challenges to conducting observational and clinical studies on cannabis, including a high rate of patients that are lost to follow-up (LTFU). This study explores factors potentially associated with retention in a large prospective study of Canadian medical cannabis patients, with the goal of reducing the probability that patients will be lost to follow-up in future cannabis research. Methods The Tilray Observational Patient Study (TOPS) was a multi-site, prospective study assessing the impact of medical cannabis over 6 months in a broad population of authorized Canadian cannabis patients. The study took place from 2016 to 19, and we conducted a series of exploratory analyses including a Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and logistic regressions to assess the potential association between study retention and variables including patient characteristics, cannabis and prescription drug use, quality of life, and the legalization of non-medical cannabis. Results Overall, 1011 participants were included in this analysis, contributing 287 patient-years of data. Retention was 728 (72%) at 3 months, and 419 (41.4%) at 6 months. Our analyses found significantly lower adjusted odds of retention following legalization (AOR 0.28, 95% CI 0.18–0.41), and in patients that used prescription opioids at baseline (AOR 0.62, 95% CI 0.46–0.85), while increased odds of retention were found in patients with a higher baseline psychological score (AOR 1.43, 95% CI 1.08–1.90) or that used anti-seizure medications at baseline (AOR 1.91, 95% CI 1.30–2.81). Discussion TOPS provided a unique opportunity to examine patient characteristics and other variables that may be associated with retention in prospective medical cannabis studies. Our findings highlight some of the challenges of conducting medical cannabis research at a time when patients have a multitude of cannabis access options, including legal adult dispensaries and a robust illicit market. High LTFU rates can impact the validity of studies, and potentially lead to misestimations of the harms and benefits of medical cannabis use. Despite being a multi-site prospective study, this was a convenience sample, thereby limiting the generalizability of these findings. Additionally, data regarding the use of cannabis was self-reported by patients, so is subject to potential recall bias. Conclusion We found evidence that external policy changes that affect access to cannabis such as the legalization of non-medical adult use and patient characteristics associated with patient physical/psychological capacity can impact retention in prospective medical cannabis studies. Evidence-based strategies to reduce study burden on participants, such as minimizing in-person visits by providing digitized internet-based surveys and phone or telemedicine follow-up options as well as ensuring adequate participant compensation could improve retention. Additionally, policy-related changes aimed at improving access to medical cannabis, including increased cost-coverage and community-based distribution, could encourage patients to remain in the federal medical cannabis program and thereby reduce LTFU in associated studies.

An Apocalypse Converted: William Stringfellow and Catholic Social Teaching on Climate Breakdown

In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis advances the concept of integral ecology to connect the environmental crisis with a range of social crises afflicting our societies. This concept is grounded in a theological commitment, but directed towards its political effects. Those two trajectories are represented by the encyclical’s articulation of a spiritual awakening described as an ecological conversion and its repeated calls to dialogue. Francis is not unaware of the risk that a naïve engagement in dialogue could stifle serious mitigation of the crises we face. Yet, even with many dire warnings about outcomes, much of the contemporary discourse around the climate and biodiversity crisis runs the risk of underestimating the nature of the problem. Apocalyptic theology, specifically in the work of William Stringfellow, is proposed as a valuable interlocutor at this point. Stringfellow’s account of the Christian life as a battle with the forces of Death allows Christians to name that which we are converted from in an ecological conversion, strengthening the grounds upon which dialogue is engaged.

A Systems View of Emotion in Socio-political Context

Most work to date in psychology and related sciences has examined simple, unidirectional causal processes of emotion affecting socio-political context or vice versa. In this classic, mechanistic view of science, each empirical observation stands on its own as a piece of some grander, not yet understandable, puzzle of nature. There have been repeated calls to eschew classic approaches in favor of systems meta-theory in psychology and related sciences. In this paper, we join these calls by arguing that systems meta-theory can better enable the study of emotions in socio-political contexts. We offer a brief primer on systems meta-theory, delineating three key beneficial features: multi-leveled, complex, and dynamic. Viewing emotion as a system of systems—within the person, their relationships (to others), and within the world (locally and globally)—enables fresh theory, method, and statistical analysis well suited to the study of emotion in a socio-political context.

How Heretics Talk, According to Bernard Gui and William Thorpe

This chapter juxtaposes Bernard Gui’s accounts of heretic speech in his Inquisitor’s Handbook with William Thorpe’s personal narrative of his interview with Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury. Gui’s thirteenth-century text is a surprisingly rich source for medieval linguistic and pragmatic ideas. His accounts of dialogues with suspected heretics reveal how pragmatic ideas and analysis informed the official Church’s view of heretics’ uses of equivocation, hedging, and recontextualization as strategies for evading examiners’ questions and establishing speaker agency. Thorpe’s early fifteenth-century narrative describes his use of similar discursive and conversational strategies to evade Arundel’s repeated calls that he affirm or disavow his heretical views.