8. Post-positivist Approaches: Post-structuralism, Postcolonialism, Feminism

This chapter examines post-positivist approaches in international relations (IR). Post-positivism rejects any claim of an established truth valid for all. Instead, its focus is on analysing the world from a large variety of political, social, cultural, economic, ethnic, and gendered perspectives. The chapter considers three of the most important issues taken up by post-positivist approaches: post-structuralism, which is concerned with language and discourse; postcolonialism, which adopts a post-structural attitude in order to understand the situation in areas that were conquered by Europe, particularly Africa, Asia, and Latin America; and feminism, which argues that women are a disadvantaged group in the world, in both material terms and in terms of a value system which favours men over women. It also reflects on recent calls for ‘Global IR’, where voices from outside of Western research environments are heard. The chapter concludes with an overview of criticisms against post-positivist approaches and the post-positivist research programme.

Effect of wall covering materials on the perception of cafe environments

Purpose This study aims to determine the effects of wall covering materials (wood, concrete and metal) used indoors on participants’ perceptual evaluations. The differences among participants’ perceptual evaluations regarding indoor physical environmental factors by occupation and gender were examined. Design/methodology/approach Cafes were selected as research environments. Virtual experimental spaces using three different wall covering materials were modelled and participants’ assessment of the physical environmental factors of these virtual spaces was measured through a detailed questionnaire. Findings Cafes using light-coloured wall covering materials were perceived more favourably than cafes using dark-coloured wall covering materials, and cafes with light-coloured wooden wall coverings were considered as a warmer material than cafes using concrete and metal. Participants who received design education (architect, interior architect) perceived physical environmental factors of cafes more negatively than those who did not receive design education (lawyer, economist, accountant, etc.). Male participants evaluated the physical environmental factors of cafes more positively than female participants for all adjective pairs. Except for two adjective pairs, no significant difference was found among the evaluations according to genders for the other adjective pairs. Originality/value This study revealed new results about customers’ choices of wall covering materials and offered designers new alternatives for materials that can be used in the design of cafes.

Collaboration between Government and Research Community to Respond to COVID-19: Israel’s Case

Triggered by the COVID-19 crisis, Israel’s Ministry of Health (MoH) held a virtual datathon based on deidentified governmental data. Organized by a multidisciplinary committee, Israel’s research community was invited to offer insights to help solve COVID-19 policy challenges. The Datathon was designed to develop operationalizable data-driven models to address COVID-19 health policy challenges. Specific relevant challenges were defined and diverse, reliable, up-to-date, deidentified governmental datasets were extracted and tested. Secure remote-access research environments were established. Registration was open to all citizens. Around a third of the applicants were accepted, and they were teamed to balance areas of expertise and represent all sectors of the community. Anonymous surveys for participants and mentors were distributed to assess usefulness and points for improvement and retention for future datathons. The Datathon included 18 multidisciplinary teams, mentored by 20 data scientists, 6 epidemiologists, 5 presentation mentors, and 12 judges. The insights developed by the three winning teams are currently considered by the MoH as potential data science methods relevant for national policies. Based on participants’ feedback, the process for future data-driven regulatory responses for health crises was improved. Participants expressed increased trust in the MoH and readiness to work with the government on these or future projects.

State of the Art in Robot-Assisted Eye Surgery

Despite the advantages that robot-assisted surgery can offer to patient care, its use in ophthalmic surgery has not yet progressed to the extent seen in other fields. As such, its use remains limited to research environments, both basic and clinical. The technical specifications for such ophthalmic surgical robots are highly challenging, but rapid progress has been made in recent years, and recent developments in this field ensure that the use of this technology in operating theatres will soon be a real possibility. Fully automated ocular microsurgery, carried out by a robot under the supervision of a surgeon, is likely to become our new reality. This review discusses the use of robot-assisted ophthalmic surgery, the recent progress in the field, and the necessary future developments which must occur before its use in operating theatres becomes routine.

AOIR ETHICS PANEL 1: PRACTICES AND ROADMAPS

This panel is one of two sessions organized by the AoIR Ethics Working Committee. It collects four papers exploring a broad (but shared) range of practices that present ethical challenges in internet research, while also providing possible roadmaps towards addressing these concerns. These include: the risks and challenges researchers face when researching far-right communities online; the ethical dilemmas faced when researching online sexual crimes involving children; the ethical grey zones researchers have to navigate when research environments fail to provide appropriate tools and protocols to keep pace with changing regulations; an analysis of data ethics syllabi in order to provide a framework to guide how we teach data and internet ethics. Taken together, the papers in this panel discussion engage with novel domains of internet research and shine a light on the unique ethical questions increasingly confronting researchers, while also striving to provide possible guidance on how to start addressing these dilemmas. These papers are among those under consideration for publication in a special issue of the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society associated with the AoIR Ethics Working Committee and AoIR2021.

Delivering on the promise: how are sustainability research institutes enabling interdisciplinary research?

Purpose Despite the potential for research institutes to advance interdisciplinary research on university campuses, There have been few studies on how interdisciplinary research centres integrate multiple disciplines in practice, how they influence the collaborative behaviours of scientists and how they establish collaborative communities. This study aims to provide a deeper understanding of how interdisciplinary research is being enabled at research institutes and offers signposts for how research institutes can further embed interdisciplinarity within their units. Design/methodology/approach Within this study, 30 interviews were conducted with leadership and faculty within 4 sustainability research institutes in the USA exploring how research institutes support interdisciplinary research within their units. A thematic analysis on the interview data revealed themes on how research institutes are enabling interdisciplinary research within their organisations and universities. Findings The study highlights eight themes on how research institutes are, and can further, enable interdisciplinary research within their organisations and universities. Some of the themes are fully implemented within the research institutes, whilst others are more aspirational and highlight where institutes can create additional capability and capacity for interdisciplinary research within their units and universities. Research limitations/implications Whilst the study is limited to four major sustainability research institutes the findings will be applicable to all research centres and institutes attempting to create interdisciplinary research environments. Practical implications The study will be of particular interest to research institutes and university leadership who wish to cultivate a deeper culture of interdisciplinary research within their organisations. Social implications The advancement of inter- and transdisciplinary research within universities are seen by many academic institutions, expert groups and funding bodies as essential for solving wicked problems and grand challenges facing society. The findings of this paper will help universities increase their capacity for interdisciplinary research. Originality/value There are few comparable publications in terms of methodology, approach and focus on research institutes.

SAR.IoT: Secured Augmented Reality for IoT Devices Management

Currently, solutions based on the Internet of Things (IoT) concept are increasingly being adopted in several fields, namely, industry, agriculture, and home automation. The costs associated with this type of equipment is reasonably small, as IoT devices usually do not have output peripherals to display information about their status (e.g., a screen or a printer), although they may have informative LEDs, which is sometimes insufficient. For most IoT devices, the price of a minimalist display, to output and display the device’s running status (i.e., what the device is doing), might cost much more than the actual IoT device. Occasionally, it might become necessary to visualize the IoT device output, making it necessary to find solutions to show the hardware output information in real time, without requiring extra equipment, only what the administrator usually has with them. In order to solve the above, a technological solution that allows for the visualization of IoT device information in actual time, using augmented reality and a simple smartphone, was developed and analyzed. In addition, the system created integrates a security layer, at the level of AR, to secure the shown data from unwanted eyes. The results of the tests carried out allowed us to validate the operation of the solution when accessing the information of the IoT devices, verify the operation of the security layer in AR, analyze the interaction between smartphones, the platform, and the devices, and check which AR markers are most optimized for this use case. This work results in a secure augmented reality solution, which can be used with a simple smartphone, to monitor/manage IoT devices in industrial, laboratory or research environments.

Fallen Between the Cracks: Protecting Research Staff From Participant-Perpetrated Harassment

There has been a call to identify populations who are at-risk for harassment. At our institution, participant-perpetrated harassment led to the development of an institution-wide program called Cultivating Respect in Research Environments (CuRRE). In this article, we describe the proactive and multipronged approach used to promote and implement the CuRRE program. We describe a policy created to set guidelines and expectations for research participants and discuss the educational and skills-based trainings delivered to principal investigators and research staff members. Research staff members completed anonymous surveys before and after the training. Over half of the attendees reported having been harassed by a participant/patient. Attendees responded favorably to the training; they felt more confident and better equipped to address participant-perpetrated harassment at the conclusion of the training. Given the dearth of literature in this area, we offer our experiences to encourage others to address this issue within their own research environment and institution.

A new renaissance for creativity in technology and the arts in the context of virtual worlds

Where do new ideas come from and how are they generated? Which of these ideas will be potentially useful immediately, and which will be more ‘blue sky’? For the latter, their significance may not be known for a number of years, perhaps even generations. The progress of computing and digital media is a relevant and useful case study in this respect. Which visions of the future in the early days of computing have stood the test of time, and which have vanished without trace? Can this be used as guide for current and future areas of research and development? If one Internet year is equivalent to seven calendar years, are virtual worlds being utilized as an effective accelerator for these new ideas and their implementation and evaluation? The nature of digital media and its constituent parts such as electronic devices, sensors, images, audio, games, web pages, social media, e-books, and Internet of Things, provides a diverse environment which can be viewed as a testbed for current and future ideas. Individual disciplines utilise virtual worlds in different ways. As collaboration is often involved in such research environments, does the technology make these collaborations effective? Have the limits of disciplinary approaches been reached? The importance of interdisciplinary collaborations for the future is proposed and evaluated. The current enablers for progressing interdisciplinary collaborations are presented. The possibility for a new Renaissance between technology and the arts is discussed.