Search Results (48)

Interdisciplinary research catalyzes innovation in mobile health (mHealth) by converging medical, technological, and social science expertise, driving critical advancements in this multifaceted field. Our longitudinal analysis evaluates how the NIH mHealth Training Institute (mHTI) program stimulates changes in research trajectories through a computational examination of 16,580 publications from 176 scholars (2015–2022 cohorts). We develop a hybrid analytical framework combining large language model (LLM) embeddings, Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) dimensionality reduction, and Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (HDBSCAN) clustering to construct a semantic research landscape containing 329 micro-topics aggregated into 14 domains. GPT-4o-assisted labeling identified mHealth-related publications occupying central positions in the semantic space, functioning as conceptual bridges between disciplinary clusters such as clinical medicine, public health, and technological innovation. Kernel density estimation of research migration patterns revealed 63.8% of scholars visibly shifted their publication focus toward mHealth-dense regions within three years post-training. The reorientation demonstrates mHTI’s effectiveness in fostering interdisciplinary intellect with sustained engagement, evidenced by growth in mHealth-aligned publications from the mHTI scholars. Our methodology advances science of team science research by demonstrating how LLM-enhanced topic modeling coupled with spatial probability analysis can track knowledge evolution in interdisciplinary fields. The findings provide empirical validation for structured training programs’ capacity to stimulate convergent research, while offering a scalable framework for evaluating inter/transdisciplinary initiatives. The dual contribution bridges methodological innovation in natural language processing with practical insights for cultivating next-generation mHealth scholarship. Full article

Informal soft system methodologies hold a significant role in developing complex systems. They bridge system knowledge and sensemaking among heterogeneous stakeholders. This article investigates the application of conceptual models to support such communication and understanding among transdisciplinary stakeholders, ensuring the translation of customer requirements and needs into suitable engineered systems. This article presents a case study incorporating observations, interviews, and a review of conceptual models utilized by an aerospace and defense case company for the development of future Manned–Unmanned Systems. It explores how practitioners employ conceptual modeling to support the Human Systems Integration (HSI) aspects of technological, organizational, and human elements of Manned–Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) systems. The results indicate that practitioners utilize a mix of informal and formal types of conceptual models when developing Human Systems Integration aspects of the system. Formal models, such as sequence diagrams, requirement overviews, and functional flow models, are applied when addressing technology-focused aspects. Organization-centered modeling leverages representations like stakeholder maps and swimlane diagrams, while people-centered aspects rely more on informal techniques such as storytelling and user personas. The findings suggest a potential underestimation by practitioners of the value of quantification in conceptual modeling for Manned–Unmanned Systems development. This study highlights the important role that conceptual modeling methods play, particularly focusing on the informal aspects. These methods are instrumental in enhancing effective communication and understanding among transdisciplinary stakeholders. Furthermore, they facilitate mutual understanding, which is essential for fostering collaboration and shared vision in the development of complex systems. This facilitates deeper insights and reasoning into HSI for MUM-T applications. Full article

This paper reflects on the application and adaptation of the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach in Beirut, Lebanon, in post-disaster conditions. Adopted by UNESCO in 2005, the HUL approach marked a shift in addressing urban heritage, echoing an evolution in theory. However, contextualizing the HUL approach to address distinct local, geographic, and cultural conditions and reframing its scale and scope of operation remains a challenge. This paper uses a case-study-based methodology as it reflects on the application of the Historic Urban Landscape approach in the post-blast context of Beirut. Commissioned by UNESCO, an interdisciplinary team at the Beirut Urban Lab used the HUL approach to identify modern heritage in Beirut after adapting it to the post-colonial and Mediterranean context of the city. This study contextualized modern heritage definitions, proposed a periodization of modern built and landscape heritage, and designated modern heritage based on its formal/spatial, urban/landscape, socio-cultural, and environmental values. This paper argues that the study contributes to the advancement of the Historic Urban Landscape approach by operationalizing it into an applicable heritage framework, employing a transdisciplinary model that involves local people at the institutional and community levels, and serving as a basis for generating conservation strategies responsive to place and culture. This study also pioneered a comprehensive, integrative, and transdisciplinary reading of modern heritage in Beirut, breaking the professional silos between disciplines and bringing landscape into the identification of heritage in Lebanon. Full article

Located 50 miles west of Fort Collins, Colorado, Colorado State University’s Mountain Campus in Pingree Park hosted the 23rd annual Rocky Mountain Virology Association meeting in 2023 with 116 participants. The 3-day event at the end of September consisted of 28 talks and 43 posters that covered the topics of viral evolution and surveillance, developments in prion research, arboviruses and vector biology, host–virus interactions, and viral immunity and vaccines. This year’s Randall Jay Cohrs keynote presentation covered the topic of One Health and emerging coronaviruses. This timely discussion covered the importance of global disease surveillance, international collaboration, and trans-disciplinary research teams to prevent and control future pandemics. Peak fall colors flanked the campus and glowed along the multiple mountain peaks, allowing for pristine views while discussing science and networking, or engaging in mountain activities like fly fishing and hiking. On behalf of the Rocky Mountain Virology Association, this report summarizes select presentations from the 23rd annual meeting. Full article

Infectious diseases (IDs) are a leading cause of death. The diversity and adaptability of microbes represent a continuing risk to health. Combining vision with passion, our transdisciplinary medical research team has been focussing its work on the better management of infectious diseases for saving human lives over the past five decades through medical discoveries and innovations that helped change the practice of medicine. The team used a multiple-faceted and integrated approach to control infectious diseases through fundamental discoveries and by developing innovative prevention tools and rapid molecular diagnostic tests to fulfill the various unmet needs of patients and health professionals in the field of ID. In this article, as objectives, we put in context two main research areas of ID management: innovative infection prevention that is woman-controlled, and the rapid molecular diagnosis of infection and resistance. We also explain how our transdisciplinary approach encompassing specialists from diverse fields ranging from biology to engineering was instrumental in achieving success. Furthermore, we discuss our vision of the future for translational research to better tackle IDs. Full article

The complexity of contemporary global challenges concerning biosocial–political wellbeing comprises humanity’s actions on many scales. Planetary Health and One Health are examples of broad fields emerging in the last decade to address these complexities. Scientific research has been focusing mainly on the biological aspect of the problem, and the role of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) as drivers of change in Planetary Health is poorly explored. Transdisciplinary approaches are needed, and, thus, it is essential to highlight the social–political side of this reality by integrating social sciences and humanities in these research communities. The Africa Community of Planetary Partners for Health and Environment (ACOPPHE), through its Art and Indigenous action team, seeks to explore this integration by interrogating and engaging in research using self-study methodologies and arts-based research methods. In traditional scientific research, it is common practice that the researcher is positioned outside of their research. The results are expected to offer complex scientific answers that are often not useful for communities in need of solutions. Frequently, the arts have not received sufficient exploration as a means for research. Another aspect of this problem is that the indigenous peoples of many places in the world have often had their knowledge of human and planet health marginalized because it was practice-based and passed down through the embodiment of knowledge and not through modern-day written knowledge. Autoethnographic and arts-based methodologies have great potential here in bridging the communication between the scientific world and the lived experience of the communities through their cultural and traditional practices. They make room for intersectionality, as well as making the knowledge from research findings valuable and explicit to the layman. Self-study methodologies offer the space for sharing lived experiences, critical dialogue, and possible solutions for the biosocial and political issues that our world faces today. Full article

Trans-disciplinary science will continue to be critical for the next wave of scientific advancement to fully understand cancer development, progression, and treatment. The shift from the independent investigator to either leading or being a productive member of a scientific team can be successful by focusing on some key elements that can build and strengthen interactions with a diverse group of people. These include the selection of the team, communication, leadership and mentorship, shared goals, responsibility to the team, authorship, and proactively dealing with conflict. While there are extensive books written on developing teams in the business world, and larger pieces in the medical arena, we attempt to provide here a concise, high-level view as a starting point for those that may be moving from being an independent researcher and are developing their own, larger, trans-disciplinary teams. Full article

Limited information is available on the design of combined innovation and entrepreneurship training courses, and with even less available on delivering such courses to multidisciplinary teams. We designed an extracurricular project-based training course in innovation and entrepreneurship and delivered it to transdisciplinary teams of students who were then asked to build an autonomous mobile system for healthcare applications and to create a business model to implement it. The course was created through a backward educational design and design thinking to assist teams of students in transforming an idea into a technical solution and developing it into a business model through a project-based learning experience. A transdisciplinary group of 31 students, mostly in bachelor’s degree programs, worked either all together, in plenary sessions, in subject-specific groups, or in teams of 5–6 members, under the guidance of their trainers during a ten-day summer school. We used questionnaires to evaluate the changes in student perceptions and a satisfaction survey to evaluate the students’ experience. The qualitative observations together with the results of the quantitative instruments revealed positive changes in student perceptions towards innovation and entrepreneurship. Additionally, the satisfaction survey offered positive feedback and some recommendations for further improvement. The implementation of the course showed that planning is important, but flexibility is essential, that covering fewer topics might lead to deeper understanding, and that managing expectations and practicing empathy are crucial. Full article

Topics related to sustainable development are at the forefront of current local and global debates, involving social, economic, and political perspectives. To address these complex and interconnected challenges, it is necessary to think and act beyond disciplinary and field-specific boundaries. Participating in project work, research, experiments, and designing social transformation processes are at the core of transdisciplinary research and methods, such as Real-World Laboratories. This means that all participants are involved in co-designing, co-producing, and co-disseminating the project from the beginning. In these participatory processes, a systematic evaluation and evidence of the transdisciplinary process is often difficult to show even though it would be important to improve scalability and the transferability of the process. Using the example of the Tiny Fop Mob, a Real-World Laboratory on wheels, we wanted to understand how to evaluate transdisciplinary research thinking within the project team and demonstrate how systematic evaluation is crucial in participatory research. Findings show that there is a need to reflect on context-specific and team-oriented strategies during the planning and the beginning of the project. Full article

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, a comprehensive cancer center designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), defines its service population area as the State of Texas (29.1 M), the second most populous state in the country and the state with the greatest number of uninsured residents in the United States. Consistent with a novel and formal commitment to prevention as part of its core mission, alongside clear opportunities in Texas to drive vaccine uptake, MD Anderson assembled a transdisciplinary team to develop an institutional Framework to increase adolescent HPV vaccination and reduce HPV-related cancer burden. The Framework was developed and activated through a four-phase approach aligned with the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant Community Outreach and Engagement component. MD Anderson identified collaborators through data-driven outreach and constructed a portfolio of collaborative multi-sector initiatives through review processes designed to assess readiness, impact and sustainability. The result is an implementation community of 78 institutions collaboratively implementing 12 initiatives within a shared measurement framework impacting 18 counties. This paper describes a structured and rigorous process to set up the implementation of a multi-year investment in evidence-based strategies to increase HPV vaccination that solves challenges preventing implementation of recommended strategies and to encourage similar initiative replication. Full article

Community-partnered engineering projects provide a mechanism for cultivating the development of sociotechnical engineers prepared to design within diverse and complex cultural, environmental, social, and other contexts. During the 2021–2022 academic year, we guided three teams of senior undergraduate engineering students through year-long community-partnered projects for their required capstone design course, which instead typically features corporate/industry-sponsored projects. We analyzed end-of-semester reflections (both fall and spring semester) from each student using inductive thematic analysis to explore how they perceived their experiences. The themes that emerged from the student reflections, including connectivity, transdisciplinary, multiple stakeholders, sustainability, justice, and ethics, are all components of the sociotechnical engineering capabilities that we are working to develop in our students. We consider these findings encouraging, and suggestive that integrating community-partnered projects into engineering capstone design offerings is worthwhile and effective. However, our implementation was not without challenges, such as trying to force the projects to fit into a course structure and timeline developed to support corporate/industry-sponsored project teams, which was burdensome to the community-partnered project teams. In this paper, we highlight both the complexities and benefits of this approach and insights gained from student and instructor reflections. Full article

Micro- and small-sized enterprises (MSE), and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in Germany are often burdened with high levels of psychosocial stressors at work. The IMPROVEjob intervention was originally developed for general practice teams, and aims to promote job satisfaction and reduce psychosocial stressors in the context of workplace health management (WHM). This qualitative study identified challenges and transfer options regarding the transfer of the IMPROVEjob intervention to other MSE/SME settings. Based on previous study results, a comprehensive, qualitative inter- and transdisciplinary approach was developed and conducted between July 2020 and June 2021, also including single interviews and focus group discussion with eleven experts from MSE/SME settings. Data analysis was carried out using a rapid analysis approach. The experts discussed psychosocial topics and didactic formats of the original IMPROVEjob intervention. A lack of access to information on managing work-related psychosocial stressors and inadequate recognition of the importance of psychosocial stressors in the workplace among managers and employees, seemed to be the highest barriers regarding the transfer of the intervention into other MSE/SME settings. The transfer of the IMPROVEjob intervention to other MSE/SME settings requires an adapted intervention format, comprising targeted offers with easy access to information on managing work-related psychosocial stressors and improving WHM in MSE/SME settings. Full article

Meaningful community engagement is critical to achieving the lofty goal of health equity. Nonetheless, implementing the principles of community engagement is not easy. Attempting to implement best practices for collaborating on transdisciplinary teams and working with community partners can be challenging, particularly in locales that have a long history of strained university–community relationships. The purpose of this paper is to provide additional context and consideration for researchers, community partners, and institutions interested in conducting community-engaged research. Here, we provide guidance and highlight exemplary programs that offer effective approaches to enhance the strength of community partnerships. These partnerships not only hold promise but are also essential in the development of the local, multi-factor solutions required to address racial/ethnic inequities in health. Full article

Teamwork, as the preferred method of cooperation in healthcare, became prevalent in the 1960s, and since then has been universally recognized as a measure to improve the quality of healthcare. Research indicates that medical care based on interdisciplinary cooperation is associated with increased patient safety, lower hospitalization rates, and reduced rates of complications and medical errors. Furthermore, it enhances the coordination of care and improves patient access to medical services. This model of providing medical care also results in considerable benefits for medical professionals. These include greater job satisfaction and a reduced risk of professional burnout syndrome. Aim: The aim of the study was to explore the opinions of medical students with regard to cooperation in the interdisciplinary team, as well as the factors affecting the formation of opinions. Material and methods: The study was conducted using the Polish version of the questionnaire Attitudes Towards Interprofessional Health Care Teams. The study involved 1266 participants, including students of medicine (n = 308), midwifery (n = 348), nursing (n = 316) and physiotherapy (n = 294). Results: According to the opinions of the students participating in the study, the therapeutic process based on the interdisciplinary model improves the quality of medical care provided, increases patient safety, and improves communication between members of the therapeutic team. The factors affecting the assessment of cooperation in interdisciplinary medical care teams included the faculty and the year of studies, gender, as well as participation in the multidisciplinary courses. Conclusions: Students recognize the need for interdisciplinary medical teams. The training of future medical professionals should incorporate the elements of interprofessional education. This form of education allows students to develop both a professional identity and identification with their own profession, as well as encourages teamwork skills and shapes the attitude of openness towards representatives of other medical professions. However, in order to provide the students with the relevant knowledge, skills and competencies, it is essential to respect their diversity in terms of the faculty, as well as to account for the impact of gender and the year of studies which may affect their readiness to engage in teamwork. Full article

The institutional frameworks within which we conceive, design, construct, inhabit and manage our built environments are widely acknowledged to be key factors contributing to converging ecological crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and social inequity at a global scale. Yet, our ability to respond to these emergencies remains largely circumscribed by educational and professional agendas inherited from 20th-century Western paradigms. As the crises intensify, there is a compelling case for radical change in the educational and professional structures of the built environment disciplines. This paper presents a work-in-progress examination of an emergent architecture programme at Te Wānanga Aronui O Tāmaki Makau Rau/Auckland University of Technology (AUT), Aotearoa New Zealand. The program is within Huri Te Ao/the School of Future Environments, a transdisciplinary entity formed in 2020 to integrate research and teaching across Architecture, Built Environment Engineering, and Creative Technologies. The school itself is conceived as a collaborative project to co-create an outward-facing civic research platform for sharing ecologically positive design thinking across diverse communities of practice. The programme foregrounds mātauranga Māori (Indigenous ways of knowing), transdisciplinary systems, and regenerative design as regional place-oriented contributions to planetary-scaled transformation. We illustrate and evaluate a specific curriculum change tool, the Living Systems Wellbeing (LSW) Compass. Grounded in Te Ao Māori (Māori cosmology and context), the Compass offers a graphic means for students to navigate and integrate ecological relationships at different scales and levels of complexity, as well as affords insights into alternative foundational narratives, positive values, design strategies, and professional practices. This paper identifies four foundational factors for transformative pedagogies. The first factor is the value of a collectively held and clearly articulated vision and focus. The second factor is the capacity and commitment of an academic team that supports and values the vision. Thirdly, the vision needs to meet and acknowledge place-specific knowledges and values. Finally, the pedagogy should have an action research component founded in real-world interactions. While this research-based pedagogy is place-based and specific, we argue that these four factors are transferable to other learning institutions and can support critical pedagogies for social, cultural, and ecological wellbeing. Full article