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Since the early 2000s, the pragmatic approach has been proposed as a philosophical program for social research, regardless of whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods are used. In addition, current mixed methods have been presented as a third way between positivism and constructivism. However, can mixed methods be fully considered a third way? For instance, in their inquiries, will scholars oriented to pragmatism actually employ the traditional and standardized questionnaire, with forced choices and closed questions, which strongly limits any interpretative and interactional perspective? Hence, several theoretical and methodological difficulties of the pragmatist proposal emerge precisely (and paradoxically) at the level of research practice. The pragmatic approach is presented by its proponents as a model designed to dissolve differences and neutralize epistemological barriers; however, without problematizing and removing the positivist features of their methods, researchers oriented to pragmatism actually risk ending up reproducing positivism in disguise. Hence, despite their claims to innovation, proponents of pragmatism are often overly traditionalist in their use of methods.

Background The dominant medical and health research paradigm continues to be quantitative. While the authors sense a sea-change in opinion about mixed-method research, underpinned by two decades of highly-cited publications in medical journals, much of the medical literature still widely favours the Randomised Control Trial. Main body This debate article examines whether it is the beginning of the end of the dominant quantitative paradigm and the interest this holds for researchers and clinicians at the forefront of care delivery. It examines the Third Research Paradigm, signifying the importance of mixed-methods, and discusses the power of the patient voice and person-focused research activity. The authors discern the coming of age of a Fourth Research Paradigm integrating mixed-methods with data collected ‘on the hoof’. Within this new paradigm, the article explores the power of available, real time, and emergent data – from smart phones, wearable devices, and social media, as well as more creative approaches to data collection. The Fourth Research Paradigm will require the support of multi-disciplinary teams, moving through the world alongside their research subjects. The impact of a Fourth Research Paradigm on the health researcher is assessed, as the researcher’s gaze moves away from considerations of methodological superiority to re-considerations of their role in the brave new world of research multiplicity. Conclusion The Fourth Research Paradigm offers extensive opportunities to tell more complete research stories in real-time settings. It concentrates on contextual notions of everyday happenings within the ever-changing world of healthcare delivery. There will be challenges ahead, not least the management of large, complex datasets and adaptive study designs. But rigorous planning will enable unique insights into the relationships played out in the world of the patient and healthcare provider. Better care and new delivery models are likely to result, but how this will manifest is not yet clear.

Examines failure of current patent and copyright law to protect software programs; recommends a market-oriented legal regime; US.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Language, Society, Performance Brazil! Que bonito é! Language as Play Ethnicity Lite: Beckham Bends It It Ain't Mix. It's REMIX Portable Ethnicity and Language Revival A Lite Touch Ethnic jouissance : The Case of Japan Conclusion: Teach Yourself Irish References

The Human Pangenome Reference Consortium, the Chinese Pangenome Consortium, and other plant and animal pangenome projects have announced the completion of pilot work aimed at constructing high-quality, haplotype-resolved reference graph genomes representative of global ethno-linguistically different populations or different plant and animal species. These graph-based, gapless pangenome references, which are enriched in terms of genomic diversity, completeness, and contiguity, have the potential for enhancing long-read sequencing (LRS)-based genomic research, as well as improving mappability and variant genotyping on traditional short-read sequencing platforms. We comprehensively discuss the advancements in pangenome-based genomic integrative genomic discoveries across forensic-related species (humans, animals, and plants) and summarize their applications in variant identification and forensic genomics, epigenetics, transcriptomics, and microbiome research. Recent developments in multiplexed array sequencing have introduced a highly efficient and programmable technique to overcome the limitations of short forensic marker lengths in LRS platforms. This technique enables the concatenation of short RNA transcripts and DNA fragments into LRS-optimal molecules for sequencing, assembly, and genotyping. The integration of new pangenome reference coordinates and corresponding computational algorithms will benefit forensic integrative genomics by facilitating new marker identification, accurate genotyping, high-resolution panel development, and the updating of statistical algorithms. This review highlights the necessity of integrating LRS-based platforms, pangenome-based study designs, and graph-based pangenome references in short-read mapping and LRS-based innovations to achieve precision forensic science. •Global pangenome projects have built high-quality, haplotype-resolved reference genomes representing diverse populations.•Graph-based pangenome references enhance genomic diversity, benefiting long-read and short-read sequencing research.•Pangenome advances improve variant identification, forensic genomics, epigenetics, transcriptomics, and microbiome research.•MAS-seq addresses short forensic marker limitations by enabling optimal RNA and DNA fragment sequencing.•New pangenome coordinates and algorithms improve accurate genotyping, marker discovery, and forensic genomics innovations.

Although generally superior, hybrid approaches for correcting errors in third-generation sequencing (TGS) reads, using next-generation sequencing (NGS) reads, mistake haplotype-specific variants for errors in polyploid and mixed samples. We suggest HERO, as the first “hybrid-hybrid” approach, to make use of both de Bruijn graphs and overlap graphs for optimal catering to the particular strengths of NGS and TGS reads. Extensive benchmarking experiments demonstrate that HERO improves indel and mismatch error rates by on average 65% (27 ∼ 95%) and 20% (4 ∼ 61%). Using HERO prior to genome assembly significantly improves the assemblies in the majority of the relevant categories.

— The first results of the creation of the scientific paradigm of informatics, which unites a wide range of information and computer sciences, are described. The subject domain of informatics is considered within Paul Rosenbloom’s concept of polyadic computing. The main goal of this article is to construct fragments of the upper levels of two classifications of the entities of the subject domain of informatics as a third culture (along with the natural sciences and the humanities, which C.P. Snow referred to as the two cultures). In this way, a number of already known bases are used to construct three levels of classification of objects of the subject domain (the first classification) and two levels of classification of transformations of these objects (the second classification). Both classifications are planned to be used to create a scientific paradigm of informatics as the third culture. The proposed fragments of classifications are positioned as the initial stage of the process of formation of the whole paradigm. The context and prerequisites for the creation of the proposed paradigm are considered, along with how the first results of its formation can be useful today.

Federated learning promotes the development of cross-domain intelligent applications under the premise of protecting data privacy, but there are still problems of sensitive parameter information leakage of multi-party data temporal alignment and resource scheduling process, and traditional symmetric encryption schemes suffer from low efficiency and poor security. To this end, in this paper, based on the modified NTRU-type multi-key fully homomorphic encryption scheme, an asymmetric algorithm, a secure computation scheme of multi-party least common multiple and greatest common divisor without full set under the semi-honest model is proposed. Participants strictly follow the established process. Nevertheless, considering that malicious participants may engage in poisoning attacks such as tampering with or uploading incorrect data to disrupt the protocol process and cause incorrect results, a scheme against malicious spoofing is further proposed, which resists malicious spoofing behaviors and not all malicious attacks, to verify the correctness of input parameters or data through hash functions and zero-knowledge proof, ensuring it can run safely and stably. Experimental results show that our semi-honest model scheme improves the efficiency by 39.5% and 45.6% compared to similar schemes under different parameter conditions, and it is able to efficiently process small and medium-sized data in real time under high bandwidth; although there is an average time increase of 1.39 s, the anti-malicious spoofing scheme takes into account both security and efficiency, achieving the design expectations.

The human “marionette” is extremely complex and multi-articulated: anatomical redundancy (in terms of Degrees of Freedom: DoFs), kinematic redundancy (movements can have different trajectories, velocities, and accelerations and yet achieve the same goal, according to the principle of Motor Equivalence), and neurophysiological redundancy (many more muscles than DoFs and multiple motor units for each muscle). Although it is quite obvious that such abundance is not noxious at all because, in contrast, it is instrumental for motor learning, allowing the nervous system to “explore” the space of feasible actions before settling on an elegant and possibly optimal solution, the crucial question then boils down to figure out how the nervous system “chooses/selects/recruits/modulates” task-dependent subsets of countless assemblies of DoFs as functional motor synergies. Despite this daunting conceptual riddle, human purposive behavior in daily life activities is a proof of concept that solutions can be found easily and quickly by the embodied brain of the human cognitive agent. The point of view suggested in this essay is to frame the question above in the old-fashioned but still seminal observation by Marr and Poggio that cognitive agents should be regarded as Generalized Information Processing Systems (GIPS) and should be investigated according to three nearly independent but complementary levels of analysis: 1) the computational leve l, 2) the algorithmic level , and 3) the implementation level. In this framework, we attempt to discriminate as well as aggregate the different hypotheses and solutions proposed so far: the optimal control hypothesis, the muscle synergy hypothesis, the equilibrium point hypothesis, or the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis, to mention the most popular ones. The proposed GIPS follows the strategy of factoring out shaping and timing by adopting a force-field based approach (the Passive Motion Paradigm) that is inspired by the Equilibrium Point Hypothesis, extended in such a way to represent covert as well overt actions. In particular, it is shown how this approach can explain spatio-temporal invariances and, at the same time, solve the Degrees of Freedom Problem.