Search

In 2016 WHO launched the priority assistive products list (APL) consisting of 50 products and recommended that using this as a reference, countries should develop their own contextually relevant national APLs. This paper describes the development of Malawi's APL. Two hundred and ninety-six persons with disabilities participated in a rapid Assistive Technology Assessment (rATA) survey. Six focus group discussions (FGDs) with people with various types of disabilities were conducted. The rATA questionnaire and FGDs collected data on assistive products (APs) participants used, APs they needed and the challenges they experienced. Data collection was done in six districts spread across the three regions in Malawi. All age groups were included in the survey. Persons with disabilities aged less than 18 participated but went with their guardians. All persons who participated in this study provided consent. Survey and FGDs results were presented at an APL consensus meeting with policymakers, service providers, disabled peoples' organizations and development partners in the disability sector. Based on the results and further discussions, a consensus was reached on the priority APs for Malawi. More than a third of respondents used wheelchairs (32%), followed by auxiliary crutches (25%), walking sticks (13%), reading glasses (11%), prosthesis (10%), elbow crutches (9%) and orthosis (8%). There is also a high demand for products such as pull-up underwear (incontinence products) (79%), hearing aids (70%), reading glasses (59%) and diapers (63%). After intensive discussions during a consensus meeting, an agreement was reached on the 22 priority APs for Malawi. There is a wide range of APs being used by people with different functional limitations in Malawi. There is also a demand for APs that are not readily available. When developing an APL, the list should include products in use, those in demand, and those recommended by service providers. Following the development of the priority assistive products list (APL) by WHO, member states should develop their own contextually based APL. The development of the APL should be based on research evidence. All key stakeholders including persons with disabilities and other functional limitations, government, and development partners should participate in this process. The APL should be part of the national health system or community services. The Department of Disability and Elderly Affairs in the Ministry of Gender, Community Development, being the Government of Malawi line ministry coordinating disability issues participated actively in this study including inviting participants in the stakeholders' validation workshop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2017, two strong earthquakes hit the central region of Mexico, producing substantial damage to the historical buildings. A retroactive analysis for assessing the pre-event seismic vulnerability of these constructions allowed for testing the suitability of an existing parameter-based approach based on material and geometrical features. More than 160 adobe buildings in four municipalities of the State of Morelos were surveyed and included in a vulnerability-oriented GIS database. Data were collected on-site and managed by resorting to open-source GIS software combined with a Python-based database management tool and a cloud-based platform for onsite data collection using mobile devices. The parameter-based approach was used for assessing the analytical seismic vulnerability of the buildings and implementing a secondary, more conservative assessment that considers uncertainties associated with the data acquisition process. The capabilities of the database were further used to train a Machine Learning algorithm aimed at overcoming some representativeness limitations of the parameter-based analytical method. This third approach was found to be suitable for assessing the vulnerability of the building typologies addressed in this investigation. Although the implementation discussed in this paper is limited to a specific vernacular typology, it can be used to conduct customized local calibrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To establish literature regarding healthcare professionals' perceptions of pulmonary rehabilitation as a management strategy for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A critical interpretive synthesis was conducted; CINAHL, PsychINFO and MEDLINE were searched between 1988 and August 2019, using MeSH headings and key terms. Reference lists of accepted papers were also searched. Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies, written in English, including healthcare professionals' perceptions of pulmonary rehabilitation were included. The search yielded 133 papers which were assessed for eligibility; 20 met the inclusion criteria. Two themes were identified, the first explored "Barriers to Pulmonary Rehabilitation" from a healthcare professional's perspective. This incorporated a lack of knowledge, a lack of resources, practical barriers, patient barriers, and healthcare professional's being unsure it is their role to refer. The second entitled "General Perceptions of Pulmonary Rehabilitation", highlighted ways in which the programme could be improved, the perceived positives and negatives, facilitators to referral, and perceptions of patients referred. This is the first systematic review to encompass the perceptions of healthcare professionals with ability to refer and those who deliver pulmonary rehabilitation. Referral was low, highlighting potential influencing factors such as a lack of programme knowledge, pulmonary rehabilitation beliefs, and communication skills. Given inclusion of studies from multiple geographical locations, the findings provide implications for any healthcare system that develops and delivers pulmonary rehabilitation. With respect of a lack of referrals to the programme, further research should highlight healthcare professionals' perceptions of the referral process, and the views of those in Secondary Care. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: •Pulmonary rehabilitation is a proven cost-effective management strategy for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which reduces associated hospital admissions and increases quality of life. •Due to a lack of knowledge and negative perceptions surrounding pulmonary rehabilitation, further training and education is required for healthcare professionals surrounding non-pharmacological management strategies. •Pulmonary rehabilitation programmes should consider ways to increase awareness of the service amongst those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. •Those delivering pulmonary rehabilitation should consider ways to support healthcare professionals referring to the programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generation of reliable data underpins the effectiveness of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) surveillance systems. Despite the importance of understanding OHS data systems, there are few papers that provide overviews of their structure and/or content. This paper introduces a basic framework for assessing OHS data systems that will be of use to researchers internationally. We applied this approach to assess the Irish OHS data system by undertaking a data mapping exercise. We developed a checklist based on recommendations of monitoring and measurement of OHS proposed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (USA). An assessment of published reports that present systematic OHS surveillance data was undertaken to identify the institutions or organisations responsible for collecting and curating the data, their remit, and, associated with this, their respective case definitions. We then provide an overview of the variables collected and these are then mapped against the checklist. The assessment highlights that whilst the farm fatalities dataset provides complete coverage of all fatalities, regardless of age or employment status, the same is not true of the three non-fatal injuries datasets reviewed. There are important differences in the data collection methods and, associated with this, which populations are covered. The assessment approach provides valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of a critical element of OHS surveillance systems, namely the production of datasets. This knowledge is important for researchers as understanding the data that informs their research is fundamental to good science. It is critical for policy-makers and other stakeholders to understand the strengths and weaknesses on which OHS policy, strategies, or education and training interventions are developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper covers considerations in using criterion measures based on administrative data. We begin with a conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating administrative criterion measures as "objective" rather than (ratings-based) assessments of job performance. We then describe the associated advantages (e.g., availability) and disadvantages (e.g., contamination) of using administrative data for criterion-related validation purposes. Best practices in the use of administrative data for validation purposes, including procedures for (a) handling missing data, (b) performing data checks, and (c) reporting detailed decision rules so future researchers can replicate the analyses are also described. Finally, we discuss "modern data management" approaches for improving administrative data for supporting organizational decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pervasiveness and impact of electronic spreadsheets have generated serious concerns about their integrity and validity when used in significant decision-making settings. Previous studies have shown that few of the errors that might exist in any given spreadsheet are found, even when the reviewer is explicitly looking for errors. It was hypothesized that differences in the spreadsheets' presentation and their formulas could affect the detection rate of these errors. A sample of 113 M.B.A. students volunteered to search for eight errors planted in a one-page spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was presented in five different formats. A 2 x 2 design specified that four groups were given apparently conventional spreadsheets for comparing paper and screen and the presence or absence of formulas. A fifth group received a special printed spreadsheet with formulas visibly integrated into the spreadsheet printed in a small font directly under the resultant values. As in previous studies, only about 50 percent of the errors were found overall. Subjects with printed spreadsheets found more errors than their colleagues with screen-only spreadsheets but they took longer to do so. There was no discernible formula effect; subjects who were able to refer to formulas did not outperform subjects with access to only the final numbers. The special format did not facilitate error finding. Exploratory analysis uncovered some interesting results. The special experimental integrated paper format appeared to diminish the number of correct items falsely identified as errors. There also seemed to be differences in performance that were accounted for by the subjects' self-reported error-finding strategy. Researchers should focus on other factors that might facilitate error finding, and practitioners should be cautious about relying on spreadsheets' accuracy, even those that have been "audited." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2012, the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education has worked with over 70 sites implementing over 100 interprofessional education and collaborative practice (IPECP) programs in the United States (U.S.). Program leaders have contributed data and information to the National Center to inform an approach to advancing the science of interprofessional practice and education (IPE), called IPE Knowledge Generation. This paper describes how the evolution of IPE Knowledge Generation blends traditional research and evaluation approaches with the burgeoning field of health informatics and big data science. The goal of IPE Knowledge Generation is to promote collaboration and knowledge discovery among IPE program leaders who collect comparable, sharable data in an information exchange. This data collection then supports analysis and knowledge generation. To enable the approach, the National Center uses a structured process for guiding IPE program design and implementation in practice settings focused on learning and the Quadruple Aim outcomes while collecting the IPE core data set and the contribution of contemporary big data science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the paradox of inaccessibility in popular archives. Often understood as democratizing, even digital databases of popular literature ironically contain a series of barriers: an extraordinary paywall and frequent image-quality issues that render some texts illegible. Popularity relies on access. What happens to popular literature when its access is constricted? As we recognize the movement of archives towards collections of popular cultures, we must likewise understand the ways in which access to these cultures is still denied in ways antithetical to their original forms and uses. Using The 17th and 18th Centuries Burney Newspaper Database as a case study, this paper investigates how digitized archives unpopularize historically popular texts and what access might look like in a true archive of popularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new role for academic libraries as part of a wider 'research practice' activity for research institutions, incorporating support, training and expertise in relation to scholarly communication and research impact. The role libraries hold within research institutions is changing as the world shifts towards a digital and increasingly open future. This requires a rethink of the types of services and skill sets that are appropriate for an academic library to encompass. The increased focus of institutions and funders on the societal impact of research offers an opportunity for academic libraries to further integrate their work into the open research agenda. Libraries can draw on what is now over a decade of experience introducing open access, institutional repositories and research data management service to their academic communities to inform the development of impact services. An immediate service that libraries can offer is assisting with the identification of, and sometimes deposit into the institutional repository of, works that are sitting outside the peer reviewed literature – grey literature. This material needs to be collected for the purposes of demonstrating outcomes and pathways to impact. This paper describes the need to consider item classifications within digital repositories. If this new service is considered an option into the future, libraries themselves and potentially research offices will need to look not just at workflows but also item classifications within systems to ensure they encompass this broader collection of works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethics has long been a concern in medicine, education and scholarship. In the digital age, new complexities have arisen, and many medical education researchers are unprepared for the pitfalls ahead, often negotiating these in the absence of guidelines, and unaware of the many tools that can be used to assist them. This Guide takes the medical education scholar through a journey in which issues of ethics are discussed in all stages of digital scholarship: research preparation, research subject monitoring and data gathering, securing one's data (and balancing security against accessibility), anonymising textual and non-textual data, third party identifiability in digital data, writing one's own work (including plagiarism and paper mills), copyright (including issues of Creative Commons and royalty-free), accessing inaccessible reference material, ethically citing electronic material, and manuscript submission (including issues of selecting journals, open access and data sharing). The Guide ends with a brief look to the future. This Guide aims to be a useful tool to alert the readers to some of the most important ethical issues that need to be considered, and some practical solutions to ethical problems faced, when engaging in medical education digital scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a redesign of a database management system for a retail business company. Initially, based on a traditional data model, it is migrated to a hybrid model which combines both SQL and NoSQL databases. This approach adds flexibility, mobility, and efficiency to the data management system. The NoSQL database uses an ontology as a data schema, which we describe in this study. The NoSQL database is consulted using the SPARQL query language, and some examples of the queries are detailed in the paper. The architecture of the system and its functionality are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The custom GPT is the latest powerful feature added to ChatGPT. Non-programmers can create and share their own GPTs ("chat bots"), allowing Health Professions Educators to apply the capabilities of ChatGPT to create administrative assistants, online tutors, virtual patients, and more, to support their clinical and non-clinical teaching environments. To achieve this correctly, however, requires some skills, and this 12-Tips paper provides those: we explain how to construct data sources, build relevant GPTs, and apply some basic security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data outsourcing is an emerging paradigm for data management in which a database is provided as a service by third-party service providers. One of the major benefits of offering database as a service is to provide organisations, which are unable to purchase expensive hardware and software to host their databases, with efficient data storage accessible online at a cheap rate. Despite that, several issues of data confidentiality, integrity, availability and efficient indexing of users’ queries at the server side have to be addressed in the data outsourcing paradigm. Service providers have to guarantee that their clients’ data are secured against internal (insider) and external attacks. This paper briefly analyses the existing indexing schemes in data outsourcing and highlights their advantages and disadvantages. Then, this paper proposes a secure data outsourcing scheme based on Asmuth–Bloom secret sharing which tries to address the issues in data outsourcing such as data confidentiality, availability and order preservation for efficient indexing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the accessibility of library resources and support services by distance learners at the Open University of Tanzania (OUT). The study utilized a survey approach in soliciting information from distance learners. A total of 33 learners from OUT responded to the survey. The study revealed that OUT offered several library services as well as library resources to distance learners. The resources identified as accessible to distance learners were books, journals, internet services, past examination papers, dissertations and theses, research guides, computers, and electronic resources. The study found out that there were challenges that hindered effective use of the library resources and services including high data cost, information overload, inadequate skills to evaluate information sources, password and login frustrations, lack of comprehensive online tutorials from OUT library, lack of information search skills, lack of distance librarian assigned to support remote students, lack of free, full text, lack of instructional resources and lack of university's account to access digital library resources from home. The study, therefore, put up recommendations to increase resource and service accessibility at OUT library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a detailed, first-ever, in-depth, data-driven, review of debates pertaining to international migration (IM) as depicted by cross-disciplinary records collected in Scopus. Accordingly, the paper also makes a case for the value added of bibliometric analysis and new ways of its application. Specifically, to gain a thorough understanding of issues, names, and topics that have contributed to the IM debate since 1963, bibliometric analysis was conducted on 12.663 procured records. The findings suggest that regardless of the depth and breadth of the analysis, it is doomed to remain partial. That is, when confronted with academic work not available in Scopus, this study concludes that more work needs to be done to ensure, on the one hand, interoperability of research data repositories, and on the other hand, synergies among the until now divided research-communities research and publishing in the field of IM. Only in this way, it is argued, will it be possible to ensure transparency of research artefacts, identify issues and problems silenced and/or under-researched in the field, and finally enable more efficient dialogue between academia and decision-makers, including international organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is valuable if it derives from reliable data. However, measurements for data reliability have not been widely established in the area of information systems (IS). This paper attempts to draw some concepts of reliability from the field of quality control and to apply them to IS. The paper develops three measurements for data reliability: internal reliability--reflects the "commonly accepted" characteristics of various data items; relative reliability--indicates compliance of data to user requirements; and absolute reliability--determines the level of resemblance of data items to reality. The relationships between the three measurements are discussed, and the results of a field study are displayed and analyzed. The results provide some insightful information on the "shape" of the database that was inspected, as well as on the degree of rationality of some user requirements. General conclusions and avenues for future research are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual impairment-related disabilities have become increasingly pervasive. Current reports estimate a total of 36 million persons with blindness and 217 million persons with moderate to severe visual impairment worldwide. Assistive technologies (AT), including text-to-speech software, navigational/spatial guides, and object recognition tools have the capacity to improve the lives of people with blindness and low vision. However, access to such AT is constrained by high costs and implementation barriers. More recently, expansive growth in mobile computing has enabled many technologies to be translated into mobile applications. As a result, a marketplace of accessibility apps has become available, yet no framework exists to facilitate navigation of this voluminous space. We developed the BLV (Blind and Low Vision) App Arcade: a fun, engaging, and searchable curated repository of app AT broken down into 11 categories spanning a wide variety of themes from entertainment to navigation. Additionally, a standardized evaluation metric was formalized to assess each app in five key dimensions: reputability, privacy, data sharing, effectiveness, and ease of use/accessibility. In this paper, we describe the methodological approaches, considerations, and metrics used to find, store and score mobile applications. The development of a comprehensive and standardized database of apps with a scoring rubric has the potential to increase access to reputable tools for the visually impaired community, especially for those in low- and middle-income demographics, who may have access to mobile devices but otherwise have limited access to more expensive technologies or services. A wide array of assistive mobile applications now serve as low cost, convenient, and effective alternatives to standard tools in the rehabilitation domain. Given an extensive (and growing) marketplace of assistive apps, we highlight the importance of developing standardized evaluation frameworks that serve to assess the merit, functionality, and accessibility of tools in respective rehabilitation fields. To provide an introduction to a novel resource accessible to the public to exhibit verified and reliable assistive apps for the visually impaired community, especially for those in low- and middle-income demographics who may not have access to common technologies and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Foundations of Early Literacy Assessment – Northern Territory (FELA-NT) was funded, developed, and implemented as part of a strategy designed to address the English literacy learning needs of the Northern Territory's Aboriginal student population. In this paper we question whether the FELA-NT English literacy learning benchmarks are representative of remote and very remote Aboriginal students since many speak English as an Additional Language (EAL) or Dialect (EAD). Using a new data set of scores from 72 Aboriginal students from remote, very remote, and outer-regional communities on the FELA-NT, we demonstrate that it is the student's experience with Standard Australian English, not their remoteness, that impacts their early literacy development. We use this example to illustrate how current practices and policies homogenise the Australian Aboriginal student population, silencing linguistic diversity in the process. We call for clinical practitioners and educators to shift their practices to assessments and tools that recognise children and youths' diverse linguistic skills and pathways. We talk about what empowerment, participation, and inclusion might really mean in current Australian educational and clinical contexts. We argue here that we need to fundamentally rethink how we work with children with diverse language and literacy knowledge, skills, and backgrounds if we are to reduce inequalities (SDG 10), honour quality education (SDG 4), and support sustainable communities (SDG 11). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European forests have been copiously documented for centuries. However, forest-related archival sources were rarely utilised to their full potential, mainly because of the difficulties in producing compatible data from large amounts of very different sources. Furthermore, analysing such data for larger areas in high resolution was hardly possible prior to the emergence of historical GIS. This paper presents the geodatabase of the LONGWOOD project, which includes tens of thousands of pieces of information on forest history from the 11th to the 20th century for 3,567 townships in the eastern Czech Republic (c. 27,000 km2). The paper describes the challenges we met, briefly summarizes the results, evaluates the database in a worldwide context and introduces possible directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to reflect on some key issues linked to the production of digital objects in business settings. In doing so, it problematizes current social science scholarship, which emphasizes the analysis of digital data and analytics, and reinforces the magnitude of its consequences and ‘data power’. The paper proposes making three corrective ‘movements’ that might enrich our approaches to how databases and analytics are assembled in business settings. The first movement involves the problem of ethnographic access to data-making practices. We propose taking seriously the issue of fabricating an ethnographic encounter where the process of making digital objects is exposed. The second movement concerns the visibility and the type of politics taking place in data practices. We argue for the need to displace attention from data impacts and results to the myriad of mundane practices and devices through which these objects are assembled. The third movement we suggest requires a focus on examining error and failure as key aspects of the manufacturing of consumer databases. Each of these movements is illustrated by ethnographic vignettes from a 9-month ethnographic experiment that involved participating in the first stages of the manufacturing of an online financial retail company's consumer database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability of big data is increasing in various sectors of the economy worldwide. Consequently, opportunities for data services are expanding in special, academic and public libraries. Librarians' cataloging, archiving, research, and reference skills remain especially suited for the provision of big data services. In this article the authors examine the literature on big data and libraries to identify major themes as well as highlight possibilities and problems with the management of large datasets. Librarians can utilize this information to develop or improve data services in their institutions' libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community mobilisation is recognised as an important strategy to shift inequitable gender norms and ensure an enabling environment to prevent gender-based violence (GBV). Yet there is a need to better understand the factors that facilitate effective community activism in particular contexts. Although fundamental to the success of mobilisation programmes, there is also limited appreciation of the experiences and agency of engaged community activists. This paper draws on qualitative evaluations from two community mobilisation GBV prevention programmes: the Gender Violence in the Amazon of Peru (GAP) Project and the Indashyikirwa programme in Rwanda. In Peru, participatory data was collected, in addition to baseline and endline interviews with 8 activists. In Rwanda, baseline and endline interviews and observations were conducted with 12 activists, and interviews were conducted with 8 staff members. The data was thematically analysed, and a comparative case study approach was applied to both data sets. The comparative study identified similar programmatic aspects that could hinder or enable activist's engagement and development, and how these are embedded within contextual social and structural factors. We discuss these insights in reference to the current emphasis in public health on individualistic programming, with insufficient attention to how wider environments influence violence prevention programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presenting Open Access (OA) resources alongside licensed content provides many benefits to librarians, vendors, publishers, and library patrons. However, the tools and collection development practices designed to work with traditionally acquired materials often pose challenges for freely available resources. This paper will address managing open content library collections, and offer an assessment of current delivery models and opportunities for upgrading delivery in the future, including: How to integrate open content into collection development strategies; How to improve the data around open content; How MARC record changes will impact the way users find and access open content; and How library service providers are improving the OA user experience. This paper conveys valuable, up-to-date knowledge of today's OA landscape, and outlines best practices for integrating OA content into library collection development strategies. Related needs, like configuring metadata to maximize visibility of OA content and partnering with publishers and library service providers, are also addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective equipment management is becoming one of the key factors in keeping a competitive advantage in the dynamic business environment since equipment is an important asset for manufacturing companies. Nowadays, maintenance administration has become one of the most important tasks in equipment management, particularly in manufacturing industries. Equipment management system (EMS) aims at reducing maintenance cost and production loss caused by machine breakdown. In addition, EMS can assist equipment engineers to make the right maintenance decisions at the right time, and at the right shop floor. Traditional computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) have helped equipment engineers to deal with maintenance operations, but they lack decision support capability. In this paper, we design a data warehouse (DW) for EMS to help equipment engineers make maintenance decisions with various equipment related dimensions to improve effectiveness. A set of cubes can be built from EMS DW for the purpose of decision-making. In order to achieve a reasonable query response time under the memory space limit, a mechanism of partial materialization based on genetic algorithms (GAs) is adopted to design data cubes in the EMS DW. From the computational results the proposed GA-based approach for cube design can be applied to effectively select the appropriate multi-dimensional views for equipment management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of the Internet for shopping has lead to an increasing interest in tools for assisting consumers with decision-making, efficiently using the vast quantity of widely dispersed information. Online product recommendation agents gather information from consumers and then match these consumer preferences with their database of products to recommend the best product. Two approaches can be taken for gathering information from consumers on their preferences--conjoint-type full-profile ratings or self-explicated ratings. That is, organizations may infer consumers' preferences for attributes and levels on the base of their ratings of several alternative products or may simply directly ask them their evaluations of various attributes and levels. We compare these two approaches and find that, in general, they do not result in the same conclusions. In this paper we examine the differences in the approaches to making recommendations and discuss the implications of these differences. Our results show that there is a closer match between the methods for products closer to the extremes of consumer preference. Also, our study shows that a recommendation agent should offer more than one recommendation in order to match the needs of the system user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical librarians can increase their work visibility and highlight their unique role on evidence synthesis teams with searchRxiv, an open access repository that makes librarian's efforts easily citable and resolves longstanding challenges pertaining to reproducing full search strategies within literature review articles. This column will discuss how to navigate searchRxiv to find, reuse, and cite published search strategies, as well as the process of depositing search strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge bases store information on certain topics. Applying a well-structured and machine-readable format for a knowledge base is a prerequisite for any AI-based processing or reasoning. Semantic technologies (e.g. RDF) offer such a format and have the advantages that they make it possible to define the semantics of the information and support advanced querying. However, the disadvantage is that using such technologies is challenging for people not trained in IT, such as subject matter experts. This means that they need to rely on semantic technology experts to create, maintain, and query their knowledge bases. However, these experts are, in turn, not trained in the subject matter, while domain knowledge is essential for the construction of high-quality knowledge bases. In this paper, we present an end-user engineering approach for ontology-based knowledge bases. The goal is to allow subject matter experts to develop, maintain, and exploit the knowledge base themselves. We also present the supporting tools developed so far. The tools for the construction and the manual filling of the knowledge base are using the jigsaw metaphor to hide technicalities and guide the users. We also developed tools to automatically import data from spreadsheets into the knowledge base and to perform some type of quality control on the data. The end-user approach and the tools are demonstrated and evaluated for building a knowledge base in the toxicology domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major issue in the construction of a database is what data to collect about customers in order to maximise targeting efficiency. The paper examines a variable hitherto neglected by marketers but which has been shown in psychology literature to have significant influence on a wide variety of adult behaviour, including fighter pilot effectiveness. There is evidence that birth order shapes personality, in particular what Sulloway refers to as the 'Big Five' personality dimension. This paper reviews the psychology literature, discusses the potential implications for marketers, in particular database marketing, and reports on two studies (including a nationally representative sample of 967 adults) that support the hypothesis that first-borns show a greater need than later-borns to talk to others before and/or after a high involvement purchase. The implications for methods of direct marketing communication and communication content are noted. The simplicity of collecting birth order data, coupled with the ability of neural networks software to process many customer variables, e.g. demographic and transactional, in order to optimise targeting efficiency, makes ordinal birth position a prime candidate for inclusion on consumer databases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been growing use of reflective practice as a means for examining ethically important moments that occur during research. Reflective practice enables researchers to be alert to the unfolding of these ethically important moments and to consider how they will respond to them. In this paper, we use dialogic reflection to explore an ethically important moment that occurred during one of our research projects. We present our dialogic reflective conversation as a means of exploring the ethical issues associated with data ownership. We draw on this conversation to describe a framework for dialogic reflection that provides researchers with a process for engaging in reflection on their practice as ethical researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The project "Monuments and Artworks in East Central Europe Research Infrastructure" exemplifies introducing methods and tools of digital humanities to art-historical problems in multilingual and culturally diverse milieu. East Central Europe is a region with historically changing borders and different national cultures of knowledge. For such a region, a proper transnational scientific infrastructure is vital for the adequate description and classification of art-historical monuments, and dynamic networks of actors and cultural phenomena. Drawing on our project experience, we argue that the model of knowledge created through the process of data modelling and setting standards for digital images can be seen as an interpretative and epistemological frame for research. This paper analyses the transnational integration of catalogued data into the infrastructure through a semantic data model. We tackle the question of implementation of multilingual external vocabularies and authority control in the database. The method of indexing photos in the context of the material turn is another crucial issue in the infrastructure. In addition, this paper underlines practical challenges of the project such as: involvement in an international network of collaborators, legal requirements, and copyright. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microcomputer users are faced with an increasingly difficult choice problem in the evaluation and selection of software packages. For many reasons, users frequently must rely on expert evaluations of the technical functions and features of packages. This paper explores the extent to which multi-attribute choice models are capable of extracting the information content of performance ratings. Five choice models are applied to the expert ratings of software packages in the following areas: word processing, database management systems, and spreadsheet and financial planning. The evaluations and selections made under each model are compared for each software type, and guidelines are suggested for choosing between choice strategies for software evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the widespread use of relational database management systems, their decision support capabilities have been limited. These limitations include: (1) very limited support for expression of general statements and exceptions, (2) limited capabilities for what-if analysis, and (3) problems with the way derived data is handled. This paper shows that additional power can be placed in relational database systems via a new construct called Derived Relations with Exceptions (DRES). DRES are a superset of relational views that provide greater decision support capabilities in that they handle exceptions to general rules and can operate in a hypothetical mode that provides an easier way to experiment with alternative scenarios in a what-if fashion. DRES are implemented by extending the SQL database language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A statistical database aims at providing users with statistics about the population while not compromising the confidentiality of the individuals whose data are included in the database. Threats to the database security range from issuing cleverly designed sequences of queries to using such sophisticated methods as regression analysis. In order to overcome this security problem, several solution methods have been suggested in the literature. These methods can be classified under four general approaches: conceptual modeling; query restriction; data perturbation; and output perturbation. These methods, however, can be easily compromised, or require excessive CPU and memory, or result in biased response to users. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new type of output perturbation method that may be very difficult to compromise and provides unbiased response. The method is based on recoiling of the data, the jackknifing concept, and an extension of the random sample queries method suggested by Denning [5]. A comparison of the proposed method and the modified random sample queries method (which is considered a viable alternative for security of statistical databases) is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a model that provides a single comprehensive mechanism to control the use, operation, and evolution of database systems. This model unifies several concepts generally considered to be quite distinct. In particular, it minimizes the formal distinction between the users of the database, the programs embedded in it, and even the administrators and the programmers maintaining it. Furthermore, under this model, the concepts of subschema and of program module are replaced with a single concept of frame, which serves as the locus of power and of activity in the system. Moreover, the proposed control mechanism is closed, in the sense that the process of establishing controls is itself controllable by the same mechanism. This can be used to formalize and enforce a variety of managerial policies about the use and evolution of database systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient data warehouse (DW) design depends on the quality of a conceptual model. In this paper, a set of quality metrics have been proposed along with the theoretical validation for quality measurement of conceptual level object-oriented multidimensional data model. The paper also describes the designer level and user level viewpoints of quality evaluation through the criteria like complexity, completeness, expressiveness and analyst ability. Finally, the work focuses on the empirical validation of the set of metrics and measurements. The empirical validation process shows the usefulness of the proposed metrics for the assessment of operability factor of conceptual level multidimensional data model. Significant correlations exist among the proposed quality measurements and operability factors. The proposed quality evaluation framework is verified in context of a graph semantic-based object-oriented multidimensional data model GOOMD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short position paper considers issues in developing Data Architecture for the Internet of Things (IoT) through the medium of an exemplar project, Domain Expertise Capture in Authoring and Development Environments (DECADE). A brief discussion sets the background for IoT, and the development of the distinction between things and computers. The paper makes a strong argument to avoid reinvention of the wheel, and to reuse approaches to distributed heterogeneous data architectures and the lessons learned from that work, and apply them to this situation. DECADE requires an autonomous recording system, local data storage, semi-autonomous verification model, sign-off mechanism, qualitative and quantitative analysis carried out when and where required through web-service architecture, based on ontology and analytic agents, with a self-maintaining ontology model. To develop this, we describe a web-service architecture, combining a distributed data warehouse, web services for analysis agents, ontology agents and a verification engine, with a centrally verified outcome database maintained by certifying body for qualification/professional status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early client-tracking databases were strongly influenced by the structure of previous paper-based systems. More recently, there has been evolution toward databases that attempt to represent the interconnectedness of people in the human service environment. No consensus on best practices, however, has yet emerged. This paper presents a systems analysis technique and a data model based on one of the theoretical foundations of current social work practice: the ecosystems perspective. This approach facilitates a range of knowledge management and performance measurement capabilities that have so Tar been uncommon in client-tracking systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As federal agencies support the development of data systems for adult protective services (APS), researchers and practitioners are increasingly using administrative data to study types of adult maltreatment, including self-neglect, and the systems that respond to them. To date, however, APS has worked with little guidance about how best to use these data. This situation has contributed to inconsistent findings and uneven quality of research. Based on the authors' experience in multiple states and using examples from research and practice, this paper reviews practical considerations related to organizing and analyzing APS administrative data. We address concerns related to time-limited, erroneous, and missing data, as well as defining metrics and accounting for the multilevel structure of data with repeated observations. Reviewing these methodological details can help APS practitioners strengthen quality assurance processes and improve research in this important area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses an axiomatic approach for the semantic integration of ontologies, an approach that extends to first order logic, a previous approach1 based on information flow. This axiomatic approach is represented in the Information Flow Framework (IFF), a metalevel framework for organizing the information that appears in digital libraries, distributed databases and ontologies. The paper argues that the semantic integration of ontologies is the two-step process of alignment and unification. Ontological alignment consists of the sharing of common terminology and semantics through a mediating ontology. Ontological unification, concentrated in a virtual ontology of community connections, is fusion of the alignment diagram of participant community ontologies--the quotient of the sum of the participant portals modulo the ontological alignment structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of storage and querying of large volumes of spatial grids is an issue to solve. In this paper, we propose a method to optimize queries to aggregate raster grids stored in databases. In our approach, we propose to estimate the exact result rather than calculate the exact result. This approach reduces query execution time. One advantage of our method is that it does not require implementing or modifying functionalities of database management systems. Our approach is based on a new data structure and a specific model of SQL queries. Our work is applied here to relational data warehouses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including managing Indigenous knowledge in Africa, digital preservation for sustainable development in South Africa and integration of Tikanga Māori in library policies.

Routine outcomes measurement is important for clinical care, quality improvement, and performance management. The nine papers in this special volume describe national and regional efforts at implementation of outcomes measures in nine different countries. They describe successes and challenges. This special collection of papers makes an important contribution towards improving the implementation of routine outcomes measurement globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from traditional to Big Data technologies has put new challenges in front of existing database modelling techniques. The ‘Design then implement’ approach to relational database modelling, could not be fully applied to ‘Discover and analyze’ databases with rapid data growth. In the context of Big Data, models have preserved a descriptive role: they are used to analyze and understand the architecture of hybrid data structures. From the Model-Driven Engineering point of view, several questions emerge: Could Big Data and hybrid database models represent a formal specification for a solution, which can be transformed to an executable specification for a specific target platform? Does the refining mechanism have its place in the process of hybrid data structure development? An approach to modelling hybrid databases, based on empirically validated concepts of Model-Driven Engineering, is presented in this paper. The approach was applied during the implementation of Precision Agriculture Based Information Service (PAIS) application - a web-based service for the collection and archiving of diverse data on crops, and their presentation to farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patron privacy, as articulated in the American Library Association (ALA) Code of Ethics, is a longstanding concern for librarians. In online environments, the possibility of tracking by third parties, usage of HTTPS/TLS to provide secure connections, and easy disclosure of a site's privacy policies all have implications for user privacy. This paper presents new empirical evidence about these issues and discusses their ethical implications. Data about the incidence of third-party tracking, usage of HTTPS by default, and easy discoverability of a privacy policy or terms of service (TOS) were collected for public libraries across Canada and the United States. The sample consisted of 178 public libraries; members of the Canadian Urban Libraries Council and Urban Libraries Council. Several common commercial databases (e.g. OverDrive) were also examined using the same criteria. Results show that only 12% of libraries were devoid of third-party tracking, with Google Analytics being the most common third-party tracker. While libraries may support HTTPS under certain circumstances, it was found that a majority of libraries serve neither their websites nor their online catalogs (OPACs) HTTPS by default. Regarding disclosure of possible tracking, it was found that 58% of libraries did not link to a TOS or privacy policy from their homepage. Together with previous research on the usage of privacy-enhancing tools in public libraries, these results suggest that public libraries are accessories to third-party tracking on a large scale. Implications of this fact in light of library professional ethics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a usability and user experience (UX) investigation into the Research Data Management Librarian Academy (RDMLA) course site, a free online learning platform developed through community effort. Remote synchronous usability test sessions were run with 42 participants. Participants completed a pre-session interview, performed tasks related to the course orientation unit and two content units, and filled out a post-session questionnaire. Significant differences were found among people with different demographic attributes, educational backgrounds, occupations, and levels of research data management (RDM) training, in areas related to self-rating, task performance, and post-task and post-session evaluations of RDMLA. Significant correlations occurred among participants' pre-session, post-task, and post-session ratings, as well as performance measures. Qualitative descriptions of the participants' perceptions of the future of RDM in LIS were also reported. The study results indicate a need to add a new criterion - diverse learner population - into the framework of pedagogical usability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile health monitoring devices (MHMDs) have become widely integrated into our personal lives as well as healthcare delivery. However, less attention is paid to individual consumer and clinician awareness, knowledge, and agency, in regards to the privacy and security of data from wearable devices. Two cross sectional intervention studies assessed cybersecurity attitudes, risky cyber behaviors, and mobile health monitoring device dependence among undergraduate students and future health practitioners. The video based intervention used in study two was effective in changing attitudes toward cybersecurity (n =165, t-test, p ≤ 0.001) where study one's paper-based intervention was not (n = 200, t-test, p = 0.347). In both studies, improved attitude toward cybersecurity was associated with increased risky cyber behavior (p ≤ 0.001, rs=0.334 and p = 007, rs=0.228, respectively). Attitude was associated with device dependence in study one, but not study two (p ≤ 0.001, rs=0.263 and p = 0.432 respectively). Attitude toward cybersecurity varied by self-identified social class (ANOVA p = 0.005), with those in the upper/upper middle class having a more positive attitude than those in the middle class (p = 0.009) and the working/lower class (p = 0.048). Both studies indicated participants felt the need for more awareness and knowledge of risks, suggested personal experiences were their leading factor in changing cyber behaviors and attitudes, and that consumer knowledge, industry standards, as well as policy change are needed to increase the security of data being generated by wearable health technologies. Health practitioner and consumer awareness and knowledge of data security is a critical issue as personal and identifiable data continues to be commodified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data services, including consultation services for data management and data visualization, have been increasingly needed among health sciences libraries over the past decade, arising from mandates from funders and a need to effectively communicate information gleaned from a proliferating amount of data. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which U.S.-based health sciences libraries provide services and resources to meet data-related needs. To do so, the authors examined the webpages of American Association of Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) for published evidence of data-related services and resources. There were 157 library websites examined in total. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet contains thousands of Frequently Updated, Time-stamped, Structured (FUTS) data sources. This type of information represents a different class of information that is not properly handled by existing data management systems such as databases, data warehouses, search engines, pub-sub, event processing or information retrieval systems. In this position paper, we describe 9ticks, a system we are designing to collect, parse, store, query and disseminate FUTS information. 9ticks is helping us understand that all those steps raise new challenges but also bring new opportunities. In this paper, we summarize the challenges identified and present our vision of an end-to-end FUTS management system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Videos embedded with spatial coordinates, especially when combined with additional expert insights, offer the potential to acquire fine-scale multi-time period contextualized data for a variety of different environments. However, while these geospatial multimedia (GSMM) data include abundant spatiotemporal, semantic and visual information, the means to fully leverage their potential using a suite of visual and interactive analysis techniques and tools has thus far been lacking. In this paper, we address this gap by first identifying the types of tasks required of GSMM data, and then presenting a solution platform. This GeoVisuals system utilizes a visual analysis approach built on semantic data points that can be integrated spatially, which in turn enables management in a unified database with combined spatio-temporal and text querying. A set of visualization functions are integrated in two investigation modes: geo-video analysis and geo-location analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Transportation Library (NTL) at the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) provides national and international access to the crucial transportation information that falls within the scope of grey literature, including the results of U.S. government funded research. Founded as an all-digital library in 1998, NTL's collections include full-text-born digital and digitized publications, data products, and other resources. All items are in the public domain and available for reuse without restriction. Since 2016, NTL has led the implementation of the USDOT's Official Public Access Plan issued in response to the February 22, 2013 Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies entitled Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research. This paper discusses the effect this plan has had on a grey literature library and the efforts to create and maintain a public access repository, as well as exploring relationships between repository platform, contents, and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]