Common Knowledge Base Research Articles

Empowering minorities and everyone in participatory budgeting: an agent-based modelling perspective.

Currently, there are increasing attempts to better involve citizens in political decision processes. A successful approach in that regard has been participatory budgeting (PB), which allows citizens to propose projects and then decide how to distribute a given budget over them. Meanwhile, the literature on collective intelligence (CI) has also shown the ability of groups to solve complex problems. Thus, by combining CI and PB, it should be possible for citizens to identify problems and create their own solutions. In this article, we study this possibility by using agent-based models. Specifically, we first show that a system combining CI and PB produces solutions that strongly penalize minorities if the solution quality depends on group size. Then, we introduce an approach that can overcome this issue. Indeed, by using a common knowledge base for the storage of partial solutions, the quality of solutions of minorities can benefit from the work of the majority, thereby promoting fairness. Interestingly, this approach also benefits majorities, as the quality of their solutions is further improved by the work of the minorities, thus reaching better solutions for everyone. This stresses the potential and importance of an open innovation approach, which is committed to information sharing.This article is part of the theme issue 'Co-creating the future: participatory cities and digital governance'.

Teachers’ ethical responsibility in teaching; to guide the children about right and wrong

Teaching involves an ethical dimension that tends to remain unspoken and thus difficult to reflect on and discuss. From the perspective of professionalism, professional ethics and a common knowledge base are important to the quality and status of the teaching profession. This descriptive phenomenological study was motivated by the need to know more about how teachers understand their own professional ethics and how this is expressed through their teaching. The essence of the phenomenon is formulated through the analysis of interviews with nine teachers in Sweden who teach children from the age of 1–16. The results show that the teachers’ main ethical responsibility is to guide the children about right and wrong. The guidance, a safe learning environment, and relationships with and between the children are dependent on each other. The surrounding society affects the guidance of the children, as well as opportunities for collaboration with guardians and colleagues.

Librarians, archivists, and museum professionals’ role perceptions and cross sectoral collaboration – Signs of convergence?

Public libraries, archives, and museums have identifiable differences related to their founding missions and play many roles in today’s cultural sector and broader society, yet LAM institutions’ professional activities appear very similar. Moreover, increased digitization of LAM collections allows for increased collaboration and convergence across the institutions, and the merging of L, A, and M education at the tertiary level nurtures a common professional knowledge base. How are the LAM professions developing in relation to each other; are they growing together or apart? This paper analyzes questionnaire responses reflecting European LAM professionals’ perceptions of their roles as cultural professionals and how this influences their likelihood to collaborate with others in the LAM sector. Collaboration is prevalent between the three types of professionals studied. Forty-six percent of librarians confirm that they collaborate with archives and/or museums, 60% of archives report collaborating with libraries and museums, and 73% of museologists collaborate with libraries and/or archives. LAM professionals perceive their roles as distinct and closely tied to the core of their social mission. There are various factors influencing collaboration among Library, Archive, and Museum (LAM) professionals.

Trust building in the sharing economy: proposition and test of an integrated model

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to propose and test an integrated model to explain how trust is built in sharing economy (SE) transactions.Design/methodology/approachInitially, prior literature was systematically selected and synthesized to develop a comprehensive framework applicable to multiple trust-building perspectives and categories of SE platforms. Then, a survey was conducted to validate the constructs and test the model with Airbnb guests. A sample of 351 responses was collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results indicate that the cues an individual assesses to infer their counterpart’s trustworthiness and the reasons the individual has for engaging in the SE transaction can explain a large variance in their trust in the counterpart. In addition, the individual’s propensity to trust moderates this relationship.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed model can help identify the most effective trust-building mechanisms. It can be taken as a common knowledge base for scholars to compare the four trust-building perspectives and different categories of SE platforms, as well as to investigate the subject over time and across cultures.Practical implicationsThis research can also help practitioners understand the complexity of building trust and design platform features to do so.Social implicationsA unified model clarifies trust in the SE, aiding platform growth and community bonding. This insight guides platforms in feature enhancement and policymakers in drafting balanced regulations.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, there is a comprehensive and parsimonious model applicable to the four trust-building perspectives and different categories of SE platforms.

Bridging domains: examining the effects of relevance instructions and guiding questions on pre-service teachers’ first- and second-order knowledge integration

The conceptualization of pre-service teachers’ knowledge integration typically involves the distinction of two types: first-order knowledge integration, which includes merging domain-specific knowledge entities into a common knowledge base, and second-order knowledge integration, which refers to the integrated (simultaneous) application of knowledge from diverse domains. This study investigates the effect of instructional prompts in the form of (a) relevance instructions and (b) guiding questions on promoting pre-service teachers’ first-order knowledge integration in a reading- and writing-based learning setting with three domain-specific study texts: one text each referring to content knowledge (CK), general pedagogical knowledge (PK), or pedagogical-content knowledge (PCK). Furthermore, the study explores whether pre-service teachers’ second-order knowledge integration depends on the degree to which they engaged in first-order knowledge integration when reading and writing about different domain-specific learning contents. The study applied a three parallel group experimental design. An analysis of essays written by N = 83 German language pre-service teachers indicated positive effects of both prompts on first-order knowledge integration. Moreover, a mediation analysis showed that pre-service teachers’ second-order knowledge integration is mediated by their first-order knowledge integration. The results are discussed and integrated into the existing body of research, practical implications are presented, and limitations of the study are explained.

Joint Attention as the Base of Common Knowledge and Collective Intentionality

I argue that joint attention solves the “base problem” as it arises for Schiffer’s and Lewis’s theories of common knowledge. The problem is that an account is needed of the perceptual base of some forms of common knowledge that gets by without itself invoking common knowledge. The paper solves the problem by developing a theory of joint attention as consisting in the exercise of joint know-how involving particular and sometimes distal targets and arguing that certain joint perceivers can always have a minimal form of propositional common knowledge about the location of these targets. On such a view, perceptual common knowledge is based on the experience of a process that is maintained by way of perceivers’ exercise of an object-involving form of joint know-how. Some reductive theories of collective intentionality require that agents’ intentions and subplans are common knowledge (or “out in the open”) between them. For these theories the base problem arises again. The enacted theory of joint attention can solve the problem. The argument is exactly parallel to the common knowledge case. The openness of joint agents’ intentions and meshing subplans is explained by appeal to their practical knowledge of how to maintain the process by way of which they pursue the collective intention. They can then make this knowledge explicit by linguistic communication. When they succeed in communicating knowledge of their meshing subplans as pursued in a joint action context, they necessarily have this knowledge in common. For theories of collective intentionality that include a common knowledge condition, the experience of participating in a perceptually constituted joint action provides the base that renders harmless the regress that otherwise threatens reductive analyses.

Interorganizational networks in dynamics of disaster: Comprehensive approach to network effectiveness

AbstractGovernments grapple with the challenges of uncertainty and complexity in disasters due to interconnected actors. This research explores how government organizations can effectively operate during disasters. Two aspects of network effectiveness—structural and procedural approaches—are considered. The structural approach emphasizes the network stability, while the procedural approach focuses on the process of network evolution. Analysing and comparing response networks from two earthquakes in Korea, a crucial environmental change—government reorganization—between them was identified. This allowed to assess how environmental changes impact network effectiveness. The findings suggest that effective disaster management requires complementing centralized authority with actual power distribution, empowering subnetwork groups as centres of common knowledge base, and emphasizing coordination among organizations with diverse expertise.

Environmental sustainability in the event industry: a systematic review and a research agenda

Over the past few decades, the event industry has witnessed massive growth worldwide. This, however, has come with considerable environmental costs. Improper management of any type of event can indeed lead to significant environmental impacts, including increased carbon emissions, waste generation, and resource consumption. To establish a common knowledge base on the topic, we conducted a Systematic Literature Review and critically examined the current state of academic research regarding environmental sustainability in events. Our analysis reveals a fast-growing and interdisciplinary field, with 247 articles coming from multiple geographic locations and addressing multiple event types – from mega-events to small-scale festivals. We identify four thematic areas on which scholars have focused: (1) Events’ Environmental Impacts, namely the evaluation of the environmental impacts and legacy of events; (2) Green Event Management, the organization of environmentally friendly events across multiple perspectives (e.g., strategic, operational); (3) Environmental Policy & Guidelines, the contribution of policymakers and other industry stakeholders for a greener event sector; (4) Environmental Psychology of Event Stakeholders, the factors affecting perceptions and behaviours of event stakeholders in relation to environmental issues. We provide an in-depth review of these areas, identify gaps in our current understanding, and draft a comprehensive agenda to address them.

AAPM Task Group Report 311: Guidance for performance evaluation of fluorescence-guided surgery systems.

The last decade has seen a large growth in fluorescence-guided surgery (FGS) imaging and interventions. With the increasing number of clinical specialties implementing FGS, the range of systems with radically different physical designs, image processing approaches, and performance requirements is expanding. This variety of systems makes it nearly impossible to specify uniform performance goals, yet at the same time, utilization of different devices in new clinical procedures and trials indicates some need for common knowledge bases and a quality assessment paradigm to ensure that effective translation and use occurs. It is feasible to identify key fundamental image quality characteristics and corresponding objective test methods that should be determined such that there are consistent conventions across a variety of FGS devices. This report outlines test methods, tissue simulating phantoms and suggested guidelines, as well as personnel needs and professional knowledge bases that can be established. This report frames the issues with guidance and feedback from related societies and agencies having vested interest in the outcome, coming from an independent scientific group formed from academics and international federal agencies for the establishment of these professional guidelines.

Scene context‐aware graph convolutional network for skeleton‐based action recognition

AbstractSkeleton‐based action recognition methods commonly employ graph neural networks to learn different aspects of skeleton topology information However, these methods often struggle to capture contextual information beyond the skeleton topology. To address this issue, a Scene Context‐aware Graph Convolutional Network (SCA‐GCN) that leverages potential contextual information in the scene is proposed. Specifically, SCA‐GCN learns the co‐occurrence probabilities of actions in specific scenarios from a common knowledge base and fuses these probabilities into the original skeleton topology decoder, producing more robust results. To demonstrate the effectiveness of SCA‐GCN, extensive experiments on four widely used datasets, that is, SBU, N‐UCLA, NTU RGB + D, and NTU RGB + D 120 are conducted. The experimental results show that SCA‐GCN surpasses existing methods, and its core idea can be extended to other methods with only some concatenation operations that consume less computational complexity.

FUNCTIONAL AND PRAGMATIC FEATURES OF NICKNAMES (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF THE KOLO WEBSITE)

Nickname is a tool of self-presentation of the user in Internet communication. A new virtual personality is created with the help of a network name and by the person who endows it with fictional, partially or fully strands, characteristics and features. The functional and pragmatic features of network names are considered in the article on the material of nicknames from the website of the KOLO operational assistance fund of the special service "Holiday KOLO", which are determined by the pragmatic needs of the author’s personality.
 The functional-pragmatic features of the website’s nicknames of aid funds and volunteer organizations are a special object of analysis, as they make it possible to trace the process of functioning and development of the language at the current stage of its existence. While creating network names, communicators prefer the communicatively significant meaning of "own" over "other". It was found that nicknames appear as markers of trust, confidence, enthusiasm, and are indicators of evaluative and emotional judgments.
 In the process of combining two components into one, the semantic and pragmatic potential of a nickname is formed. Two-component network names are singled out among the studied material, the main word of which is a noun, and the extender (micro-context) is an adjective. Falling into different micro-contexts, the same constituent has different pragmatic meanings. The lexical conjugation of the components of a nickname produces the appearance of functional-pragmatic nuances in the meaning. In the process of researching network names, it was found that the types of displacement of presuppositions in two-component nicknames are regular and related to thematic groups of supporting elements.
 It is substantiated that for the successful interpretation of network names, communicators must have a common base of non-linguistic knowledge. On the one hand, communication participants must understand the lexical meaning of individual components, on the other hand, they should interpret their common functional and pragmatic potential.

Hypotheses in urban ecology: building a common knowledge base.

Urban ecology is a rapidly growing research field that has to keep pace with the pressing need to tackle the sustainability crisis. As an inherently multi-disciplinary field with close ties to practitioners and administrators, research synthesis and knowledge transfer between those different stakeholders is crucial. Knowledge maps can enhance knowledge transfer and provide orientation to researchers as well as practitioners. A promising option for developing such knowledge maps is to create hypothesis networks, which structure existing hypotheses and aggregate them according to topics and research aims. Combining expert knowledge with information from the literature, we here identify 62 research hypotheses used in urban ecology and link them in such a network. Our network clusters hypotheses into four distinct themes: (i) Urban species traits & evolution, (ii) Urban biotic communities, (iii) Urban habitats and (iv) Urban ecosystems. We discuss the potentials and limitations of this approach. All information is openly provided as part of an extendable Wikidata project, and we invite researchers, practitioners and others interested in urban ecology to contribute additional hypotheses, as well as comment and add to the existing ones. The hypothesis network and Wikidata project form a first step towards a knowledge base for urban ecology, which can be expanded and curated to benefit both practitioners and researchers.

Artificial Intelligent Systems and the Problem of “Natural” Trust

The development of AI technologies has heightened the problem of humanitarian challenges at all levels of social regulations. Ethical issues and, in particular, the problem of trust have become relevant to the field of high technology, given the fact that AI performs increasingly significant managerial functions that previously could only be performed by humans. This issue is directly related to artificial intelligence systems, which have already been embodied in specific extensive projects. In this study, the authors analyze the concept of trust through the prism of technological development. For this purpose, the study presents an overview of historical and contemporary interpretations of the concept of trust and proves that this concept is relevant and necessary to control the risks that arise when integrating AI products into social life. The authors show that a rethinking of the concepts of ethics and morality in the new context is required. This is a necessary requirement for the creation of trusted AI and for the achievement of trust in human interaction with technology products. The authors conclude that it is necessary to build an interdisciplinary dialogue to integrate theory and practice from numerous fields. To do this, it is necessary to create a common knowledge base and a platform for communication between all stakeholders, but it is also important to create favorable conditions for sustainable and constructive interaction. Therefore, trust is a relevant concept that needs to be constructed in a multidimensional frame of reference that targets different stakeholders and also takes into account interaction between human and technology, in other words, at all levels and on all scales.

On the need for formalization of processes in land reclamation

The paper discusses general approaches to the formalization of processes in land reclamation. The relevance is due to the need to combine into a common knowledge base and classification of processes according to their nature and object of influence. Anthropogenic and natural processes, their interrelation, frequency and duration of exposure are considered. Some processes are considered in more detail, for example, the drainage system. It is indicated that the work of the drainage system, as a constant process, has a constant impact on the reclaimed lands, has an anthropogenic character. Natural processes such as soil formation are natural biophysical and chemical processes that can be significantly influenced by anthropogenic impact. Forest reclamation can be considered as a natural process of tree growth in the intervals between anthropogenic impacts. But if we consider the creation and maintenance of forest belts throughout their existence, then we should consider this process as anthropogenic having its own technological maps. The creation of an agricultural landscape as a process is purely anthropogenic if it is considered in the paradigm of radical improvement or change of natural landscapes. The issues of combining processes into groups and subgroups by duration, stability, management capabilities, complexity of the internal structure, etc. are considered. As a conclusion, it is indicated that in the field of modern reclamation science, the formalization of processes, their classification is an urgent problem and requires further development.

Wireless End-to-End Image Transmission System Using Semantic Communications

Semantic communication is considered the future of mobile communication, which aims to transmit data beyond Shannon’s theorem of communications by transmitting the semantic meaning of the data rather than the bit-by-bit reconstruction of the data at the receiver’s end. The semantic communication paradigm aims to bridge the gap of limited bandwidth problems in modern high-volume multimedia application content transmission. Integrating AI technologies with the 6G communications networks paved the way to develop semantic communication-based end-to-end communication systems. In this study, we have implemented a semantic communication-based end-to-end image transmission system, and we discuss potential design considerations in developing semantic communication systems in conjunction with physical channel characteristics. A Pre-trained GAN network is used at the receiver as the transmission task to reconstruct the realistic image based on the Semantic segmented image at the receiver input. The semantic segmentation task at the transmitter (encoder) and the GAN network at the receiver (decoder) is trained on a common knowledge base, the COCO-Stuff dataset. The research shows that the resource gain in the form of bandwidth saving is immense when transmitting the semantic segmentation map through the physical channel instead of the ground truth image in contrast to conventional communication systems. Furthermore, the research studies the effect of physical channel distortions and quantization noise on semantic communication-based multimedia content transmission.

Smart Counting Machines for Modular Industry 4.0 Packing Lines

The current volatility on the global market presents new challenges in production system engineering and control. On the one hand, packaging and packaging production systems must support increasing production volumes. On the other hand, market volatility requires more flexible production that is fragmented into smaller batches, which causes increased time, effort, and overall workload implied by changeovers between different production setups. Typically, it is not feasible to build a green-field generation of production sites that conforms to all design principles of Industry 4.0. Therefore, the addressed approach deals with a “smartification” of legacy hardware components, bridging multiple levels of the traditional automation pyramid, improving human-machine collaboration, and transforming human experience into a common shared knowledge base. In more detail, we are applying unsupervised learning methods to generalize individual machine settings into reusable and automatically applicable control setups and strategies. The core components of the addressed packing lines are counting machines that deliver the required portions of elements. The developed Smart Counting Machines retain current interfaces that are enhanced with new enhancements providing OPC UA communication and modular control layer. The realized solution has been deployed and tested in a real packing line of our industrial partner. The lessons learned in the presented mitigate barriers on the journey from the proof-of-concept phase to the full production deployment.

From Spirituality to Technontology in Education

Following the traumatic earthquake caused by the wave of terrorist attacks in France in 2015 and its aftershocks in Belgium, Germany and Great Britain, many people questioned the possibility of spirituality in education. For many, a concern on the interest and the possible place of the spiritual in the educational processes found its source following the traumatic collective earthquake caused by the wave of attacks in France in 2015 and then by its aftershocks in Belgium, Germany and Great Britain. These dramatic events have rekindled existential questions that professionals had previously put to one side by lack of a dedicated institutional space and time to reflect on educational bodies aims and modes of operation. This concern is motivated by the idea that our world ought to be passed these behaviors. Indeed, the immense advances in modern technology and the easy access to information it provides, combined with worldwide available primary education seem far from being up to the level we would hope for. This concern is therefore based on an appreciation of a contemporary humanity and state of the world that seems far from being up to the level that would have been hoped for by the immense advances in modern technology, including access to information, combined with a very large scale of primary education across the planet. According to UNESCO's 2013 figures, 92% of the world's population had a mobile phone (55% in developing countries), and 82% of the world's population had completed basic education, the equivalent of primary school (74% in developing countries). Seven years later, the <em>Digital Report 2020 </em>produced by <em>We Are </em>Social and <em>Hootsuite, </em>based on data provided by the UN and government sources, counts for a world population of 7.75 billion people: 17.2% of women and 11.2% of men over 15 are illiterate; "<em>103% (of) mobile connections as a percentage of the total population</em>" (due to the possession of multiple devices by some owners and/or of multiple-users for each device); 49% of people are active on social media; 59% of internet users, for an average of 6h43 min, i.e., 40% of the daily waking time. For all that, the overall global situation of humanity still does not seem to have improved, as if, according to the findings of the <em>Complexity Intelligence Network</em>, global connectivity has not resulted in a global human consciousness. Despite these incredible advances, it seems as if the overall global situation of humanity still hasn't improved. In the words of <em>Complexity Intelligence Network</em>, it looks as if global connectivity has not yet resulted in a global human consciousness. It is still being seen as such because of the lack of access to clean water for more than two billion people in 2019, massive displacement of populations for economic, ecological or armed conflict reasons that are not decreasing etc. A central hypothesis of my work is that if the spiritual dimension is in some way already present in schools' curricula and in the common base of schools and colleges' knowledge, skills and culture (especially through the humanities and relational psycho-social skills), then spirituality would never be exercised in a way that is sufficiently conscious. From this, I argue that spirituality's positive effects can never be fully realized because it would never be exercised in a way that is sufficiently conscious for it to be beneficial. This state of affairs, linked to a kind of repression, would slow down the capacity for the formation and emergence of a person who is responsible and acts in a positive manner towards himself, others and the planet. Therefore, the ongoing objective is to try to better understand and accompany the multi-referential process of our humanization through education, insofar as, as Erasmus stated in the Renaissance: "We are not born human beings, we each become one".

Analytical methods to detect the Adulterants in Milk - An Overview

Milk contains whole nutrients and is consumed by the majority of population in the form of drinking as well as dietary products. Milk adulteration is one of the most common phenomena, this milk adulteration can be over looked in many countries. it shows serious health hazards leading to fatal diseases. Milk adulterants have been reported globally by adding various instances such as adding water, whey proteins, melamine, urea, detergents, starch hydrogen peroxide, boric acid. This paper presents a detailed review of common milk adulterants as well as different methods such as the chromatographic methods such as HPLC and GC coupled with mass spectrometry to detect the adulterants in milk, and immunological techniques such as ELISA and various DNA based procedures like PCR have also been used to detect the adulterants both qualitatively and quantitatively. This study is organized to be an adulterants-based study instead of a techniques-based one, where qualitative detection for most of the common adulterants are enlisted and quantitative detection methods are limited to a few major adulterants of milk. Apart from regular techniques, recent development in these detection techniques has also been reported. Nowadays milk is being adulterated in more sophisticated ways that demand for cutting- edge research for the detection of adulterants. This review intends to contribute towards the common knowledge base regarding possible milk adulterants and their detection techniques.

Ec-Funded Projects’ Lessons Learned In Earth Friendly Freight Transportation

Abstract The paper is based on the research project ePIcenter (www.ePIcenterproject.eu) supported by the EU HORIZON 2020 Programme. ePIcenter connects thirty-six partners: port authorities, logistic service providers, manufacturers, academic institutions, and technology partners. The main goal is to develop and test AI driven logistic software solutions, apply new technologies and methodologies to increase the efficiency of global supply chains and reduce their environmental impact. One of the significant aspect the project focusses on is optimisation, using AI, digitalisation, automation and innovations in freight transport and handling technologies. Finally, modelling powerful solutions to enable resilient, efficient and environment friendly supply chains. Knowledge sharing is one of powerful tool for researchers, policymakers, service providers and other stakeholders to develop a holistic and comprehensive common knowledge base. First, a theoretical framework had been developed through identification and review knowledge available from previous projects funded through the European Commission as well as other international funding projects. Second, lessons learned and success stories from previous EC-funded projects and other international research programmes were reviewed and provided in the first year of project implementation.

Semantic Encyclopedias and Boolean Dreams

When metadata becomes knowledge, opportunities for multiplicity and risks of harm and exclusion arise. As GLAM institutions contribute to the Semantic Web, we must pay attention to the implications of participation. While the Semantic Web grew out of the flourishing of web technologies in the 1990s, recognizing its roots in classical/symbolic AI (referred to as Good Old Fashioned Artificial Intelligence, or GOFAI)—in particular, expert systems and knowledge representation—encourages critical questions like: which problems from knowledge representation and expert systems does the Semantic Web inherit? Are GOFAI failures really failures, or does the gap between rhetoric and practice point to generative possibilities (some of which can now be seen in Semantic Web initiatives)? What can we learn from AI critics, feminist approaches, and the unmasking of encyclopedic neutrality? This research article will explore how critiques of AI expert systems and Cyc, an ongoing project to create a common sense knowledge base, might apply to Semantic Webefforts like Wikipedia, Wikidata, DBpedia, and Schema.org.