Exploratory Application Research Articles

Pollen evidence for an Eocene to Miocene elevation of central southern Tibet predating the rise of the High Himalaya

Quantifying the elevation history of the 2000 km-wide Tibetan Plateau to an average elevation of 5 km is important for understanding key aspects of Cenozoic global climate change, collision tectonics and the evolution of the Asian monsoon, yet quantitative measures of Cenozoic surface height change across Tibet remain few and are sometimes contradictory. Here we report the first exploratory application of a modified Co-existence Approach (CoA) using previously published fossil pollen records to reconstruct quantitatively the Cenozoic minimum palaeoaltitudes of Gangdise-Nyainqentanglha Area of the Tibetan Plateau. GCM simulations were used to adjust Eocene and Miocene raw CoA values for secular climate change and changes in palaeolatitude. This modelled correction increased the CoA-derived altitudes by 895 ± 96 m to give a minimum overall Eocene altitude of 3295–3495 m. The Miocene correction factor of 481 ± 25 m gave an overall minimum altitude estimate of 3000–3150 m. For the Holocene CoA returns four equally likely elevations of 4800–4950 m, 3800–3900 m, 3000–3100 m and 2900–3000 m. The first of these is indistinguishable from the present day regional average while the others suggest significant upslope pollen transport. Both the Eocene and Miocene palynologically-derived height estimates are consistent with suggestions of significant core plateau elevation by the Eocene, but are likely to underestimate the true palaeoelevation due to pre-Himalayan upslope pollen transport.

Blowing against the wind—An exploratory application of actor network theory to the analysis of local controversies and participation processes in wind energy

This paper analyses the deployment of wind power and the related local controversies using actor-network theory (ANT). ANT provides conceptual instruments for a fine-tuned analysis of the contingencies that condition a project’s success or failure by focusing on the micro-decisions that intertwine the material aspects of the technology, the site where it is implemented, the participation process, and the social relations in which they are embedded. By considering controversies as alternative efforts of competing networks of actors to ‘frame’ the reality and enroll others, ANT sheds light on the complex and political nature of planning a wind farm project, insofar as it consist in aligning material and human behaviours into a predictable scenario. ‘Overflows’ occur when actors do not conform to expectations, adopt conflicting positions and develop their own interpretations of the project, thus obliging designers to adapt their frames and change their plans. To demonstrate this framework, we apply it to the case of a wind farm project in the South of France, near Albi. Our analysis suggests a new approach to examining wind power projects in terms of the interaction between globally circulating technologies, unique characteristics of the site, the participation process and the social dynamics that emerge when these are combined.

Social-ecological resilience and community-based tourism: An approach from Agua Blanca, Ecuador

Socio-ecological resilience (SER), as a theoretical framework, provides an original approach to the study of socio-ecological sustainability, affirming that sustainable development can only be achieved in sufficiently resilient socio-ecosystems. Sustainability is one of the major challenges facing tourism. Therefore, the exploratory application of this theoretical approach to tourist contexts could be particularly apt. Practically all current modes of tourist operation profess a commitment to sustainability, but this is much more significant in experiences of community-based tourism (CBT). This paper presents an ethnographic case study in Agua Blanca, an Ecuadorian community that engages in turismo comunitario, a community-based tourism development strategy. The study explores the expediency of studying socio-ecological resilience in tourist research and attempts to open up new pathways for analytical and methodological development.

Experimental policy research methodology: Exploring China's policy issues adversarially in laboratory

AbstractThere are some challenges for policy making in current Chinese context. Interest groups can hardly find any institutionalized channel to express their concerns. The lack of organized public participation obstructs the structuring of a focused, thorough debate of interest‐based policy options. Policy makers lack both methods and ability to clarify contradictory evidence interwoven with interest conflicts in policy debates. Systems methodology could be a good remedy. This paper discusses these challenges, presents a seminar‐gaming based and meta‐synthesis supported experimental policy research methodology (EPRM), and labels it as a multi‐paradigm methodology. Finally, the paper introduces an exploratory application of EPRM with a case of ticket price hike of the Summer Palace. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The pattern-matching approach and its application in tourism development

Tourism development cannot be fully understood and validated from a positivist perspective without the testing of theory against empirical evidence. Thus the pattern-matching approach studies phenomena on the basis of facts and observations relevant to the testing of theories and models. This paper tests two selected tourism development theories, diffusion and dependency, against empirical evidence from Crete. In doing this, it has three main objectives: to set out the nature of the pattern-matching approach; to illustrate the application of the pattern-matching approach, in an exploratory way, and to evaluate the approach based on the evidence of the exploratory application.

Multi‐state succession in wetlands: a novel use of state and transition models

The complexity of ecosystems and mechanisms of succession are often simplified by linear and mathematical models used to understand and predict system behavior. Such models often do not incorporate multivariate, nonlinear feedbacks in pattern and process that include multiple scales of organization inherent within real-world systems. Wetlands are ecosystems with unique, nonlinear patterns of succession due to the regular, but often inconstant, presence of water on the landscape. We develop a general, nonspatial state and transition (S and T) succession conceptual model for wetlands and apply the general framework by creating annotated succession/management models and hypotheses for use in impact analysis on a portion of an imperiled wetland. The S and T models for our study area, Water Conservation Area 3A South (WCA3), Florida, U.S.A., included hydrologic and peat depth values from multivariate analyses and classification and regression trees. We used the freeware Vegetation Dynamics Development Tool as an exploratory application to evaluate our S and T models with different management actions (equal chance [a control condition], deeper conditions, dry conditions, and increased hydrologic range) for three communities: slough, sawgrass (Cladium jamaicense), and wet prairie. Deeper conditions and increased hydrologic range behaved similarly, with the transition of community states to deeper states, particularly for sawgrass and slough. Hydrology is the primary mechanism for multi-state transitions within our study period, and we show both an immediate and lagged effect on vegetation, depending on community state. We consider these S and T succession models as a fraction of the framework for the Everglades. They are hypotheses for use in adaptive management, represent the community response to hydrology, and illustrate which aspects of hydrologic variability are important to community structure. We intend for these models to act as a foundation for further restoration management and experimentation which will refine transition and threshold concepts.

Identifying Imprisonment Patterns and Their Relation to Crime Among New York Counties 1990-2000

The current study is an exploratory application of a technique for modeling developmental trajectories as an illustration of how researchers might use trajectory analysis and county-level data to analyze the effects of imprisonment patterns on crime. Using data from 61 New York counties, the authors model the patterns of imprisonment, defined as the percentage of felons sentenced to state prison in a given year, displayed by the counties from 1990 to 1999, and then demonstrate how knowledge of these patterns can be used to estimate the relationship between imprisonment patterns during the 1990s and crime in 2000. Six distinct patterns of imprisonment are identified, and bivariate and multivariate analyses reveal that high or consistently increasing levels of imprisonment were not associated with lower property or violent crime rates in 2000. Even after controlling for crime in the 1990s and other relevant factors, counties with high or consistently increasing imprisonment had significantly higher violent crime in 2000. Implications for future research are discussed.

Combining linear programming and principal–agent models: An example from environmental regulation in agriculture

The paper develops a methodology whereby a Principal–Agent model is combined with Linear Programming in order to deal with the design of environmental regulation in agriculture. Linear Programming is intended here mainly as a tool to estimate an agent's cost/profit function for the purpose of the Principal–Agent model. Two variants of the methodology are considered. First, agents' profit functions are estimated through the interpolation of the results of the parametrisation of the Linear Programming model. In the second option, relevant corner points of the discontinuous profit function generated by the parametrisation of the Linear Programming models are identified. These relevant corner points are then fed into a discrete-action Principal–Agent model. An exploratory application is provided, using a case study related to the purchase of environmental services from agriculture. The results show that Linear Programming may represent a useful way to estimate cost/profit functions to feed Principal–Agent models as long as it allows to incorporate more information from the point of view of how decision making is carried out, particularly when the underlying agent's cost/profit function is generated by a bundle of different production activities. However, the choice of the specific procedure should be cautiously evaluated in order to fit the actual properties of the underlying production process. Also, particular attention should be placed on the manner in which constraints and technical coefficients affect the result of the downstream model.

DISCLOSE : DISsection of CLusters Obtained by SEries of transcriptome data using functional annotations and putative transcription factor binding sites

BackgroundA typical step in the analysis of gene expression data is the determination of clusters of genes that exhibit similar expression patterns. Researchers are confronted with the seemingly arbitrary choice between numerous algorithms to perform cluster analysis.ResultsWe developed an exploratory application that benchmarks the results of clustering methods using functional annotations. In addition, a de novo DNA motif discovery algorithm is integrated in our program which identifies overrepresented DNA binding sites in the upstream DNA sequences of genes from the clusters that are indicative of sites of transcriptional control. The performance of our program was evaluated by comparing the original results of a time course experiment with the findings of our application.ConclusionDISCLOSE assists researchers in the prokaryotic research community in systematically evaluating results of the application of a range of clustering algorithms to transcriptome data. Different performance measures allow to quickly and comprehensively determine the best suited clustering approach for a given dataset.

Probabilistic classifiers and automated cancer registration: An exploratory application

A test of the performance of two probabilistic classifiers (random forests and multinomial logit models) in automatically defining cancer cases has been carried out on 5608 subjects, registered by the Venetian Tumour Registry (RTV) during the years 1987–1996 and manually checked for possible second cancers that occurred during the 1997–1999 period. An eightfold cross-validation was performed to estimate the classification error; 63 predictive variables were entered into the model fitting. The random forest allows to automatically classify 45% of subjects with a classification error lower than 5%, while the corresponding error is 31% for the multilogit model. The performance of the former classifier is appealing, indicating a potential drop of manually checked cases from 1750 to 960 per incidence year with a moderate error rate. This result suggests to refine the approach and extend it to other categories of manually treated cases.

Psychological Ownership Theory: An Exploratory Application in the Restaurant Industry

This exploratory study conceptualizes psychological ownership (PO)—a state in which individuals feel as though the target of ownership is theirs—and investigates how customers form PO toward a company. Considering the PO is a new concept to hospitality research, the study develops and empirically validates a conceptual model of PO and a PO measurement scale in the context of the restaurant industry. The model incorporates fundamental human relationship variables, such as sense of belonging, identification, and perceived control, as the antecedents of PO. The model also relates PO to several practically important consequences, such as relationship intentions, word-of-mouth communications, competitive resistance, and willingness to pay. The results generally support the proposed mediating role of PO between the antecedents and consequences, consistent with the initial conceptualizations. This study discusses the potential that PO may play in enhancing loyalty and relationship marketing research in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Conceptualising Information Culture in Developing Countries

To date, both strategies and perspectives for informatisation in many developing countries have tended to be very techno-centric. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise a more holistic framework for understanding the society in development. This seeks to move not only beyond techno-centrism but also beyond the determinisms and other limitations of earlier informational and cultural responses. The framework is built around the idea of an in developing countries, using Giddens' structuration theory as a point of departure. This is subjected to an exploratory application based around a single developing country ? China ? including a particular focus on its healthcare sector.The paper concludes that information culture can be conceived at multiple levels in terms of three interlinked dimensions ? information literacy, information openness, and information norms. These provide the basis for a broader understanding of positioning vis-�-vis informatisation than earlier frameworks. Field data shows how actions can be seen to reproduce and reinforce a country's information culture. However, it also identifies broader tensions that affect many developing countries: marketisation/state-collectivism, globalism/nationalism, technology/manual, and other potential contradictions. These create a reflexive space for agency that helps to explain the dynamism and evolution of information culture.

Explorations on the multi-scale flow structure and stability condition in bubble columns

Physical understanding of heterogeneous flow structure is of crucial importance for modelling and simulation of gas–liquid systems. This article presents a review and report of recent progress in our group on exploratory application of the variational (analytical) multi-scale approach to gas–liquid systems. The work features the closure of a hydrodynamic model with the incorporation of a stability condition reflecting the compromise between the dominant mechanisms in the system. A dual-bubble-size (DBS) model is proposed to approximate the heterogeneous structure of gas–liquid systems based on a single-bubble-size (SBS) model previously established. Reasonable variation of the gas holdup and the composition of the two bubble species with operating conditions have been calculated and the regime transition can therefore be reasonably predicted for air-water system, suggesting that stability condition may provide an insightful concept to explain the general tendencies in gas–liquid systems out of their hydrodynamic complexity, and to give simple models of their overall behaviors. Of course, the diversity of the correlations for drag force and minimum bubble size and the sensitivity of the model predictions to these correlations may suggest the necessity to clarify further the essential and robust results in the current model and to reduce the uncertainties involved.

Orthogonal array experiment for architecting a system of systems responding to small boat attacks

AbstractIn this work we solve the problem of architecting a conceptual, near‐term, cost‐effective system of systems (SoS) to respond to small boats used by terrorists to attack maritime commerce traffic and critical shore infrastructures in the United States, by formulating the architecting problem as an assignment problem which is then solved using the orthogonal array experiment. Also known as the Taguchi method in quality control, the orthogonal array experiment is efficient for this class of problems. The optimality of the resulting architecture, called optimal cost‐effective architecture, is validated against a heuristically developed architecture and an optimal effective architecture; the latter is obtained also with the orthogonal array experiment approach. The main purpose of this paper is an exploratory application of the Taguchi method to architecting a system of systems. The principal results of the orthogonal array experiment method reported herein underline this successful exploratory work in architecting a system of systems. This method can be extended to architecting other systems of systems. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 10: 241–259, 2007

Scientific mobility policies: how Portuguese scientists envisage the return home

This paper addresses the mobility of scientists and its implications for countries with weaker scientific and technological systems. It focuses on the “return dilemma” and, using the Portuguese case as empirical setting, discusses the conditions for return, the diaspora option and the role of policies in minimising the impacts of unbalanced flows. We propose a method to identify and locate key expatriate scientists (a basic problem in mobility research) and conduct an exploratory application of that methodology in a specific field, in order to collect some information on scientists' trajectories as well as gaining some preliminary insights on their attitudes towards the home country. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Foreign ownership strategies of UK and US international franchisors: An exploratory application of Dunning's envelope paradigm

In industries dominated by franchising as the dominant mode of entry there is a tendency that franchisors pursue different ownership strategies. We test ownership strategies of international franchisors using Dunning's ‘envelope’ Ownership, Location and Internalization (OLI) paradigm. The ownership choices of international franchisors’ foreign market entry based on the strategic intent of exploitation and exploration are well explained by Dunning's ‘envelope’ OLI paradigm. Our results show that the dynamic L advantages (perceiving foreign locations as a source of learning), the static O advantages (nationality of the firm) and static L advantages (the role of foreign applicants) have a significant influence on the selection of foreign entry strategy by international franchisors.

Forensic Automatic Speaker Recognition [Exploratory DSP

This article discusses the approaches, potential, and limitations of forensic automatic speaker recognition (FASR) which is an exploratory application of digital speech signal processing and pattern recognition for judicial purposes, particularly for law enforcement

The Sonogel–Carbon materials as basis for development of enzyme biosensors for phenols and polyphenols monitoring: A detailed comparative study of three immobilization matrixes

Three amperometric biosensors based on immobilization of tyrosinase on a new Sonogel–Carbon electrode for detection of phenols and polyphenols are described. The electrode was prepared using high energy ultrasounds (HEU) directly applied to the precursors. The first biosensor was obtained by simple adsorption of the enzyme on the Sonogel–Carbon electrode. The second and the third ones, presenting sandwich configurations, were initially prepared by adsorption of the enzyme and then modification by mean of polymeric membrane such as polyethylene glycol for the second one, and the ion-exchanger Nafion in the case of the third biosensor. The optimal enzyme loading and polymer concentration, in the second layer, were found to be 285U and 0.5%, respectively. All biosensors showed optimal activity at the following conditions: pH 7, −200mV, and 0.02moll−1 phosphate buffer.The response of the biosensors toward five simple phenols derivatives and two polyphenols were investigated. It was found that the three developed tyrosinase Sonogel–Carbon based biosensors are in satisfactory competitiveness for phenolic compounds determination with other tyrosinase based biosensors reported in the literature. The detection limit, sensitivity, and the apparent Michaelis–Menten constant Kmapp for the Nafion modified biosensor were, respectively, 0.064, 0.096, and 0.03μmol, 82.5, 63.4, and 194nAμmol−1l−1, and 67.1, 54.6, and 12.1μmoll−1 for catechol, phenol, and 4-chloro-3-methylphenol. Hill coefficient values (around 1 for all cases), demonstrated that the immobilization method does not affect the nature of the enzyme and confirms the biocompatibility of the Sonogel–Carbon with the bioprobe. An exploratory application to real samples such as beers, river waters and tannery wastewaters showed the ability of the developed Nafion/tyrosinase/Sonogel–Carbon biosensor to retain its stable and reproducible response.

Capturing a Scheme Design for Rainscreen Cladding

Abstract: This article reports on the exploratory application of product modeling techniques to the cladding of buildings. More specifically, it focuses on the development of a product model to formally capture the scheme design for a building that is clad with “rainscreen cladding.” Such a model would enable the cladding scheme design to be conveyed in digital form throughout the subsequent procurement process. Rainscreen cladding was selected as being an exemplar of the cladding types used on buildings, although the resulting product model provides for the capture of visual and functional requirements. The article introduces the wider context of the research, explains the particular focus adopted for the modeling, describes the as‐developed product model and includes an outline of prototype software that was developed specifically to help validate the model. The resulting product model could readily be reworked as a cladding extension to the IFC or the CIS/2.

Combining MCDA and conflict analysis: an exploratory application of an integrated approach

The majority of personal and organizational problems are multiparty and multi-criteria in nature; that is, they involve conflicts among people and conflicts among goals. The ability to support, in a OR/MS sense, the resolution of such complex problems calls for the exploitation of the complementary features of multiple established methods.In this exploratory paper, the authors focus on an integrated use of Drama Theory and MCDA. The aim is to develop an integrated framework for multi-actor, multicriteria decision aid that extends each of the existing methodologies and exploits their potential for synergy with a view to providing more effective decision support, on a uni-lateral or multi-lateral basis, to parties embroiled in such circumstances. The descriptive analysis of a live issue documents the approach and demonstrates the potential for such a framework and the benefits that could arise.