Information Providers Research Articles

Harnessing the Power of Scientists and Livestreaming: Health Information Outreach in a Medical Library

ABSTRACTOver the last two decades, medical libraries have shifted from being careful suppliers of health information for consumers and patients to taking on prominent roles in outreach initiatives. The emerging livestreaming technology provides opportunities for medical libraries to disseminate health information and facilitate dialogues between health professionals and the public. This article presents a case study of Fudan University Medical Library's innovative approach to health information outreach through livestreaming. By leveraging the expertise of health professionals and embracing the livestreaming technologies, the library successfully engaged a broad audience, surpassing the limitations of traditional outreach methods. Based on the case, the article discusses the transformative potential of livestreaming in reshaping health information outreach and promoting health.

Հայաստանի ազգային գրադարանի կայուն զարգացման հեռանկարը

The National Library of Armenia, a vital public institution, has played a crucial role in accumulating a vast database of human knowledge over its century-long existence. Emphasizing the importance of making its collections accessible and usable, the library has adapted its priorities in response to challenges posed by the pandemic and war. Aligning with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) introduced in 2017, libraries, including the National Library of Armenia, contribute significantly by promoting literacy, ensuring free information availability, and fostering safe and inclusive spaces. The integration of libraries into the SDGs is rooted in their role as primary suppliers of information, supporting the broader goals of sustainable development.

Are State-Owned Enterprises Equally Reliable Information Suppliers? An Examination of the Impacts of State Ownership on Earnings Management Strategies of Chinese Enterprises

Earnings management refers to a company’s use of either accounting techniques (accrual-based earnings management) or real economic activities (real earnings management) to manipulate reported earnings and mislead users of financial information. It often indicates serious ethical issues in a company’s management, which will affect the reliability and sustainability of a firm’s services in the supply chain. Using A-share listed Chinese firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, we investigated the impacts of state ownership on management’s decision to select real or accrual-based earnings management strategies. We found that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) tend to favor real earnings management over accrual-based earnings management more than non-SOEs. Furthermore, those SOEs that are controlled by the central government engage in real earnings management more often than those controlled by local governments. We also examined whether media attention and litigation interact with state ownership to affect earnings management. We found that SOEs, especially central SOEs, with a high level of media attention or an incidence of litigation, are more likely to use real earnings management. Our research can assist firms in making better decisions in selecting business partners and service suppliers in an emerging market through the assessment of management integrity.

Time Bomb from the West: Video, the Advertising Industry, and Consumer Culture in Late-Socialist Czechoslovakia

Time Bomb from the West: Video, the Advertising Industry, and Consumer Culture in Late-Socialist Czechoslovakia

Heterogeneous traffic information provision on road networks with competitive or cooperative information providers

This paper studies the long-term effects of heterogeneous information provision on road networks with multiple information providers (IPs). To capture the information heterogeneity resulting from various IPs, we consider that users subscribing to different IPs receive non-identical information sets about the available routes and make route choices within their information sets. We investigate both IPs’ strategic interactions and users’ route choices in a bi-level “leader–follower” game. At the upper level, IPs act as leaders who compete or cooperate to determine the optimal information sets provided for their users to maximize their objectives. Three models are developed to investigate IPs’ strategic interactions, i.e., Nash game, Stackelberg game, and cooperation, in which IPs are non-cooperative, leader and followers, and cooperative, respectively. At the lower level, users act as followers to choose their user-optimal routes based on their received information sets. Wardrop Equilibrium with Multiple Information Classes (WEMIC) is defined to capture users’ route choices. The WEMIC problem is formulated as an equivalent variational inequality (VI) problem. The existence and uniqueness of the VI solution are proved. When IPs play the Nash game, the problem is formulated as an Equilibrium Problem with Equilibrium Constraints (EPEC) with discrete variables and non-continuous payoff functions. To solve the EPEC efficiently, we propose a Binary Coded Nash Dominance based Evolutionary (BCNDE) algorithm embedded with a heuristic method for action space reduction. Finally, numerical experiments with two IPs (a big IP and a small IP) are conducted to analyze the effects of unit information cost in the Nash game and the impact of the leader’s strategy in the Stackelberg game, respectively. We find that the small IP may benefit from higher information costs in the Nash game. Moreover, the effects of IPs’ competition and cooperation are compared from both the perspectives of IPs and the system. The results indicate that cooperation can reduce congestion and make both IPs better off. On the Nguyen–Dupuis network, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the BCNDE algorithm and analyze the effects of market share distribution in the Nash game. We also extend this study by considering elastic demand. The extended models, theoretical proofs, and corresponding numerical experiments are provided.

Recognize the bias? News media partisanship shapes the coverage of facial recognition technology in the United States

Media exists as the primary route through which the public learns about new technologies and thus plays an important role in shaping public sentiments. This article examines the influence of news media partisanship on the coverage of the controversial artificial intelligence (AI) technology facial recognition. A mixed-methods content analysis of news articles ( N = 451) from 23 US-based news outlets highlights the emergence of several frames in coverage of facial recognition pertaining to issues of privacy and surveillance, bias, technology’s ability to provide solutions, and its problematic development and implementation. Coverage was differentiated by partisanship, whereby left-leaning media focused more on ethical problems associated with the technology compared to their right-leaning peers who highlighted its abuses by foreign governments. Right-leaning media also referred more to technology’s positive uses, such as helping law enforcement, compared to left-leaning media. Finally, AI companies were the most dominant suppliers of information to the media regarding the technology.

An Empirical Study on How Well Do COVID-19 Information Dashboards Service Users’ Information Needs

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of dashboards for providing critical real-time information. In order to enable people to obtain information in time and to understand complex statistical data, many developers have designed and implemented public-oriented COVID-19 "information dashboards" during the pandemic. However, development often takes a long time and developers are not clear about many people's information needs, resulting in gaps between information needs and supplies. According to our empirical study and observations with popular developed COVID-19 dashboards, this seriously impedes information acquirement. Our study compares people's needs on Twitter with existing information suppliers. We determine that despite the COVID-19 information that is currently on existing dashboards, people are also interested in the relationship between COVID-19 and other viruses, the origin of COVID-19, vaccine development, fake new about COVID-19, impact on women, impact on school/university, and impact on business. Most of these have not yet been well addressed. We also summarise the visualization and interaction patterns commonly applied in dashboards, finding key patterns between data and visualization as well as visualization and interaction. Our findings can help developers to better optimize their dashboard to meet people's needs and make improvements to future crisis management dashboard development.

Student representation and participation in institutional decision-making: the perspective of AAU student representatives, Ethiopia

This article explored the status of student representation and participation in institutional decision-making; specifically, it focused on the nature of student representation; the perspective of student representatives on their participation; any available support to student representatives, and prevailing challenges to student participation in decision-making. Empirical data were collected through semi-structured interviews with two students' union executive committee members; and FGD with five college and department level student representatives as well as through relevant document reviews. By employing descriptive textual data analysis, four dominant themes emerged as findings of the study. These are: 1) supportive legal provision and participatory student election; 2) nominal participation, co-decision makers and information suppliers; 3) information gap and role confusion; and 4) mistrust and optimistic student union. Moreover, student participation involved different decision models (i.e. democratic political, democratic collegiate corporate and authoritarian-paternalistic) depending on the nature of the decision itself. Corporate level strategic and administrative decisions follow the democratic political decision model whereas decisions linked with student affairs and basic campus services take democratic collegiate model. On the other hand, students’ participation in academic related decisions were found to be characterized by authoritarian-paternalistic decision model. Despite some profound challenges, student representatives were found optimistic about the future. Nonetheless, further study is needed to identify the challenges, roles, and contributions of student participation especially in academic and strategic related institutional decisions.

Transparency in Spanish archive and library websites: A comparative study

Transparency is a principle that has attracted a good deal of international attention in recent years, especially in connection with combatting corruption and building open, participatory governments accountable to their citizens. Public libraries and archives are not only information suppliers, but also public bodies obliged to provide the citizenry with information about their own governance and activities. Those obligations are laid down in Spanish Act 19/2013 of 29 December on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance (Spanish initials LTAIPBG). This article describes the results of applying a transparency measuring tool, TransPa_BA, to 106 regionally administered national historic archives and national public libraries. The tool, in turn the result of a research project, includes 20 indicators to measure active public disclosure by public libraries and 22 by archives in keeping with the provisions of the aforementioned Act. The indicators and their respective parameters (visibility, content, form, accessibility, reusability, dating and currency) provide guidelines to enable these institutions to comply with transparency and accountability requirements by furnishing society in general and their stakeholders in particular with information on their activities and performance in key areas. Further to the findings, the target institutions have made hesitant attempts to enhance transparency with respect to earlier inquiries. Public libraries are observed to be more active than archives, although the transparency scores obtained are low due to the failure to provide information on some indicators as well as on parameters such as dating and reusability. Both types of institution have a long road ahead in the pursuit of greater transparency.

An exploratory study regarding communication facilitators and barriers reported by a cohort of multiple sclerosis (MS) community members from the international massive open online course ‘Understanding MS’

BackgroundEffective communication is essential for high-quality multiple sclerosis (MS)-related healthcare, but significant knowledge and practice gaps remain in this area. The aim of this study was to explore facilitators and barriers of communication about MS reported by members of the MS community. MethodsWe conducted an exploratory mixed method study analysing self-reported facilitators and barriers to communication among MS community members participating in a free international online course about MS (called Understanding MS) who commented on an optional discussion board. We quantitatively compared commenters with course participants who did not comment and, among commenters, compared health information consumers (people with MS, caregivers) and suppliers (healthcare providers, service providers, researchers) using chi square and t-tests. We evaluated free text discussion board responses for emergent themes, comparing and contrasting consumer and supplier responses. ResultsWe found that the sociodemographic characteristics of commenters (n = 262) were similar to course participants overall including age, sex and MS community role. However, among commenters, consumers (n = 152) were about 9 years older than suppliers (n = 57) on average (mean age consumers 52.9 years; suppliers 44.0 years p<0.001), and were less likely to have a university degree (p = 0.004) or live in Australia (the course host country representing almost 60% of the cohort; p<0.001). Nonetheless, consumers and suppliers listed similar facilitators for communication about MS: honesty, kindness/empathy/compassion, openness, and effective listening. Consumers further prioritized clarity and patience. Consumers were also more likely to list barriers to communication, commonly listing the following barriers: encountering a lack of knowledge about MS, the invisible symptoms of MS, uncertainty about the appropriate amount of communication, and concern about being perceived as complaining and/or burdening others. Finally, consumers also discussed communication as a means to educate others about MS. ConclusionsEffective communication remains a challenge in the MS community, particularly between health information suppliers and health information consumers. The results of this exploratory study highlight areas that should be considered when developing communication strategies for MS community members. A larger confirmatory study of MS health information consumers and suppliers that uses focus groups and individual interviews could be conducted to further explore these emerging themes.

More than agents: Federal bureaucrats as information suppliers in policymaking

AbstractBureaucrats are frequently conceptualized as agents of Congress, with much focus placed on their expertise as policy implementers or evaluators. That same expertise, though, allows bureaucrats to supply Congress with information throughout the policy process. Bureaucrats are just one of the many actors that compete to supply Congress with information to define problems and develop solutions. Congressional committees must prioritize all available information, deciding what to attend and what to ignore. I argue that bureaucrats are more likely to testify at hearings when there is (1) limited availability of alternative information sources, (2) the information they hold is necessary for achieving committee goals or tasks (ex. agency oversight), and (3) the information they have can alleviate diverse committee workloads. Using a new dataset of witnesses testifying at congressional committee hearings, I find that the prioritization of bureaucrats as witnesses is explainable in terms of policy area, committee type, and committee agenda.

A global meta-analysis of climate services and decision-making in agriculture

Harmonizing the supply of climate information with the type of information needed by next-users is crucial for effective weather and climate services (CS). Understanding of information demand could help reshape supply-side based CS that have dominated the field over the last few decades. Most CS have been developed using a ‘loading dock’ model, whereby products are designed by information suppliers with little input from or consultation with users of climate services. Notably, a focus on climate modelling and prediction has largely resulted in a lack of consideration of the demand-side when producing climate services. Here, we contribute to understanding of CS demand by presenting a global meta-analysis – a ‘decision matrix’ - of farmers’ climate-influenced decisions. We identify 41 studies that encompass 186 decisions, three forecast timescales (weather, dekadal, seasonal), and five forecast variables (precipitation, temperature, wind, soil moisture and soil temperature). Several insights were offered by this literature review into the value of climate services and the way forward in considering users’ needs. We find that the seasonal precipitation is the most frequently used forecast variable for decision-making, particularly of crop sowing date. Forecasts such as temperature, soil moisture and soil temperature appeared to be less used by farmers, according to the decision matrix. It is apparent that more investigation is necessary into how farmers use climate information in their decision-making to better establish the value of CS. We suggest that different sectors should make their respective decision matrices to explore decision spaces and engage with users of climate information in various sectors.

German-Language Websites Containing Information About Rare Diseases Lack Quality Indicators

A Review of: Pauer, F., Litzkendorf, S., Göbel, J., Storf, H., Zeidler, J., &amp; Graf von der Schulenburg, J.-M. (2017). Rare diseases on the Internet: An assessment of the quality of online information. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(1), e23. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.7056 Abstract Objective – To evaluate the quality of the information contained in websites about rare diseases and to determine if quality varies based on the supplier category of the website. Design – Questionnaire and content analysis. Setting – Germany Subjects – 693 German-language websites Methods – Websites were identified through a Google search: All 8,000 rare diseases (as listed on Orphanet) and their synonyms were entered into Google; the first 20 results for each disease were scanned for sites written in German. A questionnaire designed to measure the quality of information found on the websites was mailed to each identified website provider. For those who did not respond, the survey was completed by the authors using information from the site. A t test was used to examine differences in the quality of information among the types of information providers. Main Results – A total of 693 information suppliers were identified. The suppliers completed 17.7% of the surveys; the other 82.3% were completed by the authors. The majority of information providers were patient organizations/support groups (38.8%) followed by medical institutions (26.8%). Information provided by individuals had the lowest quality rating. There were no statistically significant differences between the quality of information supplied by patient support groups and medical institutions. The highest quality rating was provided by associations/sponsoring bodies. Conclusion – There is not much information available on the Internet regarding rare diseases. Patient support groups and organizations are the largest provider of information. The overall quality rating of information on rare disease websites was found to be low, particularly in areas of accessibility. Website providers should be made aware of how to produce websites of higher quality with greater accessibility.

WITHDRAWN: Privacy –Preserved in cloud based data sharing for energy management system using big data analytics

Abstract The fast increment in the volume of information created from associated gadgets is cloud network. The worldview opens up additional opportunities for improving the nature of administration for the rising applications through information sharing. In any case, security and protection concerns (e.g, information leakage) are significant deterrents for information suppliers to share their information in remote systems. The leakage of private information can prompt significant issues that lead to related misfortune for the suppliers. We first plan a data enabled secure information sharing engineering for dispersed various gatherings. At that point, we define the information sharing issue by consolidating security protected combined learning. The protection of information is all around kept up by sharing the information model as opposed to uncovering the real information. Numerical outcomes got from genuine world datasets show that the proposed information sharing plan accomplishes great exactness, high productivity, and upgraded security. We focus on seeking a solution that allows secure and effective access to the cloud data. In addition to ensuring strong data sharing security, the policy succeeds in preserving the privacy of cloud users. Security analysis indicates that the proposed policy is secured and enforces fine-grained access control and full collusion resistance simultaneously.

Impact of the COVID-19 Epidemic on the Information Disclosure of Government Charity Organizations：Text Analysis Based on the Information Disclosure of Anti-Epidemic Funds and Materials

In China, the information disclosure of charity organizations is lagging behind. Due to the lack of transparency, the negative news about the source and destination of charity funds has been frequently reported. The root of the trust crisis lies in the lack of effective information disclosure mechanism of charity organizations, which has become a stumbling block to the long-term healthy development of charity organizations. During this outbreak, the information disclosure of charity organizations has become a social focus in the fight against the virus. It can be seen that the public crisis not only causes casualties and serious ecological damage, but also causes the charity organizations involved to bear a lot of reputational costs. The epidemic’s query on the information disclosure of charity organizations could promote China’s implementation of the government accounting system reform and put forward constructive suggestions.The epidemic presents an excellent opportunity to study the information disclosure of non-profit organizations under public pressure. This study provides empirical evidence for promoting the implementation of Accounting System of Non-profit Organizations and even Charity Law in China, and emphasizes the importance of central and local governments on anticorrosion work during the epidemic. The occurrence, spread and suppression of the epidemic is a typical natural experiment, which is periodic and unpredictable. The call of the central government will be the political guarantee for non-profit organizations to seize this opportunity.This paper collects the disclosure information of China Charity Federation and Red Cross Society of China, and then empirically tests the development influence of public crisis on the charity information disclosure and its mechanism of action. It is found that the epidemic can promote information disclosure; the supervision effect of media public opinion pressure and the deterrent effect of anti-epidemic official turnover jointly play the regulatory role of external governance. Further analysis shows that after the “Han Hong Foundation” incident, the impact of epidemic development on the information disclosure of charity organizations is more significant. We conduct at least four robustness tests, and our main empirical findings are stable.This paper enriches the existing literature from the following three aspects: (1) It expands the research on the influencing factors of information disclosure of charity organizations, and deepens the understanding of the law of information disclosure of charity organizations. The existing studies mainly discuss the organizational characteristics of charity organizations and the characteristics of council from the perspective of information suppliers to study the influencing factors of information disclosure of charity organizations. This paper examines the demands of information demanders from the development process of public crisis, expands the cognition of influencing factors of information disclosure of charity organizations, and makes up for the lack of information supply perspective. (2) It expands the research on the supervision effect of media reports and the deterrent effect of official turnover. The existing studies have proved that the pressure of public opinion in media reports plays an important role. The findings of this paper prove that in the special situation of public crisis events, media reports and official turnover can significantly improve the response level of charity organizations to social information needs. (3) It expands the policy research on the restoration of social and economic order after the public crisis. The findings of this study show that the public crisis can promote the information disclosure of charity organizations, and has the policy reference significance of “COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control”.

Directors' Informational Role in Corporate Voluntary Disclosure: An Analysis of Directors from Related Industries

ABSTRACTBoards of directors play their role in corporate governance by advising and/or monitoring managers. In the corporate disclosure literature, prior research has documented directors' monitoring role, yet empirical evidence on directors' advising role is limited. Since the advising role often entails information transfer, we examine directors who concurrently serve as directors or executives in the firms' related industries (DRIs) and hence possess valuable information about the firms' external operating environment. We hypothesize and find that more DRIs on boards are associated with more accurate management forecasts. This association is stronger when firms face greater uncertainty, and holds in settings where DRIs are unlikely to monitor managers, suggesting a distinct advising role of DRIs. Our study highlights directors' role as information suppliers and advisors who help shape corporate voluntary disclosure.

IMPACTO DE LOS MEDIOS DE COMUNICACIÓN EN EL ACCESO A INFORMACIÓN SOBRE EL CUIDADO E HIGIENE BUCAL EN EL PERÚ, 2013-2016

Introducción: los medios de comunicación son nuevas formas para transmitir información en salud debido al fácil acceso en la población. El objetivo del presente estudio consistió en determinar el impacto de los medios de comunicación en el acceso a la información sobre el cuidado e higiene bucal en la población peruana entre 2013 y 2016. Métodos: estudio longitudinal y observacional. Se utilizaron las bases de datos de las Encuesta Demográfica y de Salud Familiar (ENDES) de 2013 a 2016, siendo las variables el acceso a información, entidad y sector proveedor de información, ámbito geográfico, región natural y año. Se realizó un análisis descriptivo, bivariado (Chi-cuadrado) y multivariado (Regresión Loglineal de Poisson), con un nivel de confianza de 95% y un p&lt;0.05. Resultados: el acceso a información sobre el cuidado e higiene bucal por los medios de comunicación en menores de 12 años de edad fue 12.8% en 2013 y disminuyó hasta 8.94% en 2016. Se encontró un impacto positivo de los medios de comunicación para obtener información sobre el cuidado en salud bucal ajustado por ámbito geográfico y región natural: 2013 con RP: 1,96 (1,89-2,02); 2014 con RP: 1,85 (1,82-1,87); 2015 con RP: 1,61 (1,60-1,63); 2016 con RP: 1,62 (1,60-1,64) y 2013-2016 con RP: 1,69 (1,68-1,79). Conclusiones: el acceso a la información sobre el cuidado e higiene bucal brindado por los medios de comunicación ha ido disminuyendo en el Perú; sin embargo, tienen un impacto positivo en el acceso, aumentado la probabilidad de quienes usan este medio en comparación con los otros proveedores de información, inclusive considerando el ámbito geográfico y la región natural.

Cross-Sector Emergency Information Networks on Social Media: Online Bridging and Bonding Communication Patterns

A key challenge for public administrators is facilitating communication among diverse actors. This article illustrates the information seeking and sharing preferences of notable emergency information suppliers on social media who operate primarily within four states. Through homophily and brokerage analyses, two basic communication preferences were noted: (a) bridging patterns in which actors interact with diverse sources of information, and (b) bonding patterns in which actors rely on sources from similar backgrounds. Both provide value for practitioners. A crucial task, then, is to balance those approaches and adjust to the shifting demands of the external environment.

Directors’ Informational Role in Corporate Voluntary Disclosure: An Analysis of Directors from Related Industries

Boards of directors play their role in corporate governance by advising and/or monitoring managers. In the corporate disclosure literature, prior research has documented directors’ monitoring role, yet empirical evidence on directors’ advising role is limited. Since the advising role often entails information transfer, we examine directors who concurrently serve as directors or executives in the firms’ related industries (DRIs) and hence possess valuable information about the firms’ external operating environment. We hypothesize and find that more DRIs on boards are associated with more accurate management forecasts. This association is stronger when firms face greater uncertainty, and holds in settings where DRIs are unlikely to monitor managers, suggesting a distinct advising role of DRIs. Our study highlights directors’ role as information suppliers and advisors who help shape corporate voluntary disclosure.

An Energy Efficient Integration Model for Sensor Cloud Systems

This paper proposes a novel information-centric prediction-based integration model for WSNs and the sensor cloud, which exploits the trade-off between the data accuracy requirement of applications, sensing data prediction quality, and the energy efficiency of sensors, to reduce the workloads and energy consumptions of resource-constrained sensors. The model decouples information producers (IPDs) (i.e., physical sensors) from information providers (IPVs), which are implemented as IPDs’ virtual sensors in the sensor cloud, to enable IPVs to provide sensing services when IPDs sleep. In the model, we design an efficient interactive sensing data prediction scheme for IPDs and IPVs to predict and control the accuracy of the sensing data prediction of IPVs using internal temporal information correlation, community detection, and external information correlation among sensors. According to the data accuracy requirement of applications, the model controls: 1) the number of IPDs required to be active and 2) when an active IPD transmits sensing data to the sensor cloud, to maintain the quality of sensing data meeting the requirement. Through extensive experiments with data collected from the real-world IntelLab sensor deployment, we show that the model achieves significant improvements in terms of data transmission suppression ratio, energy efficiency, and response latency compared with the existing schemes.