Multidimensional Scaling Techniques Research Articles

The Construal of Workplace Incivility in Honor Cultures: Evidence From Turkey

Most research on workplace incivility has been conducted in the United States, where the cultural logic of dignity prescribes that individuals’ worthiness be determined in reference to self-set standards. This inductive study explores the construal of workplace incivility in a contrasting cultural logic of honor, where an individual’s worth is largely dependent on the esteem of others. In particular, it seeks to understand how the logic of honor may influence which behaviors are labeled as incivility and which criteria are used to appraise uncivil behaviors in the Turkish context. In the first phase of the study, we asked 53 Turkish employees for examples of workplace incivility behaviors and generated 32 incivility episodes. In the second and third phases, using data from 35 business students and 106 Turkish employees, we analyzed these episodes using multidimensional scaling technique. The results suggested that workplace incivility may have both universal and culturally salient manifestations, and that Turkish respondents appraised uncivil behaviors along three dimensions: honor threatening versus ordinary, excluding versus intruding, inoffensive versus offensive. We further observed that Turkish participants differentiated the power of the instigator (supervisor vs. coworker) as well as the omission of versus commission of behaviors. We discuss the results with a focus on understanding how the honor logic may manifest itself in professional relationships.

ADMM-Based Sensor Network Localization Using Low-Rank Approximation

In this paper, we present an efficient localization algorithm for sensor networks using range information. Since each sensor can only communicate with its neighbors, the Euclidean distance matrix (EDM), composed by squared distances between each pair of sensors, is incomplete. The first step of the proposed algorithm is to fulfill the EDM completion and relative maps of sensor networks are then achieved by the multidimensional scaling technique. Besides the EDM, the centralized Gram matrix of sensors’ coordinates is also used to model the localization problem. Compared with other EDM-based localization algorithms, mathematical properties of both the EDM and the Gram matrix are appropriately exploited so as to improve the estimation accuracy. The resulting localization model is formulated as a semidefinite programming problem. An alternating direction method of multipliers is further developed to enhance the scalability of the proposed algorithm. The numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can effectively improve the estimation accuracy of both the EDM completion and the final localization.

The Ethics of Technology: Response to Critics.

The Ethics of Technology: A Geometric Analysis of Five Moral Principles proposes five moral principles for analyzing ethical issues related to engineering and technology. The objections raised by several authors to the multidimensional scaling technique used in the book reveal a lack of familiarity with this widely used technique.

The Effect of Telephone Transmission on Voice Quality Perception

This study aims to analyze the effect of telephone transmission on the voice quality perception of subjects with dysphonia and seeks to contribute to the use of perceptual voice analysis in forensic context. The main hypothesis is that the auditory perception of voice quality differs according to the acoustic quality of the speech material. Eight male speakers were simultaneously recorded directly by a digital recorder and over a mobile phone. A perceptual experiment containing 21 speech samples was used. The samples were analyzed via an online adaptation of the Vocal Profile Analysis Scheme (VPAS) into Brazilian Portuguese by a group of six voice-specialized professionals. Data analysis included the relative frequency of the 10 most evaluated VPAS settings in both recording conditions, and the relative frequency of the VPAS groups of features. A multidimensional scaling technique was applied to investigate the perceptual distance between stimuli pairs from both recording conditions. This was followed by a nonparametric multiple linear regression analysis that aimed to comprehend the underlying variables that motivated the spatial arrangement of the stimuli. The telephone transmission effect may have an influence on assessing correctly the supralaryngeal, laryngeal, prosodic, and temporal VPAS settings. The perceptual distance between stimuli pairs were mainly motivated by the rating of velopharyngeal system, respiratory support, laryngeal tension, speech rate, and creaky voice. The auditory perception differences between the stimuli pairs with different acoustic qualities could be related to the mobile phone bandwidth and data compression, and to telephone interaction characteristics. A group of laryngeal, supralaryngeal, temporal, and respiratory settings was mainly related to the dissimilarities reported. In terms of the application of VPAS in forensic context, the protocol was considered a relevant scientific tool that enables standardizing and analysis comparison among different groups of forensic specialists.

Dynamic Multidimensional Scaling with anchors and height constraints for indoor localization of mobile nodes

In distance-based localization, estimating the position of a network of wireless sensors is not an easy task. The problem increases when dealing with moving nodes and cluttered indoor environments. Many algorithms have been proposed in the literature and, among them, the Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) technique gained a lot of interest due to its resilience to flips ambiguities and easiness of use. Many variants of MDS have been proposed to overcome issues such as partial connectivity or distributed computation. In this context, it is common to place some anchors nodes to help in estimating the coordinates of the network correctly. However, instead of using the anchor’s positions directly during the minimization of the MDS cost function, most approaches act on the estimated coordinates at the end of the MDS computation without fully utilizing the knowledge about anchors. In this work, the classic MDS and Dynamic MDS have been reformulated to utilize the anchor’s position inside the minimization function. A set of real experiments in 3D with Ultrawide-band devices show that our approach considerably improves the accuracy of localization with respect to the usual MDS techniques.

Multivariate statistical techniques for metagenomic analysis of microbial community recovered from environmental samples

High-throughput big dataset generated through next generation sequencing (NGS) of DNA samples helps identify key differences in the function and taxonomy between microbial communities as well as shed light on the diversity of microbes, cooperation and evolution in any particular ecosystem. During this study, three statistical techniques namely, Random Forest (RF), Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) approaches were employed for functional analysis of 212 publicly available metagenomic datasets within and between 10 environments against 27 metabolic functions. RF generates the 8 most important metabolic variables along with MDS and LDA among which Photosynthesis has the highest score (70.20); Phages, prophages has the second highest score (61.31) and Membrane Transport was found to have the eighth highest score (45.29). The MDS plot was found useful to visualize the separation of the microbes from human or animal hosts from other samples along the first dimension and the separation of the aquatic and mat communities along the second dimension. LDA analyses compared the extent of the microbial samples into three broad groups: the human and animal associated samples, the microbial mats, and the aquatic samples. RF showed that phage activity is a major difference between host-associated microbial communities and free-living. The MDS and LDA techniques suggest that mat communities were unique from both the animal associated metagenomes and the aquatic samples with differences in the vitamin and cofactor metabolism.J. bio-sci. 24: 45-53, 2016

Identifying key habitat and spatial patterns of fish biodiversity in the tropical Brazilian continental shelf

Knowledge of the spatial distribution of fish assemblages biodiversity and structure is essential for prioritizing areas of conservation. Here we describe the biodiversity and community structure of demersal fish assemblages and their habitat along the northeast Brazilian coast by combining bottom trawl data and underwater footage. Species composition was estimated by number and weight, while patterns of dominance were obtained based on frequency of occurrence and relative abundance. A total of 7235 individuals (830 kg), distributed in 24 orders, 49 families and 120 species were collected. Community structure was investigated through clustering analysis and by a non-metric multidimensional scaling technique. Finally, diversity was assessed based on six indices. Four major assemblages were identified, mainly associated with habitat type and depth range. The higher values of richness were found in sand substrate with rocks, coralline formations and sponges (SWCR) habitats, while higher values of diversity were found in habitats located on shallow waters (10–30 m). Further, assemblages associated with sponge-reef formations presented the highest values of richness and diversity. In management strategies of conservation, we thus recommend giving special attention on SWCR habitats, mainly those located on depths between 30 and 60 m. This can be achieved by an offshore expansion of existing MPAs and/or by the creation of new MPAs encompassing those environments.

Service quality in Medellin hotels using perceptual maps

The online comments and assessments made by hotel customers provide relevant information to determine the various dimensions of the service received. In this context, the purpose of this work is to evaluate the quality perceived by national and international guests staying at different hotels in Medellín (Colombia). To this end, the multidimensional scaling technique of perceptual maps was used to apply to 9,153 comments made on the TripAdvisor platform to 57 hotels between 2005 and 2010. The main finding shows that the factors most valued by guests are cleanliness, quality of rest and service above the location, price and comfort of the rooms, although these factors differ according to the characteristics of the visitor and the hotel.

MODE-TASK: large-scale protein motion tools.

SummaryMODE-TASK, a novel and versatile software suite, comprises Principal Component Analysis, Multidimensional Scaling, and t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding techniques using Molecular Dynamics trajectories. MODE-TASK also includes a Normal Mode Analysis tool based on Anisotropic Network Model so as to provide a variety of ways to analyse and compare large-scale motions of protein complexes for which long MD simulations are prohibitive. Beside the command line function, a GUI has been developed as a PyMOL plugin.Availability and implementationMODE-TASK is open source, and available for download from https://github.com/RUBi-ZA/MODE-TASK. It is implemented in Python and C++. It is compatible with Python 2.x and Python 3.x and can be installed by Conda.Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Public Accounting Reporting, under an Achievable Metamorphosis?

This study aims to provide a holistic approach of the European Union (EU) fiscal and financial reporting systems by assessing them through European System of National Accounts (ESA 2010) and International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) reference, both having the accrual basis as benchmark of governmental accounting. The empirical research performed by combining the cluster analysis with the multidimensional scaling technique enables us to map all EU member states and emphasize potential connections between their fiscal and financial systems, thus providing a visual image of the two facets of public accounting. The results reveal a wide and strong interest in sound reporting able to improve transparency through performance management systems. These support European Public Sector Accounting Standards project aimed to adjust inaccuracies between IPSAS and ESA 2010 and finally to enhance good governance and create a positive environment by facilitating transparency and comparability.

A Survey on Multidimensional Scaling

This survey presents multidimensional scaling (MDS) methods and their applications in real world. MDS is an exploratory and multivariate data analysis technique becoming more and more popular. MDS is one of the multivariate data analysis techniques, which tries to represent the higher dimensional data into lower space. The input data for MDS analysis is measured by the dissimilarity or similarity of the objects under observation. Once the MDS technique is applied to the measured dissimilarity or similarity, MDS results in a spatial map. In the spatial map, the dissimilar objects are far apart while objects which are similar are placed close to each other. In this survey article, MDS is described in comprehensive fashion by explaining the basic notions of classical MDS and how MDS can be helpful to analyze the multidimensional data. Later on, various special models based on MDS are described in a more mathematical way followed by comparisons of various MDS techniques.

Performance Analysis of Metric Multi Dimensional Scaling with Respect to Different Goodness-of-Fit Criteria in the Context of Dimensionality Reduction

Data Mining has become one of the most prominent areas of research. Most of the Data Mining tasks are affected by the curse of dimensionality. Dimensionality reduction is one of the solutions to cope up with the curse of dimensionality. The present work analyzes the performance of Metric Multidimensional Scaling technique with respect to different goodness-of-fit criteria such as Stress, Squared stress, Sammon and Strain in the context of dimensionality Reduction. Time and space have been considered as parameters for analyzing the performance of Metric Multidimensional Scaling technique. Images of different sizes have been considered and Metric Multi dimensional Scaling has been applied to them for dimensionality reduction. The results obtained show that the time taken for dimensionality reduction by Metric Multidimensional Scaling with strain criterion is higher than time taken for dimensionality reduction by Metric Multi dimensional Scaling with stress, squared stress and sammon criteria. The size of the images obtained after applying Metric Multidimensional Scaling remains same for all goodness-of-fit criteria.

An Energy-Based Model Encoding Nonlocal Pairwise Pixel Interactions for Multisensor Change Detection

Image change detection (CD) is a challenging problem, particularly when images come from different sensors. In this paper, we present a novel and reliable CD model, which is first based on the estimation of a robust similarity-feature map generated from a pair of bitemporal heterogeneous remote sensing images. This similarity-feature map, which is supposed to represent the difference between the multitemporal multisensor images, is herein defined, by specifying a set of linear equality constraints, expressed for each pair of pixels existing in the before-and-after satellite images acquired through different modalities. An estimation of this overconstrained problem, also formulated as a nonlocal pairwise energy-based model, is then carried out, in the least square sense, by a fast linear-complexity algorithm based on a multidimensional scaling mapping technique. Finally, the fusion of different binary segmentation results, obtained from this similarity-feature map by different automatic thresholding algorithms, allows us to precisely and automatically classify the changed and unchanged regions. The proposed method is tested on satellite data sets acquired by real heterogeneous sensor, and the results obtained demonstrate the robustness of the proposed model compared with the best existing state-of-the-art multimodal CD methods recently proposed in the literature.

A multidimensional analysis of corporate governance and hospitality environment in the private Brazilian hospital sector

This study evaluated the corporate governance practices of hospitals affiliated with the National Association of Private Hospitals (NAPH). This was a quantitative study of descriptive nature, which utilised the ex post facto research strategy and employed the multidimensional scaling technique of accounting data, hospitality environment and corporate governance practices gathered from the hospital websites. It was found that hospitals that showed more adherence to corporate governance practices presented the best financial indicators and outlook. Thus, the result showed a positive application of corporate governance practices.

Analisis Keberlanjutan Pembangunan Kota Tepian Pantai (Studi Kasus: Kota Baubau Provinsi Sulawesi Tenggara)

The complexity of coastal development in Baubau City needs to be anticipated carefully for hindering coastal ecosystems sustainability away from disruptions and threats. Environmental degradation resulted from developments could be disastrous to economic and infrastructure sectors as well as human lives. Therefore, development initiatives are supposed to comply with the principles of sustainable development. Accordingly, sustainability analysis is necessary to figure out the sustainability status of Baubau City development. The purpose of this study is to analyze the sustainability of Baubau City development in accordance with multidimensional measurement of ecological, economic, social, infrastructure and technology, and law and institution. The data used in this study include primary and secondary data obtained through literature studies, expert discussions/stakeholder, interviews, questionnaires, and field surveys. The sustainability analysis applies multidimensional scaling, leverage, Pareto, and Monte Carlo techniques. The results show that Baubau City is quite sustainable in technological infrastructure dimension (74,77), and institutional law dimension (65,87), but less sustainable in ecology dimension (32,90) and economic dimension (41,87), and unsustainable in social dimension (20,61). In addition, there are 35 sensitive attributes affecting the sustainability of Baubau City development.

Determinants of assessing the quality of advertising services - The perspective of enterprises active and inactive in advertising

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the perception of advertising services, addressing the intensity of advertising services and the evaluation of advertising quality. Using multidimensional scaling techniques for 505 enterprises in Poland, the authors demonstrate that managers employ different criteria to assess the quality of advertising services. The selection of these criteria is influenced by the company's size and its experience cooperating with advertising agencies. A statistically significant relationship occurred between the size of the company and the choice to use or not to use the services of advertising agencies, the companies' choice to use or not to use the services of advertising agencies and the perception of the importance of factors that determine advertising agencies' quality by the managers of these companies.

Oil source and charge in the Wuerxun Depression, Hailar Basin, northeast China: A chemometric study

One-hundred-fifty-four samples collected from the Wuerxun Depression, Hailar Basin, northeast China were analyzed using GC-MS. The K1n Formation (including K1n2 and K1n1 members) consists mainly of argillaceous rock with relatively abundant organic matter and is considered to be the best source rock in the study area, whereas the K1t Formation and K1d1 member (Damoguaihe Formation) provide a limited contribution to the Wuerxun oils. Chemometric methods, i.e., principal component analysis (PCA) and multidimensional scaling (MDS), were used for oil-oil and oil-source rock correlations in this study. Based on PCA and geological evidence, the oils from northern Wuerxun originated primarily from source rocks of the K1n1 member that were charged ca. 100 Ma, whereas those in the southern Wuerxun form separate genetic groups I and II. When combined with trend surface analysis, the MDS technique also revealed variations in the depositional conditions and the maturity of the source rocks and oils. Group I oils, which have relatively higher maturity, are characterized by relatively high saturate/aromatic hydrocarbon ratios, high Pr/Ph ratios (>1), high Ts/(Ts + Tm) ratios, a slight predominance of C29 regular steranes, and more positive δ13C values of saturated and aromatic hydrocarbon fractions, whereas, the lower maturity group II oils have relatively low saturate/aromatic hydrocarbon ratios, low Pr/Ph ratios (<1), low Ts/(Ts + Tm) ratios, high C29 regular steranes and more negative δ13C values of saturated and aromatic hydrocarbon fractions. Analysis indicates that group I oils represent mixtures generated from the K1n1 and K1n2 members during the late hydrocarbon generation stage (ca. 25 Ma), whereas group II oils were primarily generated from the K1n1 member during the early oil generation stage (ca. 93 Ma). The distributions of group I and group II oils are mostly controlled by tectonic development in the southern Wuerxun Depression.

Um estudo da virtualização de processos: o uso de mundos virtuais com foco em ensino-aprendizagem

RESUMO Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TICs) têm permitido que processos que dependiam da presença física de indivíduos ou objetos, em um mesmo lugar e tempo, ocorram sem esses limites. Dentre esses, o Processo Ensino-Aprendizagem (PEA) vem ganhando notoriedade, apesar de ainda persistirem dúvidas quando à adequação dessas tecnologias. Portanto, esta pesquisa teve o objetivo de identificar a relação entre requisitos de um processo e capacidades das TICs. Especificamente, foi estudada a adequação dos mundos virtuais à virtualização do PEA, com base na Teoria de Virtualização de Processo (TVP), por meio de evidências advindas de três cursos e analisadas por meio de técnicas de análise de conteúdo e escalonamento multidimensional. Isso resultou em um quadro sistematizado que permite entender o alinhamento entre TIC e requisitos de processo para a sua virtualização, evidenciando quais TICs têm viabilizado o desenvolvimento do PEA.

Understanding Adolescents' Categorisation of Animal Species.

Simple SummaryWhen people try to make sense of the world they often use categorisations, which are seen as a basic function of human cognition. People use specific attributes to categorise animals with young children using mostly visual cues like number of legs, whereas adults use more comprehensive attributes such as the habitat that the animal lives in. The aim of the present study was to investigate how adolescents categorise different types of animals. A card sorting exercise in combination with a survey questionnaire was implemented. Adolescents were asked to group images of a variety of common British farm, pet, and wild animals that were printed on cards. Furthermore, adolescents were asked to rate a number of animals regarding their utility, likability, and fear, which served as affective responses. Results show that adolescents primarily use an animal’s perceived utility as a means for their categorisation along with their affective feelings towards those animals. In other words, adolescents group animals into farm, pet, and wild animals with one exception, birds. Birds, regardless of their role in society (pet, farm, or wild animal), were mostly grouped together. The results are important to understand adolescents’ perception of animals, which may explain the different attitudes and behaviours towards animals.Categorisations are a means of investigating cognitive maps. The present study, for the first time, investigates adolescents’ spontaneous categorisation of 34 animal species. Furthermore, explicit evaluations of 16 selected animals in terms of their perceived utility and likeability were analysed. 105 British adolescents, 54% female, mean age 14.5 (SD = 1.6) participated in the study. Results of multidimensional scaling (MDS) techniques indicate 3-dimensional data representation regardless of gender or age. Property fittings show that affect and perceived utility of animals explain two of the MDS dimensions, and hence partly explain adolescents’ categorisation. Additionally, hierarchical cluster analyses show a differentiation between farm animals, birds, pet animals, and wild animals possibly explaining MDS dimension 3. The results suggest that utility perceptions predominantly underlie adolescents’ categorisations and become even more dominant in older adolescents, which potentially has an influence on attitudes to animals with implications for animal welfare, conservation, and education.

Entropy Analysis of Monetary Unions

This paper is an exercise of quantitative dynamic analysis applied to bilateral relationships among partners within two monetary union case studies: the Portuguese escudo zone monetary union (EZMU) and the European euro zone monetary union (EMU). Real world data are tackled and measures that are usual in complex system analysis, such as entropy, mutual information, Canberra distance, and Jensen–Shannon divergence, are adopted. The emerging relationships are visualized by means of the multidimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering computational techniques. Results bring evidence on long-run stochastic dynamics that lead to asymmetric indebtedness mechanisms among the partners of a monetary union and sustainability difficulties. The consequences of unsustainability and disruption of monetary unions have high importance for the discussion on optimal currency areas from a geopolitical perspective.