Personal Information Sources Research Articles

Long-distance communication can enable collective migration in a dynamic seascape

Social information is predicted to enhance the quality of animals’ migratory decisions in dynamic ecosystems, but the relative benefits of social information in the long-range movements of marine megafauna are unknown. In particular, whether and how migrants use nonlocal information gained through social communication at the large spatial scale of oceanic ecosystems remains unclear. Here we test hypotheses about the cues underlying timing of blue whales’ breeding migration in the Northeast Pacific via individual-based models parameterized by empirical behavioral data. Comparing emergent patterns from individual-based models to individual and population-level empirical metrics of migration timing, we find that individual whales likely rely on both personal and social sources of information about forage availability in deciding when to depart from their vast and dynamic foraging habitat and initiate breeding migration. Empirical patterns of migratory phenology can only be reproduced by models in which individuals use long-distance social information about conspecifics’ behavioral state, which is known to be encoded in the patterning of their widely propagating songs. Further, social communication improves pre-migration seasonal foraging performance by over 60% relative to asocial movement mechanisms. Our results suggest that long-range communication enhances the perceptual ranges of migrating whales beyond that of any individual, resulting in increased foraging performance and more collective migration timing. These findings indicate the value of nonlocal social information in an oceanic migrant and suggest the importance of long-distance acoustic communication in the collective migration of wide-ranging marine megafauna.

Speaker Anonymization: Disentangling Speaker Features from Pre-Trained Speech Embeddings for Voice Conversion

Speech is a crucial source of personal information, and the risk of attackers using such information increases day by day. Speaker privacy protection is crucial, and various approaches have been proposed to hide the speaker’s identity. One approach is voice anonymization, which aims to safeguard speaker identity while maintaining speech content through techniques such as voice conversion or spectral feature alteration. The significance of voice anonymization has grown due to the necessity to protect personal information in applications such as voice assistants, authentication, and customer support. Building upon the S3PRL-VC toolkit and on pre-trained speech and speaker representation models, this paper introduces a feature disentanglement approach to improve the de-identification performance of the state-of-the-art anonymization approaches based on voice conversion. The proposed approach achieves state-of-the-art speaker de-identification and causes minimal impact on the intelligibility of the signal after conversion.

On the possibilities of recruiting minors as confidential personal sources of information

Polski ustawodawca nie uregulował w żaden sposób możliwości współpracy Policji z nieletnimi jako poufnymi osobowymi źródłami informacji. W związku z tym od wielu lat pojawiają się opinie o braku przeszkód prawnych do takiej współpracy. Zapomina się jednak, że może się ona wiązać z licznymi zagrożeniami dla małoletnich, a decyzja ustawodawcy wynika raczej z braku świadomości trudnych wyborów, przed jakimi mogą stanąć np. policjanci rozpracowujący grupy przestępcze. Konieczne jest szersze przedstawienie własnego spojrzenia na tę kwestię, opartego zarówno na praktycznych doświadczeniach, jak i wynikającego z pogłębionej analizy przepisów konstytucyjnych, ustawowych i umów międzynarodowych. Wszystko to pozwala na sformułowanie szeregu postulatów, które ułatwią służbom policyjnym działanie w granicach prawa.

How Do Demographic Characteristics of Faculty in Selected Universities in Ghana Explain Their Sources of Personal Information?

This paper examined the sources of faculty's personal information and the reasons for creating information. We tested the hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between the demographic characteristics of the respondents and their choice of sources of personal information. This study's population comes from four public universities and two private universities in Ghana. A sample survey research design and a sample of 235 faculty were used, and data were collected using a questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using Multinomial Logistic Regression in addition to frequency distributions. Demographic characteristics of faculty relate aptly to their personal information sources and be integrated into information literacy activities. Improving the PIM performance of faculty will require understanding their personal information sources to improve productivity and promote good health.

ASIO telecommunications interception and data access powers

Modern mobile phones bear no resemblance to rotary-dial phones of the 1960s. The volume and nature of data extracted from intercepting a ‘telecommunications service’ in today’s online world is fundamentally different to ‘wire-tapping’ a phone conversation. Yet the statutory threshold for ASIO to intercept a telecommunications service has not changed since 1960. There is no statutory requirement to consider privacy or proportionality when issuing ASIO a warrant. The situation is similar for access to telecommunications data (metadata), once just a list of numbers dialled but now a rich source of personal information. This article argues that it is time for the law to change.

Managing cybersecurity risk in healthcare settings.

Cybersecurity attacks have been steadily increasing in the healthcare sector over the past decade. Health data is a valuable source of reliable and permanent personal information making it an attractive target. Institutions that have faced limited cybersecurity funding must now augment their approach to combat this threat. The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the connection of physical operational devices to digital networks allowing for communication between devices. In the healthcare setting, this includes patient monitoring, diagnostics, and even robotic surgery devices. This increased connectivity increases the importance of agile and robust cybersecurity measures. A progressive approach must involve collaboration between information technology, clinical, and administrative leaders to be successful. Adequate protection of patient data and the integrity of digital infrastructure must be a priority mandate at the enterprise level.

Perioperative pain management in dermatosurgery - current practice in Germany: Data analysis of a Germany-wide online survey among dermatosurgeons.

Adequate pain management should be part of the standard of care in surgical procedures. However, there is a paucity of data in the field of dermatosurgery. In a standardized online survey among dermatosurgeons working in Germany, the current practice of perioperative pain management was investigated. Members of the German Society for Dermatosurgery (DGDC) and heads of dermatosurgical departments were asked to participate. Questions were related to practical implementation of perioperative pain management, pain documentation and personal sources of information on the topic. 116 questionnaires were analyzed. While prophylactic analgesia is rarely used, the vast majority (86%) reported the use of postoperative on-demand medication. The majority of surgeons do not have a fixed regimen. Mostly NSAIDs and occasionally low potency opioids are used. Pain is documented by the majority (59.1%) as free text. Personal experience (69%) and in-house standards (51%) are the most important factors in pain management. The use of guidelines (25%) plays a minor role. Perioperative pain management in dermatosurgery is strongly influenced by personal experience and may vary depending on the surgery performed. Consensus-based standardized recommendations are lacking. For adequate perioperative analgesia, the development of demand-oriented pain concepts is desirable. This requires prospective studies that address the specific patient population and surgical procedures in dermatology.

Does climate knowledge act as a shield for farm livelihoods? Empirical analysis from the coastal and non-coastal ecosystems of India.

Developing countries with agrarian economy have been facing challenges arising from climate change events and its consequences. Climate knowledge influences the adaptation and mitigation measures shielding farm households in climatically vulnerable regions. Indian states with climatically vulnerable coastal and non-coastal agro-ecosystems have dominantly an agrarian economy; and small and marginal farmers’ livelihoods are under focus through implementation of National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The present study was undertaken in one such state, Odisha. Climate knowledge test was developed following appropriate methods and administered to 200 farmers, 100 each in coastal and non-coastal NICRA districts to assess the knowledge level of dominant livelihood groups. Farmers’ climate knowledge was higher in coastal district as compared to non-coastal district with overall climate knowledge index values of 53.10 and 43.95, respectively. Farmers who engaged in crop + livestock farming have better climate knowledge as compared to crop farmers and livestock farmers. Multiple regression and path analyses revealed social, economic, communication and psychological attributes of the farmers determining their climate knowledge level. Education level, social participation, participation in community initiatives, annual family income and personal cosmopolite information sources use are few such important determinants of climate knowledge. These dimensions require attention for the policy advocacies to improve climate knowledge so as to shield climatically vulnerable farm households.

Exploring pandemic-related health literacy among adolescents in Germany: a focus group study

BackgroundHealth literacy enables people to cope efficiently with health threats, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. However, little is known about health literacy among adolescents in general and especially in the context of pandemics. This study aimed to explore pandemic-related health literacy among adolescents by addressing cognitive, behavioral, conative, and affective components of the multidimensional health literacy construct.MethodsFour online focus groups with 24 adolescents aged 13-17 years from four German federal states were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in May and June 2021. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.ResultsRegarding the cognitive and behavioral components of pandemic-related health literacy, adolescents reported to use a broad range of traditional and digital media and personal information sources. The adolescents considered pandemic-related information to be good and easy to understand, when the information is presented in a concise and structured manner. The participants stated difficulties in finding, understanding, and evaluating pandemic-related information regarding particular protective measures. The adolescents described themselves to be critical when evaluating pandemic-related information and reported a high level of adherence to protective measures. Regarding the conative and affective components of health literacy, the adolescents explained that their wish to protect their loved ones from getting infected was the predominant motive for adherence to protective measures. They were convinced that people of their age play a role in pandemic containment. The adolescents reported sometimes making exceptions from adhering to protective measures to cope with negative feelings they experienced during the pandemic.ConclusionsThis study provides insights on how measures to improve pandemic-related health literacy among adolescents may be tailored to their needs. Prompt, concise, structured, and comprehensible preparation and communication of pandemic-related information in addition to educational efforts to strengthen health-related cognitive skills and critical health literacy may be supportive to reduce barriers in finding, understanding, and evaluating pandemic-related content.

Association Between Socio-Economic Characteristics and Information Seeking Behaviour of STRVs Growers of Odisha

The study was conducted purposively in the state of Odisha with a view to analyze the relationship between socioeconomic characteristics of STRVs (Stress Tolerant Rice Varieties) growers and their overall information seeking behaviour. The sample size covered 210 respondents from 3 districts & response was obtained from each individual respondent with the help of a structured interview schedule pretested with 10 per cent samples other than the respondents of the study. The fi ndings of the study revealed that majority of the STRVs growers were middle-aged (53.82%) and 30.95 per cent had middle school education. The majority (50%) of respondents were having small land holding size, 29.05 per cent respondents were involved in Agriculture+ horticulture both, majority (45.24%) had 10 – 20 years of farming experience, 41.91 per cent of the respondents had annual income of Rs 50,001 to 1,00,000, majority (73.81%) had medium social participation and 59.05 per cent had medium extension participation. The detailed study of information seeking behaviour of the respondents showed that in case of Personal localite information sources own family members o ccupied the highest mean score 2.738 a nd ranked fi rst followed by neighbour farmers having mean score 2.728, in personal cosmopolite sources krishak sathi occupied the highest mean score 2.219 and ranked fi rst followed by VAW having mean score 2.133 and in case of impersonal cosmopolite mobile occupied the highest mean score 2.585 and ranked fi rst. Education, family type, family size, land holding, experience, annual income, social participation and extension participation had a positive and signifi cant association with the information seeking behaviour of respondents

Fostering Advocacy Behavior of Employees: A Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective From the Hospitality Sector.

Considering the stiff competitiveness situation in every sector, promoting the advocacy behavior of employees is of seminal importance for an organization. With this regard, the hospitality sector has no exceptions, however, a review of the prior literature uncovers that most of the prior studies on advocacy behavior were conducted from the standpoint of consumers, and the role of employees’ advocacy behavior, especially in the context of the hospitality sector, remained an understudied area. Research also shows that the corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts of an organization can significantly influence employees’ behavior but the relationship of CSR to spur employees’ advocacy behavior was not discussed earlier. Against this knowledge gap, the current work aims to investigate the relationship between CSR and employees’ advocacy behavior in the hotel sector of a developing economy with the mediating effect of employees’ engagement. A hypothesized model was developed, which was validated by collecting data from different hotel employees through a self-administered questionnaire. The findings offer different theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, one important implication was that the CSR perceptions of hotel employees can drive their advocacy behavior. Practically, the study implicates that hotels can improve their reputation significantly by converting their employees into advocates, as the personal information source is preferred over company-generated information sources. Moreover, the CSR commitment of a hotel can lead the employees to a higher level of engagement, which then motivates them to act as advocates.

Development and evaluation of a website with patients experiences of multiple sclerosis: a mixed methods study

BackgroundA variety of management options (e.g., disease-modifying therapy, lifestyle interventions, rehabilitation) are available for persons with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). Besides coping with the diagnosis, persons with MS have to make complex decisions, e.g., regarding disease-modifying therapies. In addition to factual information, reports of patient experiences may support other patients in their decision-making. Therefore, we developed a website presenting patient experiences illustrated by video, audio and text files. This study aimed to test the acceptability and usability of a website with patient experiences with MS.MethodsA mixed-methods approach was applied. A total of 69 participants visited the German “Patient Experiences with MS (PExMS)” website and among them, 50 persons with MS and 6 experts completed an online survey. In total, 18 participants took part in telephone interviews or focus groups. Data from the survey were analysed using descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsBoth quantitative and qualitative responses suggest that the PExMS website was viewed positively by patients and experts. 94% of persons with MS agreed that the information was comprehensible and reliable. 54% felt encouraged to share their health problems with others after having studied the website. 74% claimed to use the website if they had to make a decision regarding their health. Qualitative responses deduced from the website fell into 5 key themes: (1) web design, appearance, and functionality, (2) content, (3) usability, (4) satisfaction, and (5) loyalty. The search for persons of similar age and with comparable experiences was a major driving force to navigate the website. The material on the website was perceived as diverse, covering both positive and negative experiences in daily living with MS. All participants greatly appreciated having access to other people’s experiences online and judged the material on the website as particularly helpful in decision-making for disease-modifying therapies.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that the PExMS website might have the potential to be a useful source of audio-visual information for persons with MS. Given the lack of websites available to patients with experiential information, health care professionals may be encouraged to routinely inform patients about this website at regular appointments.

The Effects of Travelers’ Price Sensitivity on Information Search Behaviors

In a remarkably heterogeneous tourism market, marketers apply a wide range of strategies which help them ward off competitors and attract customers. The openness of travel information such as product and service quality and price is essential but still a challenge for marketers since traveler characteristics are often multi-dimensional. This study devotes special attention to travelers’ price sensitivity, and aims to investigate whether price sensitivity can segment travelers and the effects on information search behavior. For this purpose, the research study conducted Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis using survey data of 310 respondents. The results confirm the existence of heterogeneity in price sensitivity and there is a clear difference in the use of information by travelers resulting from this variable. Marketers should therefore utilize different communication strategies for travelers with different price sensitivities. For example, to obtain price-sensitive travelers it is more efficient to provide travel information with a clear difference in price between products and services that will reduce their search efforts. On the other hand, to target price-insensitive travelers, marketers should provide sufficient information about product attributes through online personal information sources including organizations such as Trip Advisor, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Seeing is believing? The pivotal role of personal experience in contemporary health behaviour: A narrative review

AbstractIn the age of people aspiring after sense experiences, encouraging long-term health behaviour changes to prevent future disorders that are, without previous personal experiences, unimaginable threats for the public, maybe one of the greatest challenges preventive medicine has to face. In order to become trusted sources, and influence public health behaviour in an experience-oriented manner, we need to formulate strategies offering emotionally evocative sense inputs that elicit self-relatedness. The current narrative review discusses the relevance of personal experiences in contemporary health behaviour by focusing on three major areas: 1) the importance of personal sources of health-related information, 2) cognitive and neurobiological background of personal experiences, 3) potential strategies to induce health behaviour changes through personal experiences. Based on the reviewed body of knowledge, three potential “rules” are proposed to increase the effectiveness of health promotion programs through sense or personal experiences: 1) Rule of Senses (stressing the importance of multisensory learning); 2) Rule of Affect (emphasizing the motivational significance of evoking positive emotions); and 3) Rule of Self-relatedness (highlighting the role of the self-referential composition of human experiences).

Perceived Marketing System Effectiveness by Pineapple Growers in Tripura

Pineapple, an important cash crop of Tripura providing the major source of farm livelihood, has been facing marketing challenges. Present study was conducted during January-June 2020 to assess farmers’ perceptions towards marketing system effectiveness of pineapple that included a random sample of 80 farmers. Marketing system effectiveness was measured on different aspects of pineapple marketing based on farmers’ perceptions on 5-point continuum. Higher mean perception scores (>4.0) were obtained for two aspects viz., grading & quality checking, and direct selling of produce. Contrastingly, lower perception scores (<2.0) were found for many aspects like inadequate transportation system, profit and price determination by middleman, fluctuating marketing price, non-availability of up-to-date market information, excessive time to disposing produce, government marketing channel & auction, and inability of small-scale farmers to bringing produce to market. Overall marketing system effectiveness was found 47 per cent. Attributes of farmers were having significant correlation with it; out of which family size, use of personal cosmopolite information sources, mass media use and knowledge level showed significant relationship in multiple regression model. Therefore, to improve pineapple marketing system effectiveness, extension and advisory services need to undertake capacity building measures of the pineapple growers.

Risk perception before travelling: solutions for consumers with vulnerabilities

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the tourism service experience of consumers with vulnerabilities. Moreover, this research analyses the pre-core service encounter in the tourism services sector, which is one of the most important phases in the service experience. The objective is to understand how vulnerability might influence risk perceptions when people travel. To this end, this study focusses on individuals with coeliac disease (CD) and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) as a specific group to test the hypotheses. For the millions of individuals with CD or NCGS, food is one of the most critical elements of a trip and the reason for vulnerability perception. The research also proposes measures suggested by survey respondents to improve the information search process of vulnerable travellers before a trip.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-method was used based on a survey of 813 responses from people diagnosed with CD and NCGS. The individuals were placed in three groups according to their perception of how strongly their disease impacts their trips: low impact, medium impact and high impact.FindingsThe results confirm that people with a high-risk perception due to their vulnerability spend more time searching for information prior to the trip than people without this perception. In this sense, individuals that feel more vulnerable, tend to use more personal information sources and also make greater use of online information sources. The participants affected by CD and NCGS proposed measures to reduce their perceived vulnerability. These proposals are based on information about the disease, specific information from the tourist industry at the destination and various online, as well as offline information channels.Originality/valueThe novelty of this research is mainly found in the study in the study of how consumers with vulnerabilities behave during the information process before travelling. From a holistic approach and based on both, marketing service theory and the risk perception perspectives, this research is focussed on vulnerable individuals affected by CD and NCGS to find answers to the problems they face during the pre-core service encounter.

Online Social Capital: Mood, Topical and Psycholinguistic Analysis

Social media provides rich sources of personal information and community interaction which can be linked to aspect of mental health. In this paper we investigate manifest properties of textual messages, including latent topics, psycholinguistic features, and authors' mood, of a large corpus of blog posts, to analyze the aspect of social capital in social media communities. Using data collected from Live Journal, we find that bloggers with lower social capital have fewer positive moods and more negative moods than those with higher social capital. It is also found that people with low social capital have more random mood swings over time than the people with high social capital. Significant differences are found between low and high social capital groups when characterized by a set of latent topics and psycholinguistic features derived from blogposts, suggesting discriminative features, proved to be useful for classification tasks. Good prediction is achieved when classifying among social capital groups using topic and linguistic features, with linguistic features are found to have greater predictive power than latent topics. The significance of our work lies in the importance of online social capital to potential construction of automatic healthcare monitoring systems. We further establish the link between mood and social capital in online communities, suggesting the foundation of new systems to monitor online mental well-being.

Bt corn growing information system in Cagayan Province, Philippines: An analysis for enhanced extension delivery service

The adoption of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn gene has increased production and agricultural information exchange plays a vital role towards sustained production growth. The study examined the information system by assessing the usefulness of information, frequency of consultations and strength of information exchange in Bt corn production in Cagayan Province, Philippines. Using descriptive correlation design, it was revealed that both technical and economic information from all sources were rated useful. Technical information on seed variety, land preparation, weather forecast, soil management and fertilizer application are frequently utilized while on the economic information only current market prices was frequently used. Frequency of Consultation with personal information sources gained the highest mean value of 5.02 signifying a two to three times exchange of information. Public information sources obtained an average mean of 2.80 which means four or five times contact in a year. This reveals the gap between the corn growers and public information sources. For the mass media sources, both radio (4.56) and television (4.72) are frequently used at two to three times a month. Personal information sources showed strong (224.25 IS) exchange of information between and among the Bt corn growers which comprise their communication network. Total information scores from public and mass media information sources revealed weak exchange of information. The total information score is significantly correlated with membership to organization, years of membership, nature of membership, land ownership and position in the farm. Total information score from friends, radio and newspaper showed significant relationship with income. Thus, information exchange with friends, listening to radio and reading newspaper had a significant influence on the increase of corn growers’ income.

Formy współdziałania Służby Bezpieczeństwa Polskiej Rzeczypospolitej Ludowej i Komitetu Bezpieczeństwa Państwowego Związku Radzieckiego „na odcinku” ukraińskim w latach 1956–1989

Due to its international aspect, the Ukrainian issue became the subject of cooperation between the Security Service (SB) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MSW) of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) and the State Security Committee (KGB) of the Soviet Union. Cooperation involved counterintelligence services, departments to destroy the political opposition and the so-called ideological and political subversion, and departments controlling religious life. In the first half of the 1970s, the Management of Special Departments of the KGB at the Northern Group of Soviet Forces (in Poland) also took part in special operations against Ukrainians. The design of joint operational activities as well as the exchange of views and information was facilitated by working meetings organized in capital cities and at border crossings. One of the first documented meetings on the Ukrainian question after the period of the political “thaw” was held in May 1958, and the last, most likely at the turn of 1988 and 1989, in Minsk, Belarus. The basic areas of cooperation include: surveillance and disintegration of Ukrainian emigration (mainly rival factions of the nationalist movement), prosecuting Ukrainian war criminals and collaborators who avoided responsibility, surveillance of Ukrainian citizens of the Polish People’s Republic suspected of carrying out “nationalist activities”, signaling threats to the security of the state generated by Ukrainian population as well as standard completion and verification of archival materials concerning the controlled persons. The operational activities of the secret services of Poland and the Soviet Union required the involvement of so-called personal information sources, i.e. secret collaborators. They were Polish and Soviet citizens of Ukrainian nationality, with numerous relatives and friends in Poland, the Soviet Union and Western countries. This allowed them to cross state borders, despite restrictive passport regulations. The Security Service recruited them to cooperate by threatening with imprisonment, embarrassment, and dismissal from work or studies. Support was also offered in finding a job or a flat, and it was also possible to renew contacts with relatives abroad. These were effective tools for manipulating agents.

Cultural information needs of long-settled immigrants, their descendants and family members: use of collective and personal information sources about the home country

PurposeThis paper presents findings from a study that explored why and how long-settled immigrants, their descendants and family members seek and use information about their country of origin and how they manage personal information about their cultural heritage legacy.Design/methodology/approach15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants from the Croatian community in New Zealand.FindingsThe main findings reveal two categories of information needs related to a home country: internally motivated and externally motivated. Information is accessed through a network of family and friends, cultural societies and embassies. These information sources are perceived as reliable and trustworthy, and able to offer an interpretation of information along with access to information. The findings highlight the value of personal collections as information sources and the impact of personal information management practices on preserving and sharing information about one's cultural heritage.Originality/valueThis article contributes to the discussion about information needs and practices of immigrant communities by offering arguments that focus on (1) long-settled immigrants, their descendants and family members, and (2) seeking information about home country culture and heritage, and (3) the role of personal collections and personal information management in maintaining personal cultural heritage. The results of this study may be of use to libraries, archives and museums in designing and offering their services to expatriates of their country and immigrants in their country, and to the wider information management sector developing services in personal information management.