Information Gathering Process Research Articles

Clarifying the current role of a social licence in its legal and political context: An examination of mining in Western Australia

Despite growing prominence of the social licence to operate concept in natural resource developments, its role relative to legal and political approval processes remains unclear. This paper aims to identify social, political and legal license avenues and to understand their representation of public interest by examining mining in Western Australia. To achieve this we employed the social, actuarial/legal and political risk and licensing (SAP) model . The SAP model provided definitions of social, legal and political licences based on the assumption that all licences should represent public interest. Definitions from the model helped us to identify licence avenues from the relevant academic and grey literature and the assumption relating to public interest representation was examined by evaluating levels of direct public participation in the requirements and information gathering and decision-making processes of each licence avenue. Social licence avenues included social acceptance research, social impact assessments, social media, protesting and blockading. Legal licence avenues included the Mining Act 1978 (WA), Environmental Protection Act 1986 (WA), the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth), the Native Title Act 1992 (Cth), the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA) and the Mines Safety and Inspection Act 1994 (WA). Political licence avenues included State-agreements, government policies and State elections. Evaluating each avenue revealed strengths and weaknesses. General strengths in social licence avenues included higher levels of public interest representation through greater direct public participation, but weakness in the clarity of the decision-making process. Conversely, clarity in the decision-making process was a strength in legal and some political licence avenues, while lower levels of direct public participation were generally weaknesses. On this basis, we conclude that despite limitations, social licence avenues could have an important role to play in representing public interest in the West Australian mining context. Further consideration is given to how information from social licence avenues could inform legal and political licence avenues thereby strengthening political and legal licences to facilitate better outcomes for all parties involved.

Travel Mode Identification With GPS Trajectories Using Wavelet Transform and Deep Learning

Accurate identification in public travel modes is an essential task in intelligent transportation systems. In recent years, GPS-based identification is gradually replacing the conventional survey-based information-gathering process due to the more detailed and precise data on individual’s travel patterns. Nonetheless, existing research suffers from deficient feature selection, high data dimensionality, and data under-utilization issues. In this work, we propose a novel travel mode identification mechanism based on discrete wavelet transform and recent developments of deep learning techniques. The proposed mechanism aims to take GPS trajectories of arbitrary lengths to develop accurate travel mode results in both global and online identification scenarios. In this mechanism, raw GPS data is first pre-processed to compute preliminary motion and displacement attributes, which are input into a tailor-made deep neural network. Discrete wavelet transform is also adopted to further extract time-frequency domain characteristics of the trajectories to assist the neural network in the classification task. To evaluate the performance of the proposed mechanism, a series of comprehensive case studies are conducted. The results indicate that the mechanism can notably outperform existing travel mode identifications on a same data set with minuscule computation time. Furthermore, an architecture test is performed to determine the best-performing structure for the proposed mechanism. Lastly, we demonstrate the capability of the mechanism in handling online identifications, and the performance sensitivity of the selected attributes is evaluated.

Sequential Prediction for Large-Scale Traffic Incident Duration: Application and Comparison of Survival Models

A quick and accurate traffic incident duration prediction could greatly facilitate traffic incident management. However, at the very early stage of an incident, limited information is available for prediction. Information gathering for large-scale traffic incidents is a chronological process when a multi-agency response is required. At the early stage, information such as incident start time and roadway and weather conditions may be available, but information about response agencies and incident management solutions (e.g., lane closures) remains unknown. The objective of this study is to develop a sequential prediction method to handle the chronological process of incident information gathering. The method is based upon parametric survival modeling, which is often utilized to predict incident duration. This study took advantage of a unique incident database and identified over 600 large-scale incidents in the East Tennessee area from 2015 to 2016. A five-stage prediction method is proposed according to the chronological process by which information becomes available during incident operations. Using the data, this study compared three survival models: frailty model, multilevel mixed-effects model, and finite mixture model. Generally, with more information becoming available for modeling from the first to the last stage, the models’ performance improved according to the root mean square error and mean absolute percent error. The finite mixture model outperforms the other two models and its mean absolute percentage error is between 10% and 15%. Incident-associated factors at each stage are discussed and implications based on the study outcomes are also covered in the paper.

A FREQUÊNCIA TEMÁTICA DOS REFUGIADOS NA COMUNICAÇÃO VIRTUAL DE ORGANIZAÇÕES DESPORTIVAS

Faced with the challenges of the 21st century regarding the means of experiencing and communicating on a global scale, technology has been used to understand the development of the 'sport and refugees' to reflect the contributions of sport to issues. In order to identify the presence of the keyword refugee in the official electronic portals of ten International Olympic Sports Federations, belonging to Association of International Summer Olympic Federations, it was decided to choose the ten federations with greater representation on a global scale, considering the number of affiliated national federations. For the information gathering process, the word 'refugee' was initially entered in the search tool of the official website of each federation, taking into consideration that all the searched sites have the English language. Subsequently, the information was grouped into a table for a visual analytical approach and basic statistics and descriptive task. The results from the insertion of the keyword refugee in the different official organization's websites presented positive answers to what the research questioned - frequency of the word refugees as a way to understand if these organizations do not give any relevance to the theme. Of the 10 (ten) platforms investigated, 08 (eight) had positive results, 02 (two) did not provide the opportunity to search and none showed negative result that would be the absence of the word representing in this case, the theme. From the analysis of the results achieved in the search engines of the websites of the most relevant sports administration entities around the world, using a statistical syllogism, since all sports administration entities that had a search engine for words, on their websites they pointed to the presence of the word 'refugee', it is possible to state that they pay any attention to the theme.

Search Under Accumulated Pressure

The paper “Search Under Accumulated Pressure” explores how time pressure in the form of task accumulation might affect the information-gathering process of a decision maker. Decision makers often need to balance the benefit of improving their belief about the best choice against the cost of acquiring more information. In many instances, the cost to acquire additional information depends on the size of the accumulated workload. The paper formulates this problem as a partially observable Markov decision process and characterizes the optimal control policy. The analysis reveals that the highest workload that the decision maker is willing to sustain may increase in the middle of the information search. This runs counter to the more intuitive argument that, as the search for information on a task progresses, the decision maker becomes less willing to sustain a high level of workload.

Tortuously Turning Reality into Theatre: The Case of Nicoleta Esinencu

Abstract How do the professionals of the theatre of the real deal with the dilemmas raised by the techniques and ethics of representation that lie at the heart of this particular drama genre? There is little in the available scholarship to provide much guidance in this regard. This article addresses the question and the gap encased within it by examining the critical case of Nicoleta Esinencu, one of the most high profile contemporary drama directors of this kind in Eastern and Central Europe. Focused on the work done by Esinencu at the avant-garde Laundry-Theatre in Kishinev, the analysis dwells on the ethics of documentary work and of representing real life people, the information-gathering process, the choice of topics and the societal implications of the performance. Furthermore, the article captures the bespoke interdisciplinarity of ethnographic research and drama studies while unearthing unsuspected tensions between the claims about representing authentic experiences made by the theatre of the real and the actual perceptions of the professionals.

Strengthening mathematical interpretation competence through the portfolio as a learning tool

The purpose of the research is to strengthen the competence of mathematical interpretation through the portfolio as a learning tool in an educational institution of the “Municipio de Gramalote, Norte de Santander, Colombia”. The research is carried out from the socio-critical approach, qualitative paradigm and the chosen method is action research. The information gathering process was developed using the techniques of: participant observation and focus group. The key informants were two high school mathematics teachers and eighth grade students. The results show that in the diagnosis the participants’ lack of knowledge regarding the process of mathematical interpretation was evidenced; elements of knowledge are identified from the previous knowledge of the students and the preparation of the researcher teacher in the didactic sequence. The use of a tool such as the portfolio made it possible to motivate the learning process and to evidence in an orderly manner the abilities and capacities empowered by the students; there was an appropriation of learning around the analysis and interpretation of mathematics from concrete situations in the daily lives of the students, taking up their previous knowledge and using didactic elements and resources from their environment.

Smart Construction: Remote and Adaptable Management of Construction Sites through IoT

Construction sites for large civil engineering projects consist of very different workflows, depending on the size and type of the project (e.g., highway construction). Managing and coordinating such complex projects is a difficult task. Lack of proper digital and reliable data makes the near permanent physical presence of a project manager necessary. But even on site, they have to rely on manual and slow reporting ad hoc information gathering processes. In this article, we report our experience in using Smart Construction, an Internet of Things cloud-based platform for large civil engineering projects. The platform allows project managers to remotely manage multiple construction sites in different locations at the same time and promptly intervene to adapt their operation according to real-time data analytics results. We performed two experiments on real construction sites to collect real world data by using the platform under realistic conditions.We discuss the challenges that we encountered and the results of the performed data analysis.

Comparación de los valores de alpha ratio entre hombres y mujeres fumadores y no fumadores entre 18 y 26 años

Smoking habit can cause damage to the voice, even in the early stages, which can hinder the communication process. Early identification of alterations in vocal parameters allows preventive measures to be taken prior to the generation of irreversible damage. The alpha ratio value is a vocal parameter obtained through an acoustic analysis that would allow detecting changes in the voice timbre, being able to be a preventive indicator of vocal pathologies. The objective of this investigation was to determine if there are significant differences between the alpha ratio values of men and women, smokers and non-smokers, without previous vocal pathology. The values Leq 0-1000 [Hz] and Leq 1000-5000 [Hz], which make up the alpha ratio value, were measured in 194 subjects between 18 and 26 years of age who did not use professional voice. The group was divided into 32 male smokers and 21 non-smokers, 61 female smokers and 80 non-smokers. The information gathering process was carried out in two stages: in the first one the subject was asked to inhale deeply and to emit a / a / sustained for a time of 5 seconds, for calibration and verification of parameters. In the second stage, a text of 101 words was requested: For the recording, a microphone was used 10 cm away from the face, with a 45° angle to it. Study subjects were standing at all times. The Audacity and PRAAT programs were used for recording and acoustic analysis, respectively, and for the statistical analysis the STATA version 14 program was used. alpha ratio values in smokers (men and women) presented higher values than non-smokers. Male smokers average alpha ratio: .5181709; male non-smokers average alpha ratio value: .4972945. Female smokers, average alpha ratio: .5321025; Non-smoking women, average alpha ratio value: .5036634. However, no significant differences were found between the values of alpha ratio between male smokers and non-smokers (p= .2799) only among female smokers and non-smokers (p= .0111). When there were statistically significant differences between the alpha ratio values of smoking and non-smoking women, the values of Leq 0-1000Hz and Leq 1000-5000 Hz were analyzed independently. The mean value Leq 0-1000 Hz of female smokers was 36.80148; The mean value Leq 0-1000 Hz in non-smoking women was 35.8655. There is no significant difference between these values (p= .171). The mean value Leq 1000-5000 Hz of female smokers was 19.58016; the mean value Leq 1000-5000 Hz in non-smoking women was 18.15138; there is a significant difference between these values (p= .0095). These results are consistent with previous research since the alterations of the voice, due to tobacco damage, are manifested in frequencies above 1000 Hz, although it would have been expected that the values of smokers were lower than the non-smokers, and not higher as in this case. This could be due to the fact that the subjects in this study were healthy, with no diagnosed pathology, and are likely to be at an early stage of vocal damage and as a compensatory form their system is making an over exertion that manifests itself in more values high. From the results obtained it can be concluded that the alpha ratio value could be a good early indicator of predisposition for the development of alterations affecting voice timbre especially in the case of women. It is necessary in order to provide a correct preventive diagnosis, to establish reference values of normality that allow to identify alterations and to study how the value of alpha ratio was affected in a population of smokers with greater number of years of smoking habit.

Sharing economy and the lodging websites

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the main determinants that affect accommodation purchase intentions through lodging websites in sharing economy context. This industry differs from the hotel industry because it is a community marketplace with a growing community of users where renters can monetize their extra space and list their properties to an audience of millions while travelers can find unique accommodation at any price point.Design/methodology/approachThe authors examine factors such as perceived lodging value, perceived lodging price, lodging information, online lodging reviews, trust with the host, website usability and perceived privacy/security of the website, and measure their relationships with purchase intentions. Based on an online survey data, the structural model test outcomes explain the direct effect of the exogenous variables on purchase intentions and the mediating effect of perceived lodging value between perceived lodging price and purchase intentions.FindingsThe study demonstrates that the six latent factors and proposed associations have positive effects on purchase intentions. Thus, enterprises operating in the online lodging industry should consider these elements as key antecedents of lodging purchase intentions.Originality/valueLodging websites operate in a highly competitive market where they have to compete with hotel operators, hostels, bed and breakfasts and hotel comparison websites in current sharing economy. In addition, consumers usually spend a great deal of time and effort on online pre-purchase evaluation because of the ease of the information gathering process where consumers can find a wide variety of options online. Therefore, understanding the drivers that convert browsers into renters is a topic of great interest among marketing managers in the current sharing economy context.

Exploring the Role of Individual Food Security in the Assessment of Population’s Food Safety

Ensuring a sufficient level of food for the population in both quantitative and qualitative terms is a priority for most countries as well as for governmental and non-governmental bodies – be they national, regional or international. The United Nations (UN) stresses the fact that one of the biggest problems the world is facing today is food insecurity. Most people enjoy food security, but the reverse is an unquestionable daily reality for nearly a billion people around the world. The concept of food security has had different meanings at different times, the definition changing over the years but the fundamental concept behind it remaining the same. When defining food security, we have to adopt a comprehensive approach, taking into account the economical, political, social and cultural factors that shape it, as well as find practical solutions to ensure its continued existence. Thus, resolving the food problem and ensuring food security must start from studying the relationship between consumption needs and the available food resources, rely on anthropometric research methods, and target population segments according to their biological needs. Starting from the study of the conceptual framework offered by the specialized literature, the present paper aims to clarify and identify the aspects which lie at the basis of studying the food security / insecurity for a population, through exploratory research. The exploratory research of an individual’s food and nutritional security allows for a profound understanding of the concept, the factors that affect it and the interdependence between them, it also ensures a qualitative information gathering process. The results of the study may develop into measures aimed at improving individual food security as part of national food security. This research is done through the method of survey among the students of the Faculty of Business and Tourism, part of the Academy of Economic Studies. The statistical tool used was a questionnaire to identify the nutritional status of the respondents, but also their eating habits. Starting from the necessity of correcting imbalances in the behaviour related to food consumption, our scientific approach can be used to establish solutions for improving food consumption at the individual level, as a dimension of food security, for a segment of the population in Romania.

La formación de Gobiernos municipales: una nueva base de datos

This research note presents a new database at the local level about the political parties that supported the formation of local Governments in Spanish municipalities of more than 1000 inhabitants in the legislatures 2003-‍2007 and 2007-‍2011. The research note describes the information-gathering process, the data obtained and some initial descriptive results. The dataset is publicly available and will allow to improve the knowledge about local governments in Spain. It will also facilitate carrying out quantitative studies that require a large number of municipalities within a common institutional context.

Temporal information gathering process for node ranking in time-varying networks.

Many systems are dynamic and time-varying in the real world. Discovering the vital nodes in temporal networks is more challenging than that in static networks. In this study, we proposed a temporal information gathering (TIG) process for temporal networks. The TIG-process, as a node's importance metric, can be used to do the node ranking. As a framework, the TIG-process can be applied to explore the impact of temporal information on the significance of the nodes. The key point of the TIG-process is that nodes' importance relies on the importance of its neighborhood. There are four variables: temporal information gathering depth n, temporal distance matrix D, initial information c, and weighting function f. We observed that the TIG-process can degenerate to classic metrics by a proper combination of these four variables. Furthermore, the fastest arrival distance based TIG-process ( fad-tig) is performed optimally in quantifying nodes' efficiency and nodes' spreading influence. Moreover, for the fad-tig process, we can find an optimal gathering depth n that makes the TIG-process perform optimally when n is small.

Development of a Living Matter: Entropic Ground of Quantitative Descriptions

Entropy has been widely referred to as a measure of biological order. The validity of this notion is discussed in conjunction with its relation to the spontaneous creation of order. Information theory offers a quantitative method for characterization of order, however, it is not fundamentally connected to formalisms of irreversible thermodynamics, and it is severely limited because the meaning and value of the information is neglected (Smith, 1975). The paper presents an entropy approach to quantitative description of living matter development as a process of gathering information. The presentation is accompanied by a thorough analysis of related themes of (Pashchenko, 2001, 2007) relating to the notion of entropy and some attempts of its generalizations.

Comparación de los valores de alpha ratio entre hombres y mujeres fumadores y no fumadores entre 18 y 26 años

Smoking habit can cause damage to the voice, even in the early stages, which can hinder the communication process. Early identification of alterations in vocal parameters allows preventive measures to be taken prior to the generation of irreversible damage. The alpha ratio value is a vocal parameter obtained through an acoustic analysis that would allow detecting changes in the voice timbre, being able to be a preventive indicator of vocal pathologies. The objective of this investigation was to determine if there are significant differences between the alpha ratio values of men and women, smokers and non-smokers, without previous vocal pathology. The values Leq 0-1000 [Hz] and Leq 1000-5000 [Hz], which make up the alpha ratio value, were measured in 194 subjects between 18 and 26 years of age who did not use professional voice. The group was divided into 32 male smokers and 21 non-smokers, 61 female smokers and 80 non-smokers. The information gathering process was carried out in two stages: in the first one the subject was asked to inhale deeply and to emit a / a / sustained for a time of 5 seconds, for calibration and verification of parameters. In the second stage, a text of 101 words was requested: For the recording, a microphone was used 10 cm away from the face, with a 45° angle to it. Study subjects were standing at all times. The Audacity and PRAAT programs were used for recording and acoustic analysis, respectively, and for the statistical analysis the STATA version 14 program was used. alpha ratio values in smokers (men and women) presented higher values than non-smokers. Male smokers average alpha ratio: .5181709; male non-smokers average alpha ratio value: .4972945. Female smokers, average alpha ratio: .5321025; Non-smoking women, average alpha ratio value: .5036634. However, no significant differences were found between the values of alpha ratio between male smokers and non-smokers (p= .2799) only among female smokers and non-smokers (p= .0111). When there were statistically significant differences between the alpha ratio values of smoking and non-smoking women, the values of Leq 0-1000Hz and Leq 1000-5000 Hz were analyzed independently. The mean value Leq 0-1000 Hz of female smokers was 36.80148; The mean value Leq 0-1000 Hz in non-smoking women was 35.8655. There is no significant difference between these values (p= .171). The mean value Leq 1000-5000 Hz of female smokers was 19.58016; the mean value Leq 1000-5000 Hz in non-smoking women was 18.15138; there is a significant difference between these values (p= .0095). These results are consistent with previous research since the alterations of the voice, due to tobacco damage, are manifested in frequencies above 1000 Hz, although it would have been expected that the values of smokers were lower than the non-smokers, and not higher as in this case. This could be due to the fact that the subjects in this study were healthy, with no diagnosed pathology, and are likely to be at an early stage of vocal damage and as a compensatory form their system is making an over exertion that manifests itself in more values high. From the results obtained it can be concluded that the alpha ratio value could be a good early indicator of predisposition for the development of alterations affecting voice timbre especially in the case of women. It is necessary in order to provide a correct preventive diagnosis, to establish reference values of normality that allow to identify alterations and to study how the value of alpha ratio was affected in a population of smokers with greater number of years of smoking habit.

Az út és úthálózatok értékelése a hadszíntéri logisztikai felderítés végrehajtásakor

The article gives an overview of tasks that can be important for the evaluation of roads and road networks in theatre level logistic reconnaissance. After presenting the information gathering process in connection with general military reconnaissance,the author defines the tasks belonging to the theatre level logistic reconnaissance which can be part of the activities of an operational liaison and reconnaissance team. Examining the activity of teams who conduct logistic reconnaissance, it is conceived in the article, that these are still not worked out and it would be practical to edit a checklist that could help in conducting reconnaissance. Although, the reconnaissance of roads and road networks is only one of the subtasks that has to be conducted by the reconnaissance teams, it has importance because the transportation and movements of forces, means and materials can only be planned by designated supply and marching routes. The article contains a checklist in connection with roads and road networks which can be applied in conducting logistic reconnaissance.

Image and tensions for other looks

This paper is part of a broader research developed within a municipality of Curitiba, a city located in the south of Brazil. The investigation was performed in a qualitative manner with interventive as well as participatory characteristics due to the fact that the subjects of said investigation directly took part in the development of the strategy adopted for day-to-day intervention. We worked amidst a Reference Center for Social Assistance (Centro de Referencia de Assistencia Social – CRAS) with people considered to be socially vulnerable. The project itself was dubbed Circle of Song (Roda de Musica) and enacted on a weekly basis so as to incentivize the collective creative process of musical composition. Throughout this paper we sought to appropriate the use of image as one of the elements produced during the information gathering process required for this research. Furthermore, we also used said image in order to produce speeches, a potent element in the creation of fiction that point to the construction of other possibilities, especially those concerning how life is viewed, heard, felt and thought of by humans, in general, when inserted into a specific contexto.

Open source intelligence (OSINT) in a colombian context and sentiment analysis

Open source intelligence (OSINT) is used to obtain and analyze information related to adversaries, so it can support risk assessments aimed to prevent damages against critical assets. This paper presents a research about different OSINT technologies and how these can be used to perform cyber intelligence tasks. One of the key components in the operation of OSINT tools are the “transforms”, which are used to establish relations between entities of information from queries to different open sources. A set of transforms addressed to the Colombian context are presented, which were implemented and contributed to the community allowing to the law enforcement agencies to develop information gathering process from Colombian open sources. Additionally, this paper shows the implementation of three machine learning models used to perform sentiment analysis over the information obtained from an adversary. Sentiment analysis can be extremely useful to understand the motivation that an adversary can have and, in this way, define proper cyber defense strategies. Finally, some challenges related to the application of OSINT techniques are identified and described.

International New Ventures Learning Processes and Their Role in International Marketing

Learning processes of the small and medium sized enterprises (SME) are of special importance for their internationalization, as they may lead to gaining the Learning Advantage of Newness. The current literature suggests that the dynamic capabilities concept may help in understanding how the learning processes lead to the development of marketing capabilities necessary for foreign expansion of SMEs. This study aims at identifying the learning processes of International New Ventures (INVs) and analysing their role in international marketing. The results of individual interviews with four Polish INV’s founders and managers are presented. The studied companies are similar to the foreign ones with respect to the information gathering sources and processes. When looking for market opportunities they often rely on informal sources of intelligence and „congenital” knowledge of the founders. These sources substitute for firm-level international experience at early stages of international development. At the later stages of expansion they are supplemented with more external knowledge and sometimes also “grafting”, or purchasing expert knowledge. Classification-JEL: Keywords: Enterprise learning processes; International New Ventures; International marketing

Simultaneous Scheduling Through Heuristic Algorithms

Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) is a compli-cated system because of work environments, recu-peration frameworks, mechanized putting away, and material dealing with gadgets like robots and AGVs. In this paper, an endeavor is made by con-sidering both the machine and vehicle planning angles in FMS for minimization of the make trav-erse. Game plan is ensnared with the arrangement of incomplete assets to assignments in finished time. It is like Information-gathering process. It is related with the cost, operations, time and several objectives of the industry. In this work, RAPID ACCESS (RA) heuristic algorithm is adopted to solve the scheduling problems in FMS. Eighty, two problems and their existing solutions with different approaches are examined. The RA heuristic algo-rithm provides better solutions with less computa-tional time.