Production Process Data Research Articles

Can citizen science complement official data sources that serve as evidence-base for policies and practice to improve water quality?

Addressing environmental issues in policy making requires recognising these issues as part of a complex socio-ecological system. The evidence base for such policies and associated monitoring and implementation measures, as well as related official indicators, statistics and environmental accounts are receiving increasing attention. This paper explores the potential of citizen science as a non-traditional source of data to complement the current data production process for evidence-based policy-making, using pollution of surface waters and its effect on associated ecosystems as an example. The paper develops a framework that helps to explore the official data production process in relation to different purposes of environmental policies. This highlights different challenges that the current official data production process sees itself confronted with in relation to the different purposes of the policies and associated monitoring regimes. These questions are explored with reference to the case of evidence-based policy making on water quality of surface freshwater in the EU, with a focus on Luxembourg. The analysis is based on extensive documentary analysis and literature review, as well as a series of interviews and participatory workshops with various stakeholders, and first results of a pilot project work with engaged citizen volunteers to solicit data on water quality with a focus on its nutrient content. On this basis, this paper argues that citizen science has the clear potential to meaningfully contribute both to the evidence base for policy and practice, as well as to an improved governance process.

Multitemporal Mosaicing for Sentinel-3/FLEX Derived Level-2 Product Composites

The increasing availability of remote sensing data raises important challenges in terms of operational data provision and spatial coverage for conducting global studies and analyses. In this regard, existing multitemporal mosaicing techniques are generally limited to producing spectral image composites without considering the particular features of higher-level biophysical and other derived products, such as those provided by the Sentinel-3 (S3) and Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX) tandem missions. To relieve these limitations, this article proposes a novel multitemporal mosaicing algorithm specially designed for operational S3-derived products and also studies its applicability within the FLEX mission context. Specifically, we design a new operational methodology to automatically produce multitemporal mosaics from derived S3/FLEX products with the objective of facilitating the automatic processing of high-level data products, where weekly, monthly, seasonal, or annual biophysical mosaics can be generated by means of four processes proposed in this work: 1) operational data acquisition; 2) spatial mosaicing and rearrangement; 3) temporal compositing; and 4) confidence measures. The experimental part of the work tests the consistency of the proposed framework over different S3 product collections while showing its advantages with respect to other standard mosaicing alternatives. The source codes of this work will be made available for reproducible research.

GOTIT: A laboratory application software for optimizing multi‐criteria species‐based research

Abstract Storing, managing and sharing the ever‐increasing amount of species occurrence data and biological vouchers is a cornerstone of biodiversity science. The convergence of morphology‐ and DNA‐based methods for species delimitation has accentuated the need for optimizing laboratory workflow by generating new analytical processes, diversifying taxonomic reference systems and identification protocols and multiplying vouchers. Yet, laboratory information management systems dedicated to multi‐criteria species‐based research are rare or they have not been made openly available to biodiversity professionals. We developed GOTIT (Gene Occurrence and Taxa in Integrative Taxonomy), a database structure and web application for optimizing productivity at various steps of a laboratory's workflow including research project design, sampling gap analysis, sampling planning, species identification, DNA sequencing, information sharing and contributing data to global biodiversity facilities. GOTIT manages the different steps of a species‐occurrence data production process from sampling to sequencing, the storage of specimen lots, slides and DNA extracts and their assignment to morphology‐based and DNA‐based species hypotheses. The application also accommodates species occurrence data and DNA sequence metadata from external sources and the bibliographic referencing of information. GOTIT is designed to optimize research activities on the diversity and evolution of species which have a strong geographic component, such as biogeography and phylogeography. A key feature of GOTIT is the ability to assign multiple species hypotheses based on morphology and molecular delimitation methods to the same set of specimens. This integrative taxonomic approach allows to explore how different aspects of speciation, such as morphological distinguishability and genetic isolation, vary in strength relative to each other across taxa and geographic regions. Another key feature is traceability which promotes repeatability and minimizes duplicate work among multiple users. Any species data refer to a set of localities, sampling methods, biological vouchers, analytical protocols and delimitation methods that can be traced. The application is free and open‐source with extensive documentation and demo version. Developers can reuse the source code or develop new add‐ons to fulfill a laboratory's specific requirements although the application can be used as such to manage species occurrence data for a wide range of taxa.

Vom lokalen Bestand zur weltweiten Vernetzung. Mittelalterliche Handschriften im Netz

Abstract Using the example of the Herzog August Bibliothek, the paper shows how (medieval) manuscripts are currently catalogued in the digital environment and how the data is published and shared with other relevant communities. The paper focuses both on the process of data production as well as the exchange and re-use of data. In particular, the paper will discuss the challenges of distributing the data into non-specialised databases. Two elements are crucial here: firstly, the standardised modelling of manuscript-related information, including semantic enrichment. Secondly, the challenge of providing as much data as possible on the Web and offering interfaces to access the data.

Photography, politics and childhood: exploring children’s multimodal relations with the public sphere

In qualitative research with children visually oriented and multimodal approaches are identified in the literature as more appropriate for approaching children’s meanings and feelings often deemed to lie beyond the realm of language. In our own research, a comparative ethnography which enquired into the relationships between childhood and public life, with six-to-eight year olds in three cities (Athens, Hyderabad and London), we have reflexively experimented with the employment and remixing of methodologies which would allow us to explore such relationships. In the process of our research, incorporating different visual and ethnographic methods, we have developed a data collection and production process, an adaptation of the photo-story, which allows for a multimodal, processual and reflective enquiry into children’s relationships of concern and politics of care. We review the central visual methods in research with children, we then proceed to provide a documentation of the method, its development and its rationale. Consequently, we provide some examples of the photo-story method’s implementation in the Connectors Study together with a discussion of the production processes of the photo-stories themselves and our readings of them. We conclude with a section with reflections on the method, which, we argue provides a departure point from which we may rethink the political in childhood, as well as the ways in which photography is employed as a research method in the social sciences.

The variety of decentralization indexes: A review of the literature

ABSTRACT This article centres on the variety of indexes of decentralization. The first section reviews and compares a dataset consisting of 25 decentralization indexes according to a series of items, namely: the definition of territorial autonomy, the kind of units of analysis, the number of cases, the nature of variables, the timescale, the measurement frequency, the scoring, the sources, the validity and reliability assessment and the transparency of the data production process. It concludes by stating that the Regional Authority Index and the Local Autonomy Index are the rankings which best comply with these quality standards. In the second section, these two indexes are introduced along with the Territorial Political Capacity framework. While the former can be considered as the current international standards in the field of decentralization indexes, the latter proposes alternative ways to understand decentralization through using mixed methods.

Making Informal Settlements ‘Visible’ Through Datafication: A Case Study of Quarry Road West Informal Settlement, Durban, South Africa

Can datafication increase the ‘visibility’ of informal settlements in South Africa, in the context of a national and local state that holds both progressive and repressive approaches towards informal settlements? This case study explores a datafication process that has been in place for five years in an informal settlement in Durban, which has been established through an inclusionary, participatory data collection and production process. It examines how and when the data moves in the information value chain, and the implications this movement has for achieving rights-based, instrumental, structural and distributive justice. It argues that procedural and rights-based justice can be achieved to a certain extent through the construction of an inclusionary datafication process. However, instrumental, structural and distributive justice is dependent on how the interventionist and developmental state of South Africa engages with the data, and whether it takes it up in a meaningful way, thus enabling it to lead to fundamental shifts in discourses, approaches and practices towards informality. The results reveal that the ‘governance and knowledge platforms’ that are built through the datafication process are more important and powerful at first, than the actual data itself. However, informal settlers and other data intermediaries, who have learnt how to engage data to secure the ‘right of informal settlers to the city,’ have begun to use the data in interesting ways, acting as champions, and re-shaping citizens’ relations with the state. While this does not secure tangible changes in informal settlements, it begins to shift discourses and power relations, which is critical to informal settlement upgrading.

Data Publics: Urban Protest, Analytics and the Courts

Data Publics: Urban Protest, Analytics and the Courts

Analisis Tingkat Kecacatan Produk Lever Assy Parking Brake Menggunakan Metode Statistical Quality Control (SQC)

The company always tries to meet customer demands, so it must be able to provide good product quality. Quality control is always carried out by manufacturing companies for the creation of zero defects. Lever Assy Parking Brake is part of the cars spare parts produced by manufacturing company X and must have a zero defect product quality level. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of product defect using the Statistical Quality Control (SQC) method. Data was carried out with process control procedures. This study showed that the product defect rate of Lever Assy Parking Brake with Statistical Quality Control (SQC) method in March 2018 was very large. As seen from the 22 data production processes, 13 production process data (59 percent) were out-of-control but still fell within the specification limit of 9 ± 0.5 mm. Meanwhile, only 9 data production processes (41 percent) were in control. So there is a need to analyze causes and corrective actions. R control chart shows the process that has been stable or under control has a UCL (Upper Control Limit) value of 0.21, the LCL (Lower Control Limit) value of 0 and a value of CL (central line) of 0.10. Whereas 𝑥̅ chart shows the control limit with UCL value of 9.39, LCL value is 9.27 and CL value is 9.33.

The Structuration of Digital Ecosystem, Privacy, and Big Data Intelligence

This study presents a conceptual model of understanding algorithmic digital surveillance systems, borrowing insight from Giddens, who proposed the notion of structuration as social practices deriving from the intersection between structure and agents. We argue that the status of privacy, or lack of it, is a product of these interactions, of which the personal data practices and related interests constitute the reproduction of a data ecosystem. We trace the process of data production and consumption, dissecting the interactive dynamics between digital media producers (personal data users) and users (personal data producers). Inadequacies, limits, and social and policy implications of data surveillance and its algorithmic reproduction of identities are discussed.

The Simple Concurrent Online Processing System (SCOPS) - An open-source interface for remotely sensed data processing

Advances in technology allow remotely sensed data to be acquired with increasingly higher spatial and spectral resolutions. These data may then be used to influence government decision making and solve a number of research and application driven questions. However, such large volumes of data can be difficult to handle on a single personal computer or on older machines with slower components. Often the software required to process data is varied and can be highly technical and too advanced for the novice user to fully understand. This paper describes an open-source tool, the Simple Concurrent Online Processing System (SCOPS), which forms part of an airborne hyperspectral data processing chain that allows users accessing the tool over a web interface to submit jobs and process data remotely. It is demonstrated using Natural Environment Research Council Airborne Research Facility (NERC-ARF) instruments together with other free- and open-source tools to take radiometrically corrected data from sensor geometry into geocorrected form and to generate simple or complex band ratio products. The final processed data products are acquired via an HTTP download. SCOPS can cut data processing times and introduce complex processing software to novice users by distributing jobs across a network using a simple to use web interface.

Data quality problems in discrete event simulation of manufacturing operations

High-quality input data are a necessity for successful discrete event simulation (DES) applications, and there are available methodologies for data collection in DES projects. However, in contrast to standalone projects, using DES as a daily manufacturing engineering tool requires high-quality production data to be constantly available. In fact, there has been a major shift in the application of DES in manufacturing from production system design to daily operations, accompanied by a stream of research on automation of input data management and interoperability between data sources and simulation models. Unfortunately, this research stream rests on the assumption that the collected data are already of high quality, and there is a lack of in-depth understanding of simulation data quality problems from a practitioners’ perspective. Therefore, a multiple-case study within the automotive industry was used to provide empirical descriptions of simulation data quality problems, data production processes, and relations between these processes and simulation data quality problems. These empirical descriptions are necessary to extend the present knowledge on data quality in DES in a practical real-world manufacturing context, which is a prerequisite for developing practical solutions for solving data quality problems such as limited accessibility, lack of data on minor stoppages, and data sources not being designed for simulation. Further, the empirical and theoretical knowledge gained throughout the study was used to propose a set of practical guidelines that can support manufacturing companies in improving data quality in DES.

Beyond Verbal Narratives: Using Timeline Images in the Semiotic Cultural Study of Meaning Making.

Contemporary semiotic cultural tradition in psychology views human meaning making as unfolding through the negotiation of multiple real and imagined scenarios and storylines. While emphasising this complex and layered nature of meaning making, this research tradition offers little methodological guidance for appreciating and evidencing this multiplicity in data analysis and interpretation. This paper suggests that a methodological approach that combines visual and verbal ways of representing one's personal stories might offer a useful alternative for evidencing the multiple meanings that individuals create about their personal journeys. By presenting two examples of drawn timeline images and corresponding interview extracts, the paper discusses how the chosen methodological approach offered opportunities for participants to 'show and tell' their complex and layered stories, and gave them freedom and agency to shape the research encounter and data production processes. The paper also highlights how the incorporation of visual methods into the methodology enabled the researcher to find alternative ways of interpreting participants' stories. The paper argues for a purposeful integration of visual and verbal methods, where the semiotic tensions and clashes between these modes can reveal novel ways of seeing researchers' and participants' meanings in the making.

DATA PROCESSING FOR THE SPACE-BASED DESIS HYPERSPECTRAL SENSOR

Abstract. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE) have established a collaboration to develop and operate a new space-based hyperspectral sensor, the DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS). DESIS will provide spacebased hyperspectral data in the VNIR with high spectral resolution and near-global coverage. While TBE provides the platform and infrastructure for operation of the DESIS instrument on the International Space Station, DLR is responsible for providing the instrument and the processing software. The DESIS instrument is equipped with novel characteristics for an imaging spectrometer such high spectral resolution (2.55 nm), a mirror pointing unit or a CMOS sensor operated in rolling shutter mode. We present here an overview of the DESIS instrument and its processing chain, emphasizing the effect of the novel characteristics of DESIS in the data processing and final data products. Furthermore, we analyse in more detail the effect of the rolling shutter on the DESIS data and possible mitigation/correction strategies.

Integrated visual quality assessment for ZiYuan-3 optical satellite panchromatic products

ABSTRACTIn practical data production process of ZiYuan-3 (ZY-3) optical satellite, the quality of massive panchromatic (PAN) products is usually measured with multiple quality metrics. Although the existing metrics have been widely used in practice and obtained good performance, they have some limitations: (1) there are so many quality metrics that makes it difficult for users or operators to directly judge whether the imagery is acceptable or not; and (2) a specific quality metric can only measure a certain aspect of image quality and is often not designed from the perspective of human visual system (HVS), leading the objective evaluation result inconsistent with subjective one. To tackle the aforementioned problems, we propose an integrated visual quality assessment (VQA) method to predict comprehensive quality scores for ZY-3 sensor calibration (SC) PAN products. In the proposed method: (1) we exploited eight quality elements that have significant influences on the visual quality of SC PAN products; (2) we constructed a database composed of 360 ZY-3 SC PAN images and the corresponding subjective mean opinion scores (MOS); (3) we introduced generalised regression neural network to combine the extracted quality elements of the images and their MOS and obtained the integrated VQA result. Experimental results on the database showed that the proposed method achieved high accuracy of predicted quality scores and well consistency with HVS, indicating the effectiveness and reliability of the presented approach.

Open-access for existing LMIC demographic surveillance data using DDI

Open-access for existing LMIC demographic surveillance data using DDI

DESIGN OF A FREE AND OPEN SOURCE DATA PROCESSING, ARCHIVING, AND DISTRIBUTION SUBSYSTEM FOR THE GROUND RECEIVING STATION OF THE PHILIPPINE SCIENTIFIC EARTH OBSERVATION MICRO-SATELLITE

The Philippines’s PHL-Microsat program aims to launch its first earth observation satellite, DIWATA, on the first quarter of 2016. DIWATA’s payload consists of a high-precision telescope (HPT), spaceborne multispectral imager (SMI) with liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF), and a wide field camera (WFC). Once launched, it will provide information about the Philippines, both for disaster and environmental applications. Depending on the need, different remote sensing products will be generated from the microsatellite sensors. This necessitates data processing capability on the ground control segment. Rather than rely on commercial turnkey solutions, the PHL-Microsat team, specifically Project 3:DPAD, opted to design its own ground receiving station data subsystems. This paper describes the design of the data subsystems of the ground receiving station (GRS) for DIWATA. The data subsystems include: data processing subsystem for automatic calibration and georeferencing of raw images as well as the generation of higher level processed data products; data archiving subsystem for storage and backups of both raw and processed data products; and data distribution subsystem for providing a web-based interface and product download facility for the user community. The design covers the conceptual design of the abovementioned subsystems, the free and open source software (FOSS) packages used to implement them, and the challenges encountered in adapting the existing FOSS packages to DIWATA GRS requirements.

DESIGN OF A FREE AND OPEN SOURCE DATA PROCESSING, ARCHIVING, AND DISTRIBUTION SUBSYSTEM FOR THE GROUND RECEIVING STATION OF THE PHILIPPINE SCIENTIFIC EARTH OBSERVATION MICRO-SATELLITE

Abstract. The Philippines’s PHL-Microsat program aims to launch its first earth observation satellite, DIWATA, on the first quarter of 2016. DIWATA’s payload consists of a high-precision telescope (HPT), spaceborne multispectral imager (SMI) with liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF), and a wide field camera (WFC). Once launched, it will provide information about the Philippines, both for disaster and environmental applications. Depending on the need, different remote sensing products will be generated from the microsatellite sensors. This necessitates data processing capability on the ground control segment. Rather than rely on commercial turnkey solutions, the PHL-Microsat team, specifically Project 3:DPAD, opted to design its own ground receiving station data subsystems. This paper describes the design of the data subsystems of the ground receiving station (GRS) for DIWATA. The data subsystems include: data processing subsystem for automatic calibration and georeferencing of raw images as well as the generation of higher level processed data products; data archiving subsystem for storage and backups of both raw and processed data products; and data distribution subsystem for providing a web-based interface and product download facility for the user community. The design covers the conceptual design of the abovementioned subsystems, the free and open source software (FOSS) packages used to implement them, and the challenges encountered in adapting the existing FOSS packages to DIWATA GRS requirements.

Big data o data that are getting bigger?

The potential of Big Data for sociology is being recognized broadly, but there is still a wide gap between its potential and its realization. One of the reasons is that Big Data encloses types of data which are very different. This articles aims to identify the features of Big Data that are common to other traditional sociological data such as registers, traces and documents. Secondly, its purpose is to propose a typology of Big Data based on four criteria: data origin, flexibility, presence of operational definitions, presence of metadata. Finally, the main methodological issues deriving from the different phases of the data production process are presented for every type of Big Data.

Do Budget Deficit Crowds Out Private Investment: A Case of Tanzanian Economy

The existing high budget deficit in Tanzanian economy has created an immense concern among economic policy analysts. The study inspects whether budget deficits crowd out or crowd in private investment in Tanzania, using annual data for the period from 1970 to 2012. Using the Johansen cointegration test advocates there is at least one cointegration vector among these variables. Given such condition, the application vector error correction model (VEC) became inevitable as it presents additional and superior information in relation to other data production processes. The results indicate a close long–term connection between private investment, and other variables included in the study. Results suggest that budget deficits considerably crowds out private investment. The study advocates that government should readdress its fiscal policy that would support the private investors. The government should discourage high government expenditures and maintaining a low fiscal deficit also capital market should be used to finance budget deficit.