Evaluating the degree of domain specificity of terms in large terminologies

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Martín-Moncunill ◽  
Miguel-Ángel Sicilia-Urban ◽  
Elena García-Barriocanal ◽  
Salvador Sánchez-Alonso

Purpose – Large terminologies usually contain a mix of terms that are either generic or domain specific, which makes the use of the terminology itself a difficult task that may limit the positive effects of these systems. The purpose of this paper is to systematically evaluate the degree of domain specificity of the AGROVOC controlled vocabulary terms as a representative of a large terminology in the agricultural domain and discuss the generic/specific boundaries across its hierarchy. Design/methodology/approach – A user-oriented study with domain-experts in conjunction with quantitative and systematic analysis. First an in-depth analysis of AGROVOC was carried out to make a proper selection of terms for the experiment. Then domain-experts were asked to classify the terms according to their domain specificity. An evaluation was conducted to analyse the domain-experts’ results. Finally, the resulting data set was automatically compared with the terms in SUMO, an upper ontology and MILO, a mid-level ontology; to analyse the coincidences. Findings – Results show the existence of a high number of generic terms. The motivation for several of the unclear cases is also depicted. The automatic evaluation showed that there is not a direct way to assess the specificity degree of a term by using SUMO and MILO ontologies, however, it provided additional validation of the results gathered from the domain-experts. Research limitations/implications – The “domain-analysis” concept has long been discussed and it could be addressed from different perspectives. A resume of these perspectives and an explanation of the approach followed in this experiment is included in the background section. Originality/value – The authors propose an approach to identify the domain specificity of terms in large domain-specific terminologies and a criterion to measure the overall domain specificity of a knowledge organisation system, based on domain-experts analysis. The authors also provide a first insight about using automated measures to determine the degree to which a given term can be considered domain specific. The resulting data set from the domain-experts’ evaluation can be reused as a gold standard for further research about these automatic measures.

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (7) ◽  
pp. 1365-1379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elina De Simone ◽  
Mariangela Bonasia ◽  
Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta ◽  
Lorenzo Cicatiello

Purpose Making citizens able to monitor and evaluate public spending activities is a fundamental issue in public financial management literature. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether fiscal transparency, measured by the Open Budget Index, has an effect on public spending performance, measured by the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report data. Design/methodology/approach Research methods rely on random-effects panel regression models on a country-level panel data set of 82 world countries observed in the 2008–2015 time interval. Findings Results show that the potential positive effects of fiscal transparency are mediated by the level of democracy of the country. In detail, in democratic countries, a higher degree of disclosure of fiscal information is correlated with a higher efficiency of government spending while, in non-democratic countries, fiscal transparency does not seem to provide any effect. Social implications The results suggest that fiscal transparency can be a powerful device where politicians can be held accountable for their actions, while it could fail to provide positive results where a strong and effective vertical accountability is missing. Originality/value The novelty of the paper is twofold. First, it provides new additional evidence about the positive effect that fiscal transparency has on public spending efficiency by advancing previous research on this topic (Porumbescu, 2017; Montes et al., 2019). Second, the paper investigates conceptually and empirically how the positive effect on public spending efficiency determined by fiscal transparency depends on the degree of democracy present in the institutional environment in which fiscal information disclosure is implemented.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14
Author(s):  
Sue Davies ◽  
Jane Hughes ◽  
Karen Davies ◽  
Elizabeth Dalgarno ◽  
Rowan Elaine Jasper ◽  
...  

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine changes in the nature, form and range of commissioning arrangements for home care. Design/methodology/approach Data from two discrete national surveys of English local authorities with social service responsibilities were used. In the first, undertaken in 2007, responses from 111 of the 151 local authorities (74%) were received; in the second, undertaken in 2017, responses from 109 local authorities (72%) were received. A combined data set of 79 complete cases, 52% of local authorities, was created. Percentage point differences across the two time periods were calculated and tested to identify significant changes and a systematic analysis of the free-text responses regarding intended changes to the commissioning process in each data set was undertaken. Findings Findings identified substantial changes in some aspects of the commissioning of home care in the 2007-2017 decade. Collaboration between stakeholders had increased, particularly regarding the identification of future needs. Improved conditions of service and remuneration for home care workers were evident within the commissioning process. Standardised charges for home care (regardless of time and day) had also become more widespread. Initiatives to prompt providers to deliver more personalised care were more evident. Originality/value This paper describes the evolution of commissioning arrangements for home care in localities in response to national policy initiatives. It provides guidance to commissioners in meeting the needs of current service users and emphasises the importance of collaboration with stakeholders, particularly providers, in securing future capacity.


2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Alonso Gaona-García ◽  
David Martin-Moncunill ◽  
Carlos Enrique Montenegro-Marin

Purpose This paper aims to present an overview of the challenges encountered in integrating visual search interfaces into digital libraries and repositories. These challenges come in various forms, including information visualisation, the use of knowledge organisation systems and metadata quality. The main purpose of this study is the identification of criteria for the evaluation and integration of visual search interfaces, proposing guidelines and recommendations to improve information retrieval tasks with emphasis on the education-al context. Design/methodology/approach The information included in this study was collected based on a systematic literature review approach. The main information sources were explored in several digital libraries, including Science Direct, Scopus, ACM and IEEE, and include journal articles, conference proceedings, books, European project reports and deliverables and PhD theses published in an electronic format. A total of 142 studies comprised the review. Findings There are several issues that authors did not fully discuss in this literature review study; more specific, aspects associated with access of digital resources in digital libraries and repositories based on human computer interaction, i.e. usability and learnability of user interfaces; design of a suitable navigation method of search based on simple knowledge organisation schemes; and the use of usefulness of visual search interfaces to locate relevant resources. Research limitations/implications The main steps for carrying out a systematic review are drawn from health care; this methodology is not commonly used in fields such as digital libraries and repositories. The authors aimed to apply the fundamentals of the systematic literature review methodology considering the context of this study. Additionally, there are several aspects of accessibility that were not considered in the study, such as accessibility to content for disabled people as defined by ISO/IEC 40500:2012. Originality/value No other systematic literature reviews have been conducted in this field. The research presents an in-depth analysis of the criteria associated with searching and navigation methods based on the systematic literature review approach. The analysis is relevant for researchers in the field of digital library and repository creation in that it may direct them to considerations in designing and implementing visual search interfaces based on the use of information visualisation.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan L. Kasdorf ◽  
Alper Kayaalp

Purpose Responding to calls for further research, the primary aim of the current study is to examine the employee perceptions of development (EPD) and intent to stay process with potential intervening variables (i.e. job satisfaction and supervisor support) to expand our understanding of how employees will respond to such perceptions. Design/methodology/approach A large sample (n = 687) of survey responses from a health-care organization was analyzed. The data set is from an employee experience survey that was distributed to employees after one year of employment. As one of the largest change initiatives in its history, the organization was in the process of merging with another large health-care organization. Findings The results indicated that there is a direct and positive relationship between EPD and intent to stay, and that job satisfaction mediated this relationship. These findings provide further evidence that employee development is an effective intervention to reduce turnover and increase job satisfaction. Originality/value The current study contributed to the existing literature by providing additional evidence for the positive effects of employee career development perceptions on job satisfaction and intent to stay by examining a large sample in an organizational setting.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 962-978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amel Abdyssalam Alhaag ◽  
Goran Savic ◽  
Gordana Milosavljevic ◽  
Milan Tima Segedinac ◽  
Milorad Filipovic

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to enable dynamic customization of metadata that describes educational resources in digital repositories.Design/methodology/approachUsers need to describe educational resources in digital repositories according to a user-specific metadata set. As users generally do not have the skills to customize the software application manually, this approach relies on the techniques of model-driven software engineering, which should allow customization of the software application programmatically with no need to develop or order a new software application. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the proposed solution.FindingsA software platform for managing educational resources described by dynamically extendable metadata is proposed. The platform enables the creation of data models that are programmatically transformed to a Web application for the management of educational resources. In this way, users can create their own models of metadata that are relevant in a particular domain.Research limitations/implicationsThe solution has been verified by users with technical knowledge. The appropriateness of the model should still be explored for domain experts with little technical knowledge who desire to define new metadata in their domain.Practical implicationsThe solution can be used for digital repositories that store diverse educational resources. Each resource could be described using metadata that relates to the domain the resource belongs to.Originality/valueDigital repositories standardly describe educational resources using some general metadata, which are more focused on the physical characteristics of resources rather than their semantics. The proposed solution introduces custom domain-specific semantics into the description of the resources, which improves their retrieval.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wafa Ghardallou

Purpose The literature studying the effect of democratic political systems on financial development has found conflicting results. Besides, recent work has focused on the level effects of democracy on financial outcomes showing evidence of positive, negative and no direct impact. This paper aims to investigate the dynamic effects of democratic transition on financial development, namely, short run and long run effects. Design/methodology/approach The author wants to see whether financial development improves after a transition to a democratic system and, if it does, for how long. Using a panel data set of 48 events of democratic transitions, the paper relies on an event study and on the estimation of dynamic panel after controlling for other potential determinants. Findings The author finds that transition to a democratic system raises the development of the financial sector. Particularly, these positive effects occurred in the long run, i.e. about 5 years following the democratic transition. However, in the short run, the author finds that the move to democracy does not impact financial outcomes. Originality/value The author contributes by studying the role of political system change on financial development finding that democratic transition increases the development of the financial system. Further, the author contributes by finding that the move to democracy produces positive effect only in the long term.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 405-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Albertoni ◽  
Monica De Martino ◽  
Paola Podestà

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on the quality of the connections (linkset) among thesauri published as Linked Data on the Web. It extends the cross-walking measures with two new measures able to evaluate the enrichment brought by the information reached through the linkset (lexical enrichment, browsing space enrichment). It fosters the adoption of cross-walking linkset quality measures besides the well-known and deployed cardinality-based measures (linkset cardinality and linkset coverage). Design/methodology/approach The paper applies the linkset measures to the Linked Thesaurus fRamework for Environment (LusTRE). LusTRE is selected as testbed as it is encoded using a Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS) published as Linked Data, and it explicitly exploits the cross-walking measures on its validated linksets. Findings The application on LusTRE offers an insight of the complementarities among the considered linkset measures. In particular, it shows that the cross-walking measures deepen the cardinality-based measures analysing quality facets that were not previously considered. The actual value of LusTRE’s linksets regarding the improvement of multilingualism and concept spaces is assessed. Research limitations/implications The paper considers skos:exactMatch linksets, which belong to a rather specific but a quite common kind of linkset. The cross-walking measures explicitly assume correctness and completeness of linksets. Third party approaches and tools can help to meet the above assumptions. Originality/value This paper fulfils an identified need to study the quality of linksets. Several approaches formalise and evaluate Linked Data quality focusing on data set quality but disregarding the other essential component: the connection among data.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristóvão Dinis Sousa ◽  
António Lucas Soares ◽  
Carla Sofia Pereira

Purpose In collaborative settings, such as research and development projects, obtaining the maximum benefit from knowledge management systems depends on the ability of the different partners to understand the conceptualisation underlying the system’s knowledge organisation. This paper aims to show how information/knowledge organisation in a multi-organisation project can be made more effective if the domain experts are involved in the specification of the systems semantic structure. A particular aspect is further studied: the role of conceptual relations in the process of collaborative development of such structures. Design/methodology/approach An action-research approach was adopted, framed by a socio-semantic stance. A collaborative conceptual modelling platform was used to support the members of a research and development project in the process of developing a lightweight ontology aiming at reorganising all the project information in a wiki system. Data collection was carried out by means of participant observation, interviews and a questionnaire. Findings The approach to solve the content organisation problem revealed to be effective both in the result and the process. It resulted in a better-organised system, enabling more efficient project information retrieval. The collaborative development of the lightweight ontology embodied, in fact, a learning process, leading to a shared conceptualisation. The research results point to the importance of the elicitation of conceptual relations for structuring the project’s knowledge. These results are important for the design of methods and tools to support the collaborative development of conceptual models. Originality/value This paper studies the social process leading to a shared conceptualisation, a subject that has not been sufficiently researched. This case study provides evidence about the importance of the early phases of the construction of ontologies, mainly if domain experts are deeply involved, supported by appropriated tools and guided by well-structured processes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Dinh Tho ◽  
Nguyen Dong Phong ◽  
Tran Ha Minh Quan ◽  
Nguyen Thi Mai Trang

Purpose Positing that human capital resources of marketers comprise both psychological capital (PsyCap) and marketing capital (MarCap), and that PsyCap in combination with MarCap will have a synergistic effect on marketers’ job performance, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the configurational roles of PsyCap and MarCap in marketers’ job performance. Design/methodology/approach Using a survey data set collected from 472 marketers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the study tested the net effects of PsyCap and MarCap on job performance using structural equation modeling (SEM). Then, the study investigated the configurational roles of PsyCap and MarCap in job performance employing the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Findings SEM results show that two components of PsyCap (efficacy and optimism) and one component of MarCap (organizational MarCap) have positive effects on job performance. fsQCA findings reveal that, except hope, combinations of PsyCap and MarCap components form several sufficient conditions for job performance. Research limitations/implications The focus of this study is on marketers, that is, at the individual level. Future research should examine both PsyCap and MarCap at a higher level, such as the team, unit, or firm level. Practical implications The study’s findings suggest that firms should pay attention not only to the net effect but also to the configuration of PsyCap and MarCap when designing and implementing their human resource strategies and policies. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on human capital resources by confirming the configurational roles of PsyCap and MarCap in marketers’ job performance.


Author(s):  
Christin Katharina Kreutz ◽  
Michael Wolz ◽  
Jascha Knack ◽  
Benjamin Weyers ◽  
Ralf Schenkel

AbstractInformation access to bibliographic metadata needs to be uncomplicated, as users may not benefit from complex and potentially richer data that may be difficult to obtain. Sophisticated research questions including complex aggregations could be answered with complex SQL queries. However, this comes with the cost of high complexity, which requires for a high level of expertise even for trained programmers. A domain-specific query language could provide a straightforward solution to this problem. Although less generic, it can support users not familiar with query construction in the formulation of complex information needs. In this paper, we present and evaluate SchenQL, a simple and applicable query language that is accompanied by a prototypical GUI. SchenQL focuses on querying bibliographic metadata using the vocabulary of domain experts. The easy-to-learn domain-specific query language is suitable for domain experts as well as casual users while still providing the possibility to answer complex information demands. Query construction and information exploration are supported by a prototypical GUI. We present an evaluation of the complete system: different variants for executing SchenQL queries are benchmarked; interviews with domain-experts and a bipartite quantitative user study demonstrate SchenQL’s suitability and high level of users’ acceptance.


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