A methodology to bridge the water information gap

2010 ◽  
Vol 62 (10) ◽  
pp. 2419-2426 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. Timmerman ◽  
E. Beinat ◽  
C. J. A. M. Termeer ◽  
W. P. Cofino
Keyword(s):  
Water Policy ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Problem Structuring ◽  
Information Gap ◽  
Reflection In Action ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Action Process ◽  
Process Architecture

The metaphor of the water information gap is used to describe the discontent between information users and information producers about the use of and need for specific information. This paper describes the rugby-ball methodology for specification of information needs that was developed on the basis of an analysis of the water information gap and insights from the literature on policy- and decision-analysis, problem-structuring, and information management. The methodology consists of a process-architecture to manage the process of assessing information needs and a structure to organise the information needs related to water policy objectives. The methodology was developed and enhanced through a Reflection-in-Action process in which interaction between ideas and practice leads to improved results. The paper describes the methodology and its development, and concludes both on the development process and on the abilities of the methodology to narrow the water information gap.

scholarly journals Care Coordination Needs of Families of Children with Down Syndrome: A Scoping Review to Inform Development of mHealth Applications for Families

Children ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 558
Author(s):  
Beth Skelton ◽  
Kathleen Knafl ◽  
Marcia Van Riper ◽  
Louise Fleming ◽  
Veronica Swallow
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Care Coordination ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Personal Health Record ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Children With Down Syndrome ◽  
Scoping Reviews ◽  
Mhealth Apps

Care coordination is a critical component of health management aimed at linking care providers and health-information-involved care management. Our intent in this scoping review was to identify care coordination needs of families of children with Down syndrome (DS) and the strategies they used to meet those needs, with the goal of contributing to the evidence base for developing interventions by using an mHealth application (mHealth apps) for these families. Using established guidelines for scoping reviews, we searched five databases, yielding 2149 articles. Following abstract and full-text review, we identified 38 articles meeting our inclusion criteria. Studies incorporated varied in regard to research designs, samples, measures, and analytic approaches, with only one testing an intervention by using mHealth apps. Across studies, data came from 4882 families. Common aspects of families’ care coordination needs included communication and information needs and utilization of healthcare resources. Additional themes were identified related to individual, family, and healthcare contextual factors. Authors also reported families’ recommendations for desirable characteristics of an mHealth apps that addressed the design of a personal health record, meeting age-specific information needs, and ensuring access to up-to-date information. These results will further the development of mHealth apps that are tailored to the needs of families with a child with DS.

Information needs of breast cancer patients and how educational status influence their information needs in Ghana

2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062098161
Author(s):  
Benedicta Boadi ◽  
George Tesilimi Banji ◽  
Patrick Adzobu ◽  
Stephen Okyere
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Educational Status ◽  
Health Facilities ◽  
Military Hospital ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Breast Cancer Patients

Health information literacy plays a critical role in self-management practices among patients living with chronic health conditions. However, there are limited studies on information needs among breast cancer patients in Ghana. This paper therefore investigated the information needs of women living with breast cancer in Ghana and how educational status influenced their information needs. The study was conducted in two health facilities in Accra, Ghana (37 Military Hospital and Sweden Ghana Medical Centre). A total of 75 breast cancer patients were conveniently selected from the two health facilities for the study. The instrument used to elicit relevant data for this study was a questionnaire using the survey design. Data was analysed descriptively. The findings of the study revealed that the information needs of the breast cancer patients investigated were centred mainly around treatment and management information and less around preventive information. The patients also ranked diagnostic information as their highest need, followed by physical care information, treatment information, psychosocial information and disease-specific information in that order. Patients with higher education reported higher information need on all the five domains compared to those with lower education. The study therefore recommended that management of health facilities make health information literacy an integral component of their treatment and management of breast cancer.

An interactive query-based approach for summarizing scientific documents

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farnoush Bayatmakou ◽  
Azadeh Mohebi ◽  
Abbas Ahmadi
Keyword(s):  
User Satisfaction ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Information Need ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Interactive Query ◽  
Summarization System ◽  
Clear Idea

Purpose Query-based summarization approaches might not be able to provide summaries compatible with the user’s information need, as they mostly rely on a limited source of information, usually represented as a single query by the user. This issue becomes even more challenging when dealing with scientific documents, as they contain more specific subject-related terms, while the user may not be able to express his/her specific information need in a query with limited terms. This study aims to propose an interactive multi-document text summarization approach that generates an eligible summary that is more compatible with the user’s information need. This approach allows the user to interactively specify the composition of a multi-document summary. Design/methodology/approach This approach exploits the user’s opinion in two stages. The initial query is refined by user-selected keywords/keyphrases and complete sentences extracted from the set of retrieved documents. It is followed by a novel method for sentence expansion using the genetic algorithm, and ranking the final set of sentences using the maximal marginal relevance method. Basically, for implementation, the Web of Science data set in the artificial intelligence (AI) category is considered. Findings The proposed approach receives feedback from the user in terms of favorable keywords and sentences. The feedback eventually improves the summary as the end. To assess the performance of the proposed system, this paper has asked 45 users who were graduate students in the field of AI to fill out a questionnaire. The quality of the final summary has been also evaluated from the user’s perspective and information redundancy. It has been investigated that the proposed approach leads to higher degrees of user satisfaction compared to the ones with no or only one step of the interaction. Originality/value The interactive summarization approach goes beyond the initial user’s query, while it includes the user’s preferred keywords/keyphrases and sentences through a systematic interaction. With respect to these interactions, the system gives the user a more clear idea of the information he/she is looking for and consequently adjusting the final result to the ultimate information need. Such interaction allows the summarization system to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the user’s information needs while expanding context-based knowledge and guiding the user toward his/her information journey.

Euroatlanske integracije i savremeni izazovi razvojne politike javnog komuniciranja u Bosni i Hercegovini

2017 ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Mirza Mehmedović
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Media Policy ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Public Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Many

In the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century, Bosnia and Herzegovina is at the crossroads of political, economic and cultural revitalization of the society as a country that declarative aims for application of European principles of political organization and the membership in the European Union. On this way there are many open issues that are the result of twenty years of political and economic stagnation or collapse of all elements that should be the foundation for the stabilization of a modern democratic society in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The internal reconstruction of the political system and the revitalisation of the institutions of the government or different holders of political reforms means at the same time the fulfilment of the conditions of accession to Euro-Atlantic integration. The development of a unified media policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the establishment of public media service in accordance with the requirements of the European Union and the interests of all citizens are the top issues among the many current challenges that we have to deal with in the future. But for Bosnia and Herzegovina it is not exclusively the interest of communicational research. It must be necessarily seen in the wider context as a political, cultural and economic issue, because the establishment of a single media/communication system is one of the key requirements for a political compromise, the integration of society and the harmonization of other common (primarily economic) interests for all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of the key requirements for defining a unified media policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina is agreeing / reconciliation of all complex (heterogeneous) cultural characteristics, as well as the specific characteristics of modern communication situation in a model that would respond to the specific information needs of citizens and the standards applied by the European Union.

Practice Report “Smart Disaster Management” — Combining Smart City Data and Citizen Participation to Increase Disaster Resilience

i-com ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-193
Author(s):  
Daniel Wessel ◽  
Julien Holtz ◽  
Florian König
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
The Everyday

Abstract Smart cities have a huge potential to increase the everyday efficiency of cities, but also to increase preparation and resilience in case of natural disasters. Especially for disasters which are somewhat predicable like floods, sensor data can be used to provide citizens with up-to-date, personalized and location-specific information (street or even house level resolution). This information allows citizens to better prepare to avert water damage to their property, reduce the needed government support, and — by connecting citizens locally — improve mutual support among neighbors. But how can a smart city application be designed that is both usable and able to function during disaster conditions? Which smart city information can be used? How can the likelihood of mutual, local support be increased? In this practice report, we present the human-centered development process of an app to use Smart City data to better prepare citizens for floods and improve their mutual support during disasters as a case study to answer these questions.

scholarly journals Lack of Information on Intangible Assets in the Financial Statements and a Way to Manage It

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 26-37
Author(s):  
Ya. I. Ustinova
Keyword(s):  
Information Needs ◽  
Intangible Assets ◽  
Financial Statements ◽  
Logical Analysis ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Information Gap ◽  
Information Requests

The article is devoted to the study of localization of the lack of information on intangible assets in traditional financial statements and the analysis of possible ways to manage it. The methodological framework of the research includes methods of comparative, logical analysis, typology and grouping, induction and deduction. The research resulted in ways and means of disclosing the external manifestations of this type of information gap in the reporting and their negative consequences. It also analyses the options for filling in this gap, first of all, by means of the report on intangible assets that complements the structure and contents of traditional statements, and its comparison with the information requests of the company’s stakeholders. The conclusion about the need to revise the concept of preparing and disclosing information about the company’s intangible assets in the financial statements is substantiated. The research can be used in developing the concept of accounting for intangible assets, which can ensure that the gap between the content of financial statements and the information needs of users is bridged.

scholarly journals ANALYSIS OF COMBINED UAV-BASED RGB AND THERMAL REMOTE SENSING DATA: A NEW APPROACH TO CROWD MONITORING

2017 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W6 ◽  
pp. 347-354
Author(s):  
S. Schulte ◽  
F. Hillen ◽  
T. Prinz
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Thermal Remote Sensing ◽  
Sensing Data ◽  
Detection Approach ◽  
Remotely Piloted Aircraft ◽  
Crowd Monitoring ◽  
Single Data

Collecting vast amount of data does not solely help to fulfil information needs related to crowd monitoring, it is rather important to collect data that is suitable to meet specific information requirements. In order to address this issue, a prototype is developed to facilitate the combination of UAV-based RGB and thermal remote sensing datasets. In an experimental approach, image sensors were mounted on a remotely piloted aircraft and captured two video datasets over a crowd. A group of volunteers performed diverse movements that depict real world scenarios. The prototype is deriving the movement on the ground and is programmed in MATLAB. This novel detection approach using combined data is afterwards evaluated against detection algorithms that only use a single data source. Our tests show that the combination of RGB and thermal remote sensing data is beneficial for the field of crowd monitoring regarding the detection of crowd movement.

scholarly journals nvestigating the Information Needs of University Students in Foundational Foreign Language Courses

2012 ◽  
pp. 149-162
Author(s):  
Glenna Westwood
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
University Students ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Information Resources ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Personal Learning ◽  
Foreign Language Study ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Language Courses

This investigation seeks to address two issues: first, to discover if there is evidence that university students in foundational language courses need information resources to support their language learning and second, if such evidence exists, what the specific information resource needs might be and how important those resources are to students’ language learning. After engaging in a year of foreign language study, the author used the evidence gathered to develop and conduct a survey of the user needs of language students at the Self Access Centre (CAADI) of the University of Guanajuato, Mexico. Results of the survey supported the personal learning experiences of the author. Over 80% of students surveyed reported using the information resources in the CAADI at least once a week with general grammar books, course text books and films being reported as the most important resources. This investigation provides a starting point for research in to the collection development practices of academic libraries supporting the learning of foreign languages. By examining the information needs of one population, evidence has been provided that these students do indeed need information resources to support their language learning. The study suggests specific resource types that could be important for these users.

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