Discovery Informatics

Author(s):  
William W. Agresti

Discovery informatics is an emerging methodology that brings together several threads of research and practice aimed at making sense out of massive data sources. It is defined as “the study and practice of employing the full spectrum of computing and analytical science and technology to the singular pursuit of discovering new information by identifying and validating patterns in data” (Agresti, 2003).

Author(s):  
William W. Agresti

It is routine to hear and read about the information explosion, how we are all overwhelmed with data and information. Is it progress when our search tools report that our query resulted in 300,000 hits? Or, are we still left to wonder where is the information that we really wanted? How far down the list must we go to find it? Discovery informatics is a distinctly 21st century emerging methodology that brings together several threads of research and practice aimed at making sense out of massive data sources. It is defined as “the study and practice of employing the full spectrum of computing and analytical science and technology to the singular pursuit of discovering new information by identifying and validating patterns in data” (Agresti, 2003).


Author(s):  
Aleksandar M. Jagrović ◽  
Biljana Č. Jagrović

The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of developing an English-Serbian glossary of risk management terms in banking with an emphasis on the specialized translation procedures utilized therein. Upon completion of the source material content and contrastive analysis (using the Atlas.ti 7 program), a corpus of 513 English terms (ETs) and 859 Serbian (one-to-one and/or one-to-many) translation equivalents (STEs) was collated and ethnographically verified at Vojvođanska Bank (Vojvođanska banka a.d. Novi Sad) in order to achieve a triangulation of the data sources and research methods. The overall prevalence of each translation procedure employed in the glossary was computed individually and in combination with other procedures in the following order: calque (49.64%), borrowing (32.45%), reordering (24.59%), equivalence (22.41%), transposition (14.73%), diffusion (13.46%), expansion (10.52%), literal translation (9.21%), adaptation (7.32%), modulation (4.68%), reduction (3.67%) and condensation (2.19%). The results obtained reflect the underlying trends in the specialized English-Serbian translation of risk management terms in banking, serving as reference guidelines for linguists, lexicographers and translators in their future research and practice. The present glossary is available in entirety and with open access on the self-created web page ESGRMTB.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
German Molina

<p><b>The fact that comfort is a subjective state of the mind is widely accepted by engineers, architects and building scientists. Despite this, capturing all the complexity, subjectivity and richness of this construct in models that are useful in building science contexts is far from straightforward. By prioritizing usability, building science has produced models of comfort (e.g., acoustic, visual and thermal) that overly simplify this concept to something nearly objective that can be directly associated with people’s physiology and measurable and quantifiable environmental factors. This is a contradiction because, even if comfort is supposed to be subjective, most of the complexity of “the subject” is avoided by focusing on physiology; and, even if comfort is supposed to reside in the mind, the cognitive processes that characterize the mind are disregarded. This research partially mitigates this contradiction by exploring people’s non-physical personal factors and cognition within the context of their comfort and by proposing a way in which they can be incorporated into building science research and practice. This research refers to these elements together—i.e., people’s non-physical personal factors and cognition—as “the mind”.</b></p> <p>This research proposes a new qualitative model of the Feeling of Comfort that embraces “the mind”. This model was developed from the results of a first study in which 18 people—from Chile and New Zealand—were asked to describe “a home with good daylight” and “a warm home” in their own words. These results were then replicated in a second study in which another group of 24 people—also from Chile and New Zealand—described “a home with good acoustic performance”, “a home with good air quality” and “a pleasantly cool home”. The Feeling of Comfort model not only was capable of making sense of the new data (gathered in this second study) but also proved to be simple enough to be useful in the context of comfort research and practice. For instance, it guided the development of a quantitative Feeling of Comfort model and also of a prototype building simulation tool that embraces “the mind” and thus can potentially estimate people’s Feeling of Comfort.</p> <p>This research concludes that embracing “the mind” is not only possible but necessary. The reason for this is that “the mind” plays a significant role in the development of people’s comfort. Thus, theories and models of comfort that ignore it fail to represent properly the concept of comfort held by the people for whom buildings are designed. However, incorporating “the mind” into building science’s research and practice implies embracing tools, research methods and conceptual frameworks that have historically not been used by such a discipline. Specifically, it concludes that building science should normalize a more holistic view of comfort and perform more exploratory and qualitative research.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
German Molina

<p><b>The fact that comfort is a subjective state of the mind is widely accepted by engineers, architects and building scientists. Despite this, capturing all the complexity, subjectivity and richness of this construct in models that are useful in building science contexts is far from straightforward. By prioritizing usability, building science has produced models of comfort (e.g., acoustic, visual and thermal) that overly simplify this concept to something nearly objective that can be directly associated with people’s physiology and measurable and quantifiable environmental factors. This is a contradiction because, even if comfort is supposed to be subjective, most of the complexity of “the subject” is avoided by focusing on physiology; and, even if comfort is supposed to reside in the mind, the cognitive processes that characterize the mind are disregarded. This research partially mitigates this contradiction by exploring people’s non-physical personal factors and cognition within the context of their comfort and by proposing a way in which they can be incorporated into building science research and practice. This research refers to these elements together—i.e., people’s non-physical personal factors and cognition—as “the mind”.</b></p> <p>This research proposes a new qualitative model of the Feeling of Comfort that embraces “the mind”. This model was developed from the results of a first study in which 18 people—from Chile and New Zealand—were asked to describe “a home with good daylight” and “a warm home” in their own words. These results were then replicated in a second study in which another group of 24 people—also from Chile and New Zealand—described “a home with good acoustic performance”, “a home with good air quality” and “a pleasantly cool home”. The Feeling of Comfort model not only was capable of making sense of the new data (gathered in this second study) but also proved to be simple enough to be useful in the context of comfort research and practice. For instance, it guided the development of a quantitative Feeling of Comfort model and also of a prototype building simulation tool that embraces “the mind” and thus can potentially estimate people’s Feeling of Comfort.</p> <p>This research concludes that embracing “the mind” is not only possible but necessary. The reason for this is that “the mind” plays a significant role in the development of people’s comfort. Thus, theories and models of comfort that ignore it fail to represent properly the concept of comfort held by the people for whom buildings are designed. However, incorporating “the mind” into building science’s research and practice implies embracing tools, research methods and conceptual frameworks that have historically not been used by such a discipline. Specifically, it concludes that building science should normalize a more holistic view of comfort and perform more exploratory and qualitative research.</p>


Author(s):  
Michael A. Xenos

Dramatic increases in media choice over the past few decades have had profound effects on virtually all processes of communication involving issues of public concern. For science issues in particular, exposure to information about a particular topic is typically driven by specific motivations, often in the highly fragmented world of online communication. Existing research on information seeking in a polarized media environment can guide thinking about how individuals make sense of contemporary science issues. However, the unique features of science topics, particularly those related to emerging science and technology fields, complicate simple applications of existing theories. Although a small number of existing studies attend to these issues, developing solid, evidence-based prescriptions for improving how individuals seek information and form opinions will require significant new research.


Acute confusion or delirium is an acute brain syndrome, which may be transient and reversible. Key features are a clouding of consciousness and difficulty registering or making sense of new information. Nursing management includes managing confused thoughts by keeping communication clear, brief, and to the point, encouraging correct orientation, responding to distress, listening to the patient’s concerns, and ensuring the safety of the patient. Psychoses are disorders of thought, feeling, and perception that lead to difficulties relating to self, other people, and the world at large. They are rarely encountered in the cancer care setting, but they are distressing and difficult to manage when they are. It is important to engage the patient and maintain a safe environment. Incidents of violence and aggression are relatively uncommon, but distressing. It is important to identify the causes, e.g. frustration, fear, or confusion, and to respond to the person, but set limits and ensure safety. Alcohol misuse is associated with many health problems. Nurses should recognize the effects of hazardous drinking and alcohol dependence, and advise the patient on sources of support.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Zaki ◽  
Janet R. McColl-Kennedy

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a step-by-step text mining analysis roadmap (TMAR) for service researchers. The paper provides guidance on how to choose between alternative tools, using illustrative examples from a range of business contexts. Design/methodology/approach The authors provide a six-stage TMAR on how to use text mining methods in practice. At each stage, the authors provide a guiding question, articulate the aim, identify a range of methods and demonstrate how machine learning and linguistic techniques can be used in practice with illustrative examples drawn from business, from an array of data types, services and contexts. Findings At each of the six stages, this paper demonstrates useful insights that result from the text mining techniques to provide an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon and actionable insights for research and practice. Originality/value There is little research to guide scholars and practitioners on how to gain insights from the extensive “big data” that arises from the different data sources. In a first, this paper addresses this important gap highlighting the advantages of using text mining to gain useful insights for theory testing and practice in different service contexts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 140-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens Sauerwein ◽  
Irdin Pekaric ◽  
Michael Felderer ◽  
Ruth Breu

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