The influence of social media on international students' choice of university and course

This thesis is a qualitative study of the influence of social media on the university and course decision making process of international students. It examines the role of social media in influencing international students' decisions on course and university selection and the role of social media in meeting their information needs. It also gathered inputs on how universities could engage, collaborate and communicate using social media communities and channels for more effective recruitment strategies.

Topical pattern based document modelling and relevance ranking

For traditional information filtering (IF) models, it is often assumed that the documents in one collection are only related to one topic. However, in reality users’ interests can be diverse and the documents in the collection often involve multiple topics. Topic modelling was proposed to generate statistical models to represent multiple topics in a collection of documents, but in a topic model, topics are represented by distributions over words which are limited to distinctively represent the semantics of topics. Patterns are always thought to be more discriminative than single terms and are able to reveal the inner relations between words. This paper proposes a novel information filtering model, Significant matched Pattern-based Topic Model (SPBTM). The SPBTM represents user information needs in terms of multiple topics and each topic is represented by patterns. More importantly, the patterns are organized into groups based on their statistical and taxonomic features, from which the more representative patterns, called Significant Matched Patterns, can be identified and used to estimate the document relevance. Experiments on benchmark data sets demonstrate that the SPBTM significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art models.

Weight-related risk perception among healthy and overweight pregnant women: A cross-sectional study

Objective The objective of this study was to evaluate weight-related risk perception in early pregnancy and to compare this perception between women commencing pregnancy healthy weight and overweight. Study design Pregnant women (n=664) aged 29±5 (mean±s.d.) years were recruited from a metropolitan teaching hospital in Australia. A self-administered questionnaire was completed at around 16 weeks of gestation. Height measured at baseline and self-reported pre-pregnancy weight were used to calculate body mass index. Cross-sectional analysis was conducted. Differences between groups were assessed using chi-squared tests for categorical variables and t-tests or Mann–Whitney U tests for continuous variables depending on distribution. Result Excess gestational weight gain (GWG) during pregnancy was more important in leading to health problems for women or their child compared with pre-pregnancy weight. Personal risk perception for complications was low for all women, although overweight women had slightly higher scores than healthy-weight women (2.4±1.0 vs 2.9±1.0; P<0.001). All women perceived their risk for complications to be below that of an average pregnant woman. Conclusion Women should be informed of the risk associated with their pre-pregnancy weight (in the case of maternal overweight) and excess GWG. If efforts to raise risk awareness are to result in preventative action, this information needs to be accompanied by advice and appropriate support on how to reduce risk.

Understanding the use of a bug tracking system in a global software development setup

Bug fixing is a highly cooperative work activity where developers, testers, product managers and other stake-holders collaborate using a bug tracking system. In the context of Global Software Development (GSD), where software development is distributed across different geographical locations, we focus on understanding the role of bug trackers in supporting software bug fixing activities. We carried out a small-scale ethnographic fieldwork in a software product team distributed between Finland and India at a multinational engineering company. Using semi-structured interviews and in-situ observations of 16 bug cases, we show that the bug tracker 1) supported information needs of different stake holder, 2) established common-ground, and 3) reinforced issues related to ownership, performance and power. Consequently, we provide implications for design around these findings.

Formative evaluation to benchmark and improve climate-based decision support for graziers in Western Queelsland

Researchers developing climate-based forecasts, workshops, software tools and information to aid grazier decisions undertook an evaluation study to enhance planning and benchmark impact. One hundred graziers in Western Queensland were randomly selected from 7 shires and surveyed by mail and telephone (43 respondents) to explore levels of knowledge and use of climate information, practices and information needs. We found 36% of respondents apply the Southern Oscillation Index to property decisions but 92% were unaware El Niño Southern Oscillation’s predictive signal in the region is greater for pasture growth than rainfall, suggesting they may not recognise the potential of pasture growth forecasts. Almost 75% of graziers consider they are conservative or risk averse in their attitude to managing their enterprise. Mail respondents (n= 20) if given a 68%, on average, probability of exceeding median rainfall forecast may change a decision; almost two-thirds vary stocking rate based on forage available, last year’s pasture growth or the Southern Oscillation Index; the balance maintain a constant stocking rate strategy; 90% have access to a computer; 75% to the internet and 95% have a fax. This paper presents findings of the study and draws comparisons with a similar study of 174 irrigators in the Northern Murray-Darling Basin (Aust. J. Exp. Ag. 44, 247-257). New insights and information gained are helping the team better understand client needs and plan, design and extend tools and information tailored to grazier knowledge, practice, information needs and preferences. Results have also provided a benchmark against which to measure project impact and have influenced the team to make important changes to their project planning, activities and methods for transferring technology tailored to grazier preferences.

Clustering Users of Online Content Service

Online content services can greatly benefit from personalisation features that enable delivery of content that is suited to each user's specific interests. This thesis presents a system that applies text analysis and user modeling techniques in an online news service for the purpose of personalisation and user interest analysis. The system creates a detailed thematic profile for each content item and observes user's actions towards content items to learn user's preferences. A handcrafted taxonomy of concepts, or ontology, is used in profile formation to extract relevant concepts from the text. User preference learning is automatic and there is no need for explicit preference settings or ratings from the user. Learned user profiles are segmented into interest groups using clustering techniques with the objective of providing a source of information for the service provider. Some theoretical background for chosen techniques is presented while the main focus is in finding practical solutions to some of the current information needs, which are not optimally served with traditional techniques.

What consumers think, do and say about antibiotic use

Objective The objectives of this study were to investigate (1) the attitudes and behaviours of Australian consumers in antibiotic use, and (2) their understanding of antibiotic resistance. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with consumers in May/June 2015. Convenience sampling was used to recruit consumers between 18–54 years old. Thirty-two consumers were interviewed. Transcripts were analysed to identify themes. Lessons Learned Dominant themes for attitudes and behaviours regarding antibiotics were (a) avoidance of antibiotic use unless clinically warranted; (b) antibiotics were useful but “weakened the body”; and (c) use of complementary medicines as adjuncts to antibiotics or to strengthen the immune system. Key information needs were (a) unambiguous instructions from GPs when prescribed antibiotics, to avoid inappropriate medicine-taking behaviour; (b) rationale for antibiotic selection; and (c) treatment duration. Antibiotic resistance was conceptualised in three ways: as a property of the body (body becomes resistant to antibiotics); the medication (antibiotic no longer effective); and the bacteria (bacteria is resistant). Antibiotic resistance was perceived as an issue that would only affect the wider community in the future, although most recognised that it is a current challenge for hospitals. Personal good health and/or avoidance of antibiotics were perceived as insurance against being adversely affected by antibiotic resistance. Implications A structured survey (discrete choice experiment) will be developed from these findings to investigate how consumers trade-off on factors influencing antibiotic use. Public health campaigns promoting conservation of antibiotics can benefit from these findings.

Modelling user profiles for recommender systems

Recommender systems assist users in finding what they want. The challenging issue is how to efficiently acquire user preferences or user information needs for building personalized recommender systems. This research explores the acquisition of user preferences using data taxonomy information to enhance personalized recommendations for alleviating cold-start problem. A concept hierarchy model is proposed, which provides a two-dimensional hierarchy for acquiring user preferences. The language model is also extended for the proposed hierarchy in order to generate an effective recommender algorithm. Both Amazon.com book and music datasets are used to evaluate the proposed approach, and the experimental results show that the proposed approach is promising.

COMMON-Sense net:Improved water management for resource-poor farmers via sensor networks

We describe the on-going design and implementation of a sensor network for agricultural management targeted at resource-poor farmers in India. Our focus on semi-arid regions led us to concentrate on water-related issues. Throughout 2004, we carried out a survey on the information needs of the population living in a cluster of villages in our study area. The results highlighted the potential that environment-related information has for the improvement of farming strategies in the face of highly variable conditions, in particular for risk management strategies (choice of crop varieties, sowing and harvest periods, prevention of pests and diseases, efficient use of irrigation water etc.). This leads us to advocate an original use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). We believe our demand-driven approach for the design of appropriate ICT tools that are targeted at the resource-poor to be relatively new. In order to go beyond a pure technocratic approach, we adopted an iterative, participatory methodology.

Luotettavaa tietoa ja merkityksellisiä valintoja – Kuluttajien ympäristövastuullista järkeilyä ilmastonmuutoksesta ja ohjausjärjestelmien hyväksyttävyydestä

Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan kuluttajien näkemyksiä ilmastonmuutoksesta ja ilmastovaikutusten seuranta- ja palautejärjestelmän hyväksyttävyydestä kulutuksen ohjauskeinona. 15 kuluttajaa kokeili kuukauden ajan kulutuksen ilmastovaikutusten seuranta- ja palautejärjestelmän demonstraatioversiota ja he osallistuivat kokeilun pohjalta aihepiiriä käsitelleeseen verkkokeskusteluun. Analysoin verkkokeskustelun aineistoa arkisen järkeilyn näkökulmasta tutkien kuluttajien ilmastonmuutokseen ja ympäristövastuullisuuteen liittyvää arkitietoa sekä palvelun hyväksyttävyyteen liittyviä heuristiikkoja. Ilmastonmuutoksen todettiin yleisesti olevan vielä melko abstrakti ja monitulkintainen ilmiö, minkä vuoksi kuluttajilla on vaikeuksia ymmärtää omien valintojensa konkreettista merkitystä ilmastonmuutoksen kannalta. Vaikka tietoa kulutuksen ilmastovaikutuksista on saatavilla paljon, niin erityisesti yritysten tuottama tieto koettiin ristiriitaiseksi ja osin epäluotettavaksi. Kuluttajat myös kritisoivat ilmastonmuutoskeskustelun tarjoamaa kapeaa näkemystä kulutuksen ympäristövaikutuksista. Hiilidioksidipäästöihin keskittymisen sijaan ympäristövaikutuksia tulisi kuluttajien mielestä tarkastella kokonaisuutena, josta ilmastovaikutukset muodostavat vain yhden osan. Tutkimukseen osallistuneiden kuluttajien kulutustottumuksiin ilmastonmuutos vaikutti eriasteisesti. Toisille ilmastonmuutoksesta oli muodostunut keskeinen omaa kulutusta ohjaava normi, kun taas toiset kertoivat pohtivansa ilmastovaikutuksia pääasiassa suurimpien hankintojen kohdalla. Ympäristövastuullisuudessa merkitykselliseksi koettiin tasapainon löytäminen ja henkilökohtainen tunne siitä, että kokee toimivansa oikein. Ilmasto- tai ympäristökysymyksiä punnitaan valinnoissa joustavasti yhdessä muiden tekijöiden kanssa. Vaikka kuluttajilla toisaalta olisi tietoa ja halua ottaa ilmasto- ja ympäristövaikutukset huomioon valinnoissaan, toimintaympäristö rajaa keskeisesti kuluttajien mahdollisuuksia toimia ympäristövastuullisesti. Tutkimus toi esille neljä kuluttajien käyttämää heuristiikkaa heidän pohtiessaan ilmastovaikutusten seuranta- ja palautejärjestelmän hyväksyttävyyden ehtoja ja toimivuutta ohjauskeinona. Ensinnäkin palvelun tulee olla käytettävyydeltään nopea ja vaivaton sekä tarjota tietoa havainnollisessa ja helposti ymmärrettävässä muodossa. Toiseksi palvelun tarjoaman tiedon tulee olla ehdottoman luotettavaa ja kuluttajien valintojen kannalta merkityksellistä siten, että palvelu ottaa huomioon erilaiset kuluttajat ja tiedontarpeet. Kolmanneksi palvelu tulee toteuttaa kokonaisvaltaisesti ja läpinäkyvästi useampien kaupparyhmittymien ja julkisten toimijoiden yhteistyönä. Neljänneksi toteutuksessa tulee huomioda palvelun kannustavuus ja kytkeytyminen muihin ohjauskeinoihin.

Demanda de información sobre capital intelectual en las Universidades públicas españolas

[ES] En el actual contexto de la Sociedad del Conocimiento las instituciones de educación superior deben prestar una atención preferente a las nuevas demandas informativas de sus stakeholders. El objetivo de este trabajo será evidenciar la necesidad de que las universidades incorporen información sobre capital intelectual en su actual sistema de información contable.

Fish assemblages and benthic habitats of Buck Island Reef National Monument (St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands) and the surrounding seascape: A characterization of spatial and temporal patterns

Since 1999, NOAA’s Biogeography Branch of the Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA-BB) has been working with federal and territorial partners to characterize, monitor, and assess the status of the marine environment around northeastern St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. This effort is part of the broader NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program’s (CRCP) National Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring Program (NCREMP). With support from CRCP’s NCREMP, CCMA conducts the “Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring project” (CREM) with goals to: (1) spatially characterize and monitor the distribution, abundance, and size of marine fauna associated with shallow water coral reef seascapes (mosaics of coral reefs, seagrasses, sand and mangroves); (2) relate this information to in situ fine-scale habitat data and the spatial distribution and diversity of habitat types using benthic habitat maps; (3) use this information to establish the knowledge base necessary for enacting management decisions in a spatial setting; (4) establish the efficacy of those management decisions; and (5) develop data collection and data management protocols. The monitoring effort in northeastern St. Croix was conducted through partnerships with the National Park Service (NPS) and the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources (VI-DPNR). The geographical focal point of the research is Buck Island Reef National Monument (BIRNM), a protected area originally established in 1961 and greatly expanded in 2001; however, the work also encompassed a large portion of the recently created St. Croix East End Marine Park (EEMP). Project funding is primarily provided by NOAA CRCP, CCMA and NPS. In recent decades, scientific and non-scientific observations have indicated that the structure and function of the coral reef ecosystem around northeastern St. Croix have been adversely impacted by a wide range of environmental stressors. The major stressors have included the mass Diadema die off in the early 1980s, a series of hurricanes beginning with Hurricane Hugo in 1989, overfishing, mass mortality of Acropora corals due to disease and several coral bleaching events, with the most severe mass bleaching episode in 2005. The area is also an important recreational resource supporting boating, snorkeling, diving and other water based activities. With so many potential threats to the marine ecosystem and a dramatic change in management strategy in 2003 when the park’s Interim Regulations (Presidential Proclamation No. 7392) established BIRNM as one of the first fully protected marine areas in NPS system, it became critical to identify existing marine fauna and their spatial distributions and temporal dynamics. This provides ecologically meaningful data to assess ecosystem condition, support decision making in spatial planning (including the evaluation of efficacy of current management strategies) and determine future information needs. The ultimate goal of the work is to better understand the coral reef ecosystems and to provide information toward protecting and enhancing coral reef ecosystems for the benefit of the system itself and to sustain the many goods and services that it offers society. This Technical Memorandum contains analysis of the first six years of fish survey data (2001-2006) and associated characterization of the benthos (1999-2006). The primary objectives were to quantify changes in fish species and assemblage diversity, abundance, biomass and size structure and to provide spatially explicit information on the distribution of key species or groups of species and to compare community structure inside (protected) versus outside (fished) areas of BIRNM. (PDF contains 100 pages).

Inclusive design: Reflections on design practice

To investigate the practice of inclusive design in an industrial context and to gain an insight into the industrial perspectives, eight UK design consultancies' participation of the DBA design Challenges were reviewed through formal interviews. It is found that progress has been made in raising inclusive design awareness. However, some useful practices such as the user involvement in the design process is found not feasible in real situation, largely because of the often tight schedule and the complexity of the task. Consequently effective ways of capturing user information needs exploration and accessible design support tools need to be provided, through working with designers.

Evaluating approaches and technologies for monitoring organic contaminants in the aquatic environment, Ann Arbor, MI, July 21-23, 2006: workshop proceedings

The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) convened a workshop on Evaluating Approaches and Technologies for Monitoring Organic Contaminants in the Aquatic Environment in Ann Arbor, MI on July 21-23, 2006. The primary objectives of this workshop were to: 1) identify the priority management information needs relative to organic contaminant loading; 2) explore the most appropriate approaches to estimating mass loading; and 3) evaluate the current status of the sensor technology. To meet these objectives, a mixture of leading research scientists, resource managers, and industry representatives were brought together for a focused two-day workshop. The workshop featured four plenary talks followed by breakout sessions in which arranged groups of participants where charged to respond to a series of focused discussion questions. At present, there are major concerns about the inadequacies in approaches and technologies for quantifying mass emissions and detection of organic contaminants for protecting municipal water supplies and receiving waters. Managers use estimates of land-based contaminant loadings to rivers, lakes, and oceans to assess relative risk among various contaminant sources, determine compliance with regulatory standards, and define progress in source reduction. However, accurately quantifying contaminant loading remains a major challenge. Loading occurs over a range of hydrologic conditions, requiring measurement technologies that can accommodate a broad range of ambient conditions. In addition, in situ chemical sensors that provide a means for acquiring continuous concentration measurements are still under development, particularly for organic contaminants that typically occur at low concentrations. Better approaches and strategies for estimating contaminant loading, including evaluations of both sampling design and sensor technologies, need to be identified. The following general recommendations were made in an effort to advance future organic contaminant monitoring: 1. Improve the understanding of material balance in aquatic systems and the relationship between potential surrogate measures (e.g., DOC, chlorophyll, particle size distribution) and target constituents. 2. Develop continuous real-time sensors to be used by managers as screening measures and triggers for more intensive monitoring. 3. Pursue surrogate measures and indicators of organic pollutant contamination, such as CDOM, turbidity, or non-equilibrium partitioning. 4. Develop continuous field-deployable sensors for PCBs, PAHs, pyrethroids, and emerging contaminants of concern and develop strategies that couple sampling approaches with tools that incorporate sensor synergy (i.e., measure appropriate surrogates along with the dissolved organics to allow full mass emission estimation).[PDF contains 20 pages]

Payments for Water Ecosystem Services in Latin America: Evidence from Reported Experience

27 p.