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Data Governance in Public Sector: A Study of U.S. Municipal Open Data Platforms
No full textAs big data technologies are increasingly adopted in public sector globally, many local governments in the United States (US) bring the technologies into their daily administration to provide better public services. There arise many public values concerns such as transparency, privacy, social equity, among others regarding big data applications. Traditional concept of data management, which focus on the technical logistics of development, execution, and supervision of data operations, is insufficient to deal with those public values concerns. A new concept of data governance (DG), which specifies a framework of decision rights, accountabilities, rules, and policies related to data management and data operations, is a promising tool to integrate public values into data management.However, there exists very little research of DG in public administration (PA). Such research in information systems (IS) field is also emerging. Hence, no DG theories could be directly borrowed from the IS field to PA. This dissertation proposes a theoretical framework of DG based on Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill’s governance studies and applies the framework into two empirical studies to understand the state-of-the-art DG practices among US municipal governments through the lens of public values, and to understand the impact factors of DG adoption.Based on a systematic literature review in both PA and IS fields, the study defines DG as the regimes of laws, administrative rules, judicial rulings, organizational policies, and practices of data management that constrain, prescribe, and enable government activity, where such activity is broadly defined and used to enable the production and delivery of publicly supported goods and services. A data governance framework (DGF) is constructed at the institutional, the organizational, and the technical levels. The institutional factors include DG rules and DG authority. The organizational factors include DG leadership, DG organizational goals, DG organizational structure, data management maturity of the municipal government, DG training, and DG in the collaboration network. The technical factors include DG decision domains, DG strategies, and client characteristics.Based on the examination of DG documents from 120 municipalities in the US, the study synthesizes four types of DG practices using hierarchical clustering method based on the analytical DGF proposed previous through the lens of public values. The first type is Comprehensive Data Governance, which is characterized by formal rules, professional DG leadership, federated DG organizational forms, abundant DG training programs and collaborations, and complete DG decision domains coverage. The second type is Customer-Centric Data Governance, which is characterized by mid-size population, mayor-council form, self-motivated DG legislation, and general guidance of DG practices. The third type is Citizen-Centric Data governance, which is characterized by mid-size population, complete OGD platform adoption, DGC establishment, centralized DG form, and relatively complete DG decision domain coverage. And the last type is No Data Governance, which means no DG documents are publicly accessible.Based on the innovation diffusion theory and the proposed DGF, this dissertation builds logistic regression models to understand the impact factors of DG adoption and DG choice revealed in the second study. The results show two findings in the DG adoption. First, total population, minority population percentage, education level, and the complexity of municipal data are positively related to DG adoption. Second, joining a professional data-driven network is positively related to DG adoption. The study also shows three findings in the DG choice models. First, the existence of state-level open data laws influences cities to choose Customer-Centric Data Governance at the early exploration stage. Second, joining a professional data-driven network influences cities to choose Citizen-Centric Data Governance at the developing stage. Third, growing population influences cities to evolve into a mature Comprehensive Data Governance stage. No conclusions could be drawn from political conservative culture, the form of government, and performance budgeting practices.This dissertation contributes to the field with a first theoretical framework of data governance to extend the traditional governance studies in the big data era. Such framework serves as the foundation for the two empirical studies of data governance to address the public values issues raised by big data technologies and to understand the impact factors for public organizations to adopt data governance. This study brings an innovative way to embed public values into public administration studies in open government data. However, the study is constrained by the limited access to literature database, publicly accessible data governance documents, and limited theoretical input. The dissertation is hoped to shed light on more studies of data governance in the future
The Impact of Kiswahili and its Varieties on the Accuracy of Translation Services: A Case Study of the Work of Translators Without Borders in the Democratic Republic of Congo
No full textThis thesis explores the relationship between Kiswahili and language services, namely translation. It examines how Kiswahili emerged and spread, its standardization, current language policies in East and Central African countries, organizations that have been involved in its development, and the scholarship on translation with regard to Kiswahili. Using a case study of the work of Translators Without Borders in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this thesis demonstrates that the presence and prevalence of dialectal variation in the language impacts the accuracy of translations provided to different speakers. The thesis recommends that language services, most often utilizing the standardized form of Kiswahili, must work to account for variation within the language if such services are to provide accurate translations to different groups of Kiswahili speakers
Indigenous Community Exclusion in U.S. Environmental Impact Assessments
No full textThe United States National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) intends for federal agencies to consider the adverse environmental impacts of a project before action. While NEPA and the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process have certainly resulted in some agencies making more environmentally conscious decisions, numerous cases indicate a phenomenon of inadequate consideration and adverse environmental and cultural impacts on Indigenous communities in the United States. Such cases suggest that Indigenous concerns are not heavily weighted in decision-making and, instead, input from Indigenous peoples is solicited to simply check the boxes of the NEPA procedural requirements. This dissertation explores the phenomenon of Indigenous community exclusion in EIAs through an illustrative case study structure. Using a latent content analysis approach, I study three case studies where Indigenous communities opposed infrastructure projects that they alleged would adversely impact their communities, including their culture, health, and the environment. The cases analyzed are, (1) the South Lawrence Trafficway construction through the Wakarusa Wetlands and its impacts on students and faculty of Haskell Indian Nations University, (2) the Dakota Access Pipeline construction beneath the Missouri River and through the unceded territory of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, and (3) the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and its effect on Alaskan Natives, particularly the traditions and cultural values of the Gwich’in peoples. This dissertation produces three articles for publication, each exploring a specific flaw in the EIA process – authorship power, public participation, and environmental justice analyses – through theoretically and empirically grounded work
Place Attachment in Kazakhstan: Changes in Place Attachment after Sponsored Education Abroad
No full textSince 1993 the Government of Kazakhstan has sent over 14,000 students abroad to complete advanced degrees through the Bolashak International Scholarship. Upon completion of the degree students must return to Kazakhstan for at least five years. The purpose of this research is to examine if there was any change in attachment to Kazakhstan upon returning to the country and was completed through an online survey and interviews. The survey was based on previous research surveys into place attachment and required Likert scale responses. Ultimately the goal was to determine whether there was a significant increase or decrease in attachment to Kazakhstan after a student completed their education. While the results suggested certain trends there is no definitive answer as whether studying abroad through the Bolashak scholarship increases or decreases place attachment to Kazakhstan. Instead other factors, when considered with participation of the scholarship program, suggest a trend of increased or decreased place attachment. Those factors include age, gender, location of attended school, ethnicity, and length of time elapsed since living abroad. Additionally, all interviewees said they returned seeing Kazakhstan in a different way and can now imagine see how it could be improved and bettered
Fourier Analysis of Magnetic Fields in the Ionosphere of Mars
No full textThe spacecraft magnetometer data and Fourier transforms of this data are contained in the attached Excel files and were used for the J. Geophysical Research paperThe two main sources of magnetic field for the Martian ionosphere are the solar wind magnetic fields (i.e., the interplanetary magnetic field), and, particularly in the southern hemisphere, remnant crustal magnetization. The magnetic fields measured in the ionosphere by the magnetometers onboard the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft and the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) display a wide range of spatial scales. In this paper we use a Fourier analysis of the magnetic field to quantify the field strength as a function of scale-size. Fourier analysis represents a function of time (or some other variable) as the sum over a wide range of sinusoidal functions of different frequencies. We find that results of the Fourier analysis for the ionospheric magnetic field have much in common with the Fourier analysis of the interplanetary magnetic field. The paper exploits this similarity to probe the sources of the ionosphere’s magnetic structure.NASA MAVE
Facile Ozonation of Light Alkanes to Oxygenates with High Atom Economy in Tunable Condensed Phase at Ambient Temperature
Get PDFWe have demonstrated the oxidation of mixed alkanes (propane, n-butane, and isobutane) by ozone in a condensed phase at ambient temperature and mild pressures (up to 1.3 MPa). Oxygenated products such as alcohols and ketones are formed with a combined molar selectivity of >90%. The ozone and dioxygen partial pressures are controlled such that the gas phase is always outside the flammability envelope. Because the alkane–ozone reaction predominantly occurs in the condensed phase, we are able to harness the unique tunability of ozone concentrations in hydrocarbon-rich liquid phases for facile activation of the light alkanes while also avoiding over-oxidation of the products. Further, adding isobutane and water to the mixed alkane feed significantly enhances ozone utilization and the oxygenate yields. The ability to tune the composition of the condensed media by incorporating liquid additives to direct selectivity is a key to achieving high carbon atom economy, which cannot be achieved in gas-phase ozonations. Even in the liquid phase, without added isobutane and water, combustion products dominate during neat propane ozonation, with CO2 selectivity being >60%. In contrast, ozonation of a propane+isobutane+water mixture suppresses CO2 formation to 15% and nearly doubles the yield of isopropanol. A kinetic model based on the formation of a hydrotrioxide intermediate can adequately explain the yields of the observed isobutane ozonation products. Estimated rate constants for the formation of oxygenates suggest that the demonstrated concept has promise for facile and atom-economic conversion of natural gas liquids to valuable oxygenates and broader applications associated with C–H functionalization
Editorial: Mechanisms, thermodynamics and kinetics of ligand binding revealed from molecular simulations and machine learning
Get PDFBeringia and the peopling of the Western Hemisphere
Get PDFDid Beringian environments represent an ecological barrier to humans until less than 15 000 years ago or was access to the Americas controlled by the spatial–temporal distribution of North American ice sheets? Beringian environments varied with respect to climate and biota, especially in the two major areas of exposed continental shelf. The East Siberian Arctic Shelf (‘Great Arctic Plain’ (GAP)) supported a dry steppe-tundra biome inhabited by a diverse large-mammal community, while the southern Bering-Chukchi Platform (‘Bering Land Bridge’ (BLB)) supported mesic tundra and probably a lower large-mammal biomass. A human population with west Eurasian roots occupied the GAP before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and may have accessed mid-latitude North America via an interior ice-free corridor. Re-opening of the corridor less than 14 000 years ago indicates that the primary ancestors of living First Peoples, who already had spread widely in the Americas at this time, probably dispersed from the NW Pacific coast. A genetic ‘arctic signal’ in non-arctic First Peoples suggests that their parent population inhabited the GAP during the LGM, before their split from the former. We infer a shift from GAP terrestrial to a subarctic maritime economy on the southern BLB coast before dispersal in the Americas from the NW Pacific coast
Racial/ethnic differences in the relationship between wealth and health across young adulthood
Get PDFBackground
Although the relationship between socioeconomic position (SEP) and health has been well documented, very few prior investigations have examined the time-varying association between wealth and health across race/ethnicity. This study examined the racial/ethnic differences in the wealth–health associations during young adulthood.
Method
Data were drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 with three time points, when respondents were aged 20, 25, and 30. The primary dependent variable was dichotomized self-rated health (SRH). Two indices of wealth were calculated: respondents’ own reported net worth and reported parental net worth in 1997. Other SEP indicators included household income, education, employment status, and parental education. Three racial/ethnic groups were examined: nonHispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic. Two-level logistic regression was performed, stratified by race/ethnicity.
Results
In the whole-sample analysis, racial/ethnic differences in SRH were not statistically significant, after controlling for wealth. For self-reported net worth during young adulthood, wealth has a incremental consistent effect on health among non-Hispanic White respondents and Hispanic respondents but not among Black respondents. Individual net worth and parental net worth were only significantly associated with health among the highest wealth quartiles among non-Hispanic Black respondents. Only individual net worth, not parental net worth, was significantly associated with SRH in the Hispanic sample.
Conclusion
This study examined racial/ethnic differences in time-varying relationship between wealth and health during young adulthood. Findings indicate that there are notable racial/ethnic differences in the patterning of wealth–health association that appear to emerge in early adulthood. Implications for asset-based policy and programs are discussed
Recommended by Librarians: A Computational Citation Analysis Methodology for Identifying and Examining Books Promoted in LibGuides (Dataset and Scripts)
No full textThis record contains the dataset, along with the series of Jupyter notebooks created for the collection and analysis of this data. The publication that uses this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5860/ital.v43i1.16687.Dataset and Jupyter notebooks (Python) created as the basis for an article aiming to expand current approaches to studying library guides as published on Springshare’s LibGuides platform. Library guides are curated web-based collections of resources created by librarians to support the research needs of their users by providing easy access to high-quality information and resources in a variety of formats. To conduct a nuanced and thorough evaluation of resources promoted in these guides, it is necessary to employ computational techniques. The Python code here is presented as a model for comprehensively gathering data from the LibGuides Community and individual LibGuide pages and applying computational methods to explore the resultant data. For our cases study, we started with a pre-selected list of 159 books, programmatically queried the titles using the LibGuides Community search engine, cleaned and filtered the data, and compiled a list of 1,529 relevant individual LibGuides referencing 20,484 books. Using citation analysis metrics, such as frequency, co-occurrence, and bibliographic coupling, we were able to gain some insight about books that are promoted on this platform