Suchergebnisse

Abstract
To study human behavior, social scientists are increasingly collecting data from mobile apps and sensors embedded in smartphones. A major challenge of studies implemented on general population samples, however, is that participation rates are rather low. While previous research has started to investigate the factors affecting individuals' decision to participate in such studies, less is known about features of the study design which are under the researcher's control and can increase the acceptance of smartphone-based data collection methods. Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model, we varied study characteristics in a vignette experiment to examine their effect on individuals' willingness to download a research app on their smartphone. Data were collected from 1,876 members of the NORC AmeriSpeak Panel, a probability-based panel of the general population aged 18+ in the United States. Respondents were randomly assigned to eight vignettes and, after each vignette, were asked to rate their willingness to participate in the described hypothetical study. The results show that individuals are more willing to participate in smartphone-based studies where they have some control over the data collection process, by having the option either to temporarily switch off the data collection or to review the data before submission. Furthermore, they are more willing to participate in research to which they are invited via postal letter rather than receiving a postal letter plus a phone call from an interviewer who walks them through the app installation. Finally, unconditional incentives increase their willingness to engage with smartphone-based data collection over conditional incentives.

Violence against children has clearly proven demographic, health, educational, social, and economic consequences which are not limited to immediate trauma and increased child mortality rates. Establishing and maintaining sustainable data collection systems is a key component of the effort to address child abuse. The review of the indicators collected by the institutions in Bulgaria shows that there are partially collected data that are relevant to the topic of violence against children. However, it remains unclear how the collected data is integrated into a general framework. The use of the data collected by the institutions for the improvement of the existing mechanisms, as well as for the planning of effective policies to deal with violence against children, is also in question.

Longitudinal or panel surveys suffer from panel attrition which may result in biased estimates. Online panels are no exceptions to this phenomenon, but offer great possibilities in monitoring and managing the data-collection phase and response-enhancement features (such as reminders), due to real-time availability of paradata. This paper presents a data-driven approach to monitor the data-collection phase and to inform the adjustment of response-enhancement features during data collection across online panel waves, which takes into account the characteristics of an ongoing panel wave. For this purpose, we study the evolution of the daily response proportion in each wave of a probability-based online panel. Using multilevel models, we predict the data-collection evolution per wave day. In our example, the functional form of the data-collection evolution is quintic. The characteristics affecting the shape of the data-collection evolution are those of the specific wave day and not of the panel wave itself. In addition, we simulate the monitoring of the daily response proportion of one panel wave and find that the timing of sending reminders could be adjusted after 20 consecutive panel waves to keep the data-collection phase efficient. Our results demonstrate the importance of re-evaluating the characteristics of the data-collection phase, such as the timing of reminders, across the lifetime of an online panel to keep the fieldwork efficient.

Now, more than ever, evaluation is an essential component for all programs. Although the need for outcome data is clear, collecting data from youth populations is often difficult, particularly among youth who are vulnerable and/or disenfranchised. While the use of paper-and-pencil (PAP) surveys is a commonly used method of data collection, different technological methods, such as online surveys, text messaging, and personal digital assistants (PDA's), are increasingly employed in data collection efforts. This article explores the use of audience response systems ("clickers") as an innovative data collection method that is especially suited for use with youth. In this paper we examine qualitative findings from key informant interviews regarding data collected from youth participants on a youth program quality measure using clicker technology. Findings from the study indicate that the use of clickers may increase youth engagement in and improve the efficiency of the data collection process.

The current goal of many US firms is to become the highest quality
and lowest cost leaders in their markets. Achieving this goal requires
major changes in how products and services are produced. Many systems
have been developed to assist firms in accomplishing this goal; they
include such diverse areas as Just‐in‐Time manufacturing (JIT), Material
Resource Planning II (MRP II), Automatic Storage and Retrieval Systems
(ASRS), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), CAD/CAM, Computer Integrated
Manufacturing (CIM), and Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS). One key
element in the success of these systems is that accurate data concerning
plant operations must be immediately available to those who need it.
More and more frequently, this requirement is being addressed through
the use of automatic data collection systems (ADC). Seeks to provide
insights into the application of ADC systems in US industries. Considers
the type of data collection system installed, the implementation and
operational problems encountered, and the degree of success enjoyed by
the firm using ADC. Data were gathered via a survey instrument
administered to the membership of a national organization, the Institute
of Certified Professional Managers (ICPM).

The suffering patient is thrown into a strange and unfamiliar environment of different technological devices in an Intensive care unit. The intensive room is a place for care and treatment, for rest and recovery, a visiting room, and a working place for the staff. In this context patients and relatives are very vulnerable and are in a need of support. Patients may suffer from unreal experiences, often very traumatic during their stay in ICU and manypatients also suffer from unpleasant memories, and some develop post traumatic stress after their discharge. In order to design optimal rooms in ICU it would be important to identify factors which are meaningful for the patients and relatives. The aim of this study, as part of a larger research project, is to illuminate patients' and relatives' experiences of the physical room, the design and the interior in the ICU. Photographs combined with interviews are used as data collection methods within the ICU-context. Relatives and former patients are asked to photograph different aspects of the room that they remember or associate with a feeling. The pictures were used later during an interview with the informants. In total the researcher meets the informants three times, first time to inform, the second time to take the photos and a third time for the interview. This method gives the researcher opportunity to deepen the understanding and capture aspects of the room that otherwise might have been hidden. The presentation will focus on photography as a research method.

A major obstacle that hinders medical and social research is the lack of reliable data due to people's reluctance to reveal private information to strangers. Fortunately, statistical inference always targets a well-defined population rather than a particular individual subject and, in many current applications, data can be collected using a web-based system or other mobile devices. These two characteristics enable us to develop a data collection method, called triple matrix-masking (TM$^2$), which offers strong privacy protection with an immediate matrix transformation so that even the researchers cannot see the data, and then further uses matrix transformations to guarantee that the data will still be analyzable by standard statistical methods. The entities involved in the proposed process are a masking service provider who receives the initially masked data and then applies another mask, and the data collectors who partially decrypt the now doubly masked data and then apply a third mask before releasing the data to the public. A critical feature of the method is that the keys to generate the matrices are held separately. This ensures that nobody sees the actual data, but because of the specially designed transformations, statistical inference on parameters of interest can be conducted with the same results as if the original data were used. Hence the TM$^2$ method hides sensitive data with no efficiency loss for statistical inference of binary and normal data, which improves over Warner's randomized response technique. In addition, we add several features to the proposed procedure: an error checking mechanism is built into the data collection process in order to make sure that the masked data used for analysis are an appropriate transformation of the original data; and a partial masking technique is introduced to grant data users access to non-sensitive personal information while sensitive information remains hidden.

Knowledge and valuation of ecosystem services are important components for reaching the governmental goals for improving the natural environments. Recreational fishing has more than one million practitioners nationwide.Knowledge about the fishers and their catches increases the ability to assess whether the ecosystem services are retained. In addition, it gives means for evaluating the actions for the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of oceans, lakes and rivers. Knowledge of recreational fishing is also needed in order to follow up the details in its environmental objectives relating to outdoor recreation, tourism industry and the governmental goals in the open-air policy. The EU's common fisheries policy, the Swedish environmental policy and Swedish fisheries policy all emphasize that ecosystem-based management should be implemented. Thus, there are needs for knowledge of the ecosystems which are exploited by humans. Fish populations are important components of aquatic ecosystems, and are affected by the surrounding environment, while they themselves affect the structures of the aquatic food-webs. Fishes often have regulatory functions in the ecosystems, and thereby contribute to valuable ecosystem services in addition to the more obvious services as providing food and recreation for humans. Mostly issues regarding the impacts of fishing-related activities on fish populations have been focused on commercial fishing. A widespread and intensive commercial fishing may lead to the depletion of stocks or, at worst, a collapse of the fish populations; the fish population reaching such low levels that recovery may be difficult. In recent years the knowledge of the impact of recreational fishing on aquatic systems has increased, but still the effects of recreational fishing on ecosystem are relatively poorly studied, compared to commercial fisheries. For many, it may be difficult to accept that recreational fishing may affect fish populations; each fisher/angler favour just their own fisheries without bearing in mind that although the small influence from each individual fisherman may be small, it will be significant when many fishermen harvest from the same stock. Recreational fishing and its effects on the aquatic ecosystems are often neglected in fisheries science, mainly due to the lack of data to estimate recreational fishing harvest with a sufficient resolution to calculate the effort and landings of recreational fisheries. In this report, we try to give an overall picture of the fish species needing increased knowledge in order to get an estimate of harvest in recreational fisheries and thereby the effect on fish populations. Furthermore, we also try to give a picture of international studies and finally to give examples of methods concerning how and to what extent one may conduct studies in Sweden. Our proposal is largely based on combining different surveys in specific areas that we believe can be used to scale-up the results. We suggest data collation of recreational fishing is concentrated to areas with public waters, because in other water bodies the land owner has sovereignty under the law. The focus areas we point out are those already having some data collection, both in terms of recreational fishing and environmental monitoring / stock assessment and where there are non-fishing protective areas nearby. Collection of data should not be made in all areas at every year; three areas are suggested to become intensive areas (data collection every year) and the remaining areas data collection will take place every three years - on a rolling schedule. The sampling methods we recommend are national survey (i.e. mail and telephone surveys), recording of catches in fishing tourism, voluntary catch registration of individual anglers, collection of data from fishing competitions, on-site inventory of fishing effort (e.g. count fetter and trailers), inventory of catch per effort (e.g. by creel-surveys) and fish tagging studies. For the west coast we propose one focus area, Älgöfjorden. At the coasts of Bohuslän County and the northern part of Halland County the fishing pressure is high for lobster and crab and therefore a focus area should be established in this area. We suggest that data are collected by on-site visits for inventorying fishing effort (counting numbers of pots / buoys / fishing people), combined with catch registration can return an estimates on catch per effort, and this can then be applied to a larger area. Another potential focus area is the area around Torhamn (Blekinge) which, for example, is popular area recreational fishing for pike. Torhamn is one of three national reference areas for coastal fish monitoring on the East Coast and has been monitored since 2002. It is also desirable to study aspects of fishing mortality in recreational fisheries. To our knowledge, there are no national studies that have explored the effects of catch-and-release in natural environments over long periods of time. The Bråviken Bay is a relatively limited and well-defined area having considered high recreational fishing pressure, but large time series from fish monitoring programmes are lacking. This site will give good opportunities for studying pike, pikeperch and to some extent also sea trout, data collection is suggested to take place every third year. An adjacent area is Kvädöfjärden having fish monitoring time series from 1989. Closely situated to Kvädöfjärden is Licknevarpefjärden where fishing has been prohibited since 1970. Additional areas that are of interest to follow up with some regularity are Asköfjärden, Gålö and / or Lagnö in the Stockholm archipelago. In the future it might be fruitful to shift data collection intensity between Torhamn in Blekinge and an area in Stockholm archipelago. Such decision should be based on factors like where the most practical solutions / contact network can be found. In the Gulf of Bothnia angling with nets, traps and similar gears are relatively widespread. We suggest that Långvind Bay in Gävleborg County, is an area for the study of recreational fishing in a relatively sparsely populated county and is most likely typical for large parts of the Gulf of Bothnia. Data collection is suggested to take place every year. As for the Gulf of Bothnia the recreational fishery in the Bothnian Bay are mainly targeting the whitefish, sea trout and, to some extent also perch. By monitoring the recreational fisheries in Kinnbäcksfjärden near Piteå, we hope to be able to describe the local recreational fishing patterns and then apply these values for catch per effort for most of the coastal strip of the Bothnian Bays. Recreational fishing is widespread in all of the five largest lakes in Sweden, and there is a need for data collection in all five. In Lake Vänern, Lake Vättern and Lake Mälaren there are fish monitoring data of good quality and regularity. However, in the two smallest lakes, Lake Hjälmaren and Lake Storsjön in Jämtland County, few test fishing areas and few studies regarding recreational fishing have been made. For Lake Vättern we suggest that data collection is done every year; especially the archipelago in the northern part of the lake will be an excellent area for the study of recreational fishing for pike. In the other four lakes we propose that data collection is made every third year. By studying recreational fishing - its practitioners, scope, gear-use, and harvest, it will be possible to achieve a more detailed view of how recreational fishing is done and how it varies along the Swedish coast and in the five largest lakes. Such knowledge is important for the managers of common fisheries resources and the monitoring of environmental status and evaluating the recreational goals established by the Swedish governments.

South Africa's pathology laboratory-based cancer registry is seven years out of date and conclusions based on its data are a decade old, making an appropriate and properly tailored strategic national response to this highly prevalent disease extremely difficult. This emerged at a 'Voice of Cancer' survivor forum attended by all but one of the major cancer NGOs, government officials and survivors at the Civic Centre in Cape Town last month. According to the National Cancer Registry (NCR), run by the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), South African men have a lifetime risk of 1 in 6 of developing cancer and women a 1 in 8 lifetime risk. The time, money and resources needed for hospital and population-based registries have proven almost insurmountable, except in the Eastern Cape, where a bold attempt by the Medical Research Council (MRC) is being hampered by dismal patient record-keeping.

The book is an attempt to demystify research and to explain how it can be effectively incorporated into the development project cycle, even in small-scale, low-cost development programmes. It considers the broader theoretical issues behind social research and explains and evaluates the different methods of collection in use.