The Data Mining OPtimization Ontology (DMOP) has been developed to support informed decision-making at various choice points of the data mining process. The ontology can be used by data miners and deployed in ontology-driven information systems. The primary purpose for which DMOP has been developed is the automation of algorithm and model selection through semantic meta-mining that makes use of an ontology-based meta-analysis of complete data mining processes in view of extracting patterns associated with mining performance. To this end, DMOP contains detailed descriptions of data mining tasks (e.g., learning, feature selection), data, algorithms, hypotheses such as mined models or patterns, and workflows. A development methodology was used for DMOP, including items such as competency questions and foundational ontology reuse. Several non-trivial modeling problems were encountered and due to the complexity of the data mining details, the ontology requires the use of the OWL 2 DL profile. DMOP was successfully evaluated for semantic meta-mining and used in constructing the Intelligent Discovery Assistant, deployed at the popular data mining environment RapidMiner
Librarians are expected to be expert searchers, and developing information literacy skills to navigate the vast world of information is a focus of most library and information science (LIS) programs. It is important to understand the information literacy and behaviors of LIS students to see if they are employing the skills they will need to assist and educate their future patrons, yet there is relatively little research into the information literacy and behaviors of librarians and library students. Using a survey on information behaviors, this study addresses this gap in the literature by examining how LIS students in 18 countries search for, evaluate, and use information in various contexts, and on whom they rely for help. The results of this study demonstrate library science students' information literacy skills within an international context. Faculty in LIS programs will be interested to see how their students approach information problems, and might use this understanding to develop or strengthen courses and inform curricular decisions
Purpose. This paper aims to investigate management auditing, a thorough examination of an organization and the management in place, through an empirical research to gather data about how management audits are perceived and implemented among Geneva’s (Switzerland) business community. The board of directors is in charge of a corporation’s overall supervision. The internal auditing function works under the aegis of the board to ensure that the directors will properly execute their responsibilities as defined by corporate governance rules. Management auditing could thus be used to improve corporation performance. However, management audits are not commonly used or referred to as a tool to address corporate governance. Findings enable the authors to both explain why management audits are not commonly used or referred to as a tool to address corporate governance and generate related research hypotheses. Design/methodology/approach. In this paper, the authors rely on an ethnographic study aimed at exploring perceptions of management audits in service companies from the Geneva region. This study is based on transcripts from 85 semi-directed interviews, conducted over a three-year period, of professionals with managerial and auditing backgrounds. The economic context during these three years was consistently characterized by the Swiss and international financial crises, ensuring that the findings remain comparable over this time period. Findings This paper identified three main factors that influence the integration of management audits into corporate practices: the degree of acceptance of the tools and requirements of management audits, the national culture and values embodied in the practice and the degree of corporate governance maturity. This paper presents the findings in the form of hypotheses that can be tested on any adoption of good corporate governance practices – not on management audits alone. Research limitations/implications. Notwithstanding the limitations due to its nature and extent, this study’s main limitation is its lack of validation of the hypotheses. In further research, the authors intend to use a quantitative survey to validate the research hypotheses and make statistical inferences. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature because it is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first study to empirically examine the significant link between management audits and corporate governance. The findings could be interesting for an international audience because they indicate possible action points that boards of directors can leverage to carry out management audits. The findings also bridge a gap between the literature on management audits and the expanding role of the internal audit function. This study also examines the way companies – in the Swiss context – understand, perceive and may be ready to apply management audits as a good corporate governance practice.
Cet article analyse les perceptions, comportements et rapports à la forêt de la population du canton de Genève (Suisse), révélés par un sondage effectué en hiver 2014. On constate que les Genevois utilisent la forêt de façon moins intensive que la population des autres cantons suisses et valorisent moins l’aspect économique de la forêt. La majorité des répondants privilégient la conservation et la biodiversité plutôt que la construction de logements ou une augmentation de la production de bois. L’évaluation monétaire du service récréatif de la forêt grâce à la méthode du coût du trajet indique que la valeur d’usage de la forêt genevoise se monte à CHF 656.– en moyenne par personne et an (médiane à CHF 175.–), respectivement à CHF 313.– par personne et an en moyenne (médiane à CHF 60.–) sans inclure le coût d’opportunité du temps passé sur place. La disponibilité à payer pour le programme de la Politique forestière 2020 impliquant une augmentation de la surface des réserves forestières à 10% est évaluée à CHF 283.– par an grâce à la méthode d’évaluation contingente.
The article reports on a study of the views and actions of nearly a hundred scholars – mostly academic researchers from four European countries and four disciplines – in regard to scholarly reputation in the Science 2.0 age. It specifically looks at the role that 'emerging' reputational mechanisms and platforms are playing in building, maintaining, and showcasing scholarly reputation in the digital age. Popular examples of such platforms are ResearchGate and Academia. edu. Data were obtained through one-to-one interviews and focus groups, supported by desk research. The main findings were: (a) it is early days and uptake is light and patchy with platforms largely used for non-reputational purposes, such as sharing documents; (b) most users were passive and did not fully engage with the social aspects of the platforms; (c) the reputational focus was very much on just one scholarly activity (research), on just two outputs of that activity (publications and conferences) and one measurement of that activity (citations), but there are the stirrings of change; (d) young researchers are set to profit most from the emerging platforms.
Social norms have been included in the theory of collective action to overcome difficulties in explaining why commons may perform better when self-regulated. The role of trust has been identified in several contexts of local social dilemmas, but only recently has been extended to global commons, based on large descriptive evidence collected by Elinor Ostrom. However, no quantitative evidence was available until now. Using a dataset of 29 European countries over the period 1990–2007, we provide empirical evidence in favour of the role of trust in global dilemmas. We find a non-negligible impact of trust on greenhouse gas emissions, which can support Ostrom's intuition on the social roots of pro-environmental behaviour.
Cette étude examine dans quelle mesure les informations ESG (Environnement, Social et Gouvernance d’entreprise), agrégées sous forme de scores, peuvent influencer les rendements mensuels des actions sur les marchés en Suisse, aux États-Unis, et au Royaume-Uni, au cours de la période 2007-2011. Nous constatons que la variation de la note globale ESG n’est significative qu’au Royaume-Uni. Nous montrons également que les changements dans les sous-catégories de notes du GRI (à savoir, la gouvernance, l’économie, l’environnement, le travail, les droits humains, la société et les produits) présentent un impact faible mais significatif sur la performance des actions, mais seulement sur des périodes restreintes ou pour des secteurs limités, qui varient contextuellement selon les pays. Enfin, notre régression non-paramétrique met en évidence la non-linéarité probable de la fonction reliant la performance d’une action à ses changements de score ESG.
The steady Eikonal equation is a prototypical first-order fully nonlinear equation. A numerical method based on elliptic solvers is presented here to solve two different kinds of steady Eikonal equations and compute solutions, which are maximal and minimal in the variational sense. The approach in this paper relies on a variational argument involving penalty, a biharmonic regularization, and an operator-splitting-based time-discretization scheme for the solution of an associated initial-value problem. This approach allows the decoupling of the nonlinearities and differential operators. Numerical experiments are performed to validate this approach and investigate its convergence properties from a numerical viewpoint.
Les Linked Open Data (LOD) mettent peu à peu en évidence des enjeux considérables pour les professionnels de l'information et les bibliothèques. Cet article fait un tour d'horizon de la question en abordant plusieurs aspects. Après avoir introduit les concepts-clés de cette thématique, il s'attache à déterminer l'utilité des LOD en bibliothèque en présentant quelques applications innovantes. Prérequis pour la création de telles applications, la conversion des données en LOD est décrite sous la forme d'un procédé généralisable. L'article change ensuite de perspective et se penche sur le professionnel de l'information, en identifiant les compétences les plus pertinentes à acquérir pour faire face à ces évolutions. Enfin, il décrit la réalisation concrète d'une formation à distance sur les LOD, accessible à tous sur le web.
