Co-producing knowledge with family farming organizations: a citizen science observatory in Santarém, Brazilian Amazon

This data paper presents a survey conducted in a participatory manner in the territory of Santarém, in the Brazilian Amazon. The aim is to understand how global changes are affecting family farmers. In the study area, family farming has been confronted over the past 20 years with the rapid expansion of large-scale monocultures, especially soybean. As part of the Odyssea socio-environmental observatory, academic researchers and family farming organizations entered into a partnership to co-produce data that could be strategically useful for these organizations. A process of co-construction of the expectations allowed priorities to be established and the data collection strategy to be defined. Three levels of analysis were chosen in order to allow an integrated understanding of the dynamics of change: the Santarem Plateau territory, the rural community level (living place recognized by the farmers) and the farmers’ households. Twenty-one farmers, called community researchers, organized in 3 teams, applied a questionnaire through the KoboCollect smartphone application to 544 families in the municipalities of Santarém, Mojuí dos Campos and Belterra. Meetings were previously held in the rural communities and questionnaires were applied with representatives of 32 communities. Data was collected between April and June 2019. The community researchers and academic researchers then came together for two collective sessions of data analysis and interpretation in July and October 2019. Data was standardized and cleaned using SPSS software, between September and December 2019. The metadata and databases are available on the CIRAD dataverse.

Collection of Data on Persons Living With Dementia Who Go Missing: First Responder Perspectives

While it is commonly cited that 60% of persons living with dementia (PLWD) wander, it is unclear whether this number reflects global contexts. Population aging has created a pressing need for the development of programs to mitigate the risks of PLWD from getting lost and going missing. Such programs would require a national strategy for the collection and integration of data on missing incidents involving this population. This study is a first step to inform such a strategy. The purposes were to: 1) identify approaches to data collection on missing persons incidents involving PLWD among Canadian police and search and rescue (SAR) organizations; 2) describe the foreseeable challenges associated with developing a national data collection strategy. We used generic qualitative description to generate data with fifteen key informants. Virtual semi-structured interviews were completed and transcribed verbatim. Content analysis and trustworthiness strategies guided analysis and rigor. Our findings indicate that police and SAR organizations collect a multitude of data pertaining to missing incidents involving PLWD. However, there is a lack of standardization in data collection, entry and analysis. Privacy legislation, limited resources, and incompatible data management systems pose challenges to data sharing and interoperability. Underreporting of missing incidents to police results in an underestimation of missing incidents. An intersectoral, uniform approach to data collection would enable the storage, analysis and comparison of national data. Accurate data on critical wandering can inform prevention, search strategies, resource allocation and effectiveness of programs.

REDbox: a comprehensive semantic framework for data collection and management in tuberculosis research

The outcomes of a clinical research directly depend on the correct definition of the research protocol, the data collection strategy and the data management plan. Furthermore, researchers often need to work within challenging contexts, such as in Tuberculosis services, where human and technological resources for research may be rare. The use of Electronic Data Capture systems, such as REDCap and KoBotoolbox, can help to mitigate such risks and to enable a reliable environment to conduct health research and promote results dissemination and data reusability. The proposed solution was based on needs pinpointed by researchers, considering the lack of an embracing solution to conduct research in low resources environments. The REDbox framework was built to enhance data collection, management and sharing in tuberculosis research, while providing a better user experience. The relevance of this article lies in the innovative approach to support TB research by combining existing technologies and developing support features. When focusing on positive aspects of each tool, it is possible to underpin tuberculosis research by improving data collection, management capability and security. Furthermore, the aggregation of meaning in raw data helps to promote the quality and the availability of research data.

Data collection protocols for wireless sensor networks

Data collection in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has a significant impact on the network’s performance and lifetime. Recently, several data collection techniques that use mobile elements (MEs) have been recommended, especially techniques that focus on maximising data delivery. However, energy consumption and the time required for data collection are significant for many WSN applications, particularly real-time systems. In this paper, a review of data collection techniques is presented, providing a comparison between the maximum amount shortest path (MASP) and zone-based energy-aware (ZEAL) data collection protocols implemented in the NS-3 simulator. Finally, the study provides a suitable data collection strategy that satisfies the requirements of WSN applications in terms of data delivery, energy consumption, and the time required for data collection.

Perceived Consequences of Extended Social Isolation on Mental Well-Being: Narratives from Indonesian University Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Despite several recent studies reporting on young people’s well-being during COVID-19, few large-scale qualitative studies have been carried out that capture the experiences of young people from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) undergoing extended social restrictions. The challenges faced by young people from LMICs during COVID-19 are likely to be amplified by their countries’ large populations, resource constraints, lack of access to health care, living conditions, socio-spatial contexts, and the pandemic’s ramifications for communities. This study explored how youths perceived their well-being after being isolated for one-and-a-half years during the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative narrative research was employed as a method of inquiry. One-hundred and sixty-six university students in Jakarta, Indonesia, between the ages of 17 and 22 wrote reflective online essays on the consequences of extended pandemic isolation on their mental health. This data collection strategy offered an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon through the narratives of those who experienced it. Seven themes expressing the youths’ perceived well-being were identified through inductive reflective thematic analysis: (1) the anguish of loneliness and estrangement; (2) a state of “brokenness” resulting from emotional agony and distress; (3) frustration, confusion, and anger; (4) the experience of conflicting emotions; (5) uncertainty about both the present and future; (6) a sense of purpose and fulfillment; and (7) turning to faith. The findings provide important insights into Indonesian youths’ well-being following extended social restrictions following the outbreak. Their collective experiences can be used to inform policy and practice regarding the nature of support mechanisms required both during and following the pandemic, and in the future if such a situation were to occur again.

Supporting the Transition from Primary to Postprimary Education in 2021: Perspectives from Irish Postprimary Practitioners

The transition from primary to postprimary education is a significant milestone in children’s education and can be characterised by the multiple challenges that they experience, specifically the move from childhood to adolescence, from one institutional context to another, and from established social groups into new social relations. This research employs a theoretical framework that describes this transition from the perspective of secondary school inservice practitioners as they aim to help students to make a successful transition. An incremental, sequential mixed-methods data collection strategy took the form of an exploratory survey followed by qualitative semistructured interviews. Current transition practices in the context of the challenges presented in Irish secondary schools are reported on in five key areas: administration, social and emotional supports, curriculum support, pedagogical support, and management/autonomy of learning. The findings of this research also highlight a need to reflect on the purpose and timing of current practices, along with calls for continuing professional development programmes to be developed that specifically target the challenges faced by Irish inservice teaching practitioners. It is hoped that this paper will spark discourse relating to the development of transitional supports for students and associated training for those who are best placed to provide those supports.

DC-LTM: A Data Collection Strategy Based on Layered Trust Mechanism for IoT

A large number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as sensor nodes are deployed in various urban infrastructures to monitor surrounding information. However, it is still a challenging issue to collect data in a low-cost, high-quality, and reliable manner through IoT technique. Although the recruitment of mobile vehicles (MVs) to collect urban data has proved to be an effective method, most existing data collection systems lack a trust detection mechanism for malicious terminal nodes and malicious vehicles, which should lead to security vulnerabilities in practice. This paper proposes a novel data collection strategy based on a layered trust mechanism (DC-LTM). The strategy recruits MVs as data collectors of the sensor nodes based on the data value in the city, evaluates the trustworthiness of the data reported by the nodes, and records the results to the cloud data center. Furthermore, in order to make the data collection system more efficient and trust mechanism more reliable, we introduce unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) dispatched by data centers to actively verify the core sensor node data and use the core sensor data as baseline data to evaluate the credibility of the vehicles and the trust value of the whole network sensor nodes. Different from the previous strategies, UAVs adopts the DC-LTM method to obtain the node data while actively obtaining the trust value of MVs and nodes, which effectively improves the quality of data acquisition. Simulation results show that the mechanism effectively distinguishes malicious vehicles that provide false data in exchange for payment and reduces the total cost of system recruitment payments. At the same time, the proposed incentive mechanism encourages vehicle to complete the evaluation task and improves the accuracy of node trust evaluation. The recognition rates of false data attacks and flooding attacks as well as the recognition error rate of normal nodes are 100%, 98.9%, and 3.9%, respectively, which improves the quality of system data collection as a whole.

Increasing the value of quality management systems

Purpose Over one million organisations have a quality management system (QMS) certified to the ISO 9001 standard; however, the system requires a lot of resources and its value has been questioned. This critique also leads to a questioning of the strategic relevance of quality management. The purpose of this paper is to explore how different types of uses of QMS correlate with management perceptions of quality management in terms of respect, cost and strategic importance. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a mixed method data collection strategy, quantitative data being collected from a survey in 8 organisations (n = 108) and qualitative data being collected from 12 interviews with quality managers in 12 different organisations. Findings The paper shows that a compliance-oriented QMS usage will more likely lead to a view of quality management as costly and of little respect, than a business or improvement-oriented QMS usage. Moreover, it nuances the view on compliance-oriented usage, showing that it is mainly documentation that negatively influences how management views quality management, whereas standardisation that is part of the compliance-oriented use is perceived as more value-adding. Originality/value This paper suggests three types of QMS use, namely, business management, improvement, and compliance-oriented use, and that a wise selection of how to use the QMS will affect the respect, strategic importance and cost that management associates with quality management.

Acculturation and Traditional Mortuary Rites of the Nawfia of Southeastern Nigeria

This ethnography explores the traditional mortuary rites of the Nawfia, an Igbo group of Southeast Nigeria, aiming to understand the mortuary rites of the Nawfia, how and why it has changed and the factors responsible for the changes. The main data collection strategy was participant observation that began in April 2014. It was supplemented with in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The study found Christianity as a major acculturative factor that has altered almost all the facets of the traditional mortuary rites of the Nawfia Igbo. Furthermore, mortuary rites do not only reinforce social solidarity among the Nawfia Igbo people but also according to what the Nawfia people believe, enable the deceased to attain his rightful position in the spirit world.