Comprehensive Analysis Methodology for Business Planning

This chapter uses the normative research methodology to review the literature for business research and analysis to search for a set of tools that can provide a comprehensive analysis methodology. The investigation of competitive advantage follows the dynamic capability of the subjective approach to the resource-based view (RBV). This view needs to establish the current position of the company's resources in the context of the surrounding environment to develop a clear understanding of the current competitive status of the organisation. The best practice of suggestions from the literature will be gathered into a proposal for a systematic research and analysis methodology governed by an information policy. A formal information project is suggested to collect and store the required information and to use a formalized set of visualization tools to provide an evolving holistic picture of the information leading to the architectural blueprint.

TOWARDS THE INTEGRATION OF AUTHORITATIVE AND OPENSTREETMAP GEOSPATIAL DATASETS IN SUPPORT OF THE EUROPEAN STRATEGY FOR DATA

Digital transformation is at core of Europe’s future and the importance of data is well highlighted by the recently published European strategy for data, which envisions the establishment of so-called European data spaces enabling seamless data flows across actors and sectors to ultimately boost the economy and generate innovation. Integrating datasets produced by multiple actors, including citizen-generated data, is a key objective of the strategy. This study focuses on OpenStreetMap (OSM), the most popular crowdsourced geographic information project, and is the first step towards an exploration of pros and cons of integrating its open-licensed data with authoritative geospatial datasets from European National Mapping Agencies. In contrast to previous work, which has only tested data integration at the local or regional level, an experiment was presented to integrate the national address dataset published by the National Land Survey (NLS) of Finland with the corresponding dataset from OSM. The process included the analysis of the two datasets, a mapping between their data models and a set of processing steps – performed using the open source QGIS software – to transform and finally combine their content. The resulting dataset confirms that, while addresses from the NLS are in general more complete across Finland, in some areas OSM addresses provide a higher detail and more up-to-date information to usefully complement the authoritative one. Whilst the analysis confirms that an integration between OSM and authoritative geospatial datasets is technically and semantically feasible, future work is needed to evaluate enablers and barriers that also exist at the legal and organisational level.

Integrating Drone Technology in Service Learning for Engineering Students

Future engineers shall not only good at knowledge and technology but also good at other attributes such ethical, professional as well as managing people and emotion. Service learning is an effective education model to develop more holistic engineers. However, there is a lack of service learning framework that integrates technology, in order to achieve the acquisition of the above attributes. This paper describes how drone technology is disseminated by engineering students to the public through a service learning programme. Document analysis of the course information, project reports, and students’ reflections were employed in this study to identify the learning process and attributes developed by the students. the students went through 6 phases of service learning implementation. Results show that the service learning has enhanced the students’ learning, sense of responsibility, accountability, and international exposure. These are essential to develop good engineers in the future.

Project as an effective technology for teaching students of creative specialties

We discuss the process of using project technologies to develop professional competencies of students studying in creative specialties. The specificity of the organization of the educational process using project technologies is revealed, which allows organizing the activities of students with a focus on obtaining a specific creative product, attracting alternative resources, maintaining partnerships with various organizations and structures. The features of the project-oriented approach in the interaction of traditional and innovative principles in the creative self-realization of students are highlighted. The effectiveness of the process under consideration is based on the ability to build classes with students, taking into account their acquisition of certain skills and abil-ities, among which the most significant are: thought-activity, presentation, communication, search, information. Project technologies at the present stage of student learning are considered as one of the personality-oriented technologies that integrate a problematic approach, group methods, reflexive, presentational, research, search and other methods. It is noted that project activity allows solving the problem of youth readiness for active actions in a social environment, realizing the acquired knowledge and skills. Therefore, the development of project competence is one of the most important guidelines in the system of training students of creative specialties.

Specialized Collection “For Library Professionals” on the National Electronic Library’s Portal

The article highlights the first stage of creating a specialized collection (section) “For Library Professionals” on the portal of the National Electronic Library (NEL). The last decade’s trend has been a reduction in the number of titles of professional library publications, and a drop in their average circulation. In these conditions, the issue of providing library and information specialists with relevant scientific, practical and reference literature has become urgent. One of the ways to solve the problem is creating electronic collections of professional library literature. The article analyzes the Russian State Library’s experience in this area since the early 2000s. Currently, the special collection “For Library Professionals” is available on the basis of the National Electronic Library, a key library and information project of recent years. The collection has been accessible since July 2019. At the beginning of 2020, this section included about 1,5 thousand documents of different types (monographs, indexes, textbooks and manuals, collected scientific articles, proceedings of scientific conferences, periodical materials, etc.). At the end of 2 019, a survey w as conducted on the feasibility of maintaining a professional library collection in the NEL, which was attended by about 700 professionals in the area. The article analyzes the results of this survey, which indicate the demand for such electronic collections of professional library literature and show the priority topics demanded by library employees and expectations in the field of search capabilities.

Organization, Function, and Development of the Mouse Retinogeniculate Synapse

Visual information is encoded in distinct retinal ganglion cell (RGC) types in the eye tuned to specific features of the visual space. These streams of information project to the visual thalamus, the first station of the image-forming pathway. In the mouse, this connection between RGCs and thalamocortical neurons, the retinogeniculate synapse, has become a powerful experimental model for understanding how circuits in the thalamus are constructed to process these incoming lines of information. Using modern molecular and genetic tools, recent studies have suggested a more complex circuit organization than was previously understood. In this review, we summarize the current understanding of the structural and functional organization of the retinogeniculate synapse in the mouse. We discuss a framework by which a seemingly complex circuit can effectively integrate and parse information to downstream stations of the visual pathway. Finally, we review how activity and visual experience can sculpt this exquisite connectivity.

Examining the Relationship between Different Types of Information Disclosure of Foundations and Chinese Donations

The philanthropy industry in China has rapidly advanced in the past few decades and become more prominent in importance. In this study, we examine and compare how the disclosure of different types of information of Chinese foundations is associated with donations by exploiting a unique dataset from the China Foundation Center (CFC). Specifically, we explore a unique index of transparency on information disclosure or the Foundation Transparency Index (FTI) provided by the CFC and investigate how the donations from Chinese donors are associated with the disclosure of foundation’s basic information, its financial information, project information and its governance information. We find that Chinese donations are more sensitive to foundation’s governance information disclosure. These findings have important policy implications for both Chinese policy makers and practitioners in the industry. Specifically, the results lend strong support to advocating for the imposition of more mandatory regulations on the disclosure of foundation information, especially the governance information.