Innovations to expand drone data collection and analysis for rangeland monitoring

Loneliness among the elderly has become a pressing issue in Western societies. In the Spanish context, the problem of the so-called “empty” Spain disproportionately affects this population group—elderly individuals living in rural areas with low population density, and therefore at higher risk of social exclusion and isolation. We introduce here a mixed-method, quantitative-qualitative research protocol, triangulated with technological tools, designed to improve both data acquisition and subsequent data analysis and interpretation. This study will take place in a rural locality in the Extremadura region (Spain), chosen according to a particular socio-demographic profile. The De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale will be used on a cohort of 80 people over 65 years old. Within this cohort, a smaller sample of 20–30 individuals will be selected for semi-structured interviews about their beliefs and experiences of loneliness. Finally, data gathered from technological tools (smartbands, Bluetooth sensors) will allow us to monitor social interactions and to map daily loneliness/interaction patterns. Data will be triangulated by analyzing and comparing the empirical material gathered through these different methods and tools. Strict adherence to ethical standards for data protection and handling will be essential through data collection and analysis. As well as providing insights into the phenomenon of loneliness in old age, the use of different methods and tools for data collection will provide the basis for an epistemological reflection on the scope and limits of each one of these methods.

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Thinking about police data: Analysts’ perceptions of data quality in Canadian policing

The Police Journal Theory Practice and Principles ◽

10.1177/0032258x211021461 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 0032258X2110214

Author(s):

Christopher D O’Connor ◽

John Ng ◽

Dallas Hill ◽

Tyler Frederick

Keyword(s):

Big Data ◽

Data Collection ◽

Data Quality ◽

Research Culture ◽

Police Services ◽

Police Data ◽

Data Collection And Analysis ◽

Quality Issues

Policing is increasingly being shaped by data collection and analysis. However, we still know little about the quality of the data police services acquire and utilize. Drawing on a survey of analysts from across Canada, this article examines several data collection, analysis, and quality issues. We argue that as we move towards an era of big data policing it is imperative that police services pay more attention to the quality of the data they collect. We conclude by discussing the implications of ignoring data quality issues and the need to develop a more robust research culture in policing.

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Toward better ways of measuring school climate

Phi Delta Kappan ◽

10.1177/00317217211013939 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 102 (8) ◽

pp. 52-57

Author(s):

Deborah Temkin ◽

Joy A. Thompson ◽

Alex Gabriel ◽

Emily Fulks ◽

Sarah Sun ◽

...

Keyword(s):

School Climate ◽

Data Collection ◽

Learning Environment ◽

School Quality ◽

Data Collection And Analysis ◽

Academic Measures ◽

Every Student Succeeds Act

As states consider non-academic measures of school quality for their accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act, few are choosing to focus on the school climate in which students learn. That’s not a surprise, given concerns about the validity and usefulness of existing climate surveys. However, the authors argue, a recent study suggests that by making a couple of modest changes to their data collection and analysis, states can significantly improve their measurement of school climate. Doing so is more than worth the effort, they add, as it will create strong incentives for schools to improve their learning environment.

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Fieldwork on epistemic authority markers: What we can learn from different types of data

Folia Linguistica ◽

10.1515/flin-2020-2046 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 405-445 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Karolina Grzech

Keyword(s):

Data Collection ◽

Discourse Markers ◽

Epistemic Modality ◽

Linguistic Meaning ◽

Epistemic Authority ◽

Data Collection And Analysis ◽

The Right To Know ◽

Cognitive Study ◽

The Right

AbstractEpistemicity in language encompasses various kinds of constructions and expressions that have to do with knowledge-related aspects of linguistic meaning (cf. Grzech, Karolina, Eva Schultze-Berndt and Henrik Bergqvist. 2020c. Knowing in interaction: an introduction. Folia Linguistica [this issue]). It includes some well-established categories, such as evidentiality and epistemic modality (Boye, Kasper. 2012. Epistemic meaning: A crosslinguistic and functional-cognitive study. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton), but also categories that have been less well described to-date. In this paper, I focus on one such category: the marking of epistemic authority, i.e. the encoding of “the right to know or claim” (Stivers, Tanya, Lorenza Mondada & Jakob Steensig. 2011b. Knowledge, morality and affiliation in social interaction. In Stivers et al. 2011a). I explore how the marking of epistemic authority can be documented and analysed in the context of linguistic fieldwork. The discussion is based on a case study of Upper Napo Kichwa, a Quechuan language spoken in the Ecuadorian Amazon that exhibits a rich paradigm of epistemic discourse markers, encoding meanings related to epistemic authority and distribution of knowledge between discourse participants. I describe and appraise the methodology for epistemic fieldwork used in the Upper Napo Kichwa documentation and description project. I give a detailed account of the different tools and methods of data collection, showing their strengths and weaknesses. I also discuss the decisions made at the different stages of the project and their implications for data collection and analysis. In discussing these issues, I extrapolate from the case study, proposing practical solutions for fieldwork-based research on epistemic markers.

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