scholarly journals Who Are the Intended Users of CSR Reports? Insights from a Data-Driven Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1070
Author(s):  
Charlie Lindgren ◽  
Asif M. Huq ◽  
Kenneth Carling
Keyword(s):  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
Accounting Standards ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Machine Learning Approach ◽  
Data Driven Approach ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Bayesian Machine Learning

There is extant research on theorization, conceptualization, determinants, and consequences of corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, what firms include in their CSR or sustainability reports are much less covered and are predominantly covered in case studies of individual firms. In this paper, we instead take a holistic view and simultaneously explore what firms around the globe currently disclose in these reports, more specifically we investigate if firms are shareholder or stakeholder focused. In this investigation, we check the alignment of the reports to the materiality framework of Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) which was developed having shareholders as the intended user. To estimate what firms disclose in CSR reports we used the unsupervised Bayesian machine learning approach latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) developed by Blei et al. We conclude that firms target shareholders as the intended users of these reports, even in environments where stakeholder approach of management is argued to be more dominant. Methodologically, we contribute by demonstrating that topic modeling can enhance the objectivity in reviewing CSR-reports.

scholarly journals Combining Design Patterns and Topic Modeling to Discover Regions That Support Particular Functionality

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Papadakis ◽  
Song Gao ◽  
George Baryannis
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Design Patterns ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Functional Regions ◽  
Data Driven Approach

The problem of discovering regions that support particular functionalities in an urban setting has been approached in literature using two general methodologies: top-down, encoding expert knowledge on urban planning and design and discovering regions that conform to that knowledge; and bottom-up, using data to train machine learning models, which can discover similar regions. Both methodologies face limitations, with knowledge-based approaches being criticized for scalability and transferability issues and data-driven approaches for lacking interpretability and depending heavily on data quality. To mitigate these disadvantages, we propose a novel framework that fuses a knowledge-based approach using design patterns and a data-driven approach using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling in three different ways: Functional regions discovered using either approach are evaluated against each other to identify cases of significant agreement or disagreement; knowledge from patterns is used to adjust topic probabilities in the learning model; and topic probabilities are used to adjust pattern-based results. The proposed methodologies are demonstrated through the use case of identifying shopping-related regions in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Results show that the combination of pattern-based discovery and topic modeling extraction helps uncover discrepancies between the two approaches and smooth inaccuracies caused by the limitations of each approach.

scholarly journals Clustering suicides: A data-driven, exploratory machine learning approach

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 15-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Ludwig ◽  
Daniel König ◽  
Nestor D. Kapusta ◽  
Victor Blüml ◽  
Georg Dorffner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Analysis Data ◽  
The Other ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Suicide Methods ◽  
Machine Learning Approach ◽  
The One ◽  
Methods Of Suicide

Abstract Methods of suicide have received considerable attention in suicide research. The common approach to differentiate methods of suicide is the classification into “violent” versus “non-violent” method. Interestingly, since the proposition of this dichotomous differentiation, no further efforts have been made to question the validity of such a classification of suicides. This study aimed to challenge the traditional separation into “violent” and “non-violent” suicides by generating a cluster analysis with a data-driven, machine learning approach. In a retrospective analysis, data on all officially confirmed suicides (N = 77,894) in Austria between 1970 and 2016 were assessed. Based on a defined distance metric between distributions of suicides over age group and month of the year, a standard hierarchical clustering method was performed with the five most frequent suicide methods. In cluster analysis, poisoning emerged as distinct from all other methods – both in the entire sample as well as in the male subsample. Violent suicides could be further divided into sub-clusters: hanging, shooting, and drowning on the one hand and jumping on the other hand. In the female sample, two different clusters were revealed – hanging and drowning on the one hand and jumping, poisoning, and shooting on the other. Our data-driven results in this large epidemiological study confirmed the traditional dichotomization of suicide methods into “violent” and “non-violent” methods, but on closer inspection “violent methods” can be further divided into sub-clusters and a different cluster pattern could be identified for women, requiring further research to support these refined suicide phenotypes.

scholarly journals Assessing the Heterogeneity of Complaints Related to Tinnitus and Hyperacusis from an Unsupervised Machine Learning Approach: An Exploratory Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 174-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume  Palacios ◽  
Arnaud Noreña ◽  
Alain Londero
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽  
Suicide Attempts ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Supervised Machine Learning ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Machine Learning Approach

Introduction: Subjective tinnitus (ST) and hyperacusis (HA) are common auditory symptoms that may become incapacitating in a subgroup of patients who thereby seek medical advice. Both conditions can result from many different mechanisms, and as a consequence, patients may report a vast repertoire of associated symptoms and comorbidities that can reduce dramatically the quality of life and even lead to suicide attempts in the most severe cases. The present exploratory study is aimed at investigating patients’ symptoms and complaints using an in-depth statistical analysis of patients’ natural narratives in a real-life environment in which, thanks to the anonymization of contributions and the peer-to-peer interaction, it is supposed that the wording used is totally free of any self-limitation and self-censorship. Methods: We applied a purely statistical, non-supervised machine learning approach to the analysis of patients’ verbatim exchanged on an Internet forum. After automated data extraction, the dataset has been preprocessed in order to make it suitable for statistical analysis. We used a variant of the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm to reveal clusters of symptoms and complaints of HA patients (topics). The probability of distribution of words within a topic uniquely characterizes it. The convergence of the log-likelihood of the LDA-model has been reached after 2,000 iterations. Several statistical parameters have been tested for topic modeling and word relevance factor within each topic. Results: Despite a rather small dataset, this exploratory study demonstrates that patients’ free speeches available on the Internet constitute a valuable material for machine learning and statistical analysis aimed at categorizing ST/HA complaints. The LDA model with K = 15 topics seems to be the most relevant in terms of relative weights and correlations with the capability to individualizing subgroups of patients displaying specific characteristics. The study of the relevance factor may be useful to unveil weak but important signals that are present in patients’ narratives. Discussion/Conclusion: We claim that the LDA non-supervised approach would permit to gain knowledge on the patterns of ST- and HA-related complaints and on patients’ centered domains of interest. The merits and limitations of the LDA algorithms are compared with other natural language processing methods and with more conventional methods of qualitative analysis of patients’ output. Future directions and research topics emerging from this innovative algorithmic analysis are proposed.

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