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Discrimination law has evolved from litigating or prosecuting overt, individual cases of egregious behavior solely by means of anecdotal evidence and eyewitness testimony. Statistical evidence came to bear the imprimatur of the United States Supreme Court in the Seventies as a probative means of discerning guilt or liability, and has been used to shore up patterns of prejudice at a systemic level since. Courtrooms of the Twenty-First Century have struggled to define discrimination through a quantitative lens, nonetheless relying on qualitative evidence to assist the factfinder in rendering a verdict. Some definitions carry more precision and accuracy than others. Consider the inflammatory National Law Journal's indictment of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (‘EPA’) as an example of the latter. In 1992, the National Law Journal ran a Special Investigation of the EPA, claiming that the federal government had fostered a racist imbalance in hazardous site cleanup and its pursuit of polluters. Kudos to the columnists for bringing environmental equity into the spotlight of public debate and for forewarning and encouraging the EPA to conduct its enforcements reflectively, in order to avoid being on the receiving end of a Title VI lawsuit. Nonetheless, the methodology used by the National Law Journal belies a total understanding of the bureaucratic structure that pursued these actions and of the notion of statistical significance. This Article confines itself to Region X's actions between 1995 and 1999, applying linear regression and other statistical tests to determine whether biases, found using the National Law Journal's naive methodology, stand after due consideration of chance. The NLJ approach finds evidence of bias, but the author also conducts more complicated and appropriate analyses, such as those contemplated by the National Guidance. After issuing some provisos, the author dismisses charges of racism or classism. While the National Guidance represents a positive first step in identifying environmental justice communities, those with an above-average proportion of lower-class or non-Caucasian inhabitants, it lacks statistical sophistication and econometric depth. This Article concludes by recommending the use of normalized racial distributions, Gini coefficients, and Social Welfare Functions to the EPA and to other organizations conducting environmental justice analysis.

In past years, Zuclopenthixolacetate as well as Flupentixoldecanoate have each proven to be reliable and efficient in the treatment of schizophrenic psychoses. In a specially implemented psychiatric treatment unit (PTU) we administered a high‐dose depot neuroleptic combination therapy initially consisting of both substances to seriously ill schizophrenic prisoners who exhibited highly aggressive behaviour (N = 20). We initially used both antipsychotics at the same time as a simple regimen in order to restore the prisoners’ health to enable them to return to their home prisons. A single coercive intervention was performed in 14 out of 20 prisoners which was followed by a second one in two cases according to Article 101 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure. On average, prisoners needed a treatment course of 30.4 days. Within this time PANSS global scores were reduced by approximately 40%. Side effects occurring as a consequence of neuroleptic treatment were negligible and could be dealt with.

The aim of this paper is to empirically examine how to best incorporate such contextual data, such as location or the semantic place of mobile users, into mobile user behavior models. Acquiring such data has become technically easier than ever. The proper utilization of these data leads, hypothetically, to better understanding of mobile user behavior and, consequently, to enhanced mobile services.

The paper systematically compares, under multiple experimental settings, the predictive performances of models built with three different approaches (pre-filtering, contextual modeling and post-filtering) used for incorporating contextual data into user behavior models. The comparisons focus on by which approach additional semantic place information can be best utilized for making the most accurate inferences on mobile user behavior. Real-life smartphone usage data are utilized in the analysis.

The results demonstrate that none of the considered approaches uniformly dominate the others across all experimental settings. However, they show circumstance specific differences that need to be aligned with practical use cases for the best performance.

Identifying the most suitable approaches for utilizing the semantic place (and other contextual) data is an important practical problem for electronic service providers, whose offerings are increasingly moving to the mobile domain and thus need to respond to the demands of mobility.

The paper constitutes an initial step toward understanding and systematically evaluating different approaches for incorporating semantic place data into modeling mobile user behavior. Practitioners in the mobile service domain can apply the initial results and academics build upon them with more diverse experimental settings.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate how new healthcare professionals engage with information practices and information culture in their workplace, and the resulting influences on development and change.

A longitudinal study was conducted on a hospital training programme. Three series of focus groups provided data from 18 recently qualified nurses, supported by observations. Data were thematically analysed applying a framework consisting of six approaches to information use.

Newcomers take a proactive approach to seek, use and share scientific information, which is negotiated within existing information practices and organisational information culture. Their competencies, such as research skills, values, motivation and sense of integrity to use and share scientific information, often differ from those existing workplace practices. For this reason, they drive towards renewal and change.

Examination of organisational approaches to information use indicates clearly the necessity for improvements to meet the needs of information proactiveness and thus be able to face challenges and changes in an organisation.

This work sheds new light on newcomers’ information use, as they integrate into a workplace and interact with information practices and organisational approaches to information use. A significant contribution is the identification of the dynamics and interdependencies between newcomers’ individual agency in their way of seeking, using and sharing information, and the established community’s social agency promoting existing information practices and the organisational agency represented by information culture.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of restoration of gold foils on Dazu Grottoes using different parylene coatings.

The gold foil samples were applied with two types of parylene coating with six different thicknesses, C‐10, C‐15, C‐20, N‐10, N‐20, N‐25, respectively. Electrochemical impedance, surface morphology, and hydrophobicity properties were used to examine the behavior of the coatings.

The results showed that an increase in electrochemical corrosion resistance was observed as the degree of coating thickness was increased for both C‐parylene and N‐parylene coatings. In addition, the surface morphology study, using 3D topography measurement, indicated that the surface roughness was decreased for all parylene coatings. Furthermore, the parylene‐C coating was comparatively more effective than was the parylene‐N coating.

The results obtained from the three methods were in close agreement. This is an indication that the parylene‐C coating can be used to restore the gold foils on Dazu Grottoes and to support future restoration and consolidation to be applied on site on the Grottoes.

This paper aims to investigate automated teller machine (ATM) fraud in southwest Nigeria, as extant studies have not examined the unintended consequences of ATM subscription particularly the effect of the identity of fraudsters and the strategies for defrauding.

Using sequential exploratory strand of mixed method, data were collected from both ATM users and victims of ATM fraud using multi-stage sampling procedure. This involved purposive selection of Lagos and Oyo states.

Results showed that fraudsters were typically lovers, friends, relatives and sometimes children of victims. Strategies for defrauding included card cloning, swapping of cards and physical attacks at ATM galleries.

Because of the size of the sample which is small, the research results may lack generalizability. More expansive works are needed across Nigeria in this regard.

The paper includes implications for policy initiative concerning the deployment and use of payment systems such as ATM in Nigeria.

The paper reveals the limits of trust in cashless policy. It raises salient policy issues concerning the need for the governance of trust to engender adoption.

The paper characterizes fraudsters and their strategies for defrauding.

Reports a survey which investigated the funding of library research in six federal government owned universities in Nigeria, and the impact of research funding on the publication output of librarians. Findings indicate that research is either self‐funded, or funded by the respondents’ employers, and an insignificant number have been funded by international agencies. Grants are given for postgraduate degree and personal research. About half the respondents see the research grants they receive to be either fairly adequate or adequate: but the majority expressed dissatisfaction with their research allowances. All agreed that enhanced research grants and allowances would lead to a greater research output. Most publications produced by the respondents resulted from self‐funded research, followed by research sponsored by grants from employers, and lastly from researches funded by foundations, agencies and associations.

Sustainable features are gradually becoming important considerations by commercial real estate users. This is because of their considered impact in reducing operating costs and potential at reducing the negative impacts of buildings on human health and the natural environment. This chapter sought to examine the demands for sustainable features by users of commercial real estate like offices in Lagos State, Nigeria. It also evaluated the factors influencing demand for them to achieve value for money and enhance real estate investment decisions. The quantitative research methodology was adopted, and primary data were collected via questionnaires distributed to 134 purposively selected estate surveying firms in the study area. Ninety-five representing (70.9%) were returned and found useable and were analysed with the aid of descriptive statistics of percentages, mean and relative willingness index. The study found that power/energy-saving features are in high demand as alternatives to the epileptic nature of power supply in the country. The study recommended the need for the government to encourage the adoption and incorporation of locally made sustainable features in commercial real estate and to subsidise them for use in the Lagos commercial real estate market. Thus, it is concluded that with the right environment created by policy makers, sustainable features in buildings have huge potentials to contribute to prevent environmental problems in an emerging commercial real estate market like Nigeria.

This paper proposes an approach to identify categorical influencers (i.e. influencers is the person who is active in the targeted categories) in social media channels. Categorical influencers are important for media marketing but to automatically detect them remains a challenge.

We deployed the emerging deep learning approaches. Precisely, we used word embedding to encode semantic information of words occurring in the common microtext of social media and used variational autoencoder (VAE) to approximate the topic modeling process, through which the active categories of influencers are automatically detected. We developed a system known as Categorical Influencer Detection (CID) to realize those ideas.

The approach of using VAE to simulate the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) process can effectively handle the task of topic modeling on the vast dataset of microtext on social media channels.

This work has two major contributions. The first one is the detection of topics on microtexts using deep learning approach. The second is the identification of categorical influencers in social media.

This work can help brands to do digital marketing on social media effectively by approaching appropriate influencers. A real case study is given to illustrate it.

In this paper, we discuss an approach to automatically identify the active categories of influencers by performing topic detection from the microtext related to the influencers in social media channels. To do so, we use deep learning to approximate the topic modeling process of the conventional approaches (such as LDA).

In this paper, we examine the social stratification in the favelas, urban slums, both in general and how it correlates with technology. The analysis is based on Weberian stratification theory, since it provides for a broad understanding of the different factors that make up the digital inequalities.

Based on a 10-month critical ethnographic research dealing with LAN houses and state supported telecenters in the favelas of Vitória, Brazil, we analyze how the use of technology by residents of such marginalized areas expands our understanding of Weber’s axes of stratification, namely class, status and political power. The data was drawn from user observations, Facebook interactions, and 76 semi-structured interviews.

The drug cartel members belonged to the higher class of favela residents due to their access to material resources and ability to afford smartphones and data plans. However, in terms of status groups, they did not represent the pinnacle of the community. Where status was concerned, the highest stratum of the community was composed of the “Facebook’s celebrities,” the few teenagers who knew how to produce content online, such as images and videos. An additional axis of social differentiation, related to political power, was observed during the 2013 protests in Brazil. Favela residents arrived late to the event and found themselves “fighting” for demands stipulated previously by the organizers who belonged to upper classes.

We highlight what access to ICTs can, and cannot, accomplish in a “highly disorganized,” conflict-ridden, and institution-poor environment. With that we hope to encourage academics and practitioners to do a better job in developing appropriate policies and technologies.