This paper proposes an agent community based information retrieval method, which uses agent communities to manage and look up information related to users. An agent works as a delegate of its user and searches for information that the user wants by communicating with other agents. The communication between agents is carried out in a peer-to-peer computing architecture. In order to retrieve information related to a user query, an agent uses two histories : a query/retrieved document history(Q/RDH) and a query/sender (...) agent history(Q/SAH). The former is a list of pairs of a query and retrieved documents, where the queries were sent by the agent itself. The latter is a list of pairs of a query and sender agents and shows ``who sent what query to the agent''. This is useful to find a new information source. Making use of the Q/SAH is expected to cause a collaborative filtering effect, which gradually creates virtual agent communities, where agents with the same interests stay together. Our hypothesis is that a virtual agent community reduces communication loads to perform a search. As an agent receives more queries, then more links to new knowledge are achieved. From this behavior, a ``give and take''(or positive feedback) effect for agents seems to emerge. We implemented this method with Multi-Agents Kodama which has been developed in our laboratory, and conducted preliminary experiments to test the hypothesis. The empirical results showed that the method was much more efficient than a naive method employing 'broadcast' techniques only to look up a target agent. (shrink)

Social influence analysis is important for many social network applications, including recommendation and cybersecurity analysis. We observe that the influence of community including multiple users outweighs the individual influence. Existing models focus on the individual influence analysis, but few studies estimate the community influence that is ubiquitous in online social network. A major challenge lies in that researchers need to take into account many factors, such as user influence, social trust, and user relationship, to model community-level influence. In this paper, (...) aiming to assess the community-level influence effectively and accurately, we formulate the problem of modeling community influence and construct a community-level influence analysis model. It first eliminates the zombie fans and then calculates the user influence. Next, it calculates the user final influence by combining the user influence and the willingness of diffusing theme information. Finally, it evaluates the community influence by comprehensively studying the user final influence, social trust, and relationship tightness between intrausers of communities. To handle real-world applications, we propose a community-level influence analysis algorithm called CIAA. Empirical studies on a real-world dataset from Sina Weibo demonstrate the superiority of the proposed model. (shrink)

In this article, we examine how white working-class women reimagine gender in the face of social and economic changes that have undermined their ability to perform normative femininity. As blue-collar jobs have disappeared, scholars have posited that white working-class men and women have become increasingly isolated, disconnected from institutions, and hopeless about the future, leading to a culture of despair. Although past literature has examined how working-class white men cope with the inability to perform masculinity through wage-earning and family authority, (...) gender has been undertheorized in these discussions, treating working-class women’s and men’s despair interchangeably. Drawing on 37 in-depth interviews conducted in a former coal-mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania, we identify three overarching strategies that women deploy in their life histories to cope with disruption: embracing pain as an opportunity for self-growth; dispelling shame and striving for equality; and enduring suffering. These strategies allow women to feel hopeful and worthy as they confront enormous challenges, whether starting over following relationship dissolution, learning to be independent from men, or simply surviving hardship for the sake of their children. We explore the implications for recreating gender identity in each strategy and question how different strategies might serve to protect women from, or alternatively solidify, sentiments of despair. (shrink)

This article examines Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and mining community development, sustainability and viability. These issues are considered focussing on current and former company-owned mining towns in Namibia. Historically company towns have been a feature of mining activity in Namibia. However, the fate of such towns upon mine closure has been and remains controversial. Declining former mining communities and even ghost mining towns can be found across the country. This article draws upon research undertaken (...) in Namibia and considers these issues with reference to three case study communities. This article examines the complexities which surround decision-making about these communities, and the challenges faced in efforts to encourage their sustainability after mining. In this article, mine company engagements through CSR with the development, sustainability and viability of such communities are also critically discussed. The role, responsibilities, and actions of the state in relation to these communities are furthermore reflected upon. Finally, ways forward for these communities are considered. (shrink)

Mining companies have long had a questionable reputation for social responsibility, especially in developing countries. In recent years, mining companies operating in developing countries have come under increased pressure as opponents have placed them under greater public scrutiny. Mining companies have responded by developing global corporate social responsibility strategies as part of their larger global business strategies. In these strategies, a prominent place is given to their relationship with local communities. For business ethics, one basic issue (...) is whether such an approach to corporate responsibility is likely to effectively address the development concerns of local communities in developing countries. This paper addresses this question by investigating how the corporate social responsibility agenda of a major minor company has been implemented by one of its subsidiaries in South Africa. (shrink)

This research engages with the problem of company-community conflict in mining. The inequitable distributions of risks, impacts, and benefits are key drivers of resource conflicts and are likely to remain at the forefront of mining-related research and advocacy. Procedural and interactional forms of justice therefore lie at the very heart of some of the real and ongoing challenges in mining, including: intractable local-level conflict; emerging global norms and performance standards; and ever-increasing expectations for the industry to translate (...) high-level corporate social responsibility policy into on-the-ground practice. This research focuses on the "process" aspects of resource conflicts through an examination of existing grievance-handling procedures at six mining operations where company-community conflict was present. In their current form, and on their own, the six mechanisms were found to be insufficient in their capacity to advance justice. The authors argue that if the overall objective of global norms is that companies construct and perform grievance handling in ways that strongly preference just practices, then "mechanisms-inpractice" must be better understood and constructively critiqued along all justice dimensions. (shrink)

Drawing from contemporary blog data, this article examines an emerging project termed “neuroqueer.” Neuroqueer is a collaboration of activists, academics, and bloggers engaging in online community building. Neuroqueer requires those who engage in it to disidentify from both oppressive dominant and counterculture identities that perpetuate destructive medical model discourses of cure. It is a queer/crip response to discussions about gender, sexuality, and disability as pathology that works to deconstruct normative identity categories. Blog members employ neuroqueer practices to subversively combat exclusion (...) through rejection of able-hetero assimilation and counteridentification in favor of disidentification. Of particular interest for this special issue are the ways in which neuroqueer perspectives build more fluid conceptualizations of both gender and intersectionality through conscious disidentification from neurotypical norms and medical notions of cure on which they are often unconsciously based. (shrink)

This research engages with the problem of company–community conflict in mining. The inequitable distributions of risks, impacts, and benefits are key drivers of resource conflicts and are likely to remain at the forefront of mining-related research and advocacy. Procedural and interactional forms of justice therefore lie at the very heart of some of the real and ongoing challenges in mining, including: intractable local-level conflict; emerging global norms and performance standards; and ever-increasing expectations for the industry to translate (...) high-level corporate social responsibility policy into on-the-ground practice. This research focuses on the “process” aspects of resource conflicts through an examination of existing grievance-handling procedures at six mining operations where company–community conflict was present. In their current form, and on their own, the six mechanisms were found to be insufficient in their capacity to advance justice. The authors argue that if the overall objective of global norms is that companies construct and perform grievance handling in ways that strongly preference just practices, then “mechanisms-in-practice” must be better understood and constructively critiqued along all justice dimensions. (shrink)

Although companies recognize the importance of social responsibility and community engagement, conflicts between companies and communities have been noticeably increasing. To better understand the role of institutional environments in company–community conflicts, we analyze two mining conflicts—Minera Yanacocha's Minas Conga extension project in Peru and Minera Los Pelambres' El Mauro Tailings Dam in Chile. Our findings imply that, to prevent negative consequences and alleviate company–community conflicts, mining companies should address underlying structural causes and pursue informal approaches in order (...) to obtain and maintain their social license. We find that better formal institutional environments not only alleviate conflict intensity but also facilitate informal approaches through which companies and communities can cooperate to resolve conflicts. The best practice would be to start and continue dialogs between communities and companies, mediated by impartial governments, to understand the concerns of the counterparty and find means by which to address the causes. (shrink)

Large mining projects can generate highly inequitable outcomes, with affected communities bearing the burden of social and environmental costs while economic benefits accrue largely to domestic and foreign metropolitan centres. This raises important ethical and social justice issues, as does the finite nature of mineral resources, which can mean that current generations enjoy the benefits of mining while future generations bear the costs of environmental and social impacts that can continue long after mining ends. During recent (...) decades two broad approaches, voluntary industry initiatives and government regulation, have been employed in attempts to achieve a more equitable distribution of mining’s positive and negative effects. Both have serious drawbacks. Industry initiatives are ultimately voluntary and may be abandoned in tough economic times; they can be highly variable across companies and projects; and they suffer from serious compliance issues. Public regulation can be inflexible, is subject to industry capture, and in many major mineral producing nations a ‘retreat from regulation’ is reducing its relevance. This article considers whether, and under what conditions, a third and emergent instrument, community development agreements, can help overcome the shortcomings associated with industry initiatives and public regulation. It argues that CDAs have considerable potential in this regard, but that communities can encounter significant practical challenges in their negotiation and implementation. In addition, disparities in negotiation power between communities and project developers can result in inequitable agreements, indicating a continued need for government involvement to create a more level ‘negotiation terrain’. (shrink)

Every field of science, but especially biology, contains particular conceptions of nature. These conceptions are not merely epistemological or ontological, but also have normative dimensions; they provide an ethos, a framework for moral orientation. These normative dimensions, whilst often remaining ‘hidden’ and inarticulate, influence the way in which biologists practice their profession. In this paper, I explore what happens when different versions of these implicit normative frameworks collide. To do so, I will focus on a case study from the field (...) of ecological genomics as it has evolved in one particular country, namely the Netherlands. During an important inaugural meeting, the director of one of the most sizeable Dutch ecogenomics centres gave a presentation in which he introduced the term ‘nature mining’. Part of the audience immediately embraced the term, but others were very reluctant. This mixed response is generally explained as a culmination of growing tension about the future direction of the field: due to new funding demands, a shift had occurred from fundamental research to research more interested in ‘valorisation’. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It is my claim that there is a significant parallel to be drawn between the relationship that holds between local success and national flourishing and the relationship that holds between rational belief and truth. This is not simply because all four can only be achieved through communal effort. I argue that understanding how local success contributes to national flourishing best illuminates the connection between rational belief and truth.

This paper aims to analyse how the discourse of CEO letters and other factors influence community involvement and Social Licence to Operate (SLO) in the mining industry. The analysis is based on qualitative information disclosed in sustainability reports and CEO letters from 32 mining firms. Content analysis was undertaken to obtain data for the study, and then a regression analysis and a multiple correspondence analysis were used to test the hypotheses defined in the study. The results indicate that (...) the CEO discourse influences how a firm expresses the importance of gaining its SLO, the philanthropic activities in which companies become involved and the destinations of the investments in the communities in which they operate. The results also show changes in the discourse between 2011 and 2015, which are, in part, explained by the difficult situation experienced by the sector during this period. The paper contributes to the Corporate Social Responsibility literature by integrating different theories from this field into the SLO framework. The analysis carried out and the results obtained are useful for both CEOs and Sustainability Managers, especially in managing their relationships with the communities where they operate or intend to operate. (shrink)

The increasing pressure from different facets of society exerted on multinational companies to become more philanthropic and claim ownership of their impacts is now becoming a standard practice. Although research in corporate social responsibility has arguably been recent, the application of activities taking a voluntary form from MNCs seem to vary reflecting a plethora of factors, particularly one obvious being the backwater local communities of developing countries where most of the natural extraction projects are located. This chapter examines views (...) of two Papua New Guinea local communities hosting large-scale mining operations and explains the demands arising from situational relativities, which are becoming too conspicuous for mine developers not to ignore. The research undertaken with several assertions highlights the perceived imperativeness allowing companies to integrate the CSR into the essential management pursuits of running mines in PNG. (shrink)

The community mining space remains contested for a range of complex reasons. This inherently difficult discursive space is made most apparent in the context of international development where mining is often viewed as a potential lever in the effort to lift poorer nations out of poverty. In this article, the authors offer a critical review of community development (CD) approaches that are currently being applied by the mining sector. While the authors acknowledge recent positive developments in this (...) domain, there remains a good deal of scope for improving the internal standing of, and the external influence over, CD practice in mining. Drawing on the contemporary CD literature, the authors assert “assets” as one possible heurism for enhancing this discursive space by highlighting the ways in which community and company representatives may be able to participate more actively in dialogical processes—both between and within company and community—where development discourse is not prefigured or biased against participating parties. (shrink)

This paper aims to analyse how the discourse of CEO letters and other factors influence community involvement and Social Licence to Operate (SLO) in the mining industry. The analysis is based on qualitative information disclosed in sustainability reports and CEO letters from 32 mining firms. Content analysis was undertaken to obtain data for the study, and then a regression analysis and a multiple correspondence analysis were used to test the hypotheses defined in the study. The results indicate that (...) the CEO discourse influences how a firm expresses the importance of gaining its SLO, the philanthropic activities in which companies become involved and the destinations of the investments in the communities in which they operate. The results also show changes in the discourse between 2011 and 2015, which are, in part, explained by the difficult situation experienced by the sector during this period. The paper contributes to the Corporate Social Responsibility literature by integrating different theories from this field into the SLO framework. The analysis carried out and the results obtained are useful for both CEOs and Sustainability Managers, especially in managing their relationships with the communities where they operate or intend to operate. (shrink)

With the emergence of online communities, more and more people are participating in online technology communities to meet personalized learning needs. This study aims to investigate whether and how male and female users behave differently in online technology communities. Using text data from Python Technology Community, through LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) model, sentiment analysis and regression analysis, this paper reveals the different topics of male and female users in the online technology community, their sentimental tendencies and activity (...) under different topics, and their correlation and their mutual influence. The results show that: (1) Male users tend to provide information help, while female users prefer to participate in the topic of making friends and advertising. (2) When communicating in the technology community, male and female users mostly express positive emotions, but female users express positive emotions more frequently. (3) Different emotional tendencies of male and female users under different topics have different effects on their activity in the community. The activity of female users is more susceptible to emotional orientation. (shrink)

Background:Data representing people’s behaviour, attitudes, feelings and relationships are increasingly being harvested from social media platforms and re-used for research purposes. This can be ethically problematic, even where such data exist in the public domain. We set out to explore how the academic community is addressing these challenges by analysing a national corpus of research ethics guidelines and published studies in one interdisciplinary research area.Methods:Ethics guidelines published by Research Councils UK, its seven-member councils and guidelines cited within these were reviewed. (...) Guidelines referring to social media were classified according to published typologies of social media research uses and ethical considerations for social media mining. Using health research as an exemplar, PubMed was searched to identify studies using social media data, which were assessed according to their coverage of ethical considerations and guidelines.Results:Of the 13 guidelines published or recom... (shrink)

One of the crucial fields of study that is getting more attention is association rule mining. It is crucial to databases' knowledge discovery (KDD). KDD and association rule mining have a very broad use. It has evolved at a rapid rate over the past fifteen years. Association Rule Mining is a novel technology, although it is still in the discovery and development stages. Video is an illustration of interactive media data since it contains text, pictures, meta-data, visual, (...) sound, and different kinds of data. It is frequently used for a variety of important likely reasons, such as security and reconnaissance, amusement, healthcare, educational endeavours, and sports. One of the main issues for the local data-mining research community is video data mining, which aims to find and comprehend fascinating examples from the large volume of video data. Video data mining is still in its infancy when compared to mining other sorts of data. It is pivotal to grasp and naturally mine the information from video databases considering the continually extending computerized libraries and video databases. Differentiating association rules between components in a significant video library is critical in the field of video data mining. As per continuous imaginative work, association rule mining is being utilized rapidly in various tasks, including perception, social affairs, broadcast news, sports, records, films, clinical data, as well as on the web and individual media assortments. This exploration tries to give a far-reaching method to association rule extraction from video databases. (shrink)

The increasing pressure from different facets of society exerted on multinational companies (MNCs) to become more philanthropic and claim ownership of their impacts is now becoming a standard practice. Although research in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has arguably been recent (see subsequent section), the application of activities taking a voluntary form from MNCs seem to vary reflecting a plethora of factors, particularly one obvious being the backwater local communities of developing countries where most of the natural extraction projects are (...) located. This chapter examines views of two Papua New Guinea (PNG) local communities hosting large-scale mining operations and explains the demands arising from situational relativities, which are becoming too conspicuous for mine developers not to ignore. The research undertaken with several assertions highlights the perceived imperativeness allowing companies to integrate the CSR into the essential management pursuits of running mines in PNG. (shrink)

Michael Faraday’s laboratory experiments have dominated traditional histories of the electrical sciences in 1820s and 1830s Britain. However, as this article demonstrates, in the mining region of Cornwall, Robert Were Fox fashioned a very different approach to the study of electromagnetic phenomena. Here, it was the mine that provided the foremost site of scientific experimentation, with Fox employing these underground locations to measure the Earth’s heat and make claims over the existence of subterranean electrical currents. Yet securing philosophical claims (...) cultivated in mines proved challenging for Fox, with metropolitan audiences, including Faraday, loath to give credit to the results of these underground experiments. This article explores how Fox developed a way of modeling his mine experiments, using clay samples, to communicate knowledge from industrial Cornwall to urban centers of elite science. It argues that the mine was an epistemologically complex venue of scientific activity, at once seeming to provide a way of examining nature directly, without recourse to laboratory contrivance, while simultaneously being a place where knowledge claims were hard to verify without access to these physically challenging locations. In exploring Fox’s work, this study contributes to a growing literature of spatial investigation that takes the vertical as its unit of analysis. (shrink)

This article focuses on the issue of data mining as it relates to the consumer and to the issue of whether the consumer's private information has any proprietary status. A brief review of data mining is provided as a background for a better understanding of the purposes and uses of data mining. Also examined are several issues of the ethics of data mining, including a review of stakeholders, who they are and which may be most seriously (...) affected by unethical data mining practices. Several suggestions for the improvement of data mining as it relates to the consumer are further presented: suggestions that would allow for data mining that would be beneficial to both the business community and the consumer. (shrink)

This article focuses on the issue of data mining as it relates to the consumer and to the issue of whether the consumer's private information has any proprietary status. A brief review of data mining is provided as a background for a better understanding of the purposes and uses of data mining. Also examined are several issues of the ethics of data mining, including a review of stakeholders, who they are and which may be most seriously (...) affected by unethical data mining practices. Several suggestions for the improvement of data mining as it relates to the consumer are further presented: suggestions that would allow for data mining that would be beneficial to both the business community and the consumer. (shrink)

Natural resources, especially minerals from the earth, are to be protected by humanity. The church, which acts as leaven in the world is called to rise and address the unfriendly mining activities called mining-induced displacement and resettlement. The general theory of interpretation of creation account calls for human stewardship in the world. Humans must view themselves as partners with God in preserving and sustaining the cosmos. The communities had suffered negative socio-economic imbalances. The ekklesia in this cosmic (...) chaos is called upon to fulfil four major functions, namely identity, integration, policy, and management as a way of intervention in communities that are victims of these mining activities. This response, ecclesiology in context, is the combination of theological and social-scientific approaches to the development of practical models and strategies for the church’s interaction with modern society and its challenges. (shrink)

Uptake is typically understood as the hearer’s recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention. According to one theory of uptake, the hearer’s role is merely as a ratifier. The speaker, by expressing a particular communicative intention, predetermines what kind of illocutionary act she might perform. Her hearer can then render this act a success or a failure. Thus the hearer has no power over which act could be performed, but she does have some power over whether it is performed. Call this (...) the ratification theory of uptake. Several philosophers have recently endorsed an alternative theory of uptake, according to which the hearer can determine the nature of the act the speaker performs. According to this theory, if the hearer regards an utterance as illocutionary act y, then it is act y, even if the speaker intended to perform act x. Call this the constitution theory of uptake. The purported advantage of this theory is that it identifies a common but underanalysed way in which speakers can be silenced. I argue that despite its initial intuitive pull, the constitution theory of uptake should be rejected. It is incompatible with ordinary intuitions about speech, it entails a conceptual impossibility, and it has unsavoury political implications, entailing that marginalised speakers barely qualify as agents. (shrink)

This article examines how place and place-basedness are essential to understanding the conflict dynamics of natural resource use. Based on a single case study and using an ethnographic approach to examine a place, the paper unearths how place is mobilised in corporate–community relations. This study defines place-basedness as having two relational elements: ecological and social embeddedness. It finds four positions with differing place identifications, meanings, and relationships with the ecological and social place. This article concludes that while ecological embeddedness enhances (...) the ability to resist natural resource use through knowledge attribution and actively mobilising a place, the social embeddedness of some positions constrains local people’s ability to resist. It also identifies attachment to and detachment from place as two aspects of a central mechanism whereby countering positions are mobilised in the hegemonic struggle. The findings contribute to our understanding of place as a constituting part of corporate–community relations and place-basedness both as a resource for and hindrance to resistance. (shrink)

This essay examines issues involving personal privacy and informed consent that arise at the intersection of information and communication technology and population genomics research. I begin by briefly examining the ethical, legal, and social implications program requirements that were established to guide researchers working on the Human Genome Project. Next I consider a case illustration involving deCODE Genetics, a privately owned genetics company in Iceland, which raises some ethical concerns that are not clearly addressed in the current ELSI guidelines. The (...) deCODE case also illustrates some ways in which an ICT technique known as data mining has both aided and posed special challenges for researchers working in the field of population genomics. On the one hand, data-mining tools have greatly assisted researchers in mapping the human genome and in identifying certain “disease genes” common in specific populations. On the other hand, this technology has significantly threatened the privacy of research subjects participating in population genomics studies, who may, unwittingly, contribute to the construction of new groups that put those subjects at risk for discrimination and stigmatization. In the final section of this paper I examine some ways in which the use of data mining in the context of population genomics research poses a critical challenge for the principle of informed consent, which traditionally has played a central role in protecting the privacy interests of research subjects participating in epidemiological studies. (shrink)

Wikipedia is a goldmine of information; not just for its many readers, but also for the growing community of researchers who recognize it as a resource of exceptional scale and utility. It represents a vast investment of manual effort and judgment: a huge, constantly evolving tapestry of concepts and relations that is being applied to a host of tasks. This article provides a comprehensive description of this work. It focuses on research that extracts and makes use of the concepts, relations, (...) facts and descriptions found in Wikipedia, and organizes the work into four broad categories: applying Wikipedia to natural language processing; using it to facilitate information retrieval and information extraction; and as a resource for ontology building. The article addresses how Wikipedia is being used as is, how it is being improved and adapted, and how it is being combined with other structures to create entirely new resources. We identify the research groups and individuals involved, and how their work has developed in the last few years. We provide a comprehensive list of the open-source software they have produced. (shrink)

The transformation in the structure of the world mining industry over the last decade has opened up enormous new regions for mineral exploration and development by transnational mining companies in countries in the South. This new access has inevitably brought mining companies into conflict with local communities. With the involvement of transnational advocacy networks and new global publics, these conflicts have prompted a growing transnational debate on the principles that ought to govern mining and community (...) relationships. One effort to provide guidance on this question comes from the World Bank's Operational Directive 4.30 on Involuntary Resettlement. This paper examines the regulatory impact of this policy upon relationships between mining companies and communities, as well as its "legitimation effect" in providing standards which, once met, can serve to certify a degree of responsible behaviour on the part of the company. The analysis of the effects of the directive is taken up in the form a case study involving a transnational mining company operating in the Andes of Peru and the local communities impacted by its land acquisition project. (shrink)

Even the critics of Dutch Reformed theologian, politician, and publicist Abraham Kuyper acknowledge his great power of oratory. This essay examines the nature of Kuyper's rhetoric in a mythopoetic perspective that sees its inspiration in a romantic understanding of artistic inspiration and vivid representations of reality. Long-term editor of De Standaard, Kuyper's stalwart defence of Calvinism against Modernism drew from the struggles of Dutch history and from his personal history to espouse strong views that are couched in military as well (...) as organic metaphors. His mastery of the psychology of mass communication enabled Kuyper to accomplish many, though not all, of his political goals. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article reports a case study of how organizational antecedents, specifically leadership choices, decisions, culture, and organizational learning, impact and construct the corporate social responsibility initiatives of a Canadian mid‐tier mining firm operating in Ghana. The primary objective of the article is to demonstrate, through an in‐depth study of a single case, that organizational‐ and firm‐level antecedents are a powerful tool for understanding how ethical, socially responsible, and community‐relevant behaviors of a mining firm in a developing area come (...) to be constructed. The article thus contributes to the conceptual and applied literatures on CSR by suggesting that much as the voice of moral suasion, advocacy, and critical censure have been important motive forces behind CSR efforts, it seems that the sustainability and community relevance of CSR efforts are linked to identifiable internal response mechanisms that dispose or enable firms to behave in responsible ways. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMany academic authors, policy makers, NGOs, and corporations have focused on top-down human rights global norm-making, such as the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. What is often missing are contextual and substantive analyses that interrogate rights mobilization and linkages between voluntary transnational rules and domestic governance. Deploying a socio-legal approach and using a combination of longitudinal field and archival data, this article investigates how a local, indigenous community in Northern Chile mobilized their rights over a period (...) of almost two decades. We found that rights mobilization was largely shaped by tensions between the different logics of legality and the business organization. In our case, the UNGP implementation process has been ineffective in giving rightsholders access to genuine remedy. On the contrary, it has led to weakened rights mobilization, dividing the local community. We conclude that greater attention to rights mobilization and domestic governance dynamics should be given in the business and human rights debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extractivist OntologiesLithium Mining and Anthropocene Imaginaries in Chile's Atacama DesertMauricio F. Collao Quevedo (bio)The term energy transition generally refers to efforts to switch from one energy system to another. In light of the current climate crisis, energy transition projects have sought to move societies away from their reliance on fossil fuels and toward a renewables-based energy system. Yet such projects have not been easy to undertake. As Marie (...) Forget and Vincent Bos point out, an energy system based on renewables requires a transformation of energy "regulatory frameworks, technical and organizational structures, geographic forms and network practices" (1). More specifically, current energy transition models rely on the expansion of lithium production, accompanying systems of private property rights, and complex logistical and technical strategies. This article examines the interplay between lithium extraction, national development, and Anthropocene imaginaries in Chile's Atacama Desert, arguing that the green brand of extractivism that characterizes the industry relies on elaborate institutional arrangements aimed at expanding and protecting extractivist ontological and epistemological regimes in the politically contested region. As such, struggles over lithium in Chile's Atacama region demonstrate the extent to which efforts to decolonize the Anthropocene and make possible non-extractive futures of collective survival must unfold on ontological grounds, against the consolidation of the Age of Man.Mining, Water Rights, and Indigenous Communities in the Atacama DesertAmong today's most promising energy sources and materials are sodium, copper, sulfur, nickel, cobalt, rare earth metals, and lithium. These [End Page 78] have become central to energy transition strategies and states seeking to attract investors for development (Lunde Seefeldt). As a report by the World Bank points out, demand for transition minerals like lithium, cobalt, and graphite could increase by 500% by 2050 ("Climate-Smart Mining"), highlighting the extent to which global energy transition efforts are counting on greater extraction of transition minerals and the expansion of extractive frontiers to previously unexplored or unexploited regions (Moore, Capitalism; World Bank Group). Lithium is at the center of this economic and technological shift toward green economies.Global lithium demand is growing rapidly, with investment and production rates growing significantly in recent years (Narins) and catching the attention of states (e.g., China) and corporate tech giants (e.g., Tesla) that are already trying to secure greater shares of the global market. The light metal's popularity is largely due to its internal chemistry, which meets many of the technical and practical requirements associated with green energy transition. Lithium is light, conducive, and energy-dense, which in the context of batteries means faster recharge, lower costs, and charge-holding abilities that make lithium-ion batteries more efficient than a nickel-metal hybrid equivalent (Perotti and Coviello). Because of this, lithium is increasingly being considered as promising for human development and survival as its energy predecessors, inspiring labels such as "white gold," "white petroleum," "the new copper," "the 21st century's petroleum," or the "new gasoline" of sustainability (Acuña and Tironi; Lunde Seefeldt; Voskoboynik and Andreucci).But the industry is not without its downsides. The negative impacts of lithium extraction in Chile's Atacama Desert have been challenged by local communities for whom the metal does not exist as a discrete entity that can be easily extracted from its socioecological context. For many of these communities, lithium is more than a transition metal found in an appropriable and materially heterogenous underground brine: it is an ontologically contested, socioecological entity that sustains and participates in complex webs of life-supporting, place-based, and more-than-human relations. Such accounts of the brine are radically incompatible with "official" state accounts of it, which are maintained through an institutional architecture that allows the ontological basis of the brine to be manipulated for extractive purposes by both corporate and state actors.In the following pages, I examine the ways in which Chile's legal and institutional arrangements, informed by imaginaries of green modernization, [End Page 79] create conditions under which extralocal actors can manipulate along extractivist lines the ontological ambiguity and material heterogeneity of lithium-containing brines in the salt flats of the Atacama Desert. Through an analysis of the ways in which lithium industries in the... (shrink)

Extremism has been a problematic term to define and suggests different and opposing meanings. This study explores how Twitter users conceptualize extremism in Arabic and express their opinions/arguments to construct the term. A corpus of tweets was collected from Twitter API using the word ‘تطرف أو متطرف’ in Arabic for extremist/extremism. A topic modeling algorithm was then applied to the dataset to uncover latent associated concepts underlying extremism, followed by a critical discourse analysis using Van Dijk’s Sociocognitive approach. The discursive (...) and linguistic strategies used by Twitter users to support and justify their views of extremism were examined. The findings demonstrate an ideological influence that controls the concept of extremism, keeping it open to manipulation to serve shared interests and goals. Arab users of Twitter use extremism to promote their groups’ positive schema against others-negative schema. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to look at shifts in internet-related content and services economies, from audience labour economies to Web 2.0 user-generated content, and the emerging model of user computing power utilisation, powered by blockchain technologies. The authors look at and test three models of user computing power utilisation based on distributed computing two of which use cryptocurrency mining through distributed pool mining techniques, while the third is based on distributed computing of calculations for scientific research. The three (...) models promise benefits to their users, which the authors discuss throughout the paper, studying how they interplay with the three levels of the digital divide. Design/methodology/approach The goal of this article is twofold as follows: first to discuss how using the mining hype may reduce digital inequalities, and secondly to demonstrate how these services offer a new business model based on value rewarding in exchange for computational power, which would allow more online opportunities for people, and thus reduce digital inequalities. Finally, this contribution discusses and proposes a method for a fair revenue model for content and online service providers that uses user device computing resources or computational power, rather than their data and attention. The method is represented by a model that allows for consensual use of user computing resources in exchange for accessing content and using software tools and services, acting essentially as an alternative online business model. Findings Allowing users to convert their devices’ computational power into value, whether through access to services or content or receiving cryptocurrency and payments in return for providing services or content or direct computational powers, contributes to bridging digital divides, even at fairly small levels. Secondly, the advent of blockchain technologies is shifting power relations between end-users and content developers and service providers and is a necessity for the decentralisation of internet and internet services. Originality/value The article studies the effect of services that rely on distributed computing and mining on digital inequalities, by looking at three different case studies – Coinhive, Gridcoin and Cryptotab – that promise to provide value in return for using computing resources. The article discusses how these services may reduce digital inequalities by affecting the three levels of the digital divide, namely, access to information and communication technologies, skills and motivations in using ICTs and capacities in using ICTs to get concrete benefits. (shrink)

In the mining industry, smart surveying and exploration operations for the minerals are essential during mining missions. Usually, these missions are performed in remote areas that do not have a wireless communications infrastructure. This paper proposes to use the unmanned aerial vehicle as a relay communication node between the exploration team and the ground control station. UAV can act as a relay node to provide mobile, flexible, and reliable communication links in remote environments and complex topologies. In this (...) work, the pathloss models in millimeter-wave technology are considered because they provide massive data rates for line of sight scenarios. The optimization problem of identifying a 3D location and trajectory of the UAV relay node is formulated to maximize the total team members’ data rate. Because the problem is non-convex, the particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to solve it and determine an efficient location and trajectory of the UAV. (shrink)

According to the PubMed resource from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, over 750,000 scientific articles have been published in the ~5000 biomedical journals worldwide in the year 2007 alone. The vast majority of these publications include results from hypothesis-driven experimentation in overlapping biomedical research domains. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of information being generated by the biomedical research enterprise has made it virtually impossible for investigators to stay aware of the latest findings in their domain of interest, let alone to (...) be able to assimilate and mine data from related investigations for purposes of meta-analysis. While computers have the potential for assisting investigators in the extraction, management and analysis of these data, information contained in the traditional journal publication is still largely unstructured, free-text descriptions of study design, experimental application and results interpretation, making it difficult for computers to gain access to the content of what is being conveyed without significant manual intervention. In order to circumvent these roadblocks and make the most of the output from the biomedical research enterprise, a variety of related standards in knowledge representation are being developed, proposed and adopted in the biomedical community. In this chapter, we will explore the current status of efforts to develop minimum information standards for the representation of a biomedical experiment, ontologies composed of shared vocabularies assembled into subsumption hierarchical structures, and extensible relational data models that link the information components together in a machine-readable and human-useable framework for data mining purposes. (shrink)

This paper is based upon a review of studies of mining companies, most of them being Canadian, in Chile, northern Canada, Tanzania, Guatemala, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In spite of often well-meaning efforts, the wealth produced by most mining firms in developing areas largely benefits those immediately involved, sometimes neighbouring communities, and often those in the governing strata. Typically, mining takes place in enclaves and fosters enclave development rather than the kind (...) of inclusive wealth development favoured by the UN’s recently published Inclusive Wealth Report. One way mining operations can foster more inclusive wealth development is to adopt much broader approaches towards the construction of the various physical and social infrastructures required for their own operations. By collaborating with diverse regional, provincial and/or national agencies and businesses, these infrastructures—roads, water, electricity, health services, schools and security—may be developed to serve larger populations and areas beyond their immediate operating sites. Established mining firms can also foster more inclusive wealth development by establishing more formal, collaborative relationships with artisanal miners. (shrink)

Religious leaders are being viewed as agents with influence over environmental opinion and attitude building. In public environmental project impact debate the Christian religious leaders may play an increasingly complex role due to their anthropocentric position. Roşia Montană Gold Corporation is such a project where The Romanian Orthodox Church has taken a position right from the beginning. Our study explores the local impact area religious leaders' attitudes as to the mining project in particular and the overall view of environmental (...) concerns in religious sermon in general. Orthodox, Catholic, Reformed and Baptist representatives have been interviewed. The main conclusion we drew is that environmental concerns can create leadership style dissonances between different hierarchical levels of the same religious hierarchies, but with benefits at the communitarian-religious levels. The practical implications that arise from this and the possible directions for future research are outlined in the final chapter of our study. (shrink)

This article examines the conceptualisation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of mining multinationals (MNCs) in Argentina. It explores the suitability of CSR for addressing social, environmental and economic issues associated with mining in the country. The study is based on interviews with four stakeholder groups in the country: government, civil society, international financial organisations, and mining industry. These are analysed using content and interpretative techniques and supplemented by the content analysis of secondary data from (...) headquarters of mining MNCs. Using the concept of corporate social responsibility orientation (CSRO), the study contrasts the perceptions of major stakeholders and examines adaptation of mining companies’ CSRO to local context. It reveals that the CSRO of mining managers in Argentina differs from CSRO developed by global headquarters; and in Argentina companies “negotiate” economic, environmental and legal dimensions of CSR with the government. Although companies “negotiate” philanthropic responsibilities with the communities, ethical responsibilities are defined by the headquarters and not negotiated locally. The analysis suggests that environmental duties are the critical element of CSR in the mining sector in Argentina. This study treats environment as a separate dimension of corporate responsibility defined as to do “what is safe for the environment”. (shrink)

Company–community agreements are widely considered to be a practical mechanism for recognising the rights, needs and priorities of peoples impacted by mining, for managing impacts and ensuring that mining-derived benefits are shared. The use and application of company–community agreements is increasing globally. Notwithstanding the utility of these agreements, the gender dimensions of agreement processes in mining have rarely been studied. Prior research on women and mining demonstrates that women are often more adversely impacted by mining (...) than men, and face greater challenges in accessing development opportunities that mining can bring. Nonetheless, there is currently little guidance for companies, government or communities in bringing a gender perspective to the fore in mining and agreement processes. It is undisputed in human development literature that investment in women and sensitivity to gender delivers long-term health, education and local development outcomes. In mining and development, a number of key factors remain unexplored. These include: women’s participation in agreement processes, the gendered distribution of agreement benefits, and the extent to which impacts and benefits influence women’s development and economic inclusion. This paper presents the results of the first phase of an applied research project undertaken by the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at The University of Queensland and funded by the Minerals Council of Australia and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The project sought to connect with experienced practitioners who had been directly involved in mining and agreement processes to document and analyse grounded perspectives on gender dynamics and agreements, and connect those experiences with the broader literature. Findings from this study have implications for the role of mining companies and governments in promoting gender equality and empowerment as part of their commitments to sustainable development. They also have implications for community groups and their representatives in terms of how they might engage in agreement processes to maximise women’s participation and influence. In many social contexts, a key challenge will be navigating the territory of cultural norms and gender equality, particularly in cultures where women’s influence in the public sphere is not strong. The authors argue that without consideration of a gender perspective, including gender’s intersection with other factors such as class, race, poverty level, ethnic group and age, mining agreements will not be inclusive, may exacerbate gender inequalities, and fail to contribute to long-term sustainable development. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review current practice in sharing and mining medical data revealing benefits, costs and ethical issues. Based on stakeholder perspectives and values, the authors create an ethical code to regulate the sharing and mining of medical information. Design/methodology/approach The framework is based on a review of academic, practitioner and legal research. Findings Owing to the inability of current safeguards to protect consumers from risks related to the disclosure of medical information, the (...) authors develop a framework for ethical sharing and mining of medical data, security, transparency, respect, accountability, community and quality, which espouses security, transparency, respect, accountability, community and quality as the basic tenets of ethical data sharing and mining practice. Research limitations/implications The STRACQ framework is an original, previously unpublished contribution that will require modification over time based on discussion and debate within and among the academy, medical community and public policymakers. Social implications The framework for sharing borrows from the Fair Credit Reporting Act, allowing the collection and dissemination of identified medical data but placing strict limitations on use. Following this framework, benefits of shared and mined medical data are freely available with appropriate safeguards for consumer privacy. Originality/value Mandates for adoption of electronic health-care records require an understanding of medical data mining. This paper presents a review of data mining techniques and reasons for engaging in the practice of identifying benefits, costs and ethical issues. The authors create an original framework, STRACQ, for ethical sharing and mining of medical information, allowing knowledge exploration while protecting consumer privacy. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the morality of two types of national security electronic surveillance (SIGINT) programs: the analysis of communication “metadata” and dragnet searches for keywords in electronic communication. The chapter develops a standard for assessing coercive government action based on respect for the autonomy of inhabitants of liberal states and argues that both types of SIGINT can potentially meet this standard. That said, the collection of metadata creates opportunities for abuse of power, and so judgments about the trustworthiness and competence (...) of the government engaging in the collection must be made in order to decide whether metadata collection is justified in a particular state. Further, the moral standard proposed has a reflexive element justifying adversary states’ intelligence collection against one another. Therefore, high-tech forms of SIGINT can only be justified at the cost of justifying cruder versions of signals intelligence collection practiced by a state’s less-advanced adversaries. (shrink)

Data mining is on the interface of Computer Science and Statistics, utilizing advances in both disciplines to make progress in extracting information from large databases. It is an emerging field that has attracted much attention in a very short period of time. This article highlights some statistical themes and lessons that are directly relevant to data mining and attempts to identify opportunities where close cooperation between the statistical and computational communities might reasonably provide synergy for further progress (...) in data analysis. (shrink)

Abstract. In this article we developed scientific and applied foundations of commercialization of the nature-resource potential of anthropogenic objects, on the example of exhausted mines. It is determined that the category of “anthropogenic object” can be considered in a narrow-applied sense, as specific anthropogenic objects to ensure the target needs, and in a broad theoretical sense, meaning everything that is created and changed by human influence, that is the objects of both artificial and natural origin. It was determined that problems (...) of commercialization of the natural-resource potential of anthropogenic objects are most often considered by researchers for specific objects, without having complex methodological coverage from the point of view of combining environmental, technical, economic and managerial components. When studying the substantiation of the scientific base, the authors confirmed the feasibility of the commercialization of natural-resource potential of anthropogenic objects on the example of a number of theoretical scientific studies in reclamation, reconstruction, recreation, remediation, restoration of biological productivity and economic value of land disturbed by economic activity. The considered examples of exhausted mines in the 21st century in the USA, Canada, Germany, Romania, and Poland indicate a wide range of opportunities for their commercialization. The study of the potential for commercialization of exhausted mines in the post-Soviet countries testified to the underused reserves for the commercialization of their nature-resource potential and their high potential for further development. The authors proposed the identification of anthropogenic objects on the basic livelihood spheres of society. There were identified the main system (natural, biological, technical, economic, social, managerial) and structural (subjects, trends, threats, risks, problems, challenges) factors of diagnosing the state of an anthropogenic object. A set of measures has been developed for commercialization of an anthropogenic object in functional and production activities, product policy, financial and investment spheres, pricing and sales policies, promotion, management and determination of property rights. Recommendations were provided on optimizing the management decision-making process based on a set of positivistic development principles, methods, and management functions. The study allows international organizations, state and local authorities, territorial communities, owners and potential investors to see new opportunities and make mutually beneficial decisions on the rational use of the nature-resource potential of anthropogenic objects. (shrink)