Establishment of risk control mechanisms for farmers' microcredit in China's rural areas: the case of HN Province

This thesis aims to address the practical and institutional problems in the development of farmers' microcredit to ultimately contribute to achieve sustainable development. The author, based on his long-term work experience in rural finance, analyzes the current situation of microcredit in rural areas and presents a set of mechanisms for risk management and scientific pricing of farmers’ in the framework of the construction of an iterative model with the support of statistical analysis. To be specific, based on improving farmers' scheduled repayment rate and a study of farmers' microcredit factors, criteria are formulated for selecting credible borrowers among farmers; Making full use of the decisive role of the market, an effective risk management model is gradually formulated that helps to foster a credit-based financial service environment in rural areas. Besides, software engineering is utilized to optimize and control farmers' microcredit risk management and scientific pricing of credit products. The study suggests that the farmers' microcredit risk control mechanisms established can effectively enable farmers' microcredit financial institutions to function as a main market player, while overcoming theoretical and practical difficulties in microcredit for farmers. Four suggestions are also presented. First, ensure that farmers enjoy the "right of approval" when applying for loans; second, transfer the "right of pricing" loan interests to farmers; third, transfer the "right of salary distribution" and risk control of loans to loan officers; and fourth, entrust the "management right" of loans to the system.Esta tese tem como objetivo abordar os problemas práticos e institucionais no desenvolvimento do microcrédito dos agricultores para, finalmente, contribuir para alcançar o desenvolvimento sustentável. O autor, com base em sua experiência do trabalho de longo prazo em finanças rurais, analisa a situação atual do microcrédito em áreas rurais e apresenta um conjunto de mecanismos para a gestão do risco e a determinação científica de preços para o microcrédito dos agricultores no quadro da construção de um modelo interativo com o apoio da análise estatística. Mais especificamente, com base na melhoria da previsão da taxa de reembolso do microcrédito pelos agricultores e em um estudo dos fatores condicionantes desse reembolso, são formulados critérios para selecionar mutuários confiáveis entre os agricultores; Fazendo pleno uso do papel decisivo do mercado, é formulado gradualmente um modelo eficaz de gestão de risco que ajuda a promover nas áreas rurais um ambiente favorável de serviços financeiros baseados no crédito. Além disso, a engenharia de software é utilizada para otimizar e controlar a gestão de riscos de microcrédito dos agricultores e a determinação científica dos preços dos produtos de crédito. O estudo demonstra que o mecanismo de controle de risco de microcrédito dos agricultores assim estabelecido pode efetivamente permitir que as instituições financeiras de microcrédito funcionem como um participante principal do mercado, ultrapassando dificuldades que a teoria e a prática têm revelado no microcrédito para os agricultores. Quatro sugestões são ainda apresentadas. Em primeiro lugar, garantir que os agricultores desfrutem do "direito de aprovação" quando solicitam empréstimos. Em segundo lugar, transferir para os agricultores "direito de determinação do preço" da taxa de juro do empréstimo. Em terceiro lugar, passar o "direito de distribuição salarial" e o controle de risco dos empréstimos para os agentes de crédito. Em quarto lugar, confiar ao sistema o "direito de gestão" dos empréstimos

Multimodal and multidimensional geodata interaction and visualization

This PhD proposes the development of a Science Data Visualization System, SdVS, that analyzes and presents different kinds of visualizing and interacting techniques with Geo-data, in order to deal with knowledge about Geo-data using GoogleEarth. After that, we apply the archaeological data as a case study, and, as a result, we develop the Archaeological Visualization System, ArVS, using new visualization paradigms and Human-Computer-Interaction techniques based on SdVS. Furthermore, SdVS provides guidelines for developing any other visualization and interacting applications in the future, and how the users can use SdVS system to enhance the understanding and dissemination of knowledge

An internet of things and blockchain based smart campus architecture

Rapid development in science and information technologies, such as the Internet of things, has led to a growth in the number of studies and research papers on smart cities in recent years and more specifically on the construction of smart campus technologies. This paper will review the concept of a smart campus, discuss the main technologies deployed, and then propose a new novel framework for a smart campus. The architecture of this new smart campus approach will be discussed with particular consideration of security and privacy systems, the Internet of things, and blockchain technologies

Citizen Science and Geospatial Capacity Building

This book is a collection of the articles published the Special Issue of ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information on “Citizen Science and Geospatial Capacity Building”. The articles cover a wide range of topics regarding the applications of citizen science from a geospatial technology perspective. Several applications show the importance of Citizen Science (CitSci) and volunteered geographic information (VGI) in various stages of geodata collection, processing, analysis and visualization; and for demonstrating the capabilities, which are covered in the book. Particular emphasis is given to various problems encountered in the CitSci and VGI projects with a geospatial aspect, such as platform, tool and interface design, ontology development, spatial analysis and data quality assessment. The book also points out the needs and future research directions in these subjects, such as; (a) data quality issues especially in the light of big data; (b) ontology studies for geospatial data suited for diverse user backgrounds, data integration, and sharing; (c) development of machine learning and artificial intelligence based online tools for pattern recognition and object identification using existing repositories of CitSci and VGI projects; and (d) open science and open data practices for increasing the efficiency, decreasing the redundancy, and acknowledgement of all stakeholders

Data Science and Knowledge Discovery

Data Science (DS) is gaining significant importance in the decision process due to a mix of various areas, including Computer Science, Machine Learning, Math and Statistics, domain/business knowledge, software development, and traditional research. In the business field, DS's application allows using scientific methods, processes, algorithms, and systems to extract knowledge and insights from structured and unstructured data to support the decision process. After collecting the data, it is crucial to discover the knowledge. In this step, Knowledge Discovery (KD) tasks are used to create knowledge from structured and unstructured sources (e.g., text, data, and images). The output needs to be in a readable and interpretable format. It must represent knowledge in a manner that facilitates inferencing. KD is applied in several areas, such as education, health, accounting, energy, and public administration. This book includes fourteen excellent articles which discuss this trending topic and present innovative solutions to show the importance of Data Science and Knowledge Discovery to researchers, managers, industry, society, and other communities. The chapters address several topics like Data mining, Deep Learning, Data Visualization and Analytics, Semantic data, Geospatial and Spatio-Temporal Data, Data Augmentation and Text Mining

CRC806-Database: A semantic e-Science infrastructure for an interdisciplinary research centre

Well designed information infrastructure improves the conduct of research, and can connect researchers and projects across disciplines to facilitate collaboration. The topic of this thesis is the design and development of an information infrastructure for a large interdisciplinary research project, the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre 806 (CRC 806). Under the name CRC806-Database the presented infrastructure was developed in the frame of the subproject "Z2: Data Management and Data Services", a so-called INF project, which is responsible for the research data management within a DFG funded CRC. During the design, development and implementation of the CRC806-Database, the complex requirements for sound data management in the context of a large interdisciplinary research project were considered theoretically, as well as practically during the implementation. The presented infrastructure design is mainly based on the requirements for research data management in CRC's, that is mainly the secure storage of primary research data for at least ten years, as well as on the further recommendations, that are about support and improvement of research and facilitation of Web-based collaboration, for information infrastructure by the DFG. The CRC806-Database semantic e-Science infrastructure consists of three main components, i.) the CRC806-RDM component that implements the research data management, including a data catalog and a publication database, ii.) the CRC806-SDI component that provides a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for Web-based management of spatial data, and additionally, iii.) the CRC806-KB component that implements a collaborative virtual research environment and knowledgebase. From a technical perspective, the infrastructure is based on the application of existing Open Source Software (OSS) solutions, that were customized to adapt to the specific requirements were necessary. The main OSS products that were applied for the development of the CRC806-Database are; Typo3, CKAN, GeoNode and Semantic MediaWiki. As integrative technical and theoretical basis of the infrastructure, the concept of Semantic e-Science was implemented. The term e-Science refers to a scientific paradigm that describes computationally intensive science carried out in networked environments. The prefix "Semantic" extends this concept with the application of Semantic Web technologies. A further applied conceptual basis for the development of CRC806-Database, is known under the name "Open Science", that includes the concepts of "Open Access", "Open Data" and "Open Methodology". These concepts have been implemented for the CRC806-Database semantic e-Science infrastructure, as described in the course of this thesis

New high-resolution estimates of the permafrost thermal state and hydrothermal conditions over the Northern Hemisphere

Monitoring the thermal state of permafrost (TSP) is important in many environmental science and engineering applications. However, such data are generally unavailable, mainly due to the lack of ground observations and the uncertainty of traditional physical models. This study produces novel permafrost datasets for the Northern Hemisphere (NH), including predictions of the mean annual ground temperature (MAGT) at the depth of zero annual amplitude (DZAA) (approximately 3 to 25 m) and active layer thickness (ALT) with 1 km resolution for the period of 2000-2016, as well as estimates of the probability of permafrost occurrence and permafrost zonation based on hydrothermal conditions. These datasets integrate unprecedentedly large amounts of field data (1002 boreholes for MAGT and 452 sites for ALT) and multisource geospatial data, especially remote sensing data, using statistical learning modeling with an ensemble strategy. Thus, the resulting data are more accurate than those of previous circumpolar maps (bias = 0 :02 +/- 0 :16 degrees C and RMSE = 1 :32 +/- 0 :13 degrees C for MAGT; bias = 2 :71 +/- 16 :46 cm and RMSE = 86 :93 +/- 19 :61 cm for ALT). The datasets suggest that the areal extent of permafrost (MAGT 0) is approximately 19 :82 x 10(6) km(2). The areal fractions of humid, semiarid/subhumid, and arid permafrost regions are 51.56 %, 45.07 %, and 3.37 %, respectively. The areal fractions of cold ( 1 :5 degrees C) permafrost regions are 37.80 %, 14.30 %, and 47.90 %, respectively. These new datasets based on the most comprehensive field data to date contribute to an updated understanding of the thermal state and zonation of permafrost in the NH. The datasets are potentially useful for various fields, such as climatology, hydrology, ecology, agriculture, public health, and engineering planning. All of the datasets are published through the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center (TPDC), and the link is https://doi.org/10.11888/Geocry.tpdc.271190 (Ran et al., 2021a).Peer reviewe

Integrating Data Science and Earth Science

This open access book presents the results of three years collaboration between earth scientists and data scientists, in developing and applying data science methods for scientific discovery. The book will be highly beneficial for other researchers at senior and graduate level, interested in applying visual data exploration, computational approaches and scientifc workflows