How is data science involved in policy analysis?: A bibliometric perspective

© 2018 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology, Inc. (PICMET). What are the implications of big data in terms of big impacts? Our research focuses on the question, 'How are data analytics involved in policy analysis to create complementary values?' We address this from the perspective of bibliometrics. We initially investigate a set of articles published in Nature and Science, seeking cutting-edge knowledge to sharpen research hypotheses on what data science offers policy analysis. Based on a set of bibliometric models (e.g., topic analysis, scientific evolutionary pathways, and social network analysis), we follow up with studies addressing two aspects: (1) we examine the engagement of data science (including statistical, econometric, and computing approaches) in current policy analyses by analyzing articles published in top-level journals in the areas of political science and public administration; and (2) we examine the development of policy analysis-oriented data analytic models in top-level journals associated with computer science (including both artificial intelligence and information systems). Observations indicate that data science contribution to policy analysis is still an emerging area. Data scientists are moving further than policy analysts, due to technical difficulties in exploiting data analytic models. Integrating artificial intelligence with econometrics is identified as a particularly promising direction

Exploring Text Mining and Analytics for Applications in Public Security: An in-depth dive into a systematic literature review

Text mining and related analytics emerge as a technological approach to support human activities in extracting useful knowledge through texts in several formats. From a managerial point of view, it can help organizations in planning and decision-making processes, providing information that was not previously evident through textual materials produced internally or even externally. In this context, within the public/governmental scope, public security agencies are great beneficiaries of the tools associated with text mining, in several aspects, from applications in the criminal area to the collection of people's opinions and sentiments about the actions taken to promote their welfare. This article reports details of a systematic literature review focused on identifying the main areas of text mining application in public security, the most recurrent technological tools, and future research directions. The searches covered four major article bases (Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and ACM Digital Library), selecting 194 materials published between 2014 and the first half of 2021, among journals, conferences, and book chapters. There were several findings concerning the targets of the literature review, as presented in the results of this article

Exploring, understanding, then designing: twitter users’ sharing behavior for minor safety incidents

Social media has become an integral part of human lives. Social media users resort to these platforms for various reasons. Users of these platforms spend a lot of time creating, reading, and sharing content, therefore, providing a wealth of available information for everyone to use. The research community has taken advantage of this and produced many publications that allow us to better understand human behavior. An important subject that is sometimes discussed and shared on social media is public safety. In the past, Twitter users have used the platform to share incidents, share information about incidents, victims and perpetrators, and used it to provide help in distressed locations after an attack or after a natural disaster. Public safety officials also used Twitter to disseminate information to maintain and improve safety and seek information from the crowds. The previous focus of the research is mainly on significant public safety incidents; but, incidents with less severity matter too. The focus of this dissertation is on minor incidents and the aim is to understand what motivates social media users to share those incidents to maintain and increase public safety through design suggestions.This dissertation is comprised of three completed studies. The first study attempts to understand motivations to share public safety incidents on social media under the collective action theory lens. Collective action theory assumes that rational people will not participate in a public good unless there is a special incentive or an external motivation for them. In this study, public safety is considered as the public good. This study tests people’s willingness to share incidents on social media if: the victim is someone they know, if the location of the incident is close, and if there is some coercion to influence users willingness to share. General support is found for the hypotheses and collective action theory.In the second study, the focus is on internal motivations that stem from being prosocial. An established scale that measures six different traits of prosocial behavior is used. It is hypothesizes that prosocial behavior is positively related to decisions to share incidents on social media. The study also tests other mediating variables, namely: following news outlets on Twitter, following public safety officials on social media, frequency of tweeting/retweeting. Partial support for prosocial tendencies effect on decisions to share is found. The study also discoveres that the three mediating variables (number of public safety official accounts followed, news exposure on social media, and tweet/retweet frequency) fully mediates the relationship and that they have a significant positive effect on decisions to share. The third and final study complements the previous two and helps conclude the previous findings. A 2X2X2 online experiment design is conducted. The three manipulations are the availability of location information, platform authority availability, and availability of sender authority. The study hypothesizes that the three interventions will produce a significant positive relationship with decisions to share on Twitter. It is found that location information has no effect on sharing minor incidents on Twitter, however, participants are more likely to use a fictitious button that increases local exposure to minor public safety tweets. It is also found that the authority of the sender has a significant effect on decisions to share. On the other hand, platform authority does not show an effect on decisions to share public safety incidents on Twitter

The Cost of Terrorism on Inward Foreign Direct Investment in Nigeria

As the world continues to converge into a global village, cross border trade and investments have become increasingly essential for the economic growth of several countries. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has become pivotal to economic growth especially in developing countries. Due to its numerous benefits countries strive to ensure favourable environments for potential FDI while minimising the possible hindrances. One of such hindrances is terrorism which has been reported across several countries including Nigeria to have a negative effect on FDI. In Nigeria, despite the burgeoning studies in this discourse, three important gaps remain. Firstly, past empirical researches have either focused on terrorism as an aggregate variable or looked at just one form of terrorism, thereby making the actual relationship between terrorism and FDI unclear. Secondly, while the role of natural resources has been analysed as a determinant of FDI, the literature has not evaluated if it has any role on the terrorism/FDI relationship. Thirdly, the regionalised and sectorial effect of terrorism on FDI has not been explored. This thesis addressed these gaps. Adopting a mixed method approach both quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out. Quantitatively, this study employed an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to examine the long and short run relationship of variables between 1970 and 2017. A thematic analysis of fifteen (15) semi-structured interviews was subsequently used to analyse qualitative data. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses showed that total terrorism was negatively associated with inward FDI leading to loss of millions of dollars. The result of the quantitative analysis of secondary data confirmed that total terrorism in Nigeria has a negative relationship with inward FDI both in the short and long run however, this relationship is statistically significant only in the short run. In addition, terrorism by the Boko Haram and the Fulani Herdsmen were also found to have a non-statistically significant but negative relationship with FDI in the short and long run while Niger Delta Militants with the highest negative impact revealed a statistically significant relationship with inward FDI in short- and long-run Nigeria. Crude oil production was found to have a positive effect on the inflow of FDI into Nigeria and its presence has a moderating effect on the negative impact of terrorism on FDI I the short run. Based on these results, the thesis contributes to the terrorism/FDI literature in Nigeria by assessing both the total and subsets of terrorism as they relate to inward FDI. It further reveals the moderating role of crude oil production on the negative effect of terrorism on the inflow of FDI. The research also provides a methodological contribution using a mixed method approach. It is recommended that government invest more in counterterrorism measures to curb terrorism in the country and also seek foreign aid from international organisations. Furthermore, more development should be channelled to the Niger Delta region to improve the welfare of the host communities wherein the MNEs operate. Finally, more efforts should be paid to the diversification of the economy and the improvement of existing institutional frameworks within the Nigeria economy