We present our efforts of applying information visualization techniques to the domain of microseismic monitoring. Microseismic monitoring is a crucial process for a number of tasks related to oil and gas reservoir development, e.g., optimizing hydraulic fracturing operations and heavy-oil stimulation. Microseismic data has many challenging features including high dimensionality and uncertainty....

BACKGROUND Since 2012, the International Workshop on Participatory Surveillance (IWOPS) has served as an informal network to share best practices, consult on analytic methods, and catalyze innovation to advance the burgeoning method of direct engagement of populations in voluntary monitoring of disease. OBJECTIVE This landscape provides an overview of participatory disease surveillance system...

Research strategies which emphasize participation are increasingly used in health research. Breaking the linear mould of conventional research, participatory research focuses on a process of sequential reflection and action, carried out with and by local people rather than on them. Local knowledge and perspectives are not only acknowledged but form the basis for research and planning. Many of t...

Emerging forms of empowered participatory governance have generated considerable scholarly excitement, but critics continue to ask if such initiatives are “for real”: Are participatory governance processes sufficiently independent? Do citizen participants make good policy choices? An in-depth look at the case of the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform suggests that real citi...

Issues associated with involvement of social program participants in program evaluation are analyzed. Although there seems to be a broad consensus of the need for participatory evaluation, the proposed rationales and concomitant benefits to evaluation practice appear to be quite diverse. Key issues include the rationale for "stakeholder" participation, definition of the "stakeholder," definitio...

Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning of applications of GIS which grant legitimacy to indigenous geographical knowledge as well as to ‘offi cial’ spatial data. By incorporating various forms of community participation these newer framings of Geographical Information Systems as ‘Participatory GIS’ (PGIS) offer a response to the critiques of GIS which were prevalent in the 1990s. This paper r...