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Public opinion surveys constitute a widespread, powerful tool to study peoples’ attitudes and behaviors from comparative perspectives. However, even global surveys can have limited geographic and temporal coverage, which can hinder the production of comprehensive knowledge. To expand the scope of comparison, social scientists turn to ex-post harmonization of variables from datasets that cover similar topics but in different populations and/or at different times. These harmonized datasets can be analyzed as a single source and accessed through various data portals. However, the Survey Data Recycling (SDR) research project has identified three challenges faced by social scientists when using data portals: the lack of capability to explore data in-depth or query data based on customized needs, the difficulty in efficiently identifying related data for studies, and the incapability to evaluate theoretical models using sliced data. To address these issues, the SDR research project has developed the SDR Querier, which is applied to the harmonized SDR database. The SDR Querier includes a BERT-based model that allows for customized data queries through research questions or keywords (Query-by-Question), a visual design that helps users determine the availability of harmonized data for a given research question (Query-by-Condition), and the ability to reveal the underlying relational patterns among substantive and methodological variables in the database (Query-by-Relation), aiding in the rigorous evaluation or improvement of regression models. Case studies with multiple social scientists have demonstrated the usefulness and effectiveness of the SDR Querier in addressing daily challenges.
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SOils DAta Harmonization database (SoDaH): an open-source synthesis of soil data from research networks
This SOils DAta Harmonization (SoDaH) database is designed to bring together soil carbon data from diverse research networks into a harmonized dataset that can be used for synthesis activities and model development. The research network sources for SoDaH span different biomes and climates, encompass multiple ecosystem types, and have collected data across a range of spatial, temporal, and depth gradients. The rich data sets assembled in SoDaH consist of observations from monitoring efforts and long-term ecological experiments. The SoDaH database also incorporates related environmental covariate data pertaining to climate, vegetation, soil chemistry, and soil physical properties. The data are harmonized and aggregated using open-source code that enables a scripted, repeatable approach for soil data synthesis.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1929393
- PAR ID:
- 10328143
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Publisher / Repository:
- Environmental Data Initiative
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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