SCC-PG WECAN Smart Toolkit: Wellbeing Enhancement through Crowd-sourced Assessment of Neighborhood-infrastructure

这项美国国家科学基金会智能互联社区(S&CC)规划赠款将设计WECAN(通过社区基础设施众包评估增进福祉)智能工具包，用于社区驱动的决策制定，以解决之前由美国国家科学基金会资助的研究中发现的社区基础设施中的不平等问题。这些不平等很重要，因为社区基础设施(例如人行道、公共交通、聚集空间、步道等)提供身体、精神、社会和经济福祉所必需的公共产品和服务。WECAN智能工具包将结合众包数据和想法、机器学习、社交和基础设施网络分析、基于代理的建模以及社区参与的基础设施决策，以改善社区公平和福祉。该项目的规划过程支持社区就社区基础设施需求和影响进行深入和包容的讨论，这将导致更好地了解不同的视角，并支持社区主导的决策。对基础设施较差的低收入社区的关注，应该会促进更具包容性和公平的城市治理和社区倡导。在本项目中，研究团队和WECAN社区特别工作组将与来自达拉斯市、非营利组织和营利性实体的代表一起，通过共同承担以下任务来推进这些目标：(1)项目规划会议，以执行项目并制定一份完善的SCC-IRG提案；(2)焦点小组(与社区发展专业人员和居民)和主要决策者的访谈，以确定阻碍公平社区基础设施决策的障碍，以及WECAN克服这些障碍的机会；(3)WECAN工具包软件需求会议。研究问题和学术价值是：(1)WECAN数据发现：智能多层次社会和物理基础设施网络如何发展并影响社区福祉？将开发一种新的多层网络方法来进行社会和基础设施网络分析(SINA)，以预测幸福感。(2)WECAN数据分析：与传统的时空聚类算法相比，使用一种名为多模式Granger聚类的新时空分析方法能否更好地解释和综合不同社会和物理基础设施网络数据之间的交互？Granger时间序列聚类法将被扩展到基于对事件的响应和空间位置来聚类时空数据，而不是直接的相似性度量。(3)WECAN工具包影响：WECAN工具如何以及在多大程度上改变了基于股权的基础设施决策？与现有的决策方法相比，通过正式将社区成员、非营利性组织、营利性组织和基础设施用户的意见纳入参与式优先顺序过程，“专家”的观点将得到扩大。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This NSF Smart and Connected Community (S&CC) planning grant will design the WECAN (Wellbeing Enhancement through Crowd-sourced Assessment of Neighborhood-infrastructure) Smart Toolkit for community-driven decision making to address inequities in neighborhood infrastructure identified in previous NSF-funded research. These inequities are important because neighborhood infrastructure (e.g., sidewalks, public transit, gathering spaces, trails, etc.) provides public goods and services essential to physical, mental, social, and financial wellbeing. The WECAN smart toolkit will couple crowd-sourced data and ideas, machine learning, social and infrastructure network analysis, agent-based modeling, and community-engaged infrastructure decision making to improve neighborhood equity and wellbeing. The planning process in this project supports in-depth and inclusive community discussions on neighborhood infrastructure needs and impacts, which will lead to better understanding of diverse perspectives and support community-driven decision making. The focus on low-income neighborhoods with poor infrastructure, many of which are predominantly Black or Hispanic, should foster more inclusive and equitable city governance and community advocacy. In this project, the research team and WECAN Community Task Force, with representatives from the City of Dallas, nonprofits, and for-profit entities, will advance these goals by jointly undertaking the following tasks: (1) project planning meetings to execute the project and develop a sound SCC-IRG proposal; (2) focus groups (with community development professionals and residents) and key decision-maker interviews to identify barriers to equitable neighborhood infrastructure decision making and opportunities for WECAN to overcome these barriers; and (3) WECAN Toolkit software requirements meetings. The research questions and intellectual merit are: (1) WECAN Data Discovery: How do smart multilevel social and physical infrastructure networks evolve and impact community wellbeing in neighborhoods? A novel multilevel network approach to social and infrastructure network analysis (SINA) will be developed for predicting wellbeing. (2) WECAN Data Analytics: Can interactions among diverse social and physical infrastructure network data be better interpreted and synthesized using a novel spatiotemporal analysis called multi-modal Granger clustering, compared to traditional spatiotemporal clustering algorithms? The Granger time series clustering method will be extended to cluster spatiotemporal data based upon response to events and spatial location, rather than direct measures of similarity. (3) WECAN Toolkit Impact: How and to what extent do the WECAN tools shift equity-based infrastructure decision making? The view of “experts” will be expanded by formally integrating opinions of community members, nonprofits, for-profits, and infrastructure users into a participatory prioritization process, as compared to existing decision-making approaches.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.