FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Why is machine coding better than hand coding?
VRA's technological advances in automated data extraction and natural language parsing make it possible to aggregate and analyze historical events with a greater degree of accuracy today than ever before.  While humans are subject to "human error", information overload, and bias, machines are not.  VRA software makes the research that professionals already do systematic, 100% transparent and 100% consistent. VRA software also helps to alleviate the problem of information overload, making it possible to track events in real or near-real time.

How is VRA's "visualization" different from conventional search strategies?
Conventional search strategies are based upon filtering, either with literal terms or with indices of their related concepts. These searches can only identify information already known to be relevant and that can be specified in advance. The filtering techniques of conventional search approaches can readily find the proverbial "needle in the haystack," but only when that "needle" can be specified in advance.  Only with a visual news trend or text parsing approach can one begin to "see" the overall contours of all the news or "haystack," including all relevant news events or "needles."  VRA's powerful software allows users to visually identify problems and simply point and click to understand the underlying stories. Through visual displays, the software illuminates important information - telling the user what is important and should be investigated further without the user having to do a manual search. Within three mouse clicks of each chart is the actual news story or data that will describe the visual anomaly.   This allows for "intelligent" and intuitive selection of what information is needed.

How is VRA different from analytics and intelligence companies?
VRA offers a research and analysis tool that is unique in the marketplace. No competitor can claim the full spectrum -- full horizontal integration from raw data points to conceptualization/frameworks to tools to visualization/ presentation of the data.  The analytics and intelligence companies offer a range of services from security to risk assessments to travel advisories.  VRA's approach is systematic, 100% transparent and 100% consistent.

Is the VRA technology flexible?
The tools are automated, domain independent, customizable, self-documenting, and user friendly. The modular and open interface software builds upon commercial off-the-shelf technology.  It is amenable to geographic, geospatial and temporal, and is consistent with today's data structures. 

Who uses the VRA^® Knowledge Manager and data service?
· Corporate risk managers
· Broker-advisors
· Companies with global operations
· Insurance and reinsurance industry
· Military
· Government agencies
· NGOs
· IGOs

How do we use the data?
VRA's automated frame parsing, interactive assessment and visual display technologies can be used as a supplement to or proxy for political violence data to be used in risk assessment models.   The data streams can be fed into existing economic, macroeconomic and political risk models.  The Reader offers an interface for inputting field office/ remote data points.  Together, the data can be used to understand and predict instability.

What is PANDA?
The Protocol for the Assessment of Nonviolent Direct Action (PANDA) was developed in 1988 to guide and inform the automated coding of events (news reports), both violent and otherwise. Since its founding, VRA has been working closely with shared staff and affiliates at Harvard University on the development of PANDA. Its strength is its ability to illuminate the contours and potential flash points of conflicts as they evolve over time but before they escalated into violence. The theoretical framework and a preliminary event data analysis using the PANDA protocol were published (August 1997) in the Journal of Conflict Resolution by Bond, et.al., with an update by Jenkins and Bond in the same journal appearing in January 2001.

What is IDEA?
The IDEA (Integrated Data for Events Analysis) protocol was co-developed by and currently in use by VRA. The IDEA protocol expands the PANDA protocol into a more generic framework or ontology suitable for use in monitoring events in the social, economic and political sectors. The IDEA protocol is in the public domain and is designed to be fully extensible as well as backwards compatible with the major events data frameworks. A third peer-reviewed article by Bond, et. al. on the VRA system describes the IDEA protocol and is to be published by the Journal of Peace Research in its December 2003 issue.