Past, present and future of historical information science

Der Bericht evaluiert Entwicklungen und Einflüsse von Forschungen im Bereich der empirisch orientierten Geschichtswissenschaft und deren rechnergestützten Methoden. Vorgestellt werden ein Forschungsparadigma und eine Forschungsinfrastruktur für die zukünftige historisch orientierte Informationswissenschaft. Die entscheidenden Anstöße dafür kommen eher von Außen, also nicht aus der scientific community der Assoziation for History and Computing (AHC). Die Gründe hierfür liegen darin, dass die AHC niemals klare Aussagen darüber gemacht hat, welches ihre Adressaten sind: Historiker, die sich für EDV interessieren, oder historisch orientierte Informationswissenschaftler. Das Ergebnis war, dass sich keine dieser Fraktionen angesprochen fühlte und kein Diskurs mit der 'traditionellen' Geschichtswissenschaft und der Informationswissenschaft zustande kam. Der Autor skizziert ein Forschungsprogramm, das diese Ambiguitäten vermeidet und die Ansätze in einer Forschungsinfrastruktur integriert. (ICAÜbers)'This report evaluates the impact of two decades of research within the framework of history and computing, and sets out a research paradigm and research infrastructure for future historical information science. It is good to see that there has been done a lot of historical information research in the past, much of it has been done, however, outside the field of history and computing, and not within a community like the Association for History and Computing. The reason is that the AHC never made a clear statement about what audience to address: historians with an interest in computing, or historical information scientists. As a result, both parties have not been accommodated, and communications with both 'traditional' history and 'information science' have not been established. A proper research program, based on new developments in information science, is proposed, along with an unambiguous scientific research infrastructure.' (author's abstract

Risk Data Hub – web platform to facilitate management of disaster risks

The management of disaster risks of different kinds (manmade, natural) is ruled at European level by a number of policies covering various sectors (e.g. environmental, industrial, civil protection, security, health), scales (EU wide, regional, national) and operational actions (preparedness, prevention, response and recovery). A range of research and technological developments, are motivated to support the implementation of these policies and actions across various scales reaching local level. However, the effectiveness of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) depends greatly on the efficiency of managing relevant information. Complex forms of decision-making needs technological support for achieving DRM objective of reducing risk. Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre (DRMKC) is currently developing a web-based geographical information system (WebGIS) aiming to support the implementation of international actions for DRM from global or regional level to local-national level. With this study, we present the DRMKC Risk Data Hub, a tool that improves the access and share of curated EU-wide disaster risk information relevant for DRM related actions. We also identify the key characteristics of a WebGiS platform needed to address in the most efficient way aspects of disaster risk management. Risk Data Hub acts as a knowledge hub, links policy and practice through geospatial technology and mapping, combines top-down strategies with bottom-up methodological approaches and sets the bases for science-based information for DRM polices. Currently, Risk Data Hub structures the information into three modules that covers the Exposure Analysis – as one of the main drivers of risk, Historic Events – as an EU-wide loss and damage database and Risk Analysis module - as collection of good or existing practices.JRC.E.1-Disaster Risk Managemen

A data-driven approach to road accidents in the municipality of Lisbon

Traffic accidents in urban areas lead to reduced quality of life and social inequality in cities, specially in third world countries. The growth of the urban mesh and the population density is seldom accompanied by the development or sizing of the road infrastructure. It is a fact that the number and severity of road accidents in Portugal have been decreasing over the last thirty years, bringing us closer to the European average. However, despite these facts, the situation remains worrying. Despite the adoption of programs such as the European Commission Road Safety Program and the recent EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030 or, on a national basis, the PENSE 2020 - National Strategic Plan for Road Safety the number of road accidents with victims in the district of Lisbon is still higher than the European average. Thus, and for this dissertation, we conducted an exploratory data analysis (EDA) on the combined data of traffic incidents recorded in the occurrence management system of the Lisbon Fire Brigade Regiment (RSB) and the road accidents reported to ANSR by the security forces (GNR and PSP) through the Statistical Bulletin of Traffic Accidents (BEAV). Furthermore, with data from occurrences in the Municipality of Lisbon between 2010 and 2020, to identify the existence of Black Spots in Lisbon's roads and which are the most significant and contributing factors to explain their existence. The data on road accidents were also georeferenced to capitalize their spatial existence and, consequently, better understand the existing spatial patterns and risk factors. Subsequently, through the use of the ArcGIS Pro we apply the algorithms of the Kernel Density and Hot Spot Analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*) tools, identifying the existence of the black spots, and that human, environmental and circumstantial factors have an influence on the severity of accidents, being the content validity guaranteed through an expert committee. This way, our research goal is to contribute to identify accident concentration areas in the city of Lisbon (hotspots), considering their influencing conditions.Os acidentes de trânsito em áreas urbanas conduzem à redução da qualidade de vida e à desigualdade social nas cidades, especialmente nos países em desenvolvimento. O crescimento da malha urbana, assim como, a densidade populacional raramente é acompanhada pelo desenvolvimento ou dimensionamento da infraestrutura rodoviária. É um facto que o número e a gravidade dos acidentes rodoviários em Portugal têm vindo a diminuir ao longo dos últimos trinta anos, o que permitiu aproximarmos da média Europeia, apesar destes factos a situação continua a ser preocupante. Apesar da adoção de programas como o Programa de Segurança Rodoviária da Comissão Europeia ou, numa base nacional, o PENSE 2020 - Plano Estratégico Nacional para a Segurança Rodoviária os números de acidentes de viação com vítimas no distrito de Lisboa continuam a ser mais elevados do que a média europeia. Desta forma e para efeitos deste trabalho realizamos uma análise de dados exploratória (AED) aos dados dos incidentes de transito registados no sistema de gestão de ocorrências do Regimento de Sapadores Bombeiros de Lisboa e a os dados de acidentes rodoviários reportados à ANSR pelas forças de segurança (GNR e PSP) através do Boletim Estatístico de Acidentes de Viação (BEAV) e ocorridos no concelho de Lisboa entre 2010 e 2020 por forma a identificar a existência de Pontos Negros nas vias de Lisboa e quais os fatores mais significantes e contribuintes que permitam explicar a sua existência. Os dados relativos aos acidentes rodoviários foram também georreferenciados para capitalizar a sua existência espacial e, consequentemente, compreender melhor os padrões espaciais existentes e os fatores de risco. Posteriormente através do recurso ArcGIS Pro aplicaram-se os algoritmos das ferramentas Densidade de Kernel e Hot Spot Analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*), identificando a existência dos pontos negros, e que fatores humanos, ambientais e circunstanciais têm influência na gravidade dos acidentes e que algumas variáveis de exposição foram consideradas importantes na explicação da ocorrência dos mesmos, sendo a validade do conteúdo garantida através de uma comissão de especialistas. Pretende-se, assim, contribuir para a identificação das zonas de concentração de acidentes da cidade de Lisboa (hotspots), tendo em conta as suas condições influenciadoras. Potenciando a segurança rodoviária no município

A Data-driven Methodology Towards Mobility- and Traffic-related Big Spatiotemporal Data Frameworks

Human population is increasing at unprecedented rates, particularly in urban areas. This increase, along with the rise of a more economically empowered middle class, brings new and complex challenges to the mobility of people within urban areas. To tackle such challenges, transportation and mobility authorities and operators are trying to adopt innovative Big Data-driven Mobility- and Traffic-related solutions. Such solutions will help decision-making processes that aim to ease the load on an already overloaded transport infrastructure. The information collected from day-to-day mobility and traffic can help to mitigate some of such mobility challenges in urban areas. Road infrastructure and traffic management operators (RITMOs) face several limitations to effectively extract value from the exponentially growing volumes of mobility- and traffic-related Big Spatiotemporal Data (MobiTrafficBD) that are being acquired and gathered. Research about the topics of Big Data, Spatiotemporal Data and specially MobiTrafficBD is scattered, and existing literature does not offer a concrete, common methodological approach to setup, configure, deploy and use a complete Big Data-based framework to manage the lifecycle of mobility-related spatiotemporal data, mainly focused on geo-referenced time series (GRTS) and spatiotemporal events (ST Events), extract value from it and support decision-making processes of RITMOs. This doctoral thesis proposes a data-driven, prescriptive methodological approach towards the design, development and deployment of MobiTrafficBD Frameworks focused on GRTS and ST Events. Besides a thorough literature review on Spatiotemporal Data, Big Data and the merging of these two fields through MobiTraffiBD, the methodological approach comprises a set of general characteristics, technical requirements, logical components, data flows and technological infrastructure models, as well as guidelines and best practices that aim to guide researchers, practitioners and stakeholders, such as RITMOs, throughout the design, development and deployment phases of any MobiTrafficBD Framework. This work is intended to be a supporting methodological guide, based on widely used Reference Architectures and guidelines for Big Data, but enriched with inherent characteristics and concerns brought about by Big Spatiotemporal Data, such as in the case of GRTS and ST Events. The proposed methodology was evaluated and demonstrated in various real-world use cases that deployed MobiTrafficBD-based Data Management, Processing, Analytics and Visualisation methods, tools and technologies, under the umbrella of several research projects funded by the European Commission and the Portuguese Government.A população humana cresce a um ritmo sem precedentes, particularmente nas áreas urbanas. Este aumento, aliado ao robustecimento de uma classe média com maior poder económico, introduzem novos e complexos desafios na mobilidade de pessoas em áreas urbanas. Para abordar estes desafios, autoridades e operadores de transportes e mobilidade estão a adotar soluções inovadoras no domínio dos sistemas de Dados em Larga Escala nos domínios da Mobilidade e Tráfego. Estas soluções irão apoiar os processos de decisão com o intuito de libertar uma infraestrutura de estradas e transportes já sobrecarregada. A informação colecionada da mobilidade diária e da utilização da infraestrutura de estradas pode ajudar na mitigação de alguns dos desafios da mobilidade urbana. Os operadores de gestão de trânsito e de infraestruturas de estradas (em inglês, road infrastructure and traffic management operators — RITMOs) estão limitados no que toca a extrair valor de um sempre crescente volume de Dados Espaciotemporais em Larga Escala no domínio da Mobilidade e Tráfego (em inglês, Mobility- and Traffic-related Big Spatiotemporal Data —MobiTrafficBD) que estão a ser colecionados e recolhidos. Os trabalhos de investigação sobre os tópicos de Big Data, Dados Espaciotemporais e, especialmente, de MobiTrafficBD, estão dispersos, e a literatura existente não oferece uma metodologia comum e concreta para preparar, configurar, implementar e usar uma plataforma (framework) baseada em tecnologias Big Data para gerir o ciclo de vida de dados espaciotemporais em larga escala, com ênfase nas série temporais georreferenciadas (em inglês, geo-referenced time series — GRTS) e eventos espacio- temporais (em inglês, spatiotemporal events — ST Events), extrair valor destes dados e apoiar os RITMOs nos seus processos de decisão. Esta dissertação doutoral propõe uma metodologia prescritiva orientada a dados, para o design, desenvolvimento e implementação de plataformas de MobiTrafficBD, focadas em GRTS e ST Events. Além de uma revisão de literatura completa nas áreas de Dados Espaciotemporais, Big Data e na junção destas áreas através do conceito de MobiTrafficBD, a metodologia proposta contem um conjunto de características gerais, requisitos técnicos, componentes lógicos, fluxos de dados e modelos de infraestrutura tecnológica, bem como diretrizes e boas práticas para investigadores, profissionais e outras partes interessadas, como RITMOs, com o objetivo de guiá-los pelas fases de design, desenvolvimento e implementação de qualquer pla- taforma MobiTrafficBD. Este trabalho deve ser visto como um guia metodológico de suporte, baseado em Arqui- teturas de Referência e diretrizes amplamente utilizadas, mas enriquecido com as característi- cas e assuntos implícitos relacionados com Dados Espaciotemporais em Larga Escala, como no caso de GRTS e ST Events. A metodologia proposta foi avaliada e demonstrada em vários cenários reais no âmbito de projetos de investigação financiados pela Comissão Europeia e pelo Governo português, nos quais foram implementados métodos, ferramentas e tecnologias nas áreas de Gestão de Dados, Processamento de Dados e Ciência e Visualização de Dados em plataformas MobiTrafficB

Natural landscape scenic preference: techniques for evaluation and simulation.

The aesthetic beauty of a landscape is a very subjective issue: every person has their own opinions and their own idea of what beauty is. However, all people have a common evolutionary history, and, according to the Biophilia hypothesis, a genetic predisposition to liking certain types of landscapes. It is possible that this common inheritance allows us to attempt to model scenic preference for natural landscapes. The ideal type of model for such predictions is the psychophysical preference model, integrating psychological responses to landscapes with objective measurements of quantitative and qualitative landscape variables. Such models commonly predict two thirds of the variance in the predications of the general public for natural landscapes. In order to create such a model three sets of data were required: landscape photographs (surrogates of the actual landscape), landscape preference data and landscape component variable measurements. The Internet was used to run a questionnaire survey; a novel, yet flexible, environmentally friendly and simple method of data gathering, resulting in one hundred and eighty responses. A geographic information system was used to digitise ninety landscape photographs and measure their landforms (based on elevation) in terms of areas and perimeters, their colours and proxies for their complexity and coherence. Landscape preference models were created by running multiple linear regressions using normalised preference data and the landscape component variables, including mathematical transformations of these variables. The eight models created predicted over sixty percent of variance in the responses and had moderate to high correlations with a second set of landscape preference data. A common base to the models were the variables of complexity, water and mountain landform, in particular the presence or absence of water and mountains was noted as being significant in determining landscape scenic preference. In order to fully establish the utility of these models, they were further tested against: changes in weather and season; the addition of cultural structures; different photographers; alternate film types; different focal lengths; and composition. Results showed that weather and season were not significant in determining landscape preference; cultural structures increased preferences for landscapes; and photographs taken by different people did not produce consistent results from the predictive models. It was also found that film type was not significant and that changes in focal length altered preferences for landscapes

Election Data Visualisation

Visualisations of election data produced by the mass media, other organisations and even individuals are becoming increasingly available across a wide variety of platforms and in many different forms. As more data become available digitally and as improvements to computer hardware and software are made, these visualisations have become more ambitious in scope and more user-friendly. Research has shown that visualising data is an extremely powerful method of communicating information to specialists and non-specialists alike. This amounts to a democratisation of access to political and electoral data. To some extent political science lags behind the progress that has been made in the field of data visualisation. Much of the academic output remains committed to the paper format and much of the data presentation is in the form of simple text and tables. In the digital and information age there is a danger that political science will fall behind. This thesis reports on a number of case studies where efforts were made to visualise election data in order to clarify its structure and to present its meaning. The first case study demonstrates the value of data visualisation to the research process itself, facilitating the understanding of effects produced by different ways of estimating missing data. A second study sought to use visualisation to explain complex aspects of voting systems to the wider public. Three further case studies demonstrate the value of collaboration between political scientists and others possessing a range of skills embracing data management, software engineering, broadcasting and graphic design. These studies also demonstrate some of the problems that are encountered when trying to distil complex data into a form that can be easily viewed and interpreted by non-expert users. More importantly, these studies suggest that when the skills balance is correct then visualisation is both viable and necessary for communicating information on elections

Thinking interactively with visualization

Interaction is becoming an integral part of using visualization for analysis. When interaction is tightly and appropriately coupled with visualization, it can transform the visualization from display- ing static imagery to assisting comprehensive analysis of data at all scales. In this relationship, a deeper understanding of the role of interaction, its effects, and how visualization relates to interaction is necessary for designing systems in which the two components complement each other. This thesis approaches interaction in visualization from three different perspectives. First, it considers the cost of maintaining interaction in manipulating visualization of large datasets. Namely, large datasets often require a simplification process for the visualization to maintain interactivity, and this thesis examines how simplification affects the resulting visualization. Secondly, example interactive visual analytical systems are presented to demonstrate how interactivity could be applied in visualization. Specifically, four fully developed systems for four distinct problem domains are discussed to determine the common role of interactivity in these visualizations that make the systems successful. Lastly, this thesis presents evidence that interactions are important for analytical tasks using visualizations. Interaction logs of financial analysts using a visualization were collected, coded, and examined to determine the amount of analysis strategies contained within the interaction logs. The finding supports the benefits of high interactivity in analytical tasks when using a visualization. The example visualizations used to support these three perspectives are diverse in their goals and features. However, they all share similar design guidelines and visualization principles. Based on their characteristics, this thesis groups these visualizations into urban visualization, visual analytical systems, and interaction capturing and discusses them separately in terms of lessons learned and future directions

Pluralistic landscapes of Northern Roman Britain

Traditional studies of Roman frontiers have focussed on the internal workings of the Roman military or have stressed the continuity of Iron Age society. Such approaches have downplayed or avoided discussions of social interaction. This is in contrast to developments in wider frontier studies in archaeology. This thesis examines pluralistic social settings in the northern frontier area of Roman Britain, addressing the subject in a multiscalar, diachronic, and holistic manner, which incorporates advances made in both Iron Age archaeology and Roman studies.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Assessment Of largemouth Bass (Micropterus Salmoides) Condition Using Liver Histopathology, Health Parameters and Water Quality Of The Central Chattahoochee River Watershed

The health of Largemouth bass from west-central Georgia was assessed using liver histopathology and the degree of tissue change index (DTC), hepatosomatic indices (HSI), relative weight, condition factors, and intersex. These health parameters as well as water chemistry data were compared across four bodies of water, three within the Chattahoochee watershed, and one pseudo-control located in the Flint watershed. Fish from Lake Oliver, Lake Harding, and West Point Lake had severely impacted liver health compared to Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery, with DTC rankings over 100 for the three lakes within the Chattahoochee watershed, demonstrating severely damaged livers. There was a significant difference between the hepatosomatic index and condition factor for fish when grouped into either high (\u3e100) DTC or low (\u3c 58) DTC categories, but not for relative weight. DTC scores between males and females in the study showed no significant difference. Males who had intersex had significantly higher DTC averages. Water chemistry analysis found 12 compounds that are known endocrine disruptors that can cause liver damage, including several types of phthalates in the Chattahoochee Watershed