A Probabilistic Data Fusion Modeling Approach for Extracting True Values from Uncertain and Conflicting Attributes

Real-world data obtained from integrating heterogeneous data sources are often multi-valued, uncertain, imprecise, error-prone, outdated, and have different degrees of accuracy and correctness. It is critical to resolve data uncertainty and conflicts to present quality data that reflect actual world values. This task is called data fusion. In this paper, we deal with the problem of data fusion based on probabilistic entity linkage and uncertainty management in conflict data. Data fusion has been widely explored in the research community. However, concerns such as explicit uncertainty management and on-demand data fusion, which can cope with dynamic data sources, have not been studied well. This paper proposes a new probabilistic data fusion modeling approach that attempts to find true data values under conditions of uncertain or conflicted multi-valued attributes. These attributes are generated from the probabilistic linkage and merging alternatives of multi-corresponding entities. Consequently, the paper identifies and formulates several data fusion cases and sample spaces that require further conditional computation using our computational fusion method. The identification is established to fit with a real-world data fusion problem. In the real world, there is always the possibility of heterogeneous data sources, the integration of probabilistic entities, single or multiple truth values for certain attributes, and different combinations of attribute values as alternatives for each generated entity. We validate our probabilistic data fusion approach through mathematical representation based on three data sources with different reliability scores. The validity of the approach was assessed via implementation into our probabilistic integration system to show how it can manage and resolve different cases of data conflicts and inconsistencies. The outcome showed improved accuracy in identifying true values due to the association of constructive evidence

International News Reporting in the Multidimensional Network: The socio-demographics, professional culture and newswork of foreign correspondents working across Sub-Saharan Africa

Tese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Media DigitaisUma porção significativa do nosso conhecimento quotidiano sobre a África Subsaariana provém do trabalho dos repórteres internacionais. Contudo, e ainda que estes actores desempenhem um papel crítico na comunicação do Outro distante, frequentemente criticado pelos seus défices representacionais, a investigação académica sobre o trabalho dos correspondentes internacionais tem sido consideravelmente negligenciada: encontra-se desactualizada em décadas, carecendo de um exame sistemático das realidades efectivas do jornalismo em África e da evolução do trabalho de Pro-Ams e organizações de media dos cidadãos, suportados por meios digitais ligados em rede. Esta tese tem como objecto a caracterização e análise sociodemográfica destes indivíduos, das suas culturas profissionais e trabalho noticioso. Inspecciona trajectórias de longo curso no jornalismo internacional, combinando-as com desenvolvimentos de curto prazo baseados nas transformações na microelectrónica e digitalização. São delineadas três linhas de inquérito: quem está realmente a reportar em todo o continente, quais são as principais características das culturas ocupacionais e os constrangimentos que impendem sobre as rotinas de produção dos trabalhadores noticiosos. Avaliamos como estão os repórteres internacionais a reposicionar-se num ambiente comunicacional em transformação, como interpretam a sua própria ocupação e o papel dos actores emergentes na esfera mediática transnacional. Simultaneamente, contribuímos com uma investigação exploratória sobre as actividades das organizações de media dos cidadãos. Para cumprir estes objectivos, conduzimos o primeiro questionário online Pan-Africano de que há registo sobre o trabalho dos repórteres internacionais, recolhendo respostas de 124 participantes em 41 países. Estes resultados são complementados através de entrevistas semiestruturadas com 43 jornalistas profissionais, em Nairobi, Dakar e Joanesburgo. Os resultados obtidos desafiam a narrativa que apresenta a reportagem internacional como uma espécie em extinção. Ao invés, suportam uma visão diferenciada entre continuidades localizadas e rupturas localizadas na contemporânea e pós-industrial esfera mediática: a sua sociodemografia expressa uma nova economia da correspondência internacional caracterizada por uma considerável precariedade, particularmente no caso dos trabalhadores independentes (freelance), enquanto a utilização de media digitais ligados em rede conduz o campo a uma confederação de correspondências com múltiplas camadas. O campo não é já um território exclusivo de profissionais e estes têm agora de lidar com a escala sem precedentes de conteúdos gerados pelos utilizadores e reacções directas. Os profissionais despendem uma muito considerável porção de tempo diário na Internet, o que sugere uma mudança de paradigma nas práticas de recolha informativa e, em última análise, na sua cultura epistemológica

A best-effort integration framework for imperfect information spaces

Entity resolution (ER) with imperfection management has been accepted as a major aspect while integrating heterogeneous information sources that exhibit entities with varied identifiers, abbreviated names, and multi-valued attributes. Many of novel integration applications such as personal information management and web-scale information management require the ability to represent and manipulate imperfect data. This requirement signifies the issues of starting with imperfect data to the production of probabilistic database. However, classical data integration (CDI) framework fails to cope with such requirement of explicit imperfect information management. This paper introduces an alternative integration framework based on the best-effort perspective to support instance integration automation. The new framework explicitly incorporates probabilistic management to the ER tasks. The probabilistic management includes a new probabilistic global entity, a new pair-wise-source-to-target ER process, and probabilistic decision model logic as alternatives. Together, the paper presents how these processes operate to support the current heterogeneous sources integration challenges

Location-allocation problem for banking correspondent services : the colombian urban market case

Banking correspondents are a channel through which third parties operate on behalf of a bank, under a contract authorising the provision of some banking services. This model has been implemented extensively in developing countries, as a channel to increase financial inclusion by bringing financial products and services closer to marginalised populations. However, there is a lack of studies on the criteria employed by banks when selecting retailers to turn into banking correspondents (BC), in turn preventing the channel from offering a service portfolio adequate to the capacities of the retailers providing this kind of services, affecting the profitability and sustainability of the channel. The current research parted from the agency theory, which allowed to understand the relationship between the parties involved in the delivery of BC services, seeking to boost financial inclusion in Colombia through the development of the BC channel by solving the problem of location and portfolio allocation for retailers acting as banking correspondents in Colombian urban zones. It parted from the case of Bogota, where improvements were achieved in the selection of retailers and portfolio allocation, thus enhancing the relationship between agents, allowing banks to select banking correspondents and allocating them a particular service portfolio, while transaction volumes and channel profits are maximised. This was done through the development of a methodology comprising five stages, namely: (a) the development of a taxonomy on network integration models and financial services; (b) the development of a taxonomy on the strategies of small and medium retailers that could be selected as banking correspondents; (c) the validation of both taxonomies through cluster analyses; (d) validation of the resulting classifications through an ANOVA and a Kruskal-Wallis H test; and (e) the elaboration of a chance-constrained programming model that uses the elements built and validated in the formers stages. A classification of retailers was obtained from factors related to their operational and business strategies, as well as a classification of banking correspondents based on their service portfolios. It was also noted there is a significant relationship between the groups from both classifications, which led to the chance-constrained programming model being run on a sample of retailers in Bogotá, located at the borough of Suba. The model enabled to select those retailers best suited to become banking correspondents, determining the number of transactions according to their constraints in terms of retailer capabilities, banks and the environment, while estimating the expected income from these banking correspondent operationsTesi

Berlusconi’s Language in the British Press:Translation, Ideology and National Image in News Discourse across Italian/English Linguacultures

The thesis examines the representation of Silvio Berlusconi’s language in the British press through the reverberations of linguistic taboos when translated from Italian into English. The analysis is set within the overarching premise that ‘Linguistic relations are always relations of symbolic power’ (Bourdieu 1992: 142). In order to navigate through the analyses, the trajectory of Berlusconi and his language is first set against the Italian sociolinguistic and historico-political backdrop. Then, through a triangulation of methodological approaches, the study attempts to understand some of the underlying mechanisms that influence the ways in which news producers shape knowledge on cultural difference. Critical Discourse Analysis methods are used to reveal the implicit propositions and evaluative translational choices in three datasets of online news texts drawn from British quality and tabloid newspapers. The first dataset examines news narratives on Berlusconi’s sexist and taboo language and the translational decisions of these ‘critical points’ (Munday 2012). Textual framing and cultural stereotyping are the focus of the second dataset that analyse a meta-debate across Italian and British newspapers on national image. The third dataset examines ‘anti-gay’, ‘sexist’ ‘racist’ narratives on Italy, as portrayed in British news discourse. Semi-structured interviews with the journalists who were among the active agents in these framing practices provide data on the habitus of the ‘journalator’ (van Doorslaer 2012) and the role of the journalist/translator as cultural mediator. A tentative approach to sample the ways in which readers respond to the framed discourses was made in order to gauge the impact of these news narratives on the image of Italy in the eyes of the audiences

Reinforcement Learning

Brains rule the world, and brain-like computation is increasingly used in computers and electronic devices. Brain-like computation is about processing and interpreting data or directly putting forward and performing actions. Learning is a very important aspect. This book is on reinforcement learning which involves performing actions to achieve a goal. The first 11 chapters of this book describe and extend the scope of reinforcement learning. The remaining 11 chapters show that there is already wide usage in numerous fields. Reinforcement learning can tackle control tasks that are too complex for traditional, hand-designed, non-learning controllers. As learning computers can deal with technical complexities, the tasks of human operators remain to specify goals on increasingly higher levels. This book shows that reinforcement learning is a very dynamic area in terms of theory and applications and it shall stimulate and encourage new research in this field

The Farm Press, Reform and Rural Change, 1895-1920

This project contributes to our understanding of rural Midwesterners and farm newspapers at the turn of the century. While cultural historians have mainly focused on readers in town and cities, it examines Midwestern farmers. It also contributes to the "new rural history" by exploring the ideas of Hal Barron and others that country people selectively adapted the advice given to them by reformers. Finally, it furthers our understanding of American farm newspapers themselves and offers suggestions on how to use them as sources

The Politics of Correspondence: Letter Writing in the Campaign Against Slavery in the United States

The abolitionists were a community of wordsmiths whose political movement took shape in a sea of printed and handwritten words. These words enabled opponents of slavery in the nineteenth-century United States to exert political power, even though many of them were excluded from mainstream politics. Women and most African Americans could not vote, and they faced violent reprisals for speaking publicly. White men involved in the antislavery cause frequently spurned party politics, using writing as a key site of political engagement. Reading and writing allowed people from different backgrounds to see themselves as part of a political collective against slavery. “The Politics of Correspondence” examines how abolitionists harnessed the power of the written word to further their political aims, arguing that letter writing enabled a disparate and politically marginal assortment of people to take shape as a coherent and powerful movement. “The Politics of Correspondence” expands the definition of politics, demonstrating that private correspondence, not just public action, can be a significant form of political participation. The antislavery movement’s body of shared political ideas and principles emerged out of contest and debate carried on largely through the exchange of letters. People on the political fringes and disfranchised persons, especially African Americans and women, harnessed the medium of letters to assert themselves as legitimate political agents, claiming entitlements hitherto denied them. In doing so, they contested the presumed boundaries of the body politic and played key roles in advancing demands for immediate emancipation, civil rights, and equality to the forefront of national political discussions. “The Politics of Correspondence” argues that correspondence was a flexible medium that abolitionists used throughout this period in efforts to both shape and respond to the changing conditions of national politics. A vast and dispersed archive documents the antislavery movement and serves as the basis of research for the dissertation. Scholars of antislavery have used the extensive manuscript collections of prominent abolitionists and print archives of antislavery newspapers, pamphlets, and circulars to investigate the movement’s ideas and organization. But this is the first project to focus on letter writing itself and its role in the movement. Rather than view letters as transparent windows into the past, “The Politics of Correspondence” examines them as tools that ordinary people and unexpected political agents used to advance the antislavery cause. Abolitionists relied upon conventions associated with handwritten letters, which they creatively manipulated to achieve political ends. Writing a letter was an act of composition that involved self-reflection, imagined discussion, and staking a claim to one’s beliefs. Correspondents drew upon shared cultural understandings, ranging from the anonymity of the postal system to the sense of physical intimacy associated with handwritten letters. They inventively employed these understandings to make political statements that simultaneously relied upon and subverted letter-writing conventions

Televising the Space Age: A Descriptive Chronology of CBS News Special Coverage of Space Exploration From 1957 to 2003

From the liftoff of the Space Age with the Earth-orbital beeps of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, through the videotaped tragedy of space shuttle Columbia's reentry disintegration on 1 February 2003 and its aftermath, critically acclaimed CBS News televised well more than 500 hours of special events, documentary, and public affairs broadcasts dealing with human and robotic space exploration. Much of that was memorably anchored by Walter Cronkite and produced by Robert J. Wussler. This research synthesizes widely scattered data, much of it internal and/or unpublished, to partially document the fluctuating patterns, quantities, participants, sponsors, and other key details of that historic, innovative, riveting coverage

Reading the local paper: Social and cultural functions of the local press in Preston, Lancashire, 1855-1900

This thesis demonstrates that the most popular periodical genre of the second half of the nineteenth century was the provincial newspaper. Using evidence from news rooms, libraries, the trade press and oral history, it argues that the majority of readers (particularly working-class readers) preferred the local press, because of its faster delivery of news, and because of its local and localised content. Building on the work of Law and Potter, the thesis treats the provincial press as a national network and a national system, a structure which enabled it to offer a more effective news distribution service than metropolitan papers. Taking the town of Preston, Lancashire, as a case study, this thesis provides some background to the most popular local publications of the period, and uses the diaries of Preston journalist Anthony Hewitson as a case study of the career of a local reporter, editor and proprietor. Three examples of how the local press consciously promoted local identity are discussed: Hewitson’s remoulding of the Preston Chronicle, the same paper’s changing treatment of Lancashire dialect, and coverage of professional football. These case studies demonstrate some of the local press content that could not practically be provided by metropolitan publications. The ‘reading world’ of this provincial town is reconstructed, to reveal the historical circumstances in which newspapers and the local paper in particular were read. Evidence from readers demonstrates the many ways in which they used the local press, both collectively and individually, including its use in sustaining local identities and sense of place. However, the local press was only one factor among many in the development and sustenance of local identities. The originality of the thesis lies in its introduction of empirical reading evidence into English newspaper history, its challenge to the taken-for-granted but problematic concepts of ‘local’ and ‘national’ newspapers in this period, its detailed study of the journalistic techniques used to capitalise on local patriotism, and its critique of many theories of nineteenth-century press history which have been based on a minority of the period’s newspapers, those published in London