Remote Sensing and Geosciences for Archaeology

This book collects more than 20 papers, written by renowned experts and scientists from across the globe, that showcase the state-of-the-art and forefront research in archaeological remote sensing and the use of geoscientific techniques to investigate archaeological records and cultural heritage. Very high resolution satellite images from optical and radar space-borne sensors, airborne multi-spectral images, ground penetrating radar, terrestrial laser scanning, 3D modelling, Geographyc Information Systems (GIS) are among the techniques used in the archaeological studies published in this book. The reader can learn how to use these instruments and sensors, also in combination, to investigate cultural landscapes, discover new sites, reconstruct paleo-landscapes, augment the knowledge of monuments, and assess the condition of heritage at risk. Case studies scattered across Europe, Asia and America are presented: from the World UNESCO World Heritage Site of Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and Palpa to heritage under threat in the Middle East and North Africa, from coastal heritage in the intertidal flats of the German North Sea to Early and Neolithic settlements in Thessaly. Beginners will learn robust research methodologies and take inspiration; mature scholars will for sure derive inputs for new research and applications

New Fundamental Technologies in Data Mining

The progress of data mining technology and large public popularity establish a need for a comprehensive text on the subject. The series of books entitled by "Data Mining" address the need by presenting in-depth description of novel mining algorithms and many useful applications. In addition to understanding each section deeply, the two books present useful hints and strategies to solving problems in the following chapters. The contributing authors have highlighted many future research directions that will foster multi-disciplinary collaborations and hence will lead to significant development in the field of data mining

Technologies for a FAIRer use of Ocean Best Practices

The publication and dissemination of best practices in ocean observing is pivotal for multiple aspects of modern marine science, including cross-disciplinary interoperability, improved reproducibility of observations and analyses, and training of new practitioners. Often, best practices are not published in a scientific journal and may not even be formally documented, residing solely within the minds of individuals who pass the information along through direct instruction. Naturally, documenting best practices is essential to accelerate high-quality marine science; however, documentation in a drawer has little impact. To enhance the application and development of best practices, we must leverage contemporary document handling technologies to make best practices discoverable, accessible, and interlinked, echoing the logic of the FAIR data principles [1]

Documenting, Interpreting, Publishing, and Reusing : Linking archaeological reports and excavation archives in the virtual space

This PhD thesis examines how application of 3D visualization and related digital analytical tools is having a transformative impact on archaeological practice via improvement of visual-spatial thinking and the strengthening of conceptual understanding. However, the deployment of these new digital methods is essentially still at an experimental stage. Therefore, the thesis undertakes a critical evaluation of current progress, identifying both shortcomings and opportunities. It argues that more work is needed to systematically identify and resolve current operational challenges in order to create improved digital frameworks that can strengthen future performance across the wider discipline.The PhD research is based on four “parallel experiments” designed to facilitate mutual enrichment and on-going refinement. Each individual experiment generated research articles, which investigate how particular 3D and digital methods can be adapted to diverse kinds of archaeological sites and features,each with unique characteristics. The articles demonstrate how particular methods can be deployed to constantly refine and improve documentation procedures, and to review and adjust interpretation during the excavation process. In total, the thesis produced five research articles and three new web-based publishing systems.Overall, the thesis demonstrates that application, proactive evaluation and constant improvement of new 3D visualization and digital analytical tools will play an increasingly significant role in strengthening and better integrating future archaeological methods and practice. The research also generates original insights and new digital platforms that together underline the importance of applying these new digital tools across the wider archaeological discipline. Finally, the thesis cautions that digital innovation needs to be anchored in an "open science" culture, including strong ethical frameworks and commitment to FAIR principles (i.e. Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) of data archiving as a key component of research design and wider societal engagement

OM-2017: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Workshop on Ontology Matching

shvaiko2017aInternational audienceOntology matching is a key interoperability enabler for the semantic web, as well as auseful tactic in some classical data integration tasks dealing with the semantic heterogeneityproblem. It takes ontologies as input and determines as output an alignment,that is, a set of correspondences between the semantically related entities of those ontologies.These correspondences can be used for various tasks, such as ontology merging,data translation, query answering or navigation on the web of data. Thus, matchingontologies enables the knowledge and data expressed with the matched ontologies tointeroperate

The Object of Platform Studies: Relational Materialities and the Social Platform (the case of the Nintendo Wii)

Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System,by Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort, inaugurated thePlatform Studies series at MIT Press in 2009.We’ve coauthored a new book in the series, Codename: Revolution: the Nintendo Wii Video Game Console. Platform studies is a quintessentially Digital Humanities approach, since it’s explicitly focused on the interrelationship of computing and cultural expression. According to the series preface, the goal of platform studies is “to consider the lowest level of computing systems and to understand how these systems relate to culture and creativity.”In practice, this involves paying close attentionto specific hardware and software interactions--to the vertical relationships between a platform’s multilayered materialities (Hayles; Kirschenbaum),from transistors to code to cultural reception. Any given act of platform-studies analysis may focus for example on the relationship between the chipset and the OS, or between the graphics processor and display parameters or game developers’ designs.In computing terms, platform is an abstraction(Bogost and Montfort), a pragmatic frame placed around whatever hardware-and-software configuration is required in order to build or run certain specificapplications (including creative works). The object of platform studies is thus a shifting series of possibility spaces, any number of dynamic thresholds between discrete levels of a system

Applications and Experiences of Quality Control

The rich palette of topics set out in this book provides a sufficiently broad overview of the developments in the field of quality control. By providing detailed information on various aspects of quality control, this book can serve as a basis for starting interdisciplinary cooperation, which has increasingly become an integral part of scientific and applied research