Archiving the Relaxed Consistency Web

The historical, cultural, and intellectual importance of archiving the web has been widely recognized. Today, all countries with high Internet penetration rate have established high-profile archiving initiatives to crawl and archive the fast-disappearing web content for long-term use. As web technologies evolve, established web archiving techniques face challenges. This paper focuses on the potential impact of the relaxed consistency web design on crawler driven web archiving. Relaxed consistent websites may disseminate, albeit ephemerally, inaccurate and even contradictory information. If captured and preserved in the web archives as historical records, such information will degrade the overall archival quality. To assess the extent of such quality degradation, we build a simplified feed-following application and simulate its operation with synthetic workloads. The results indicate that a non-trivial portion of a relaxed consistency web archive may contain observable inconsistency, and the inconsistency window may extend significantly longer than that observed at the data store. We discuss the nature of such quality degradation and propose a few possible remedies.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, CIKM 201

Exploring Scientific Application Performance Using Large Scale Object Storage

One of the major performance and scalability bottlenecks in large scientific applications is parallel reading and writing to supercomputer I/O systems. The usage of parallel file systems and consistency requirements of POSIX, that all the traditional HPC parallel I/O interfaces adhere to, pose limitations to the scalability of scientific applications. Object storage is a widely used storage technology in cloud computing and is more frequently proposed for HPC workload to address and improve the current scalability and performance of I/O in scientific applications. While object storage is a promising technology, it is still unclear how scientific applications will use object storage and what the main performance benefits will be. This work addresses these questions, by emulating an object storage used by a traditional scientific application and evaluating potential performance benefits. We show that scientific applications can benefit from the usage of object storage on large scales.Comment: Preprint submitted to WOPSSS workshop at ISC 201

J-PLUS: analysis of the intracluster light in the Coma cluster

The intracluster light (ICL) is a luminous component of galaxy clusters composed of stars that are gravitationally bound to the cluster potential but do not belong to the individual galaxies. Previous studies of the ICL have shown that its formation and evolution are intimately linked to the evolutionary stage of the cluster. Thus, the analysis of the ICL in the Coma cluster will give insights into the main processes driving the dynamics in this highly complex system. Using a recently developed technique, we measure the ICL fraction in Coma at several wavelengths, using the J-PLUS unique filter system. The combination of narrow- and broadband filters provides valuable information on the dynamical state of the cluster, the ICL stellar types, and the morphology of the diffuse light. We use the Chebyshev-Fourier Intracluster Light Estimator (CICLE) to disentangle the ICL from the light of the galaxies, and to robustly measure the ICL fraction in seven J-PLUS filters. We obtain the ICL fraction distribution of the Coma cluster at different optical wavelengths, which varies from $\sim 7\%-21\%$, showing the highest values in the narrowband filters J0395, J0410, and J0430. This ICL fraction excess is distinctive pattern recently observed in dynamically active clusters (mergers), indicating a higher amount of bluer stars in the ICL compared to the cluster galaxies. Both the high ICL fractions and the excess in the bluer filters are indicative of a merging state. The presence of younger/lower-metallicity stars the ICL suggests that the main mechanism of ICL formation for the Coma cluster is the stripping of the stars in the outskirts of infalling galaxies and, possibly, the disruption of dwarf galaxies during past/ongoing mergers.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in A&

BlogForever D3.2: Interoperability Prospects

This report evaluates the interoperability prospects of the BlogForever platform. Therefore, existing interoperability models are reviewed, a Delphi study to identify crucial aspects for the interoperability of web archives and digital libraries is conducted, technical interoperability standards and protocols are reviewed regarding their relevance for BlogForever, a simple approach to consider interoperability in specific usage scenarios is proposed, and a tangible approach to develop a succession plan that would allow a reliable transfer of content from the current digital archive to other digital repositories is presented

Is ICT a Magic Wand as a Teaching Tool? ─From Observation of Classrooms in Helsinki

　　OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) surveys conducted over the years have shown Finnish education to be one of the best in the world. Countless publications in Japanese in the 2000s attempted to uncover the secrets through class observations. However, teaching appears to have shifted from the blackboard to ICT devices. Are there any classroom management styles that Japanese teachers can learn from the Finnish classroom? In 2018 the author of this study observed classes at a secondary school in Helsinki that specializes in foreign language education. Finland is in the process of eliminating all paperwork at schools by 2020 and having students use only ICT devices. Class observations and interviews with teachers focused on classroom techniques and active learning methods. The advantages and disadvantages of the use of ICT in the classroom are then discussed with a reference to the two cultures

Conducting Qualitative Longitudinal Research: Fieldwork Experiences

This collection draws on the fieldwork experiences of some of the researchers involved in the ESRC 'Timescapes: Changing Relationships and Identities throughthe Life Course‘ programme. Timescapes, the first major Qualitative Longitudinal (QLL) study to be funded in the UK, aims to build a picture of life in 21st century Britain by gathering, archiving and analysing interviews from over 400 people living in a variety of circumstances across the UK. Temporal understanding is central to the programme. In essence, Timescapes is concerned with the intersection between different dimensions of time and the ways in which temporality shapes and is shaped by the changing relationships and identities of different individuals and collectives. We are exploring how individuals perceive past, present and future, and the relationship between their biographies and wider historical processes. Our work is framed by Barbara Adam‘s (1998) notion of 'timescapes‘. Like a landscape, cityscape or seascape a timescape is a panorama or view of the world in which time is placed as central