A framework for clustering and adaptive topic tracking on evolving text and social media data streams.

Recent advances and widespread usage of online web services and social media platforms, coupled with ubiquitous low cost devices, mobile technologies, and increasing capacity of lower cost storage, has led to a proliferation of Big data, ranging from, news, e-commerce clickstreams, and online business transactions to continuous event logs and social media expressions. These large amounts of online data, often referred to as data streams, because they get generated at extremely high throughputs or velocity, can make conventional and classical data analytics methodologies obsolete. For these reasons, the issues of management and analysis of data streams have been researched extensively in recent years. The special case of social media Big Data brings additional challenges, particularly because of the unstructured nature of the data, specifically free text. One classical approach to mine text data has been Topic Modeling. Topic Models are statistical models that can be used for discovering the abstract ``topics\u27\u27 that may occur in a corpus of documents. Topic models have emerged as a powerful technique in machine learning and data science, providing a great balance between simplicity and complexity. They also provide sophisticated insight without the need for real natural language understanding. However they have not been designed to cope with the type of text data that is abundant on social media platforms, but rather for traditional medium size corpora consisting of longer documents, adhering to a specific language and typically spanning a stable set of topics. Unlike traditional document corpora, social media messages tend to be very short, sparse, noisy, and do not adhere to a standard vocabulary, linguistic patterns, or stable topic distributions. They are also generated at high velocity that impose high demands on topic modeling; and their evolving or dynamic nature, makes any set of results from topic modeling quickly become stale in the face of changes in the textual content and topics discussed within social media streams. In this dissertation, we propose an integrated topic modeling framework built on top of an existing stream-clustering framework called Stream-Dashboard, which can extract, isolate, and track topics over any given time period. In this new framework, Stream Dashboard first clusters the data stream points into homogeneous groups. Then data from each group is ushered to the topic modeling framework which extracts finer topics from the group. The proposed framework tracks the evolution of the clusters over time to detect milestones corresponding to changes in topic evolution, and to trigger an adaptation of the learned groups and topics at each milestone. The proposed approach to topic modeling is different from a generic Topic Modeling approach because it works in a compartmentalized fashion, where the input document stream is split into distinct compartments, and Topic Modeling is applied on each compartment separately. Furthermore, we propose extensions to existing topic modeling and stream clustering methods, including: an adaptive query reformulation approach to help focus on the topic discovery with time; a topic modeling extension with adaptive hyper-parameter and with infinite vocabulary; an adaptive stream clustering algorithm incorporating the automated estimation of dynamic, cluster-specific temporal scales for adaptive forgetting to help facilitate clustering in a fast evolving data stream. Our experimental results show that the proposed adaptive forgetting clustering algorithm can mine better quality clusters; that our proposed compartmentalized framework is able to mine topics of better quality compared to competitive baselines; and that the proposed framework can automatically adapt to focus on changing topics using the proposed query reformulation strategy

Water-Energy-Food Nexus Stakeholder Information Sharing and Engagement Workshop

On January 10, 2018, the Texas A&M University System Water-Energy-Food Initiative held the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Stakeholder Information Sharing and Engagement Workshop on the campus of Texas A&M University-San Antonio. The workshop involved over 70 stakeholders drawn from the water, energy, and food sectors in San Antonio and surrounding region. Stakeholders attending the workshop heard presentations on the status of San Antonio Case Study pilot projects and other WEF nexus work. Facilitated small-group sessions were held at the workshop to obtain stakeholder input on research questions to be asked, and on limitations and opportunities for stakeholder engagement on WEF nexus-related work in the San Antonio and the South Texas Region. Workshop participants also took before and after surveys to gauge knowledge about the WEF nexus. This report provides information on the outcomes of surveys, the workshop presentations and discussions, and the facilitated stakeholder sessions.https://digitalcommons.tamusa.edu/water_books/1002/thumbnail.jp

The Digital Transformation of the News Media Business – Paid Content and Entrepreneurship in Digital Journalism

The digital transformation of the news business continues to agitate publishers. Concerned about declining sales in the print segment, legacy outlets, local news companies and freelance journalists alike search for ways to monetize digital journalism properly. At first glance, digital journalism and its monetisation as paid content seem a promising effort. The digitisation of the news business enabled distribution at a marginal cost of almost zero while giving journalists access to new research technologies and lowering the cost of entry for smaller companies. However, while digital journalism enjoys broad popularity and use, online news are gaining few paying customers. Furthermore, online news compete within a larger digital media complex, comprising movies, games, and social media. After 25 years of experimentation, the digital future of journalism is still heavily debated in media management. Concerning the reconstitution as a digital medium, this research examines conditions of success and obstacles for the digital news media business to be successful as a business venture. Therefore, the research question reads What factors enable the viability and entrepreneurial success of the news media business in light of the consequences of digital transformation? The overarching research question is considered from two angles: The first angle concerns the demand side by looking at the antecedents of the audience's willingness to pay for paid content. The second angle focuses on the supply side and therefore examines antecedents of success in the context of digital journalistic start-ups and founders. In four studies, this thesis develops an analysis of the online news business with a local focus on the German news market. For this purpose, a variety of methods ranging from qualitative work and literature review to empirical research employing path analysis and predictive analytics are applied. Theoretically, digital transformation, free mentality and other peculiarities of information goods inform the frame of this work. Thus, this research aims at contributing to a financially sustainable news media business

Resistance: Traditional Knowledge and Environmental Assessment among the Esketemc Canadian First Nation Community.

A recurring theme in Canadian social and political history concerns the fight for the recognition of Aboriginal rights including cultural rights within a context of development. It has been stated that there is a lack of dialogue between these two discourses. There are few specific and engaged studies about these conflicts. This thesis provides an engaged examination of a Canadian First Nation from British Columbia, the Esketemc, and its struggle against a proposed mega development, the Prosperity gold and copper mine. The study focusses on the use of power, control and the discourse of development through the lens of the environmental assessment process. It examines whether the Esketemc voice is heard through the dominant discourse, or whether the environmental assessment process obstructs it through the manipulation of people, space and resources. The analysis of the environmental assessment process identified and described opportunities and obstacles for dialogue between the Esketemc, the federal and provincial governments, the federal government selected Panel, and the mine developer. The community hearings that formed a part of the environmental assessment process provided an opportunity for many community members to tell about their deep relationships with the land, their family connections to the land, their spiritual connections to the land, and the knowledge gained from these cultural practices to determine what the impacts of this project will be on the community. The positioning of this Esketemc traditional knowledge within this assessment demonstrates how it was viewed and valued by the government and the developer and how it was used to formulate the Panel recommendations for the federal Minister of the Environment. The analysis of the environmental assessment process also illustrates the strategies of power and resistance used by the Esketemc to oppose and respond to the unequal power dynamics. The imposition of power on First Nations within the historical colonial period endures in current encounters with government agencies such as the environmental assessment agency through environmental assessments. This unequal power permits those with control to decide what is valid, true and while dismissing that which does not conform to the prevailing paradigms. The study identified the structural processes within the Prosperity Mine environmental assessment process that served to validate some of the Esketemc concerns, while excluding others. The types of knowledge that the environmental assessment panel validated were those rooted in government processes such as a commercial venture, the Esketemc Community Forest and lands to be included in a final settlement within the British Columbia Treaty Process. The types of knowledge that were not recognized by the Panel were those that dealt with the project’s negative impacts on traditional hunting, plant and medicine harvesting, family areas and spiritual values. The result is a positioning of Esketemc traditional knowledge and cultural values as marginalized in contrast to the discourse of western science and development

Shifting Directions: Conceiving, Implementing, and Navigating the Inherent Complexities of Student Recruitment Customer/Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) Systems within Higher Education

A Constituent (often and typically referenced as Customer) Relationship Management (CRM) system is utilized within organizations whose focus is on customer development and service. A CRM is both an organizational approach involving significant human and system processes, as well as a technological intervention. Typically, CRMs have been implemented within commercial enterprises, specifically those operations with direct contact with customers or consumers, possibly as end–users of products, or even middle–sales operators such as wholesalers and governmental agencies. Over the past number of decades, higher education institutions in Canada have developed strategic and tactical plans to more fully respond to the changing conditions of the prospective student marketplace, both domestically as well as internationally. Student engagement–focused CRM systems are strategic in orientation meant to positively affect student application and subsequent program enrolment. This document describes a change intervention at a large, research–intensive Canadian university and articulates the various factors that would influence the conception, development, communication, and implementation of a coordinated student recruitment CRM platform. Through the lenses of an Adaptive Leadership model and the Path-Goal Leadership Theory and framed by paradigms based on Lewin’s (1951) Stage Theory of Change and systems modelling, this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) will trace my own leadership influence upon this initiative and will seek to move from theory to practice the strategies and tactics required for implementation

Interoperability and Information Brokers in Public Safety: An Approach toward Seamless Emergency Communications

When a disaster occurs, the rapid gathering and sharing of crucial information among public safety agencies, emergency response units, and the public can save lives and reduce the scope of the problem; yet, this is seldom achieved. The lack of interoperability hinders effective collaboration across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries. In this article, we propose a general architecture for emergency communications that incorporates (1) an information broker, (2) events and event-driven processes, and (3) interoperability. This general architecture addresses the question of how an information broker can overcome obstacles, breach boundaries for seamless communication, and empower the public to become active participants in emergency communications. Our research is based on qualitative case studies on emergency communications, workshops with public safety agencies, and a comparative analysis of interoperability issues in the European public sector. This article features a conceptual approach toward proposing a way in which public safety agencies can achieve optimal interoperability and thereby enable seamless communication and crowdsourcing in emergency prevention and response

Studies on heavy metal resistance of bacterial isolates from a former uranium mining area

Es gibt nur wenige Untersuchungen, die sich mit der Metallresistenz von Gram-positiven Bakterien und insbesondere mit der ökologisch sehr wichtigen Gruppe der Actinobakterien befassen. Häufig zielen Studien, die sich mit Resistenzmechanismen beschäftigen, auf Einzelprozesse wie bspw. Kationenefflux-Transport ab. Häufig lösen Stressoren aber eine Vielzahl von Reaktionen aus. Die vorgestellten Untersuchungen zur Metallresistenz von Aktinobakterien verbinden aus diesem Grunde drei verschiedene Mechanismen der Detoxifizierung: Intrazelluläre Sequestrierung von Metallen, Immobilisierung von Metallen an der Zellwand und Exkretion von Chelatbildnern in das Millieu. Bergbaugebiete, in denen jahrzehntelang Erzgewinnung erfolgt ist, stellen ideale Untersuchungsflächen für Forschungsprojekte über Metall-Mikroorganismus-Interaktionen dar. Die Gewinnung von 124 Mio t Uranerz innerhalb einer Fläche von 74 km2 der Ronneburger Lagerstätte in Ostthüringen führte zur großflächigen Entstehung von metallhaltigen Habitaten. Nickel ist ein häufiges Begleitmetall von Uranerzen; es kommt in Konzentrationen bis zu 2000 ppm im Haldenmaterial dieses Bergbaugebietes vor. Die große Anzahl von Abraumhalden mit einem Gesamtvolumen von 140 Mio t verursachte die Bildung saurer Bergbauabwässer, die über den Wasserpfad in Verbindung mit den Mikrobenpopulationen der Habitate stehen