Big Data and Business Intelligence: Debunking the Myths

Big data is one of the most discussed, and possibly least understood, terms in use in business today. Big data is said to offer not only unprecedented levels of business intelligence concerning the habits of consumers and rivals, but also to herald a revolution in the way in which business are organized and run. However, big data is not as straightforward as it might seem, particularly when it comes to the so-called dark data from social media. It is not simply the quantity of data that has changed, it is also the speed and the variety of formats with which it is delivered. This article sets out to look at big data and debunk some of the myths that surround it. It focuses on the role of data from social media in particular and highlights two common myths about big data. The first is that because a data set contains billions of items, traditional methodological issues no longer matter. The second is the belief that big data is both a complete and unbiased source of data upon which to base decisions

Data and the Human

Syllabus, course schedule, and major assignments for "Data and the Human" (HON 202-006), an interdisciplinary honors seminar offered in Fall 2020 at NC State University

Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future : The Potential of Digital Archaeology

Mobilizing the Past is a collection of 20 articles that explore the use and impact of mobile digital technology in archaeological field practice. The detailed case studies present in this volume range from drones in the Andes to iPads at Pompeii, digital workflows in the American Southwest, and examples of how bespoke, DIY, and commercial software provide solutions and craft novel challenges for field archaeologists. The range of projects and contexts ensures that Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future is far more than a state-of-the-field manual or technical handbook. Instead, the contributors embrace the growing spirit of critique present in digital archaeology. This critical edge, backed by real projects, systems, and experiences, gives the book lasting value as both a glimpse into present practices as well as the anxieties and enthusiasm associated with the most recent generation of mobile digital tools. This book emerged from a workshop funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities held in 2015 at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. The workshop brought together over 20 leading practitioners of digital archaeology in the U.S. for a weekend of conversation. The papers in this volume reflect the discussions at this workshop with significant additional content. Starting with an expansive introduction and concluding with a series of reflective papers, this volume illustrates how tablets, connectivity, sophisticated software, and powerful computers have transformed field practices and offer potential for a radically transformed discipline.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1000/thumbnail.jp

Legacy - December 1999

Legacy is the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA) newsletter, published two to three times a year. It contains brief descriptions of ongoing or recently completed projects. Legacy also provides updates on SCIAA involvement in conferences, publications, and public outreach initiatives. This newsletter, begun in 1992, was originally called PastWatch but was renamed Legacy in 1996

Grand Tour – a film in-debt(ed): Exploring the possibilities of the essayistic filmmaking form.

This practice-as-research thesis concentrates on the field of essayistic filmmaking. Through my practice and the written thesis, I explore how the montage of interwoven layers of images, sound, interactivity and networking connectivity can potentially expand the conventions of essayistic filmmaking practice. At the heart of my research is the creative practice of researching and developing an online essay film, Grand Tour a film in-debt(ed). The film explores an alternative reading of the recent Greek financial crisis without explicitly addressing the crisis, but in the tradition of essayistic filmmaking, by exploring the disjunctive threads that make links with the past and open the present to new interpretations. The development of Grand Tour is grounded in multiple iterative prototypes. Based on this incremental research process, I explore the possibilities of multiple interwoven layers of montage and the new creative potentials this creates for essayistic filmmaking practice. I define the montage of multiple interwoven temporalities as metabatic, and through the practice of developing Grand Tour, I suggest an alternative way of thinking about the recent Greek financial crisis which challenges the dominant narratives. My inspiration for developing Grand Tour is drawn from the writings of European travellers who visited Greece in the 18th and 19th centuries. For more than eight years I immersed myself in extensive archival research and developed several online film prototypes. Through this research I understood the role that these travellers had in the formation of the emerging modern Greek identity and explored their links to subsequent political and financial interventions and the accumulation of debt in the modern Greek state. Following the essayistic filmmaking tradition, I dialectically associate the financial debt with the cultural debt of ancient Greece, suggesting modes of ambiguity and speculative thinking that describe Greece as a place in a constantly disjointed state, defined by a series of fragmented political, economic and cultural past and present encounters. The creative process of my practice is a montage of multiple disjunctive fragments where linearity is constantly disrupted. My iterative creative practice and the disjunctive nature of the film do not offer specific answers and fixed interpretations. Instead, they suggest and explore questions, and enable new essayistic threads, that challenge the current limited narratives about the Greek financial crisis

The Public Value of the Humanities

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Recession is a time for asking fundamental questions about value. At a time when governments are being forced to make swingeing savings in public expenditure, why should they continue to invest public money funding research into ancient Greek tragedy, literary value, philosophical conundrums or the aesthetics of design? Does such research deliver 'value for money' and 'public benefit'? Such questions have become especially pertinent in the UK in recent years, in the context of the drive by government to instrumentalize research across the disciplines and the prominence of discussions about ‘economic impact' and 'knowledge transfer'. In this book a group of distinguished humanities researchers, all working in Britain, but publishing research of international importance, reflect on the public value of their discipline, using particular research projects as case-studies. Their essays are passionate, sometimes polemical, often witty and consistently thought-provoking, covering a range of humanities disciplines from theology to architecture and from media studies to anthropology

Aboriginal-European interaction on the Queensland frontier: an archaeological study of the Boralga native police camp, Cape York Peninsula

This research examines the multiple elements of daily frontier life at the Native Mounted Police (NMP) camp at Boralga in Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. The everyday domestic function of NMP camps provided the means for paramilitary government forces to carry out sanctioned violence against Aboriginal peoples for over half a century. To date, only a small portion of the historical record and published accounts of Aboriginal-European frontier conflict in Australia has included an archaeological component. Documents regarding the daily lives of the Aboriginal troopers are rare, possibly because this type of information was intentionally omitted, destroyed or simply deemed irrelevant. Information regarding the troopers’ cultural identities, domestic and working conditions, hierarchical and collaborative relationships with the European officers, as well as the role of women and how they came to be present at the camps, are overlooked aspects of the NMP. This research investigates activities within the domestic space of an NMP camp by examining the archaeological signature of what now constitutes the most visible physical remains of conflict on the frontier. This study demonstrates that although Aboriginal social and cultural identity was impacted to some degree by exposure to European domestic objects, identity was upheld through maintaining aspects of their own culture, thus creating a sense of place that held some meaning and value. Even though an adherence to strict European ‘civilisation’ and military standards was expected, the preservation of various cultural practices was maintained by the troopers (and possibly their wives) by turning non-traditional objects into traditional forms, and by continuing to hunt native fauna using their own methods, most likely to supplement insufficient food rations. Various personal items indicated the presence of Aboriginal women and children residing at the camp, thus shaping personal relationships and the expression of the domestic space. However definitive archaeological evidence confirming the nature of relationships between the officers and the troopers at Boralga proved inconclusive. Most archaeological findings at the study site confirmed historical accounts, and although current spatial arrangements of the structures were inconsistent with the original historical plans, the material evidence associated with specific buildings correlated with most structures identified in the latest survey. It is considered that this research will provide a more holistic contextualisation with which to augment the already established oral testimonies and historic information regarding life on the Queensland frontier

The Public Value of the Humanities

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Recession is a time for asking fundamental questions about value. At a time when governments are being forced to make swingeing savings in public expenditure, why should they continue to invest public money funding research into ancient Greek tragedy, literary value, philosophical conundrums or the aesthetics of design? Does such research deliver 'value for money' and 'public benefit'? Such questions have become especially pertinent in the UK in recent years, in the context of the drive by government to instrumentalize research across the disciplines and the prominence of discussions about ‘economic impact' and 'knowledge transfer'. In this book a group of distinguished humanities researchers, all working in Britain, but publishing research of international importance, reflect on the public value of their discipline, using particular research projects as case-studies. Their essays are passionate, sometimes polemical, often witty and consistently thought-provoking, covering a range of humanities disciplines from theology to architecture and from media studies to anthropology