End-to-End Entity Resolution for Big Data: A Survey

One of the most important tasks for improving data quality and the reliability of data analytics results is Entity Resolution (ER). ER aims to identify different descriptions that refer to the same real-world entity, and remains a challenging problem. While previous works have studied specific aspects of ER (and mostly in traditional settings), in this survey, we provide for the first time an end-to-end view of modern ER workflows, and of the novel aspects of entity indexing and matching methods in order to cope with more than one of the Big Data characteristics simultaneously. We present the basic concepts, processing steps and execution strategies that have been proposed by different communities, i.e., database, semantic Web and machine learning, in order to cope with the loose structuredness, extreme diversity, high speed and large scale of entity descriptions used by real-world applications. Finally, we provide a synthetic discussion of the existing approaches, and conclude with a detailed presentation of open research directions

A Multiple Perspective Approach Towards the Assessment and Development of Expert Systems in Manufacturing. Volume 1

Current approaches to technology innovation often fail because they are conceived and assessed from a single perspective or dimension. Thus, current considerations in expert systems development are characterised by a strong focus upon the technology and technical issues without a prior process of wider appraisal and technology assessment. A central theme of this study is that the business, organisational and human factors, which determine how effectively the technology will be used in practice, must be an integral part of the assessment process. The thesis describes a ‘multiple perspective approach’ to technology assessment applied to expert systems innovation in a large manufacturing organisation. This research therefore embraces detailed technical, organisational and individual perspectives of expert systems assessment and development and describes how each perspective adds new concepts, methods and tools. In practice, this has meant modelling activities and information flows in a two-site manufacturing organisation, the identification of a variety of potential areas for expert systems development, the narrowing down and selection of particular areas according to technical, organisational, business and personal criteria, and the eventual design, development, ‘operationalisation’ and evaluation of a single application. This study is placed in a wider context by complementary analyses of other manufacturing users and suppliers of expert systems. The work aims to contribute towards an understanding of expert systems innovation and to improved methodologies for technology assessment and technology transfer.Ph

Distribution, causes and nature of natural landslides in Devon and Cornwall

Between 1985 and 1990 a computerised database was assembled that contains information concerning the distribution and nature of 9000 landslides in Great Britain. The South West accounts for 1,700 of the listed slope failures. Problems have arisen because in many areas the database merely serves as an archive of previous studies and is not a true representation of landsliding in an area. The aim of this research was to identify landslide environments correlated with landslide frequency and character and through this develop a landslide susceptibility map. Analyses were undertaken so that distinct inland and coastal landslide environments could be defined. These landslide environments characterised the likely extent and type of landslides that would occur in each land system. In order to compile data over such a large region a land systems approach was taken to characterise areas where the geological and geomorphological conditions were similar. The methods used for primary data collection were aerial photograph interpretation, airborne thematic mapper data, terrain evaluation and limited field mapping for ground truthing purposes. This landslide susceptibility map used probability to assess the relative importance of parameters important to slope stability. The landslide susceptibility map, along with the landslide environments, highlighted areas were landsliding was more prevalent as well as identifying areas where landsliding is less likely to occur. Two landslide environments were identified as being particularly susceptible to landsliding, and this was primarily related to geological conditions. It was found that within environments changes in topography also acted as a strong control on the nature and extent of landsliding. It is anticipated that the method used for assessing landslide susceptibility could have widespread application in all GIS based landslide studies and can be used to develop the potential of the complete UK landslide database, once the rest of the original data have been updated.the British Geological Survey in conjunction with the University of Plymout