Batch kernel SOM and related Laplacian methods for social network analysis

Large graphs are natural mathematical models for describing the structure of the data in a wide variety of fields, such as web mining, social networks, information retrieval, biological networks, etc. For all these applications, automatic tools are required to get a synthetic view of the graph and to reach a good understanding of the underlying problem. In particular, discovering groups of tightly connected vertices and understanding the relations between those groups is very important in practice. This paper shows how a kernel version of the batch Self Organizing Map can be used to achieve these goals via kernels derived from the Laplacian matrix of the graph, especially when it is used in conjunction with more classical methods based on the spectral analysis of the graph. The proposed method is used to explore the structure of a medieval social network modeled through a weighted graph that has been directly built from a large corpus of agrarian contracts

Building Information Modeling and Historic Buildings: How a Living Model Leads to Better Stewardship of the Past

This thesis examines an alternative way of documenting historic buildings through the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM). By creating a model that responds to real-time data updates and serves as a central repository for information about a building, owners, operators and preservation professionals can better monitor conditions within a building and plan for its future. A model can catalogue every element and assembly, providing an inventory of the building’s parts. By assigning phases to past building campaigns, professionals gain a better understanding of a site’s chronology. Simulation of energy and water consumption assists professionals in becoming stewards of both historic and environmental resources. This thesis demonstrates that BIM is an appropriate, and advantageous, documentation method for historic buildings. The documentation of historic sites is focused on these primary activities: the capture of information about a site and the organization, interpretation, and management of that information. The requirements for documentation - measured drawings, a written narrative and large-format black and white photographs - remain the same. This method does not account for one major factor: change. It cannot respond to changes, renovations, and repairs. It does not serve as an up-to-date reference for understanding the current state of a building. Historic buildings face many challenges to their survival, often due to a lack of information about them. BIM leads to a more informed and more relevant historic structure report

Visual-Interactive Analysis With Self-Organizing Maps - Advances and Research Challenges

Based on the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) algorithm, development of effective solutions for visual analysis and retrieval in complex data is possible. Example application domains include retrieval in multimedia data bases, and analysis in financial, text, and general high-dimensional data sets. While early work defined basic concepts for data representation and visual mappings for SOM-based analysis, recent work contributed advanced visual representations of the output of the SOM algorithm, and explored innovative application concepts

HSLIC Annual Report FY2017-18

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hslic-annual-reports/1041/thumbnail.jp

Mapping the unseen: making sense of the subjective image.

It used to be thought that photography, as a kind of automatic mapping, could provide an objective view of the world. Now we are aware of the power of framing and other interventions between what is 'out there' and what is captured in depiction. Perhaps even perception, let alone depiction, shares this subjectivity? The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that different cultures actually see the world in different ways, as evidenced and influenced by concepts in their languages – though this idea has been derided, for example by Pinker. A key difficulty is that the word subjectivity is bandied about without care for its different meanings and without distinguishing the many forms it takes in the graphic image. If into this muddle we introduce the idea of interactivity, still greater confusion easily follows. The chapter brings some order to different kinds and levels of subjectivity by documenting how they are reflected in forms of graphical mapping. In the process, it becomes clear how significant is the change in media technologies from those bound by the conventional rectangles of the page and screen to media which are interactive, pervasive, multimodal, physical and social

Rare books as historical objects: a case study of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library rare books collection

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2015Once upon a time all the books in the Arctic were rare books, incomparable treasures to the men and women who carried them around the world. Few of these tangible remnants of the past have managed to survive the ravages of time, preserved in libraries and special collections. This thesis analyzes the over 22,000-item rare book collection of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the largest collection of rare books in the State of Alaska and one of the largest polar regions collections in the world. Content, chronology, authorship, design, and relevance to northern and polar history were a few of the criteria used to evaluate the collection. Twenty items of particular value to the study of Alaskan history were selected and studied in depth. The collection not only reflects the social, political and economic development of Alaska, but also the interests, personalities and expertise of collectors and authors, including works owned or written by key individuals in Alaska history, such as Hieromonk Gideon, Ivan Veniaminov, Ivan Pan’kov, Iakov Netsvietov, Kiril Khlebnikov, Hubert Howe Bancroft, George Davidson, Hudson Stuck, Sheldon Jackson, James Wickersham, Charles Bunnell, Alfred H. Brooks and others. Accident and happenstance also played a role in filling the shelves. There are more mysteries than answers—why some of these particular works resisted hundreds of years of neglect, cold, flood, and fire can never be known. While some books have no marks, no identifiable owners or traceable past, the provenance of others makes them unique. Sometimes the story behind the story is the story.Chapter 1: Rare Books Studies: Methodological Discussion -- 1.1 Historical Research Based on Libraries -- 1.2 Research Statement -- 1.3 Description of the Data – The Elmer E. Rasmuson Library Rare Books Collection -- 1.4 Defining Rare Books and Their Roles in Library Collections -- 1.5 Structure of a Book -- 1.6 Book Materials -- 1.7 Methodological Conclusion -- Chapter 2: The Book in Alaska -- 2.1 Arctic and Antarctic Books as Travelers -- 2.2 Arctic and Antarctic Libraries as Travelers: Ship Publishing, Ship Libraries -- 2.3 First Books in Alaska -- 2.4 Nikolai Rezanov’s View of the Enlightenment -- 2.5 The Kodiak Library -- 2.6 The Sitka Library -- 2.7 The Sitka Museum -- 2.8 Ivan Veniaminov: Language Studies and the Sitka Seminary -- 2.9 Educated “Americans”: The Case of Ivan Pan’kov -- 2.10 RAC Officials and Missionaries: The Necessity of Bilingual Communication -- 2.11 The Educational Backgrounds of Russian American Governors -- 2.12 Conclusion -- Chapter 3: Missionaries, Prospectors, and Collectors -- 3.1 Early American Era: The Battle of School Books -- 3.2 American-Era Missionaries: Books, Reading, Literacy -- 3.3 Gold Rushes in Alaska and the Yukon: Illusion and Ephemera -- 3.4 Missionary Periodicals at the Time of the Alaska Gold Rushes -- 3.5 Periodicals Exchanges, Reading Rooms and Libraries during the Late Nineteenth – Early Twentieth Century -- 3.6 Collectors of Alaskana and Alaskan Collectors of Rarities -- 3.6.1 The Challenges of Rare Book Collecting in Alaska -- 3.6.2 The Bancroft Library -- 3.6.3 The George Davidson Library -- 3.6.4 The James Wickersham Library -- 3.6.5 The Clarence L. Andrews Library -- 3.6.6 Valerian Lada-Mocarski Library -- 3.6.7 Women in Book Collecting: Laura K. Lada-Mocarski -- 3.7 Conclusion -- Chapter 4: Rare Books as Historical Objects, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library Rare Books Collection -- 4.1 History of the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library and Its Rare Books Collection -- 4.2 Study of the Rare Books Sample, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library Rare Book Collection -- 4.2.1 Books in Russian Published before 1867 -- 4.2.2 Books in English Published before 1867 -- 4.2.3 Books in English Published after 1867 -- 4.2.4 Books in Alaska Native Languages Published after 1867 -- 4.2.5 Nineteenth-Century Missionary Literature -- 4.2.6 Nineteenth-Century Writings by U.S. Government Officials -- 4.2.7 Nineteenth-Century U.S. Exploration Literature -- 4.2.8 Twentieth-Century U.S. Exploration Literature -- 4.2.9 Gold Rush Literature -- 4.2.10 Twentieth-Century Business Literature -- 4.2.11 Late Nineteenth-Early Twentieth Century Periodicals -- 4.2.12 World War II Literature -- 4.2.13 Rare Books Sample: Summary -- Conclusion -- Literature cited

Improving self-organising information maps as navigational tools: A semantic approach

Purpose - The goal of the research is to explore whether the use of higher-level semantic features can help us to build better self-organising map (SOM) representation as measured from a human-centred perspective. The authors also explore an automatic evaluation method that utilises human expert knowledge encapsulated in the structure of traditional textbooks to determine map representation quality. Design/methodology/approach - Two types of document representations involving semantic features have been explored - i.e. using only one individual semantic feature, and mixing a semantic feature with keywords. Experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of semantic representation quality on the map. The experiments were performed on data collections from a single book corpus and a multiple book corpus. Findings - Combining keywords with certain semantic features achieves significant improvement of representation quality over the keywords-only approach in a relatively homogeneous single book corpus. Changing the ratios in combining different features also affects the performance. While semantic mixtures can work well in a single book corpus, they lose their advantages over keywords in the multiple book corpus. This raises a concern about whether the semantic representations in the multiple book corpus are homogeneous and coherent enough for applying semantic features. The terminology issue among textbooks affects the ability of the SOM to generate a high quality map for heterogeneous collections. Originality/value - The authors explored the use of higher-level document representation features for the development of better quality SOM. In addition the authors have piloted a specific method for evaluating the SOM quality based on the organisation of information content in the map. © 2011 Emerald Group Publishing Limited