On predictability of rare events leveraging social media: a machine learning perspective

Information extracted from social media streams has been leveraged to forecast the outcome of a large number of real-world events, from political elections to stock market fluctuations. An increasing amount of studies demonstrates how the analysis of social media conversations provides cheap access to the wisdom of the crowd. However, extents and contexts in which such forecasting power can be effectively leveraged are still unverified at least in a systematic way. It is also unclear how social-media-based predictions compare to those based on alternative information sources. To address these issues, here we develop a machine learning framework that leverages social media streams to automatically identify and predict the outcomes of soccer matches. We focus in particular on matches in which at least one of the possible outcomes is deemed as highly unlikely by professional bookmakers. We argue that sport events offer a systematic approach for testing the predictive power of social media, and allow to compare such power against the rigorous baselines set by external sources. Despite such strict baselines, our framework yields above 8% marginal profit when used to inform simple betting strategies. The system is based on real-time sentiment analysis and exploits data collected immediately before the games, allowing for informed bets. We discuss the rationale behind our approach, describe the learning framework, its prediction performance and the return it provides as compared to a set of betting strategies. To test our framework we use both historical Twitter data from the 2014 FIFA World Cup games, and real-time Twitter data collected by monitoring the conversations about all soccer matches of four major European tournaments (FA Premier League, Serie A, La Liga, and Bundesliga), and the 2014 UEFA Champions League, during the period between Oct. 25th 2014 and Nov. 26th 2014.Comment: 10 pages, 10 tables, 8 figure

Anotación morfosintáctica de la Web en portugués. Variedades nacionales, tipologías textuales y sistemas ortográficos

The great amount of text produced every day in the Web turned it as one of the main sources for obtaining linguistic corpora, that are further analyzed with Natural Language Processing techniques. On a global scale, languages such as Portuguese - official in 9 countries - appear on the Web in several varieties, with lexical, morphological and syntactic (among others) differences. Besides, a unified spelling system for Portuguese has been recently approved, and its implementation process has already started in some countries. However, it will last several years, so different varieties and spelling systems coexist. Since PoS-taggers for Portuguese are specifically built for a particular variety, this work analyzes different training corpora and lexica combinations aimed at building a model with high-precision annotation in several varieties and spelling systems of this language. Moreover, this paper presents different dictionaries of the new orthography (Spelling Agreement) as well as a new freely available testing corpus, containing different varieties and textual typologies.La gran cantidad de texto producido diariamente en la Web ha provocado que ésta sea utilizada como una de las principales fuentes para la obtención de corpus lingüísticos, posteriormente analizados utilizando técnicas de Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural. En una escala global, idiomas como el portugués – oficial en 9 estados - aparecen en la Web en diferentes variedades, con diferencias léxicas, morfológicas y sintácticas, entre otras. A esto se suma la reciente aprobación de una ortografía unificada para las diferentes variedades del portugués, cuyo proceso de implementación ya ha comenzado en varios países, pero que se prolongará todavía durante varios años, conviviendo por lo tanto también diferentes ortografías. Una vez que los etiquetadores morfosintácticos existentes para el portugués están adaptados específicamente para una variedad nacional concreta, el presente trabajo analiza diferentes combinaciones de corpus de aprendizaje y de léxicos con el fin de obtener un modelo que mantenga una alta precisión de anotación en diferentes variedades y ortografías de esta lengua. Además, se presentan diferentes diccionarios adaptados a la nueva ortografía (Acordo Ortográfico de 1990) y un nuevo corpus de evaluación con diferentes variedades y tipologías textuales, disponibilizado libremente.This work has been supported by the HPCPLN project - Ref: EM13/041 (Galician Government) and by the Celtic - Ref: 2012-CE138 and Plastic - Ref: 2013-CE298 projects (Feder-Interconnecta)

La termografía infrarroja: posibilidades y aplicación al estudio superficial de los materiales

Non-destructive measurement techniques are revealing themselves as a very important tool in the different fields or research due to their very own nature. The Materials team of ICCET is developing, since some time ago, the application of one of these techniques —specifically speaking, infrarred thermography— to the follow-up and quantification of the moisture present in the buildings of the Architectural Heritage. At all events, that technique can be applied to any physical phenomenon involving a variation of temperature or emissivity. This paper shows different possible applications of infrared thermography.Las técnicas de medida no destructivas se están perfilando como un elemento muy importante en los distintos campos de investigación por su propio carácter. El equipo de Materiales del ICCET está desarrollando, desde hace algún tiempo, la aplicación de una de estas técnicas; concretamente la termografía infrarroja al seguimiento y cuantificación de humedades presentes en edificios del Patrimonio Arquitectónico. De cualquier manera, dicha técnica puede ser aplicable a cualquier fenómeno físico que conlleve una variación de temperatura o emisividad. En el presente trabajo se muestran distintas posibilidades de aplicación de la Termografía Infrarroja

La radiación externa controlada como técnica de potenciación de las señales registradas con la termografía infrarroja

Infrared thermography is a very versatile non destructive technique which among other uses, can be applied to the study of moisture in buildings. However, this particular application can present some problems strictly related to the characteristics of the thermocamera device. In this case the available equipment works in the IR range of 2.5 to 5.6 μm. In this part of the spectrum, there exists a small and not very intense band of emission of the water molecules (approximately centered at 2.7 μm), in such a way that detection can be difficult through thermovision. In the present paper, a complementary technique to the IR thermography being able of favouring the emission of water on the mentioned band, has been developed. It enhances the capacity of detection of the instrument. Likewise, the process which takes place in the material has been numerically modelled.La termografía infrarroja es una técnica no destructiva, muy versátil, que, entre otras aplicaciones, tiene la de ser capaz de suministrar información en torno a la problemática de las humedades en la edificación. Sin embargo, esta aplicación concreta puede presentar algunos problemas directamente relacionados con las propias características de la termocámara utilizada. En el caso del presente trabajo el equipo de termografía infrarroja manejado trabaja en el rango del espectro IR comprendido entre 2,5 y 5,6 μm. En esta región del espectro existe una pequeña y no muy intensa banda de emisión de las moléculas de agua (aproximadamente centrada en 2,7 μm) cuya detección puede no ser fácil a través de la termovisión. En el presente trabajo se ha desarrollado una técnica complementaria a la termografía infrarroja que es capaz de favorecer la intensidad de emisión del agua en la región del espectro antes mencionada. En definitiva, dicha técnica estimula la capacidad de detección de la termocámara. Adicionalmente, el proceso hídrico que tiene lugar en el material ha sido numéricamente modelizado

Musical preferences and technologies: Contemporary material and symbolic distinctions criticised

Today how individuals interact with various cultural items is not perfectly consistent with theoretical frameworks of influential scholars on cultural consumption, such as Bourdieu (1984), Gans (1999), and Peterson and Simkus (1992). One such variation is in the ever increasing variety of technological modes to acquire and listen to music (Pinch and Bijsterveld, 2004). However, as a consequence of digital divides (van Dijk, 2006), technological items may not be distributed equally among social groups. At present, the value of status-making through a preference for different genres of music extends itself to different forms of consumption and ways of experiencing music. We are yet to fully understand the power these practices have on generating status. This article is therefore motivated by the need to integrate within quantitative frameworks of taste and cultural consumption, an analysis of individuals’ technological engagement. These two dimensions, integrated as components of musical practices, enhance our understanding of cultural boundaries across different social groups.The objective is to bridge a gap detected in the literature, addressing the following questions: Are technological modes to listen to music related to musical tastes

Increasing social complexity, climate change, and why societies might fail to cope

The PEOPLE 3000 working group focuses on integrating archaeological and paleoecological case studies with mathematical modeling. We seek to understand how coevolving human societies and ecosystems can successfully cope with the interrelated forces of population growth, increasing social complexity and climate change, and the diversity of trajectories of reorganization that social-ecological systems follow.Fil: Byers, David A.. State University of Utah; Estados UnidosFil: Lima, M.. State University of Utah; Estados UnidosFil: Gil, Adolfo Fabian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales; Argentina. Universidad Tecnologica Nacional. Facultad Regional San Rafael; ArgentinaFil: Gayo, E.. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; ChileFil: Latorre, C.. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; ChileFil: Robinson, Erick. University Of Wyoming; Estados UnidosFil: Villalba, R.. Universidad Tecnologica Nacional. Facultad Regional San Rafael; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales; Argentin

The effect of paricalcitolon dialysate protein loss in peritoneal dialysis patients

Ever since peritoneal dialysis (PD) has been used in the treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD), high peritoneal protein loss has been observed on each PD exchange. In adult patients, the loss has been estimated at 6 to 13 g daily. Paricalcitol, a selective activator of vitamin D receptors (VDR), is successfully used as a treatment of hyperparathyroidism secondary to CKD. In addition, it has been proposed for reducing proteinuria in patients with CKD. Nonetheless, little is known about its effect on peritoneal protein loss (PPL) in patients on PD, namely after the identification of VDRon the peritoneal membrane. The aim of this study wasto examine the effect of paricalcitol on PPL in PD patients

Synchronization of Energy Consumption By Human Societies Throughout the Holocene

We conduct a global comparison of the consumption of energy by human populations throughout the Holocene and statistically quantify coincident changes in the consumption of energy over space and time—an ecological phenomenon known as synchrony. When populations synchronize, adverse changes in ecosystems and social systems may cascade from society to society. Thus, to develop policies that favor the sustained use of resources, we must understand the processes that cause the synchrony of human populations. To date, it is not clear whether human societies display long-term synchrony or, if they do, the potential causes. Our analysis begins to fill this knowledge gap by quantifying the long-term synchrony of human societies, and we hypothesize that the synchrony of human populations results from (i) the creation of social ties that couple populations over smaller scales and (ii) much larger scale, globally convergent trajectories of cultural evolution toward more energy-consuming political economies with higher carrying capacities. Our results suggest that the process of globalization is a natural consequence of evolutionary trajectories that increase the carrying capacities of human societies

Beating the news using social media: the case study of American Idol

We present a contribution to the debate on the predictability of social events using big data analytics. We focus on the elimination of contestants in the American Idol TV shows as an example of a well defined electoral phenomenon that each week draws millions of votes in the USA. This event can be considered as basic test in a simplified environment to assess the predictive power of Twitter signals. We provide evidence that Twitter activity during the time span defined by the TV show airing and the voting period following it correlates with the contestants ranking and allows the anticipation of the voting outcome. Twitter data from the show and the voting period of the season finale have been analyzed to attempt the winner prediction ahead of the airing of the official result. We also show that the fraction of tweets that contain geolocation information allows us to map the fanbase of each contestant, both within the US and abroad, showing that strong regional polarizations occur. The geolocalized data are crucial for the correct prediction of the final outcome of the show, pointing out the importance of considering information beyond the aggregated Twitter signal. Although American Idol voting is just a minimal and simplified version of complex societal phenomena such as political elections, this work shows that the volume of information available in online systems permits the real time gathering of quantitative indicators that may be able to anticipate the future unfolding of opinion formation events

Synchronization of Energy Consumption By Human Societies Throughout the Holocene

We conduct a global comparison of the consumption of energy by human populations throughout the Holocene and statistically quantify coincident changes in the consumption of energy over space and time—an ecological phenomenon known as synchrony. When populations synchronize, adverse changes in ecosystems and social systems may cascade from society to society. Thus, to develop policies that favor the sustained use of resources, we must understand the processes that cause the synchrony of human populations. To date, it is not clear whether human societies display long-term synchrony or, if they do, the potential causes. Our analysis begins to fill this knowledge gap by quantifying the long-term synchrony of human societies, and we hypothesize that the synchrony of human populations results from (i) the creation of social ties that couple populations over smaller scales and (ii) much larger scale, globally convergent trajectories of cultural evolution toward more energy-consuming political economies with higher carrying capacities. Our results suggest that the process of globalization is a natural consequence of evolutionary trajectories that increase the carrying capacities of human societies