Incorporating Context and Location Into Social Media Analysis: A Scalable, Cloud-Based Approach for More Powerful Data Science

Dominated by quantitative data science techniques, social media data analysis often fails to incorporate the surrounding context, conversation, and metadata that allows for more complete, accurate, and informed analysis. Here we describe the development of a scalable data collection infrastructure to interrogate massive amounts of tweets—including complete user conversations—to perform contextualized social media analysis. Additionally, we discuss the nuances of location metadata and incorporate it when available to situate the user conversations within geographic context through an interactive map. The map also spatially clusters tweets to identify important locations and movement between them, illuminating specific behavior, like evacuating before a hurricane. We share performance details, the promising results of concurrent research utilizing this infrastructure, and discuss the challenges and ethics of using context-rich datasets

Contributor-Centric Analytics For OpenStreetMap: Approaches To Full Stack, Metadata-Driven Analysis Infrastructure For An Open Geospatial Data Platform

OpenStreetMap (OSM), the free and editable map of the world&mdash;whose data is consumed by technology platforms, social media users, news media, global disaster responders, and many more&mdash;is much more than a simple digital map. With over 1M contributors, OSM is an active online community of hobbyists, humanitarians, professional geographers, and others who grow and curate a massive collection of spatial information. The map itself is a constantly evolving database of billions of points that describe our physical world, often being the most complete or even only source of geographic information for many parts of the world. The data that can be analyzed is abundant, and yet conducting these analyses is difficult, especially for thorny questions about data quality. Contributor-centric analysis approaches re-imagine OSM data analysis beginning with the bottom of the stack to prioritize the metadata about the individual edit which preserves data provenance and allows analysts to interrogate the history of the map&rsquo;s evolution. These representations enable new scalable data processing workflows that drive improved data visualizations, allowing for more meaningful, contextualized interpretations of the evolution of the map. This dissertation explores these analytical advantages by viewing OpenStreetMap not as a map, nor simply a geospatial database, but rather as the culmination of edits to hundreds of millions of objects that represent our physical world. I trace my development of OSM data analysis systems across three previous iterations and discuss the subsequent empirical research that each iteration supported. This culminates with the presentation of a fourth analytical framework and data schema capable of capturing the complete editing history and evolution of the map at a global scale.</p

Does Institutional Context Affect CSR Disclosure? A Study on Eurostoxx 50

We propose to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure and institutional/environmental factors among a sample of European listed companies. We find that, by using several traditional explicative variables, institutional factors affect the level of CSR disclosure, in a context where the EU Commission has been paying growing attention to social and environmental accountability of listed companies (see the EU Dir. 95/2014). Our findings are further supported by multivariate regression, where ESG score (measure of CSR disclosure) is regressed on nine variables which represent the expression of institutional factors. By looking at the institutional determinants of CSR disclosure, we are seeking to pose a challenge for future research agenda, in order to understand whether CSR does actually reflect an effective commitment of firms to accounting practices and rules, as a form of social behavior, or whether it is just a tool to manage stakeholders’ perception and to comply with regulation

A High Performance H2-Cl2 Fuel Cell for Space Power Applications

NASA has numerous airborne/spaceborne applications for which high power and energy density power sources are needed. The proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is an attractive candidate for such a power source. PEMFC's offer many advantages for airborne/spaceborne applications. They have high power and energy densities, convert fuel to electrical power with high efficiency at both part and full load, and can rapidly startup and shutdown. In addition, PEMFC's are lightweight and operate silently. A significant impediment to the attainment of very high power and energy densities by PEMFC's is their current exclusive reliance on oxygen as the oxidant. Conventional PEMFC's oxidize hydrogen at the anode and reduce oxygen at the cathode. The electrode kinetics of oxygen reduction are known to be highly irreversible, incurring large overpotential losses. In addition, the modest open circuit potential of 1.2V for the H2-O2 fuel cell is unattainable due to mixed potential effects at the oxygen electrode. Because of the high overpotential losses, cells using H2 and O2 are capable of achieving high current densities only at very low cell voltages, greatly curtailing their power output. Based on experimental work on chlorine reduction in a gas diffusion electrode, we believe significant increases in both the energy and power densities of PEMFC systems can be achieved by employing chlorine as an alternative oxidant

Results of a Manned Over Pressurization Event in the Extravehicular Mobility Unit Space Suit Assembly

The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) is a 102 x 202 x 40-foot-deep tank holding over 6 million gallons of water used to simulate weightlessness for Astronaut training. The maxim "Train Like You Fly" refers to the desire to have the suit perform, during training, as close as possible to how it performs during an Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA), particularly with respect to mobility. Therefore, the Space Suit Assembly (SSA) used in the NBL is a downgraded hardware version of the flight SSA; it is not designed for the NBL environment or operations. A classification system defines the flight Space Suit Assembly hardware as Class I, and the NBL training hardware SSA as Class IIIW. On July 20, 2017, during a manned training event in the NBL, the SSA was inadvertently over-pressurized to 22 psid; normal operating pressure being 4.3 psid. The suit subject was removed from the suit with no injury. The event was investigated by a NASA Mishap Team. The Team investigated common causes and differences between the Class I and Class IIIW Extra-vehicular Mobility Unit (EMU). The investigation determined that the event was limited to Class IIIW hardware and its external flow-controlled open loop ventilation systems. The flight EMU is a pressure regulated closed loop ventilation system. This paper will examine the differences between the Class I and Class IIIW SSA hardware and provide details of the Mishap Investigation. Corrective actions taken to mitigate risk with hardware, operations, and hazard documentation will be discussed

Corporate Editors in the Evolving Landscape of OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap (OSM), the largest Volunteered Geographic Information project in the world, is characterized both by its map as well as the active community of the millions of mappers who produce it. The discourse about participation in the OSM community largely focuses on the motivations for why members contribute map data and the resulting data quality. Recently, large corporations including Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook have been hiring editors to contribute to the OSM database. In this article, we explore the influence these corporate editors are having on the map by first considering the history of corporate involvement in the community and then analyzing historical quarterly-snapshot OSM-QA-Tiles to show where and what these corporate editors are mapping. Cumulatively, millions of corporate edits have a global footprint, but corporations vary in geographic reach, edit types, and quantity. While corporations currently have a major impact on road networks, non-corporate mappers edit more buildings and points-of-interest: representing the majority of all edits, on average. Since corporate editing represents the latest stage in the evolution of corporate involvement, we raise questions about how the OSM community&mdash;and researchers&mdash;might proceed as corporate editing grows and evolves as a mechanism for expanding the map for multiple uses. View Full-Text</div

Colorado Native Plant Society Newsletter, Vol. 9 No. 1, January-February 1984

The Colorado Native Plant Society Newsletter will be published on a bimonthly basis. The contents will consist primarily of a calendar of events, notes of interest, editorials, listings of new members and conservation news. Until there is a Society journal, the Newsletter will include short articles also. The deadline for the Newsletter is one month prior to its release.https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1023/thumbnail.jp