Data Science and Ebola

Data Science---Today, everybody and everything produces data. People produce large amounts of data in social networks and in commercial transactions. Medical, corporate, and government databases continue to grow. Sensors continue to get cheaper and are increasingly connected, creating an Internet of Things, and generating even more data. In every discipline, large, diverse, and rich data sets are emerging, from astrophysics, to the life sciences, to the behavioral sciences, to finance and commerce, to the humanities and to the arts. In every discipline people want to organize, analyze, optimize and understand their data to answer questions and to deepen insights. The science that is transforming this ocean of data into a sea of knowledge is called data science. This lecture will discuss how data science has changed the way in which one of the most visible challenges to public health is handled, the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.Comment: Inaugural lecture Leiden Universit

Statistical properties of polarized CMB foreground maps

Foreground removal techniques for CMB analyses make specific assumptions about the properties of foregrounds in temperature and in polarization. By investigating the statistics of foreground components more understanding about the degree to which these assumptions are valid can be obtained. In this work we investigate $E$- and $B$-mode maps of the two strongest polarized foregrounds, synchrotron and thermal dust emission, with regards to their similarity with Gaussian processes, their spectral variations and cross-correlations. We perform tests in patches of $\sim3.7^\circ$ size collectively covering the full sky and find most of them to conform with their Gaussian expectation according to the statistics in use. Correlations exhibit distinct differences in $E$- and $B$-mode signals which point towards necessities in foreground removal methods. We discuss potential consequences and possible further directions.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. v3: Complementary results added, esp. in Appendix. Accepted by MNRA

Crowd-Sourcing Fuzzy and Faceted Classification for Concept Search

Searching for concepts in science and technology is often a difficult task. To facilitate concept search, different types of human-generated metadata have been created to define the content of scientific and technical disclosures. Classification schemes such as the International Patent Classification (IPC) and MEDLINE's MeSH are structured and controlled, but require trained experts and central management to restrict ambiguity (Mork, 2013). While unstructured tags of folksonomies can be processed to produce a degree of structure (Kalendar, 2010; Karampinas, 2012; Sarasua, 2012; Bragg, 2013) the freedom enjoyed by the crowd typically results in less precision (Stock 2007). Existing classification schemes suffer from inflexibility and ambiguity. Since humans understand language, inference, implication, abstraction and hence concepts better than computers, we propose to harness the collective wisdom of the crowd. To do so, we propose a novel classification scheme that is sufficiently intuitive for the crowd to use, yet powerful enough to facilitate search by analogy, and flexible enough to deal with ambiguity. The system will enhance existing classification information. Linking up with the semantic web and computer intelligence, a Citizen Science effort (Good, 2013) would support innovation by improving the quality of granted patents, reducing duplicitous research, and stimulating problem-oriented solution design. A prototype of our design is in preparation. A crowd-sourced fuzzy and faceted classification scheme will allow for better concept search and improved access to prior art in science and technology

The mediatization of journalism

Proposing an explanation of current macro-sociological changes and institutional transformations in journalism, this article argues that journalism is currently undergoing a process of mediatization. Drawing upon the international research literature as well as statements from interviews with news workers working on Danish news websites, the article examines four current trends in journalism that are closely connected to the rise of news on the web, namely the use of the affordances of news websites, radical commercialization, increased audience participation in news production, and the increased multi-skilling and simultaneous de-skilling of journalists. Taken together, these trends reflect a process through which journalism increasingly subsumes itself to the logic of the media, suggesting mediatization as an adequate explanatory framework. One implication of such a process is that journalism seems to be transforming from an occupational profession into an organizational one

'It is virtue and goodness only, that make the true beauty': understanding female beauty in the eighteenth century

This thesis addresses how female beauty was understood in the eighteenth century and aims to build on and expand the existing scholarship from Robert Jones, Tita Chico, Tassie Gwilliam, G. J. Barker-Benfield and Naomi Baker, amongst others. Each of these scholars has discussed various areas of beauty, including taste, cosmetics, sensibility, gender and, for Baker, the opposite to beauty, ugliness. Building on these areas of study, this thesis will address the concept of beauty in both its physical and moral sense. That is, the connection of the beautiful body with the ideas or associations it has come to signify. For example, the beautiful female body usually informs readings of virtue, morality, goodness, but, in some cases, beauty can be read as wantonness, immorality and foolishness. [Continues.]</div