Lost or found? Discovering data needed for research

Finding data is a necessary precursor to being able to reuse data, although relatively little large-scale empirical evidence exists about how researchers discover, make sense of and (re)use data for research. This study presents evidence from the largest known survey investigating how researchers discover and use data that they do not create themselves. We examine the data needs and discovery strategies of respondents, propose a typology for data reuse and probe the role of social interactions and literature search in data discovery. We consider how data communities can be conceptualized according to data uses and propose practical applications of our findings for designers of data discovery systems and repositories. Specifically, we consider how to design for a diversity of practices, how communities of use can serve as an entry point for design and the role of metadata in supporting both sensemaking and social interactions.Comment: Harvard Data Science Review (2020

Understanding Data Search as a Socio-technical Practice

Open research data are heralded as having the potential to increase effectiveness, productivity, and reproducibility in science, but little is known about the actual practices involved in data search. The socio-technical problem of locating data for reuse is often reduced to the technological dimension of designing data search systems. We combine a bibliometric study of the current academic discourse around data search with interviews with data seekers. In this article, we explore how adopting a contextual, socio-technical perspective can help to understand user practices and behavior and ultimately help to improve the design of data discovery systems.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, 7 table

Uncertainty-aware Flexibility Envelope Prediction in Buildings with Controller-agnostic Battery Models

Buildings are a promising source of flexibility for the application of demand response. In this work, we introduce a novel battery model formulation to capture the state evolution of a single building. Being fully data-driven, the battery model identification requires one dataset from a period of nominal controller operation, and one from a period with flexibility requests, without making any assumptions on the underlying controller structure. We consider parameter uncertainty in the model formulation and show how to use risk measures to encode risk preferences of the user in robust uncertainty sets. Finally, we demonstrate the uncertainty-aware prediction of flexibility envelopes for a building simulation model from the Python library Energym.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to the 2023 American Control Conference (ACC

A visit to Biotopia: genre, genetics and gardening in the early twentieth century

The early decades of the twentieth century were marked by widespread optimism about biology and its ability to improve the world. A major catalyst for this enthusiasm was new theories about inheritance and evolution (particularly Hugo de Vries's mutation theory and Mendel's newly rediscovered ideas). In Britain and the USA particularly, an astonishingly diverse variety of writers (from elite scientists to journalists and writers of fiction) took up the task of interpreting these new biological ideas, using a wide range of genres to help their fellow citizens make sense of biology's promise. From these miscellaneous writings a new and distinctive kind of utopianism emerged – the biotopia. Biotopias offered the dream of a perfect, post-natural world, or the nightmare of violated nature (often in the same text), but above all they conveyed a sense that biology was – for the first time – offering humanity unprecedented control over life. Biotopias often visualized the world as a garden perfected for human use, but this vision was tinged with gendered violence, as it became clear that realizing it entailed dispossessing, or even killing, ‘Mother Nature’. Biotopian themes are apparent in journalism, scientific reports and even textbooks, and these non-fiction sources shared many characteristics with intentionally prophetic or utopian fictions. Biotopian themes can be traced back and forth across the porous boundaries between popular and elite writing, showing how biology came to function as public culture. This analysis reveals not only how the historical significance of science is invariably determined outside the scientific world, but also that the ways in which biology was debated during this period continue to characterize today's debates over new biological breakthroughs

Development and Validation of a Risk Score for Chronic Kidney Disease in HIV Infection Using Prospective Cohort Data from the D:A:D Study

Ristola M. on työryhmien DAD Study Grp ; Royal Free Hosp Clin Cohort ; INSIGHT Study Grp ; SMART Study Grp ; ESPRIT Study Grp jäsen.Background Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a major health issue for HIV-positive individuals, associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Development and implementation of a risk score model for CKD would allow comparison of the risks and benefits of adding potentially nephrotoxic antiretrovirals to a treatment regimen and would identify those at greatest risk of CKD. The aims of this study were to develop a simple, externally validated, and widely applicable long-term risk score model for CKD in HIV-positive individuals that can guide decision making in clinical practice. Methods and Findings A total of 17,954 HIV-positive individuals from the Data Collection on Adverse Events of Anti-HIV Drugs (D:A:D) study with >= 3 estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) values after 1 January 2004 were included. Baseline was defined as the first eGFR > 60 ml/min/1.73 m2 after 1 January 2004; individuals with exposure to tenofovir, atazanavir, atazanavir/ritonavir, lopinavir/ritonavir, other boosted protease inhibitors before baseline were excluded. CKD was defined as confirmed (>3 mo apart) eGFR In the D:A:D study, 641 individuals developed CKD during 103,185 person-years of follow-up (PYFU; incidence 6.2/1,000 PYFU, 95% CI 5.7-6.7; median follow-up 6.1 y, range 0.3-9.1 y). Older age, intravenous drug use, hepatitis C coinfection, lower baseline eGFR, female gender, lower CD4 count nadir, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) predicted CKD. The adjusted incidence rate ratios of these nine categorical variables were scaled and summed to create the risk score. The median risk score at baseline was -2 (interquartile range -4 to 2). There was a 1: 393 chance of developing CKD in the next 5 y in the low risk group (risk score = 5, 505 events), respectively. Number needed to harm (NNTH) at 5 y when starting unboosted atazanavir or lopinavir/ritonavir among those with a low risk score was 1,702 (95% CI 1,166-3,367); NNTH was 202 (95% CI 159-278) and 21 (95% CI 19-23), respectively, for those with a medium and high risk score. NNTH was 739 (95% CI 506-1462), 88 (95% CI 69-121), and 9 (95% CI 8-10) for those with a low, medium, and high risk score, respectively, starting tenofovir, atazanavir/ritonavir, or another boosted protease inhibitor. The Royal Free Hospital Clinic Cohort included 2,548 individuals, of whom 94 individuals developed CKD (3.7%) during 18,376 PYFU (median follow-up 7.4 y, range 0.3-12.7 y). Of 2,013 individuals included from the SMART/ESPRIT control arms, 32 individuals developed CKD (1.6%) during 8,452 PYFU (median follow-up 4.1 y, range 0.6-8.1 y). External validation showed that the risk score predicted well in these cohorts. Limitations of this study included limited data on race and no information on proteinuria. Conclusions Both traditional and HIV-related risk factors were predictive of CKD. These factors were used to develop a risk score for CKD in HIV infection, externally validated, that has direct clinical relevance for patients and clinicians to weigh the benefits of certain antiretrovirals against the risk of CKD and to identify those at greatest risk of CKD.Peer reviewe

Web indicators : a new generation of S&T indicators?

In this paper we discuss the need and possibilities for the development of web indicators for the characterization of emergent features of ICT-mediated scholarly practices based on the European WISER project 1. We summarize these developments as a turn to e-science. We place the research of web indicators in a virtual landscape of measuring and exploring the Internet and the Web. and provide an overview of webometrics research field from this point of view. We raise the issue of how the self-organization and meta-stability of the worldwide web will influence the development of web indicators. Theoretically, the paper is a plea for the combining of complex network theory and semiotics. In our view, this enables the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis in the interpretation of web phenomena in innovation systems