Cheapside: commerce and commemoration

The broad street of Cheapside, Vanessa Harding shows, was a central location in the lives and minds of early modern Londoners. In a crowded city it was a significant open space where public events could be staged and important issues communicated to a wide audience. The everyday reality of shop and market trading — where qualities and values were scrutinized and false dealing punished - enhanced its association with truth and patency. Normally dominated by the authorities, it was on occasion captured by oppositional groups, though their activities tended to reinforce Cheapside's identity as a place of publicity and validation

Ontology-Based Quality Evaluation of Value Generalization Hierarchies for Data Anonymization

In privacy-preserving data publishing, approaches using Value Generalization Hierarchies (VGHs) form an important class of anonymization algorithms. VGHs play a key role in the utility of published datasets as they dictate how the anonymization of the data occurs. For categorical attributes, it is imperative to preserve the semantics of the original data in order to achieve a higher utility. Despite this, semantics have not being formally considered in the specification of VGHs. Moreover, there are no methods that allow the users to assess the quality of their VGH. In this paper, we propose a measurement scheme, based on ontologies, to quantitatively evaluate the quality of VGHs, in terms of semantic consistency and taxonomic organization, with the aim of producing higher-quality anonymizations. We demonstrate, through a case study, how our evaluation scheme can be used to compare the quality of multiple VGHs and can help to identify faulty VGHs.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, presented in the Privacy in Statistical Databases Conference 2014 (Ibiza, Spain

Synthetic Data Generation using Benerator Tool

Datasets of different characteristics are needed by the research community for experimental purposes. However, real data may be difficult to obtain due to privacy concerns. Moreover, real data may not meet specific characteristics which are needed to verify new approaches under certain conditions. Given these limitations, the use of synthetic data is a viable alternative to complement the real data. In this report, we describe the process followed to generate synthetic data using Benerator, a publicly available tool. The results show that the synthetic data preserves a high level of accuracy compared to the original data. The generated datasets correspond to microdata containing records with social, economic and demographic data which mimics the distribution of aggregated statistics from the 2011 Irish Census data.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 10 reference

Proposed Keystone XL Pipeline: Legal Issues

[Excerpt] In 2008, TransCanada Corp. applied for a presidential permit from the State Department to construct and operate an oil pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border in a project known as Keystone XL. The Keystone XL pipeline would transport oil produced from oil sands in Alberta,Canada, to Gulf Coast refineries. The permit application was subjected to review by the State Department pursuant to executive branch authority over cross-border pipeline facilities as articulated in Executive Order 13337. After several phases of review, on November 10, 2011, the State Department announced that it would seek additional information about alternative pipeline routes before it could move forward with a national interest determination. In response, several pieces of legislation were introduced, including Title V of the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011. Title V dictated that President must grant the Keystone XL pipeline permit within 60 days of the law’s enactment, unless the President determined that the pipeline is not in the national interest. If the President did not make a national interest determination and took no action to grant the permit, then the law provided that the permit “shall be in effect by operation of law.” The Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-78), including Title V addressing the Keystone XL permit, was enacted on December 23, 2011. Pursuant to the requirements of Title V, on January 18, 2012, the State Department recommended that “the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest. ”The same day, the President stated his determination that the Keystone XL pipeline project“ would not serve the national interest. ”New legislative activity with respect to the permitting of border-crossing facilities, a subject previously handled exclusively by the executive branch, has triggered inquiries as to whether this raises constitutional issues related to the jurisdiction of the two branches over such facilities. Additionally, as states have begun to contemplate taking action with respect to the pipeline siting, some have questioned whether state siting of a pipeline is preempted by federal law. Others argue that states dictating the route of the pipeline violates the dormant Commerce Clause of the Constitution which, among other things, prohibits one state from acting to protect its own interests to the detriment of other states. This report reviews those legal issues. First, it suggests that legislation related to cross-border facility permitting is unlikely to raise significant constitutional questions, despite the fact that such permits have traditionally been handled by the executive branch alone pursuant to its constitutional “foreign affairs” authority. Next, it observes generally that state oversight of pipeline siting decisions does not appear to violate existing federal law or the Constitution. Finally, the report suggests that State Department’s implementation of the existing authority to issue presidential permits appears to allow for judicial review of its National Environmental Policy Act determinations

Soil Chemistry Modification by Guinea Grass in Semi-Arid Soils: A Litter Mediated Positive Feedback

Nutrients are a key component of healthy soils. Their composition plays an important role in plant growth through nutrient cycling and directly influences the functioning of plant communities in both agricultural and natural ecosystems. Shifts in macronutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen may be initiated by invasive growth as a driver for competition with native plants. The goal of this study is to explore the plant soil feedback in an exotic invasive plant, Guinea grass (Pancium maximum), an invasive bunch grass originally from Africa, across different habitat types in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV). To determine a positive plant soil feedback in Guinea grass, this research analyzed the physical and chemical aspects of the collected soils

What is open design for ethnography?:an open discussion

Ethnography has been adopted in other fields for years, but the integration process has been a significant learning curve for both the ethnographers and practitioners from other fields. This wide adoption has created various subfields such as Design Ethnography, Urban Ethnography, and Anticipatory Ethnography etc. These ethno-fusions represent different interpretations of ethnography under the influence of other disciplinary nuances. Ethnography has shown us its potential flexibility and fluidity and the discussion continues: how and where will ethnography make its next big leap? In this research paper, we open a discussion with the Cumulus community by exploring the following three questions: 1. What could open design mean to Ethnography? 2. What are some challenges when applying ethnography in multi-/inter- disciplinary context? 3. What is the future of the openly designed ethnography

A Multi-perspective Termino-ontological Resource for Information Immersion System Design

More and more structures have to deal with huge amounts of data, and it may be difficult to find the relevant information. To address this issue, documents must be indexed efficiently. Resources such as termino-ontological resources can be used, since they can provide a model of these documents, and index them by means of this model. We present a model and a building method for a multi-perspective termino-ontological resource that provides a structure to be used in an information immersion system. This system will allow to access a set of documents by different entry points according to users’ needs

Conceptualisation and development of the winescape scale

This chapter will present literature relevant to the development of the winescape scale. It will be introduced in four sections. First, the services marketing literature will be examined for the service characteristics and servicescape framework. From here, relevant elements of the servicescape will be identified for use in the proposed winescape framework. Second, the destination marketing literature will be examined for destination attributes that contribute towards the image of a destination. The multi-attribute appeal of wine routes is explored for its contribution to the proposed winescape framework. Third, current literature on the winescape is examined and limitations of its scope are identified and discussed. Then, the proposed dimensions of the winescape are introduced. Finally, the relationships between the winescape and tourist satisfaction are explored from literature related to services marketing and tourism marketing

Review of the Invasive Forage Grass, Guinea Grass (Megathyrsus maximus): Ecology and Potential Impacts in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions

Several introduced African grasses are known to present recurring patterns of invasiveness and cause a severe impact on the diversity and functioning of ecosystems worldwide. Megathyrsus maximus (Guinea grass), a forage grass species native to South Africa, is reported to be highly invasive and pose a serious threat to native biodiversity in the introduced range. Despite the severe ecological threats posed by M. maximus worldwide, there is a dearth of information on the ecological and agroecological impact of M. maximus when growing in unintended areas. In this review, we present general information on M. maximus, its distribution and ecological threats it poses, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. We highlight the gaps in current knowledge on the impact on recipient communities, challenges in effective management, and potential impacts due to climate change, particularly changes in rainfall patterns. We also stress the need for public awareness about the threats posed by M. maximus to prevent its invasion in unintended areas

A hybrid quantum-classical approach to warm-starting optimization

The Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) is a promising candidate for solving combinatorial optimization problems more efficiently than classical computers. Recent studies have shown that warm-starting the standard algorithm improves the performance. In this paper we compare the performance of standard QAOA with that of warm-start QAOA in the context of portfolio optimization and investigate the warm-start approach for different problem instances. In particular, we analyze the extent to which the improved performance of warm-start QAOA is due to quantum effects, and show that the results can be reproduced or even surpassed by a purely classical preprocessing of the original problem followed by standard QAOA.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure