Collection

What can we learn from billions of food purchases derived from fidelity cards?

Curated on May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Daniele Quercia at Medium: “By combining 1.6B food item purchases with 1.1B medical prescriptions for the entire city of London for one year, we discovered that, to predict health outcomes, socio-economic conditions matter less than what previous research has shown: despite being of lower-income, certain areas are healthy, and that is because of what their residents eat!

This result comes from our latest project “Poor but Healthy”, which was published in the Springer European Physical Journal (EPJ) of Data Science this month, and comes with a @tobi_vierzwo’s stunningly beautiful map of London I invite all of you to explore.

Why are we interested in urban health? In our cities, food is cheap and exercise discretionary, and health takes its toll. Half of European citizens will be obese by 2050, and obesity and its diseases are likely to reach crisis proportions. In this project, we set out to show that fidelity cards of grocery stores represent a treasure trove of health data — they can be used not only to (e)mail discount coupons to customers but also to effectively track a neighbourhood’s health in real-time for an entire city or even an entire country.

In research circles, the impact of eating habits on people’s health has mostly been studied using dietary surveys, which are costly and of limited scale.

To complement these surveys, we have recently resorted to grocery fidelity cards. We analyzed the anonymized records of 1.6B grocery items purchased by 1.6M grocery store customers in London over one whole year, and combined them with 1.1B medical prescriptions.

In so doing, we found that, as one expects, the “trick” to not being associated with chronic diseases is eating less what we instinctively like (e.g., sugar, carbohydrates), balancing all the nutrients, and avoiding the (big) quantities that are readily available. These results come as no surprise yet speak to the validity of using fidelity cards to capture health outcomes…(More)”.

Data Stewardship on the map: A study of tasks and roles in Dutch research institutes

Curated on May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Verheul, Ingeborg et al: “Good research requires good data stewardship. Data stewardship encompasses all the different tasks and responsibilities that relate to caring for data during the various phases of the whole research life cycle. The basic assumption is that the researcher himself/herself is primarily responsible for all data.

However, the researcher does need professional support to achieve this. To that end, diverse supportive data stewardship roles and functions have evolved in recent years. Often they have developed over the course of time.

Their functional implementation depends largely on their place in the organization. This comes as no surprise when one considers that data stewardship consists of many facets that are traditionally assigned to different departments. Researchers regularly take on data stewardship tasks as well, not only for themselves but also in a wider context for a research group. This data stewardship work often remains unnoticed….(More)”.

Data to the rescue

Curated on May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Podcast by Kenneth Cukier: “Access to the right data can be as valuable in humanitarian crises as water or medical care, but it can also be dangerous. Misused or in the wrong hands, the same information can put already vulnerable people at further risk. Kenneth Cukier hosts this special edition of Babbage examining how humanitarian organisations use data and what they can learn from the profit-making tech industry. This episode was recorded live from Wilton Park, in collaboration with the United Nations OCHA Centre for Humanitarian Data…(More)”.

Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society: Refining Privacy Impact Assessment,

Curated on May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Stefan Strauß: “This book offers an analysis of privacy impacts resulting from and reinforced by technology and discusses fundamental risks and challenges of protecting privacy in the digital age.

Privacy is among the most endangered “species” in our networked society: personal information is processed for various purposes beyond our control. Ultimately, this affects the natural interplay between privacy, personal identity and identification. This book investigates that interplay from a systemic, socio-technical perspective by combining research from the social and computer sciences. It sheds light on the basic functions of privacy, their relation to identity, and how they alter with digital identification practices. The analysis reveals a general privacy control dilemma of (digital) identification shaped by several interrelated socio-political, economic and technical factors. Uncontrolled increases in the identification modalities inherent to digital technology reinforce this dilemma and benefit surveillance practices, thereby complicating the detection of privacy risks and the creation of appropriate safeguards.

Easing this problem requires a novel approach to privacy impact assessment (PIA), and this book proposes an alternative PIA framework which, at its core, comprises a basic typology of (personally and technically) identifiable information. This approach contributes to the theoretical and practical understanding of privacy impacts and thus, to the development of more effective protection standards….(More)”.

Smart and Digital Cities: From Computational Intelligence to Applied Social Sciences

Curated on May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Vitor Nazário Coelho, Igor Machado Coelho, Thays A.Oliveira and Luiz Satoru Ochi: “This book presents up-to-date information on the future digital and smart cities. In particular, it describes novel insights about the use of computational intelligence techniques and decentralized technologies, covering urban aspects and services, cities governance and social sciences. The topics covered here range from state-of-the-art computational techniques to current discussions regarding drones, blockchain, smart contracts and cryptocurrencies.

The idealization of this material emerged with a journey of free knowledge exchange from a diverse group of authors, who met each other through four different events (workshops and special sessions) organized with the purpose of boosting the concepts surrounding smart cities.
We believe that this book comprises innovative and precise information regarding state-of-the-art applications and ideas for the future of cities and society. It will surely be useful not only for the academic community but also to the industry professionals and city managers….(More)”.

The Pied Piper: Prizes, Incentives, and Motivation Crowding-In

Curated on May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Bruni, Luigino and Pelligra, Vittorio and Reggiani, Tommaso and Rizzolli, Matteo: “In mainstream business and economics, prizes such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom are understood as special types of incentives, with the peculiar features of being awarded in public, and of having largely symbolic value. Informed by both historical considerations and philosophical instances, our study defines fundamental theoretical differences between incentives and prizes. The conceptual factors highlighted by our analytical framework are then tested through a laboratory experiment. The experimental exercise aims to analyze how prizes and incentives impact actual individuals’ behavior differently. Our results show that both incentives (monetary and contingent) and prizes (non-monetary and discretional rewards) boost motivation to perform if awarded publicly, but only prizes crowd-in motivation promoting virtuous attitude….(More)”.

Value Sensitive Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination

Curated on May 22, 2019May 22, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Batya Friedman and David G. Hendry: “Implantable medical devices and human dignity. Private and secure access to information. Engineering projects that transform the Earth. Multigenerational information systems for international justice. How should designers, engineers, architects, policy makers, and others design such technology? Who should be involved and what values are implicated? In Value Sensitive Design, Batya Friedman and David Hendry describe how both moral and technical imagination can be brought to bear on the design of technology. With value sensitive design, under development for more than two decades, Friedman and Hendry bring together theory, methods, and applications for a design process that engages human values at every stage.

After presenting the theoretical foundations of value sensitive design, which lead to a deep rethinking of technical design, Friedman and Hendry explain seventeen methods, including stakeholder analysis, value scenarios, and multilifespan timelines. Following this, experts from ten application domains report on value sensitive design practice. Finally, Friedman and Hendry explore such open questions as the need for deeper investigation of indirect stakeholders and further method development….(More)”.

Smart Villages in the EU and Beyond

Curated on May 21, 2019May 21, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Anna Visvizi, Miltiadis D. Lytras, and György Mudri: “Written by leading academics and practitioners in the field, Smart Villages in the EU and Beyond offers a detailed insight into issues and developments that shape the debate on smart villages, together with concepts, developments and policymaking initiatives including the EU Action for Smart Villages.This book derives from the realization that the implications of the increasing depopulation of rural areas across the EU is a pending disaster. This edited collection establishes a framework for action today, which will lead to sustainable revitalization of rural areas tomorrow.Using country-specific case studies, the chapters examine how integrated and ICT-conscious strategies and policy actions focused on wellbeing, sustainability and solidarity could provide a long-term solution in the revitalization of villages across the EU and elsewhere. Best practices pertinent to precision farming, energy diversification, tourism, entrepreneurship are discussed in detail.As an in-depth exploration of the Smart Village on a multinational scale, this book will serve as an indispensable resource for students, researchers and policy leaders in the fields of politics, strategic management and urban and rural studies….(More)”.

Facebook releases a trio of maps to aid with fighting disease outbreaks

Curated on May 21, 2019May 21, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Sarah Perez at Techcrunch: “Facebook… announced a new initiative focused on using its data and technologies to help nonprofit organizations and universities working in public health better map the spread of infectious diseases around the world. Specifically, the company is introducing three new maps: population density maps with demographic estimates, movement maps and network coverage maps. These, says Facebook, will help the health partners to understand where people live, how they’re moving and if they have connectivity — all factors that can aid in determining how to respond to outbreaks, and where supplies should be delivered.

As Facebook explained, health organizations rely on information like this when planning public health campaigns. But much of the information they rely on is outdated, like older census data. In addition, information from more remote communities can be scarce.

By combining the new maps with other public health data, Facebook believes organizations will be better equipped to address epidemics.

The new high-resolution population density maps will estimate the number of people living within 30-meter grid tiles, and provide insights on demographics, including the number of children under five, the number of women of reproductive age, as well as young and elderly populations. These maps aren’t built using Facebook data, but are instead built by using Facebook’s AI capabilities with satellite imagery and census information.

Movement maps, meanwhile, track aggregate data about Facebook users’ movements via their mobile phones (when location services are enabled). At scale, health partners can combine this with other data to predict where other outbreaks may occur next….(More)”.