Collection

Data As Infrastructure

Curated on February 6, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Peter Kawalek and Ali Bayat: “In the 21st Century, data is infrastructure. This is because the managed and built environments increasingly depend upon data in real-time. Moreover, the sources of this data are potentially multiple, not necessarily arising from within the control of traditional institutions, and yet this data can be complex in form. It follows from this that data is a critical component and needs to be understood as a key part of 21st infrastructure but that it presents new challenges to those institutions concerned with the safe and effective management of infrastructure.

It is now widely accepted that the digitization of the economy has taken root in a way that means it is not confined to one sector. All sectors are affected in some common ways. Brynjolfsson and McAfee are among those who have described this. The economic drivers behind digitization are successfully isolated and described by Goldfarb & Tucker , and there are important contributions to understanding given by economists including Levin and Nordhaus . It is proportionate to describe the economic and social ramifications within the frame of ‘Creative Destruction’, originally described by Schumpeter in 19425 . In this light, the importance of data can be expected to grow across most or all industry sectors. Its effective management will become ever more critical to the economy and to society more widely….(More)”

Views on Open Data Business from Software Development Companies

Curated on February 6, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Antti Herala, Jussi Kasurinen, and Erno Vanhala in the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research: “The main concept of open data and its application is simple; access to the publicly-funded data provides greater returns from the public investment and can generate wealth through the downstream use of outputs, such as traffic information or weather forecast services. However, even though open data and data sharing as concepts are forty years old with the open data initiative reaching ten, the practical actions and applications have tended to stay on the superficial level, and significant progress or success stories are hard to find. The current trend is that the governments and municipalities are opening their data, but the impact and usefulness of raw open data repositories to citizens – and even to businesses – can be questioned Besides the governments, a handful of private organizations are opening their data in an attempt to unlock the economic value of open data, but even they have difficulties finding innovative usage, let alone generate additional profit.

In a previous study it was found that companies are interested in open data and that this mindset spans over different industries, from both publicly available data to the private business-to-business data access. Open data is not only a resource for software companies, but also for traditional engineering industries and even for small, nonfranchised local markets and shops. In our previous study, it was established that there is evidence on recognizing the applicability of open data, and opening the data to the clients by private organizations leads to business opportunities, creating new value.

However, while there is interest towards open data in a wide variety of businesses, the question still remains whether or not open data is actually used to generate income or are there some other sharing methods in use that are more efficient and more profitable.

For this study, four research questions were formulated. The first three are concentrating on the usage of open data as well as the interest towards opening or sharing data and the fourth research question revolves around the different types of openness:

How do new clients express interest towards open data?
What kind of open data-based solutions is the existing clientele expecting?
How does the product portfolio of a software company respond to open data?
What are the current trends of open initiatives?…(More)”.

How to Beat Science and Influence People: Policy Makers and Propaganda in Epistemic Networks

Curated on February 4, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by James Owen Weatherall, Cailin O’Connor, and Justin Bruner: “In their recent book Merchants of Doubt [New York:Bloomsbury 2010], Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway describe the “tobacco strategy”, which was used by the tobacco industry to influence policy makers regarding the health risks of tobacco products. The strategy involved two parts, consisting of (1) promoting and sharing independent research supporting the industry’s preferred position and (2) funding additional research, but selectively publishing the results.

We introduce a model of the Tobacco Strategy, and use it to argue that both prongs of the strategy can be extremely effective–even when policy makers rationally update on all evidence available to them. As we elaborate, this model helps illustrate the conditions under which the Tobacco Strategy is particularly successful. In addition, we show how journalists engaged in “fair” reporting can inadvertently mimic the effects of industry on public belief….(More)”.

Earth Observation Open Science and Innovation

Curated on February 4, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Open Access book edited by Pierre-Philippe Mathieu and Christoph Aubrecht: “Over the past decades, rapid developments in digital and sensing technologies, such as the Cloud, Web and Internet of Things, have dramatically changed the way we live and work. The digital transformation is revolutionizing our ability to monitor our planet and transforming the way we access, process and exploit Earth Observation data from satellites.

This book reviews these megatrends and their implications for the Earth Observation community as well as the wider data economy. It provides insight into new paradigms of Open Science and Innovation applied to space data, which are characterized by openness, access to large volume of complex data, wide availability of new community tools, new techniques for big data analytics such as Artificial Intelligence, unprecedented level of computing power, and new types of collaboration among researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and citizen scientists. In addition, this book aims to provide readers with some reflections on the future of Earth Observation, highlighting through a series of use cases not just the new opportunities created by the New Space revolution, but also the new challenges that must be addressed in order to make the most of the large volume of complex and diverse data delivered by the new generation of satellites….(More)”.

Foursquare to The Rescue: Predicting Ambulance Calls Across Geographies

Curated on February 4, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Anastasios Noulas, Colin Moffatt, Desislava Hristova, and Bruno Gonćalves: “Understanding how ambulance incidents are spatially distributed can shed light to the epidemiological dynamics of geographic areas and inform healthcare policy design. Here we analyze a longitudinal dataset of more than four million ambulance calls across a region of twelve million residents in the North West of England. With the aim to explain geographic variations in ambulance call frequencies, we employ a wide range of data layers including open government datasets describing population demographics and socio-economic characteristics, as well as geographic activity in online services such as Foursquare.

Working at a fine level of spatial granularity we demonstrate that daytime population levels and the deprivation status of an area are the most important variables when it comes to predicting the volume of ambulance calls at an area. Foursquare check-ins on the other hand complement these government sourced indicators, offering a novel view to population nightlife and commercial activity locally. We demonstrate how check-in activity can provide an edge when predicting certain types of emergency incidents in a multi-variate regression model…(More)”.

Reclaiming Civic Spaces

Curated on February 3, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Special edition of Sur International Journal on Human Rights on crackdowns on civil society around the world: “As shown by both the geographic reach of the contributions (authors from 16 countries) and the infographics to this edition, the issue is clearly of global concern. The first section of the journal seeks to address why this crackdown is happening, who is driving it and whether there is cross-fertilisation of ideas between actors.

The edition then focuses on the strategies that activists are implementing to combat the crackdown. A summary of these strategies can be seen in a video which captures a number of the author activists’ perspectives, shared when they gathered in São Paulo in October 2017 for a writers’ retreat….

The role of new media and online spaces in combatting the crackdown is prevalent in the contributions. The ease and speed with which information can be passed on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Telegram was cited as being important in mobilising support rapidly as well as helping reach previously untapped constituents (Sara Alsherif, Zoya Rehman, Raull Santiago, Victoria Ohaeri, Valerie Msoka and Denise Dora, Ravindran Daniel and Barbara Klugman). Despite the opportunities, Bondita Acharya, Helen Kezie-Nwoha, Sondos Shabayek, Shalini Eddens and Susan Jessop, Sara Alsherif and Zoya Rehman all note the challenges that digital tools present. Harassment of activists online is becoming increasingly common, particularly towards women. In addition, authorities are constantly developing new ways of monitoring these platforms. To combat this, Sara Alsherif describes how developing relationships with tech companies can help activists stay one step ahead of the curve.

The use of video is explored by Hagai El-Ad and Raull Santiago, both of whom describe how the medium is an important tool in capturing the restrictions being inflicted on civil society in their respective contexts. Moreover, Raull Santiago describes how his collective is trying to use these video images, captured by members of his community, in legal processes against the police force….(More)”.

Democracy Index 2017

Curated on February 1, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

The Economist: “The latest edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index records the worst decline in global democracy in years. Not a single region recorded an improvement in its average score since 2016, as countries grapple with increasingly divided electorates. Freedom of expression in particular is facing new challenges from both state and non-state actors, and is a special focus of this year’s report.

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The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Based on their scores on 60 indicators within these categories, each country is then itself classified as one of four types of regime: full democracy; flawed democracy; hybrid regime; and authoritarian regime….(More)”

The Follower Factory

Curated on February 1, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Nicholas Confessore, Gabriel J.X. Dance, Richard Harris And Mark Hansen in The New York Times: “…Fake accounts, deployed by governments, criminals and entrepreneurs, now infest social media networks. By some calculations, as many as 48 million of Twitter’s reported active users — nearly 15 percent — are automated accounts designed to simulate real people, though the company claims that number is far lower.

In November, Facebook disclosed to investors that it had at least twice as many fake users as it previously estimated, indicating that up to 60 million automated accounts may roam the world’s largest social media platform. These fake accounts, known as bots, can help sway advertising audiences and reshape political debates. They can defraud businesses and ruin reputations. Yet their creation and sale fall into a legal gray zone.

“The continued viability of fraudulent accounts and interactions on social media platforms — and the professionalization of these fraudulent services — is an indication that there’s still much work to do,” said Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has been investigating the spread of fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.

Despite rising criticism of social media companies and growing scrutiny by elected officials, the trade in fake followers has remained largely opaque. While Twitter and other platforms prohibit buying followers, Devumi and dozens of other sites openly sell them. And social media companies, whose market value is closely tied to the number of people using their services, make their own rules about detecting and eliminating fake accounts.

Devumi’s founder, German Calas, denied that his company sold fake followers and said he knew nothing about social identities stolen from real users. “The allegations are false, and we do not have knowledge of any such activity,” Mr. Calas said in an email exchange in November.

The Times reviewed business and court records showing that Devumi has more than 200,000 customers, including reality television stars, professional athletes, comedians, TED speakers, pastors and models. In most cases, the records show, they purchased their own followers. In others, their employees, agents, public relations companies, family members or friends did the buying. For just pennies each — sometimes even less — Devumi offers Twitter followers, views on YouTube, plays on SoundCloud, the music-hosting site, and endorsements on LinkedIn, the professional-networking site….(More)”.

A Roadmap to a Nationwide Data Infrastructure for Evidence-Based Policymaking

Curated on February 1, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Introduction by Julia Lane and Andrew Reamer of a Special Issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science: “Throughout the United States, there is broad interest in expanding the nation’s capacity to design and implement public policy based on solid evidence. That interest has been stimulated by the new types of data that are available that can transform the way in which policy is designed and implemented. Yet progress in making use of sensitive data has been hindered by the legal, technical, and operational obstacles to access for research and evaluation. Progress has also been hindered by an almost exclusive focus on the interest and needs of the data users, rather than the interest and needs of the data providers. In addition, data stewardship is largely artisanal in nature.

There are very real consequences that result from lack of action. State and local governments are often hampered in their capacity to effectively mount and learn from innovative efforts. Although jurisdictions often have treasure troves of data from existing programs, the data are stove-piped, underused, and poorly maintained. The experience reported by one large city public health commissioner is too common: “We commissioners meet periodically to discuss specific childhood deaths in the city. In most cases, we each have a thick file on the child or family. But the only time we compare notes is after the child is dead.”¹ In reality, most localities lack the technical, analytical, staffing, and legal capacity to make effective use of existing and emerging resources.

It is our sense that fundamental changes are necessary and a new approach must be taken to building data infrastructures. In particular,

Privacy and confidentiality issues must be addressed at the beginning—not added as an afterthought.
Data providers must be involved as key stakeholders throughout the design process.
Workforce capacity must be developed at all levels.
The scholarly community must be engaged to identify the value to research and policy….

To develop a roadmap for the creation of such an infrastructure, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, together with the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, hosted a day-long workshop of more than sixty experts to discuss the findings of twelve commissioned papers and their implications for action. This volume of The ANNALS showcases those twelve articles. The workshop papers were grouped into three thematic areas: privacy and confidentiality, the views of data producers, and comprehensive strategies that have been used to build data infrastructures in other contexts. The authors and the attendees included computer scientists, social scientists, practitioners, and data producers.

This introductory article places the research in both an historical and a current context. It also provides a framework for understanding the contribution of the twelve articles….(More)”.