Collection

From “Economic Man” to Behavioral Economics

Curated on April 30, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Justin Fox at the Harvard Business Review: “When we make decisions, we make mistakes. We all know this from personal experience, of course. But just in case we didn’t, a seemingly unending stream of experimental evidence in recent years has documented the human penchant for error. This line of research—dubbed heuristics and biases, although you may be more familiar with its offshoot, behavioral economics—has become the dominant academic approach to understanding decisions. Its practitioners have had a major influence on business, government, and financial markets. Their books—Predictably Irrational; Thinking, Fast and Slow; and Nudge, to name three of the most important—have suffused popular culture.

So far, so good. This research has been enormously informative and valuable. Our world, and our understanding of decision making, would be much poorer without it.

It is not, however, the only useful way to think about making decisions. Even if you restrict your view to the academic discussion, there are three distinct schools of thought. Although heuristics and biases is currently dominant, for the past half century it has interacted with and sometimes battled with the other two, one of which has a formal name—decision analysis—and the other of which can perhaps best be characterized as demonstrating that we humans aren’t as dumb as we look.

Adherents of the three schools have engaged in fierce debates, and although things have settled down lately, major differences persist. This isn’t like David Lodge’s aphorism about academic politics being so vicious because the stakes are so small. Decision making is important, and decision scholars have had real influence.

This article briefly tells the story of where the different streams arose and how they have interacted, beginning with the explosion of interest in the field during and after World War II (for a longer view, see “A Brief History of Decision Making,” by Leigh Buchanan and Andrew O’Connell, HBR, January 2006). The goal is to make you a more informed consumer of decision advice—which just might make you a better decision maker….(More)”

A map for Big Data research in Digital Humanities

Curated on April 30, 2015November 15, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Frederic Kaplan in Frontiers: “This article is an attempt to represent Big Data research in Digital Humanities as a structured research field. A division in three concentric areas of study is presented. Challenges in the first circle – focusing on the processing and interpretations of large cultural datasets – can be organized linearly following the data processing pipeline. Challenges in the second circle – concerning digital culture at large – can be structured around the different relations linking massive datasets, large communities, collective discourses, global actors and the software medium. Challenges in the third circle – dealing with the experience of big data – can be described within a continuous space of possible interfaces organized around three poles: immersion, abstraction and language. By identifying research challenges in all these domains, the article illustrates how this initial cartography could be helpful to organize the exploration of the various dimensions of Big Data Digital Humanities research….(More)”

How Data Mining could have prevented Tunisia’s Terror attack in Bardo Museum

Curated on April 29, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Wassim Zoghlami at Medium: “…Data mining is the process of posing queries and extracting useful patterns or trends often previously unknown from large amounts of data using various techniques such as those from pattern recognition and machine learning. Latelely there has been a big interest on leveraging the use of data mining for counter-terrorism applications

Using the data on more than 50.000+ ISIS connected twitter accounts , I was able to establish an understanding of some factors determined how often ISIS attacks occur , what different types of terror strikes are used in which geopolitical situations, and many other criteria through graphs about the frequency of hashtags usages and the frequency of a particular group of the words used in the tweets.

A simple data mining project of some of the repetitive hashtags and sequences of words used typically by ISIS militants in their tweets yielded surprising results. The results show a rise of some keywords on the tweets that started from Marsh 15, three days before Bardo museum attacks.

Some of the common frequent keywords and hashtags that had a unusual peak since marsh 15 , three days before the attack :

#طواغيت تونس : Tyrants of Tunisia = a reference to the military

بشرى تونس : Good news for Tunisia.

قريبا تونس : Soon in Tunisia.

#إفريقية_للإعلام : The head of social media of Afriqiyah

#غزوة_تونس : The foray of Tunis…

Big Data and Data Mining should be used for national security intelligence

The Tunisian national security has to leverage big data to predict such attacks and to achieve objectives as the volume of digital data. Some of the challenges facing the Data mining techniques are that to carry out effective data mining and extract useful information for counterterrorism and national security, we need to gather all kinds of information about individuals. However, this information could be a threat to the individuals’ privacy and civil liberties…(More)”

Wicked Opportunities

Curated on April 29, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by William D. Eggers & Anna Muoio: “Wicked problems”—ranging from malaria to dwindling water supplies—are being reframed as “wicked opportunities” and tackled by networks of nongovernmental organizations, social entrepreneurs, governments, and big businesses.

As a killer disease, malaria is the world’s third biggest, after only HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. In 2013, an estimated 584,000 people died of it—90 percent of these deaths in Africa, mostly among children under five years of age.¹ And because 3.2 billion people—almost half the world’s population—live in regions where malaria spreads easily, it is very hard to fight.² Scores of organizations are embroiled in the complex search for solutions, sometimes pursuing conflicting priorities, always competing for scarce resources. Despite the daunting challenges, here’s how Bill Gates, who has already spent more than $2 billion of Gates Foundation money on the problem, characterizes the situation: “This is one of the greatest opportunities the global health world has ever had.”³

Opportunity? It’s a surprising word even for an optimistic mega-philanthropist to describe a scourge that people have been trying to eliminate, unsuccessfully, for hundreds of years. It’s also, however, a fair statement about what is possible in the 21^st century. We’re seeing a trend by which many kinds of “wicked problems”—complex, dynamic, and seemingly intractable social challenges—are being reframed and attacked with renewed vigor through solution ecosystems. Unprecedented networks of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), social entrepreneurs, health professionals, governments, and international development institutions—and yes, businesses—are coalescing around them, and recasting them as wicked opportunities….(More)”

Preparing for Responsible Sharing of Clinical Trial Data

Curated on April 29, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Michelle M. Mello et al in the New England Journal of Medicine: “Data from clinical trials, including participant-level data, are being shared by sponsors and investigators more widely than ever before. Some sponsors have voluntarily offered data to researchers, some journals now require authors to agree to share the data underlying the studies they publish, the Office of Science and Technology Policy has directed federal agencies to expand public access to data from federally funded projects, and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have proposed the expansion of access to data submitted in regulatory applications. Sharing participant-level data may bring exciting benefits for scientific research and public health but may also have unintended consequences. Thus, expanded data sharing must be pursued thoughtfully.

We provide a suggested framework for broad sharing of participant-level data from clinical trials and related technical documents. After reviewing current data-sharing initiatives, potential benefits and risks, and legal and regulatory implications, we propose potential governing principles and key features for a system of expanded access to participant-level data and evaluate several governance structures….(More)”

The road to better data

Curated on April 28, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Johannes Jütting at OECDInsights: Tradition tells us that more than 3,000 years ago, Moses went to the top of Mount Sinai and came back down with 10 commandments. When the world’s presidents and prime ministers go to the top of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) mountain in New York late this summer they will come down with not 10 commandments but 169. Too many?

Some people certainly think so. “Stupid development goals,” The Economist said recently. It argued that the 17 SDGs and roughly 169 targets should “honour Moses and be pruned to ten goals”. Others disagree. In a report for the Overseas Development Institute, May Miller-Dawkins, warned of the dangers of letting practicality “blunt ambition”. She backed SDGs with “high ambition”.

The debate over the “right” number of goals and targets is interesting, important even. But it misses a key point: No matter how many goals and targets are finally agreed, if we can’t measure their real impact on people’s lives, on our societies and on the environment, then they risk becoming irrelevant.

Unfortunately, we already know that many developing countries have problems compiling even basic social and economic statistics, never mind the complex web of data that will be needed to monitor the SDGs. A few examples: In 2013, about 35% of all live births were not officially registered worldwide, rising to two-thirds in developing countries. In Africa, just seven countries have data on their total number of landholders and women landholders, and none have data from before 2004. Last but not least, fast-changing economies and associated measurement challenges mean we are not sure today if we have worldwide a billion people living in extreme poverty, half a billion or more than a billion.

Why does this matter? Without adequate data, we cannot identify the problems that planning and policymaking need to address. We also cannot judge if governments and others are meeting their commitments. As a report from the Centre for Global Development notes, “Data […] serve as a ‘currency’ for accountability among and within governments, citizens, and civil society at large, and they can be used to hold development agencies accountable.”…(More)”

Arnold Foundation Adds Program for Data-Driven Public Policy

Curated on April 28, 2015October 10, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Nicole Wallace at the Chronicle of Philanthropy: “The Laura and John Arnold Foundation is starting a new program to encourage government to evaluate programs rigorously and use data to design new programs. The new Evidence-Based Policy and Innovation division will be based in Washington.

“People may disagree about the optimal size of government and the amount of money dedicated to public services,” Denis Calabrese, the foundation’s president, said in a written statement. “However, nearly everyone agrees that whatever funds are spent should be directed toward programs that have a significant impact.”

The new division will have two leaders. Kathy Stack, a longtime official at the Office of Management and Budget, will serve as vice president for evidence-based innovation and focus on efforts to promote the use of data in government decision making.

Jon Baron, the founder of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, will serve as vice president for evidence-based policy, overseeing grant making to support randomized, controlled trials for social programs and the expansion of efforts that show meaningful results. The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy will close around April 30, and its employees will join Mr. Baron at the foundation….(More)”

The Design Economy primer: how design is revolutionising health, business, cities and government

Curated on April 28, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

James Pallister at the Design Council: “In the four sections that follow, we offer a guide to the design economy in the twenty-first century – a flavour of the critical issues, leading companies, research institutes and designers in:

1. Health

A growing awareness of the social impact of design has led to an increasing number of designers working in health and well-being.

2. Business

Global corporations, following in the tracks of Apple, Philips and IBM, are building design studios and seeking Chief Design Officers to join their boards and orchestrate the transition from marketing-led to design-led businesses.

3. Cities

With a rapidly increasing proportion of the population living in cities, design is being used to tackle the implications of this demographic shift in areas like housing and infrastructure.

4. Government

In the UK, Europe and the US, designers can now be found close to the seat of government, employing design to improve public services and policies.

With design expanding into these important and largely uncharted areas, we urgently need to begin asking informed questions about design and its practical and ethical territory.

John Mathers, Chief Executive of the Design Council, asks us to pause for a moment to consider, “How has design, which many still associate largely with style and consumerism, come to be something one might look to for solutions to the most complex and challenging problems facing humanity today – problems requiring not just local fixes using clever design objects, but solutions that reimagine systems themselves? Are we, at this point, really even still talking about the same discipline?”

The questions, perhaps, boil down to one: ‘What should design do?’ …(More)”

How Google and Facebook are finding victims of the Nepal earthquake

Curated on April 28, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Caitlin Dewey in the Washington Post: “As the death toll from Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude Nepalese earthquake inches higher, help in finding and identifying missing persons has come from an unusual source: Silicon Valley tech giants.

Both Google and Facebook deployed collaborative, cellphone-based tools over the weekend to help track victims of the earthquake. In the midst of both company’s big push to bring Internet to the developing world, it’s an important illustration of exactly how powerful that connectivity could be. And yet, in a country like Nepal — where there are only 77 cellphone subscriptions per 100 people versus 96 in the U.S. and 125 in the U.K. — it’s also a reminder of how very far that effort still has to go.

Facebook Safety Check

Facebook’s Safety Check essentially lets users do two things, depending on where they are. Users in an area impacted by a natural disaster can log onto the site and mark themselves as “safe.” Meanwhile, users around the world can log into the site and check if any of their friends are in the impacted area. The tool was built by Japanese engineers in response to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated coastal Japan.

…

Facebook hasn’t publicized how many people have used the tool, though the network only has 4.4 million users in the country based on estimates by its ad platform. Notably, you must also a smartphone running the Facebook app to use this feature — and smartphone penetration in Nepal is quite low.

Google Person Finder

Like Safety Check, Google Person Finder is intended to connect people in a disaster area with friends and family around the world. Google’s five-year-old project also operates on a larger scale, however: It basically provides a massive, open platform to collaboratively track missing persons’ reports. Previously, Google’s deployed the tool to help victims in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan and the Boston bombing.