international

Using Wikipedia for conflict forecasting

Curated on July 26, 2022July 26, 2022 by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Christian Oswald and Daniel Ohrenhofer: “How can we improve our ability to predict conflicts? Scholars have struggled with this question for a long time. However, as a discipline, and especially over the last two decades, political science has made substantial progress. In general, what we need to improve predictions are advances in data and methodology. Data advances involve both improving the quality of existing data and developing new data sources. We propose a new data source for conflict forecasting efforts: Wikipedia.

The number of country page views indicates international salience of, or interest in, a country. Meanwhile, the number of changes to a country page indicate political controversy between opposing political views.

We took part in the Violence Early-Warning System’s friendly competition to predict changes in battle-related deaths. In our work, we evaluate our findings with out-of-sample predictions using held-out, previously unseen data, and true forecasts into the future. We find support for the predictive power of country page views, whereas we do not for page changes…

Globally available data, updated monthly, are ideal for (near) real-time forecasting. However, many commonly used data sources are available only annually. They are updated once a year, often with considerable delay.

Some of these variables, such as democracy or GDP, tend to be relatively static over time. Furthermore, many data sources face the problem of missing values. These occur when it is not possible to find reliable data for a variable for a given country.

Wikipedia is updated in real time, unlike many commonly used data sources, which may update only annually and with considerable delay

More recent data sources such as Twitter, images or text as data, or mobile phone data, often do not provide global coverage. What’s more, collecting and manipulating data from such sources is typically computationally and/or financially costly. Wikipedia provides an alternative data source that, to some extent, overcomes many of these limitations…(More)”.

Designing Data Spaces: The Ecosystem Approach to Competitive Advantage

Curated on July 26, 2022July 26, 2022 by Stefaan Verhulst

Open access book edited by Boris Otto, Michael ten Hompel, and Stefan Wrobel: “…provides a comprehensive view on data ecosystems and platform economics from methodical and technological foundations up to reports from practical implementations and applications in various industries.

To this end, the book is structured in four parts: Part I “Foundations and Contexts” provides a general overview about building, running, and governing data spaces and an introduction to the IDS and GAIA-X projects. Part II “Data Space Technologies” subsequently details various implementation aspects of IDS and GAIA-X, including eg data usage control, the usage of blockchain technologies, or semantic data integration and interoperability. Next, Part III describes various “Use Cases and Data Ecosystems” from various application areas such as agriculture, healthcare, industry, energy, and mobility. Part IV eventually offers an overview of several “Solutions and Applications”, eg including products and experiences from companies like Google, SAP, Huawei, T-Systems, Innopay and many more.

Overall, the book provides professionals in industry with an encompassing overview of the technological and economic aspects of data spaces, based on the International Data Spaces and Gaia-X initiatives. It presents implementations and business cases and gives an outlook to future developments. In doing so, it aims at proliferating the vision of a social data market economy based on data spaces which embrace trust and data sovereignty…(More)”.

How crowdfunding is shaping the war in Ukraine

Curated on July 25, 2022July 27, 2022 by Stefaan Verhulst

The Economist: “This month Aerorozvidka, a Ukrainian drone unit, celebrated the acquisition of four Chinese-made DJI Phantom 3 drones, provided by a German donor. The group, founded in 2014 after the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, is led by civilians. The gift is just one example of crowdfunding in Russia’s latest war against Ukraine. Citizens from both sides are supplying much-needed equipment to the front lines. What is the impact of these donations, and how do the two countries differ in their approach?

Private citizens have chipped in to help in times of war for centuries. A writing tablet found near Hadrian’s Wall in northern England mentions a gift of sandals, socks and underwear for Roman soldiers. During the first world war America’s government asked civilians to knit warm clothing for troops. But besides such small morale-boosting efforts, some schemes to rally civilians have proved strikingly productive. During the second world war Britain introduced a “Spitfire Fund”, encouraging civilian groups to raise the £12,600 (£490,000, or $590,000, in today’s money) needed to build the top-of-the-range fighter. Individual contributors could buy wings, machineguns or even a rivet, for six old pence (two and a half modern ones) apiece. The scheme raised around £13m in total—enough for more than 1,000 aircraft (of a total of 20,000 built)…(More)”.

Landsat turns 50: How satellites revolutionized the way we see – and protect – the natural world

Curated on July 25, 2022July 25, 2022 by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Stacy Morford: “Fifty years ago, U.S. scientists launched a satellite that dramatically changed how we see the world.

It captured images of Earth’s surface in minute detail, showing how wildfires burned landscapes, how farms erased forests, and many other ways humans were changing the face of the planet.

The first satellite in the Landsat series launched on July 23, 1972. Eight others followed, providing the same views so changes could be tracked over time, but with increasingly powerful instruments. Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 are orbiting the planet today, and NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey are planning a new Landsat mission.

The images and data from these satellites are used to track deforestation and changing landscapes around the world, locate urban heat islands, and understand the impact of new river dams, among many other projects. Often, the results help communities respond to risks that may not be obvious from the ground.

Here are three examples of Landsat in action, from The Conversation’s archive.

Tracking changes in the Amazon

When work began on the Belo Monte Dam project in the Brazilian Amazon in 2015, Indigenous tribes living along the Big Bend of the Xingu River started noticing changes in the river’s flow. The water they relied on for food and transportation was disappearing.

Upstream, a new channel would eventually divert as much as 80% of the water to the hydroelectric dam, bypassing the bend.

The consortium that runs the dam argued that there was no scientific proof that the change in water flow harmed fish.

But there is clear proof of the Belo Monte Dam project’s impact – from above, write Pritam Das, Faisal Hossain, Hörður Helgason and Shahzaib Khan at the University of Washington. Using satellite data from the Landsat program, the team showed how the dam dramatically altered the hydrology of the river…

It’s hot in the city – and even hotter in some neighborhoods

Landsat’s instruments can also measure surface temperatures, allowing scientists to map heat risk street by street within cities as global temperatures rise.

“Cities are generally hotter than surrounding rural areas, but even within cities, some residential neighborhoods get dangerously warmer than others just a few miles away,” writes Daniel P. Johnson, who uses satellites to study the urban heat island effect at Indiana University.

Neighborhoods with more pavement and buildings and fewer trees can be 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5.5 C) or more warmer than leafier neighborhoods, Johnson writes. He found that the hottest neighborhoods tend to be low-income, have majority Black or Hispanic residents and had been subjected to redlining, the discriminatory practice once used to deny loans in racial and ethnic minority communities…(More)”.

Digital Literacy Doesn’t Stop the Spread of Misinformation

Curated on July 24, 2022July 27, 2022 by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by David Rand, and Nathaniel Sirlin: “There has been tremendous concern recently over misinformation on social media. It was a pervasive topic during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, continues to be an issue during the COVID-19 pandemic and plays an important part in Russian propaganda efforts in the war on Ukraine. This concern is plenty justified, as the consequences of believing false information are arguably shaping the future of nations and greatly affecting our individual and collective health.

One popular theory about why some people fall for misinformation they encounter online is that they lack digital literacy skills, a nebulous term that describes how a person navigates digital spaces. Someone lacking digital literacy skills, the thinking goes, may be more susceptible to believing—and sharing—false information. As a result, less digitally literate people may play a significant role in the spread of misinformation.

This argument makes intuitive sense. Yet very little research has actually investigated the link between digital literacy and susceptibility to believe false information. There’s even less understanding of the potential link between digital literacy and what people share on social media. As researchers who study the psychology of online misinformation, we wanted to explore these potential associations….

When we looked at the connection between digital literacy and the willingness to share false information with others through social media, however, the results were different. People who were more digitally literate were just as likely to say they’d share false articles as people who lacked digital literacy. Like the first finding, the (lack of) connection between digital literacy and sharing false news was not affected by political party affiliation or whether the topic was politics or the pandemic…(More)”

Measuring sustainable tourism with online platform data

Curated on July 24, 2022July 21, 2022 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Felix J. Hoffmann, Fabian Braesemann & Timm Teubner: “Sustainability in tourism is a topic of global relevance, finding multiple mentions in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The complex task of balancing tourism’s economic, environmental, and social effects requires detailed and up-to-date data. This paper investigates whether online platform data can be employed as an alternative data source in sustainable tourism statistics. Using a web-scraped dataset from a large online tourism platform, a sustainability label for accommodations can be predicted reasonably well with machine learning techniques. The algorithmic prediction of accommodations’ sustainability using online data can provide a cost-effective and accurate measure that allows to track developments of tourism sustainability across the globe with high spatial and temporal granularity…(More)”.

Energy Data Sharing: The Case of EV Smart Charging

Curated on July 23, 2022July 23, 2022 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Sean Ennis and Giuseppe Colangelo: “The green and digital transitions are concomitantly underway. In its upcoming Action Plan on Digitalisation of Energy, the European Commission aims to develop a digital-driven “European energy data space” to allow for data sharing and system integration between the energy sector and other sectors, e.g. mobility.

CERRE has begun working at the intersection of digital and energy with a new, cross-sector research initiative aimed at identifying the business case and governance principles for the development of a European energy data space, using the concrete example of smart electric vehicle charging points, which will play an important role in increasing the flexibility and efficiency of the energy sector.

Key research questions to be addressed as part of the project are:

What property rights are included within the smart charging data?
What is the business case for industry players and customers to share their data?
What should be the overarching principles governing a European energy data space?
What government interventions or data standards are required to make specific use cases successful for achieving green transition goals?..(More)”.

Confronting Reality in Cyberspace: Foreign Policy for a Fragmented Internet

Curated on July 23, 2022July 21, 2022 by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Council on Foreign Affairs Task Force: “…The Task Force proposes three pillars to a foreign policy that should guide Washington’s adaptation to today’s more complex, variegated, and dangerous cyber realm.

First, Washington should confront reality and consolidate a coalition of allies and friends around a vision of the internet that preserves—to the greatest degree possible—a trusted, protected international communication platform.

Second, the United States should balance more targeted diplomatic and economic pressure on adversaries, as well as more disruptive cyber operations, with clear statements about self-imposed restraint on specific types of targets agreed to among U.S. allies.

Third, the United States needs to put its own proverbial house in order. That requirement calls for Washington to link more cohesively its policy for digital competition with the broader enterprise of national security strategy.

The major recommendations of the Task Force are as follows:

Build a digital trade agreement among trusted partners.
Agree to and adopt a shared policy on digital privacy that is interoperable with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Resolve outstanding issues on U.S.-European Union (EU) data transfers.
Create an international cybercrime center.
Launch a focused program for cyber aid and infrastructure development.
Work jointly across partners to retain technology superiority.
Declare norms against destructive attacks on election and financial systems.
Negotiate with adversaries to establish limits on cyber operations directed at nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) systems.
Develop coalition-wide practices for the Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP).
Adopt greater transparency about defend forward actions.
Hold states accountable for malicious activity emanating from their territories.
Make digital competition a pillar of the national security strategy.
Clean up U.S. cyberspace by offering incentives for internet service providers (ISPs) and cloud providers to reduce malicious activity within their infrastructure.
Address the domestic intelligence gap.
Promote the exchange of and collaboration among talent from trusted partners.
Develop the expertise for cyber foreign policy.

A free, global, and open internet was a worthy aspiration that helped guide U.S. policymakers for the internet’s first thirty years. The internet as it exists today, however, demands a reconsideration of U.S. cyber and foreign policies to confront these new realities. The Task Force believes that U.S. goals moving forward will be more limited and thus more attainable, but the United States needs to act quickly to design strategies and tactics that can ameliorate an urgent threat…(More)”.

Identifying and addressing data asymmetries so as to enable (better) science

Curated on July 21, 2022July 21, 2022 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Stefaan Verhulst and Andrew Young: “As a society, we need to become more sophisticated in assessing and addressing data asymmetries—and their resulting political and economic power inequalities—particularly in the realm of open science, research, and development. This article seeks to start filling the analytical gap regarding data asymmetries globally, with a specific focus on the asymmetrical availability of privately-held data for open science, and a look at current efforts to address these data asymmetries. It provides a taxonomy of asymmetries, as well as both their societal and institutional impacts. Moreover, this contribution outlines a set of solutions that could provide a toolbox for open science practitioners and data demand-side actors that stand to benefit from increased access to data. The concept of data liquidity (and portability) is explored at length in connection with efforts to generate an ecosystem of responsible data exchanges. We also examine how data holders and demand-side actors are experimenting with new and emerging operational models and governance frameworks for purpose-driven, cross-sector data collaboratives that connect previously siloed datasets. Key solutions discussed include professionalizing and re-imagining data steward roles and functions (i.e., individuals or groups who are tasked with managing data and their ethical and responsible reuse within organizations). We present these solutions through case studies on notable efforts to address science data asymmetries. We examine these cases using a repurposable analytical framework that could inform future research. We conclude with recommended actions that could support the creation of an evidence base on work to address data asymmetries and unlock the public value of greater science data liquidity and responsible reuse…(More)”.