The Changing Face of Neolithic and Bronze Age Ireland: A Big Data Approach to the Settlement and Burial Records

This paper synthesizes and discusses the spatial and temporal patterns of archaeological sites in Ireland, spanning the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age transition (4300–1900 cal BC), in order to explore the timing and implications of the main changes that occurred in the archaeological record of that period. Large amounts of new data are sourced from unpublished developer-led excavations and combined with national archives, published excavations and online databases. Bayesian radiocarbon models and context- and sample-sensitive summed radiocarbon probabilities are used to examine the dataset. The study captures the scale and timing of the initial expansion of Early Neolithic settlement and the ensuing attenuation of all such activity—an apparent boom-and-bust cycle. The Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods are characterised by a resurgence and diversification of activity. Contextualisation and spatial analysis of radiocarbon data reveals finer-scale patterning than is usually possible with summed-probability approaches: the boom-and-bust models of prehistoric populations may, in fact, be a misinterpretation of more subtle demographic changes occurring at the same time as cultural change and attendant differences in the archaeological record.

Black Night At Big Thunder Mountain

Novel

Ten Questions for Future Regulation of Big Data: A Comparative and Empirical Legal Study

Much has been written about Big Data from a technical, economical, juridical and ethical perspective. Still, very little empirical and comparative data is available on how Big Data is approached and regulated in Europe and beyond. This contribution makes a first effort to fill that gap by presenting the reactions to a survey on Big Data from the Data Protection Authorities of fourteen European countries and a comparative legal research of eleven countries. This contribution presents those results, addressing 10 challenges for the regulation of Big Data.

Troca de informação e ações conjuntas desenvolvidas pelo grupo de big bands Movimento Elefantes

Este trabalho visou a identificação das trocas de informações e ações conjuntas realizadas por participantes do Movimento Elefantes (ME), grupo constituído por 10 Big Bands formado em 2009. Buscou-se também identificar quais são os objetivos do grupamento, conforme são entendidos pelos participantes, e as dificuldades enfrentas pelo ME, por eles apontadas. A pesquisa de campo teve natureza exploratória, tendo sido aplicado aos músicos questionário via internet, com questões abertas. Os resultados obtidos, com base em análise de conteúdo, apontam que as trocas estão relacionadas predominantemente com questões estéticas, sendo também relevantes as indicações profissionais. Os objetivos considerados pelos respondentes são criar mais espaços para apresentação e promover integração entre os músicos. Embora estes objetivos sejam atingidos, o grupamento enfrenta dificuldades significativas, devido ao baixo comprometimento dos músicos e estrutura organizacional precária. São sugeridas medidas visando melhorar os resultados deste grupamento, que está inserido na chamada indústria criativa.

Troca de informação e ações conjuntas desenvolvidas pelo grupo de Big Bands Movimento Elefantes

Este trabalho visou a identificação das trocas de informações e ações conjuntas realizadas por participantes do Movimento Elefantes (ME), grupo constituído por 10 Big Bands formado em 2009. Buscou-se também identificar quais são os objetivos do grupamento, conforme são entendidos pelos participantes, e as dificuldades enfrentas pelo ME, por eles apontadas. A pesquisa de campo teve natureza exploratória, tendo sido aplicado aos músicos questionário via internet, com questões abertas. Os resultados obtidos, com base em análise de conteúdo, apontam que as trocas estão relacionadas predominantemente com questões estéticas, sendo também relevantes as indicações profissionais. Os objetivos considerados pelos respondentes são criar mais espaços para apresentação e promover integração entre os músicos. Embora estes objetivos sejam atingidos, o grupamento enfrenta dificuldades significativas, devido ao baixo comprometimento dos músicos e estrutura organizacional precária. São sugeridas medidas visando melhorar os resultados deste grupamento, que está inserido na chamada indústria criativa.

The Big Crunch : A Mapping of the Swedish Party System from 1991 to 2010

Previous research claims that there has been a narrowing of distance between the Swedish political parties. Typically, such research into political distance has primarily focused on studying voters rather than the political parties themselves. In this article, the author conducts a longitudinal analysis of Comparative Manifesto Project data to determine if, and to what extent, the political parties have converged ideologically on a Left-Right continuum in the period 1991-2010. After first unraveling the concept of political distance, the author moves on to explain why the ideological dispersion of political parties is an important and consequential characteristic within party systems. Furthermore, the author argues that the Left-Right ideological scale continues to be a highly useful model with which to conceptualize and study this characteristic. The author then discusses the methodological approach and explains why quantitative manifesto data, often overlooked in favor of voter interview data, is deemed a valid and reliable material for measuring the ideological positions of political parties. The findings are that there indeed have been over all tendencies of ideological convergence between the blocs and that, in terms of how political parties are dispersed on a Left- Right ideological continuum, by 2010, the Swedish party system (the Sweden Democrats excluded) had become much less polarized than it had been in 1991.

Big Data Analysis in Social Networks : Extracting Food Preferences of Vegans from Twitter

Market research is often conducted through conventional methods such as surveys, focus groups and interviews. But the drawbacks of these methods are that they can be costly and timeconsuming. This study develops a new method, based on a combination of standard techniques like sentiment analysis and normalisation, to conduct market research in a manner that is free and quick. The method can be used in many application-areas, but this study focuses mainly on the veganism market to identify vegan food preferences in the form of a profile. Several food words are identified, along with their distribution between positive and negative sentiments in the profile. Surprisingly, non-vegan foods such as cheese, cake, milk, pizza and chicken dominate the profile, indicating that there is a significant market for vegan-suitable alternatives for such foods. Meanwhile, vegan-suitable foods such as coconut, potato, blueberries, kale and tofu also make strong appearances in the profile. Validation is performed by using the method on Volkswagen vehicle data to identify positive and negative sentiment across five car models. Some results were found to be consistent with sales figures and expert reviews, while others were inconsistent. The reliability of the method is therefore questionable, so the results should be used with caution.

Data Science Seminar: Generic Big Data Processing for Advancing Situation Awareness and Decision-Support

The generation of heterogeneous big data sources with ever increasing volumes, velocities and veracities over the he last few years has inspired the data science and research community to address the challenge of extracting knowledge form big data. Such a wealth of generated data across the board can be intelligently exploited to advance our knowledge about our environment, public health, critical infrastructure and security. In recent years we have developed generic approaches to process such big data at multiple levels for advancing decision-support. It specifically concerns data processing with semantic harmonisation, low level fusion, analytics, knowledge modelling with high level fusion and reasoning. Such approaches will be introduced and presented in context of the TRIDEC project results on critical oil and gas industry drilling operations and also the ongoing large eVacuate project on critical crowd behaviour detection in confined spaces.

Utilizing “Big Data” to Improve the Hotel Sector’s Energy Efficiency: Lessons from Recent Economics Research

Hotel chains have access to a treasure trove of “big data” on individual hotels’ monthly electricity and water consumption. Benchmarked comparisons of hotels within a specific chain create the opportunity to cost-effectively improve the environmental performance of specific hotels. This paper describes a simple approach for using such data to achieve the joint goals of reducing operating expenditure and achieving broad sustainability goals. In recent years, energy economists have used such “big data” to generate insights about the energy consumption of the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. Lessons from these studies are directly applicable for the hotel sector. A hotel’s administrative data provide a “laboratory” for conducting random control trials to establish what works in enhancing hotel energy efficiency.

Sesamoids of the metatarsophalangeal joint of the big toe: a sistematic review

Abstract: The first metatarsal sesamoid bones are not always taken into consideration when making a diagnosis, in pathologies that affect the region of the first metatarsal head. This is due to the insufficient knowledge of all the pathologies that can affect the sesamoids and the relative little incidence that they have. With the increment of sports activities, in particular the running, increasingly affects of the symptoms concerning this region are observed. Methods: A literature search was performed in 5 databases (Medline, PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library and BUCEA). The terms included in the search were: sesamoids, anatomy, biomechanics, sesamoids review and sesamoids pathology. In the initial search articles with no more than 10 years, only humans and revision texts are considered. Results: 24 articles were selected and include different pathologies with diagnosis using imaging tests and treatments, both conservative and surgical; as well as aspects from the biomechanics of the metatarsal-sesamoid joint. Conclusion: Sesamoids due of his anatomy, topography and function can be involved in a lot of pathologies; with similar signs and symptoms that can confuse the podiatry when he has to make a correct diagnosis or treatment.

Big Bath and Impairment of Goodwill : A study of the European telecommunications industry

Income decreasing strategies conducted by management could be harmful for various stakeholders. One example is big bath accounting, which could be accomplished in numer- ous ways. This study focus on big baths achieved by recognising impairments of goodwill. Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine patterns of association between big bath accounting and impairment of goodwill within the telecommunication service industry in Europe. Further, this study aim at contributing to the discussion regarding utilisation of big baths through impairments of goodwill, and takes the perspective of an external stakehold- er. Delimitations - The study is restricted to European telecommunication entities comprised in STOXX Europe 600 Index. Method - This study was conducted using a hybrid of qualitative and quantitative research strategy with a deductive approach. The five indicators used to identify various big bath behaviours were inspired and derived from theory and previous research. Data from 2009 to 2015 was collected from the companies’ annual reports and websites, and analysed by the help of codification of each fulfilled indicator where 2009 merely served as a compara- tive year for 2010. By the use of a scoreboard the collected data was summarised on an ag- gregated yearly basis as the industry, not the specific companies, were analysed. Empirical findings - The results of this study suggests that big baths are executed among tele- communication companies within Europe. These are conducted simultaneously as impair- ments of goodwill are present, facilitated by earning management. A possible explanation is considered to be the room for interpretation inherent in IAS 36, enabling goodwill impair- ments to be recognised on managers’ command. Thereby an impairment could be “saved” for better or worse circumstances, or recognised when there exist an opportunity to max- imise (the manager's) wealth in the future. This study reveal the co-occurrence of goodwill impairments and big bath-indications, however a review of causal relationships are not en- abled by the limitations of the chosen method. 

Big datan hyödyntäminen markkinointiviestinnän kohdentamisessa, Case S-Pankin mobiiliverkkopankki

Tiedon hyödyntäminen on yhä merkittävämmässä osassa markkinoinnin perustehtävien toteuttamisessa. Tiedon avulla asiakkaiden tarpeita saadaan tunnistettua paremmin ja niihin voidaan vastata tehokkaammin. Lisäksi erityisesti viimevuosien teknologinen kehitys on parantanut tiedon hyödyntämismahdollisuuksia markkinoinnissa merkittävästi. Tämä tutkielma käsittelee uudenlaista tiedon hyödyntämistä markkinointiviestinnässä. Työssä tutkitaan tiedon kehityksen uutta aikakautta, big dataa, joka vaikuttaa erityisesti markkinointiviestinnän kohdentamisen kehittymiseen. Kohdentamisen kanavana tutkielmassa tarkastellaan mobiiliverkkopankkia, mistä syystä markkinointiviestinnän tutkiminen on rajattu työssä käsittämään lähinnä asiakaspalvelun sekä mainonnan. Tutkielman tarkoituksena on vastata kysymykseen: Mitkä ovat big datan tuomat mahdollisuudet ja haasteet markkinointiviestinnän kohdentamisessa mobiiliverkkopankissa? Vastaus tähän tutkimuskysymykseen muodostetaan kahden osakysymyksen avulla: Mitä mahdollisuuksia ja haasteita big data tuo markkinointiviestinnän kohdentamiseen? Millainen markkinointiviestinnän kohdentamisen kanava on mobiiliverkkopankki? Tutkimuskysymykseen vastattiin sekä tutkielman teoriaosassa toteutetun teoreettis-käsitteellisen aikaisemman tutkimuksen läpikäynnin että erillisen empiirisen tapaustutkimuksen avulla. Laadullinen tapaustutkimus suoritettiin teemahaastatteluina S-Pankin mobiiliverkkopankkiin, Smobiiliin, liittyen. Teemahaastatteluissa haastateltiin seitsemää asiantuntijaa sekä kahta S-mobiilin käyttäjää. Tutkielman teoriaosassa tuli ilmi, että big datan avulla kuluttaja on mahdollista tuntea kokonaisuudessaan paremmin, mikä parantaa perinteisiä sekä tarjoaa myös täysin uusia markkinointiviestinnän kohdentamisen keinoja. Näiden kautta on mahdollista vaikuttaa yrityksen kilpailuetuun. Teoriaosuudessa todettiin big datan tuomien haasteiden liittyvän ilmiön uutuuteen ja tuntemattomuuteen, tiedonhallintaan sekä yritysten ulkopuolelta tuleviin haasteisiin koskien yksityisyydensuojaa, kuluttajien mielipiteitä sekä erilaisia määrättyjä rajoitteita. Tapaustutkimuksen tulokset erosivat näistä löydöksistä ainoastaan haasteiden tärkeyden painotuksissa: suurimpana tiedonhallintaan liittyvänä haasteena empiirisessä tutkimuksessa tuli esiin teknologioiden tarve tutkielman teoriaosuudessa ilmenneen asiantuntijuuden tarpeen sijaan. Lisäksi ulkoisia haasteita ei koettu merkittävinä haasteina empiirisessä tutkimuksessa. Tapaustutkimuksen tulokset tukivat tutkielman teoriaosuudessa muodostettua kuvaa mobiiliverkkopankista markkinointiviestinnän kohdentamisen kanavana: se on henkilökohtainen pankkisovellus, jonka avulla tarkasti tunnettu asiakas voidaan tavoittaa suojatussa ympäristössä tehokkaasti, ajasta ja paikasta riippumatta. Mobiiliverkkopankkia käytetään oletettavasti päämääräkeskeisesti, mutta mahdollisesti myös osittain viihdykkeellisesti sekä ajankulutustarkoituksiin. Lisäksi sovelluksen sisällä on mahdollista saada asiakkaan jakamaton huomio, jota älypuhelimen erilaiset käyttötilanteet voivat kuitenkin käytännössä häiritä. Mobiiliverkkopankin kautta toteutetun markkinointiviestinnän kohdentamisen hyväksyttävyyteen voitaneen vaikuttaa luvan pyytämisen, pull-tyyppisen mainonnan, viestinnän hyödyllisyyden sekä viestivän yrityksen brändin luotettavuuden kautta. Tutkielman aihepiiri on vielä hyvin tuore ja muuttuva, mistä syystä siihen liittyvät ilmiöt ja termit ovat osittain vakiintumattomia sekä hankalasti hahmotettavissa. Tämä tuo esiin tarpeellisia jatkotutkimusmahdollisuuksia liittyen esimerkiksi big data -termin käsiteanalyyttiseen tutkimiseen. Jatkotutkimusta olisi hyödyllistä suorittaa myös koskien big datan ja mobiiliverkkopankin avulla toteutetun kohdentamisen

X-Secure: protecting users from big bad wolves

In 2014 over 70% of people in Great Britain accessed the Internet every day. This resource is an optimal vector for malicious attackers to penetrate home computers and as such compromised pages have been increasing in both number and complexity. This paper presents X-Secure, a novel browser plug-in designed to present and raise the awareness of inexperienced users by analysing web-pages before malicious scripts are executed by the host computer. X-Secure was able to detect over 90% of the tested attacks and provides a danger level based on cumulative analysis of the source code, the URL, and the remote server, by using a set of heuristics, hence increasing the situational awareness of users browsing the internet.