scholarly journals Upscaling Statistical Patterns from Reduced Storage in Social and Life Science Big Datasets

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 1084
Author(s):  
Stefano Garlaschi ◽  
Anna Fochesato ◽  
Anna Tovo

Recent technological and computational advances have enabled the collection of data at an unprecedented rate. On the one hand, the large amount of data suddenly available has opened up new opportunities for new data-driven research but, on the other hand, it has brought into light new obstacles and challenges related to storage and analysis limits. Here, we strengthen an upscaling approach borrowed from theoretical ecology that allows us to infer with small errors relevant patterns of a dataset in its entirety, although only a limited fraction of it has been analysed. In particular we show that, after reducing the input amount of information on the system under study, by applying our framework it is still possible to recover two statistical patterns of interest of the entire dataset. Tested against big ecological, human activity and genomics data, our framework was successful in the reconstruction of global statistics related to both the number of types and their abundances while starting from limited presence/absence information on small random samples of the datasets. These results pave the way for future applications of our procedure in different life science contexts, from social activities to natural ecosystems.

Author(s):  
Lydia Lyashenko

The purpose of the article is to prove the expediency and scientific, methodological, conceptual, and categorical potential of Cultural studies as a science that may offer an updated perspective for the study of the problem of aesthetic values. Methodology. Methods of scientific analysis, comparison, and generalization during the elaboration of the source base and the method of systematization are used to determine the traditional and innovative directions of research of the problem of aesthetic values. Scientific novelty. The article considers the interdisciplinary and generalizing potential of Cultural studies on the example of the problem of study aesthetic values. The existing tendency to move the analysis of problems of humanities from separate sciences to the plane of interdisciplinary is emphasized. It was accented on the novelty and relevance of such interdisciplinary research within Cultural studies. Conclusions. The approach of Cultural studies offers an increase in the scale of generalization from aesthetic to actually global, which combines the experience of studying scientific problems in the traditional and extended areas. Given the fact that on the one hand, all material and spiritual values which surround man were born from culture, because culture is the cumulative result of productive human activity, and, on the other hand, culture absorbs them, being phenomenon generalized, interdisciplinary approach of Cultural studies is able to suggest an updated perspective on this problem on the border of traditional and non-traditional sciences and through the improvement of its conceptual and categorical apparatus to offer new ways to study.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 15-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Ludwig ◽  
Daniel König ◽  
Nestor D. Kapusta ◽  
Victor Blüml ◽  
Georg Dorffner ◽  
...  

Abstract Methods of suicide have received considerable attention in suicide research. The common approach to differentiate methods of suicide is the classification into “violent” versus “non-violent” method. Interestingly, since the proposition of this dichotomous differentiation, no further efforts have been made to question the validity of such a classification of suicides. This study aimed to challenge the traditional separation into “violent” and “non-violent” suicides by generating a cluster analysis with a data-driven, machine learning approach. In a retrospective analysis, data on all officially confirmed suicides (N = 77,894) in Austria between 1970 and 2016 were assessed. Based on a defined distance metric between distributions of suicides over age group and month of the year, a standard hierarchical clustering method was performed with the five most frequent suicide methods. In cluster analysis, poisoning emerged as distinct from all other methods – both in the entire sample as well as in the male subsample. Violent suicides could be further divided into sub-clusters: hanging, shooting, and drowning on the one hand and jumping on the other hand. In the female sample, two different clusters were revealed – hanging and drowning on the one hand and jumping, poisoning, and shooting on the other. Our data-driven results in this large epidemiological study confirmed the traditional dichotomization of suicide methods into “violent” and “non-violent” methods, but on closer inspection “violent methods” can be further divided into sub-clusters and a different cluster pattern could be identified for women, requiring further research to support these refined suicide phenotypes.


2000 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-44
Author(s):  
Tünde Éva Polonyi

A két- és többnyelvuek információtárolása és  feldolgozása vitatott téma: egyes kutatók szerint ez olyan kognitív alrendszerek segítségével történik, amelyek tartalmazzák az emlékezeti képzeteket is és beszélt nyelveikkel állnak kapcsolatban, viszont funkcionálisan függetlenek egymástól (a függetlenség hipotézise); egy másik modell szerint (az egymástól való függés hipotézise) a különálló lingvisztikai rendszerek funkcionálisan kötodnek egy olyan közös fogalmi rendszerhez, ami egyben a megosztott memóriatároló is. Kísérletem célja az volt, hogy egyetlen vizsgálatban, különbözo bevésési stratégiákat és elohívási feladatokat alkalmazva olyan teljesítménymintákat mérjek fel, amelyeket egyik vagy másik modell alátámasztására szoktak felhozni; ezenkívül a fejlodési hipotézist is vizsgálom.Magyar–román–angol háromnyelvuek vettek részt a vizsgálatban két csoportba osztva. Hipotézisem szerint az angolt nehézkesebben beszélok teljesítménye egy adatvezérlésu szókiegészítési feladatnál a függetlenégi hipotézist kell hogy alátámassza, azonban eredményeim azt mutatták, hogy az adat vezérlésu és fogalmi vezérlésu feldolgozás itt együtt jelentkezik; a szabad felidézési feladat ered ményei a nyelvtol való függetlenség hipotézisét támasztották alá, a felismerési feladat eredményei pedig szintén a két típusú feldolgozás kombinációját mutatták. Az angolt folyékonyabban beszélo alanyok esetében nem találtam szignifikáns különbségeket a különbözo bevésési stratégiák között, ami újabb bizonyítékot jelent Kroll és Stewart (1994) modellje mellett. A nehézkesebben beszélo háromnyelvuek tehát a lexikális- és fogalmi közvetítés kombinációját mutatták, és csak a gyakorlott beszélokre jellemzo a tiszta fogalmi közvetítés. Általános következtetésem az, hogy a leghasznosabb kutatási paradigma egy olyan transzfer-központú szemlélet lenne, amelyben a megorzési próbákon való teljesítmény olyan mértékben javul, amilyen mértékben a teszt által megkövetelt eljárások megismétlik a bevésési eljárásokat.Bilinguals’ information-representation and -processing is a controversial theme among psycholinguists: According to some researchers bilinguals have cognitive subsystems linked to their known languages, which include the memory stores, as well, but they are functionally independent from each other (independence position). On the other hand, the interdependence position maintain that bilinguals represent words in a supralinguistic code, possibly based on the meanings of the words, that is independent of the language in which the words occurred. According to the developmental hypothesis second language learners start only with lexical associations, but gradually develop direct links between the second language lexicon and concepts.The aims of my study were: 1) to measure performance patterns, which are usually taken to reflect the one or the other model, in one experiment, using different retrieval tasks under identical encoding conditions; 2) to examine the developmental hypothesis by using less fluent and more fluent trilinguals.        The subjects of my study were Hungarian–Romanian–English trilinguals, divided into two groups. According to my hypothesis, in the case of the less fluently speakers of English, a mostly data-driven task such as word fragment completion would depend on the matching of language at study and test, thus supporting the independence hypothesis. However, my results showed that in the case of this task both the data-driven and conceptually-driven processing is present: not only the language of study was important, but the increasing elaborate processing during study, as well. The results of the free recall task, as predicted, revealed evidence for interdependence effects. Finally, the recognition task showed again the combination of the two kind of processing: data-driven and conceptually-driven processing. The more fluent subjects, in turn, could face all the conditions and all the tasks almost equally well, suggesting that they mediate their languages entirely conceptually. In sum, we can tell that in the mind of the multilingual words are organised on the basis of meaning, not language. At very early stage of language acquisition, however, language specific cues intrude, even when subjects are concentrating upon meaning.My general conclusion is that the most useful research paradigm would be a transfer appropriate approach, according to which the performance on the retention tasks benefit to the extent to which procedures demanded by the task repeat those employed during encoding.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-188
Author(s):  
Daniel Rueda Garrido ◽  

Krausists followed a dialectical method in all their activities. It is an action plan in which theory and practice are established on a continuum. Since it summarizes all human activity, this dialectic implies a philosophy of action. The originality of this article lies precisely in offering an account of the philosophy of action implicit in the work of Krause, which has never before been made explicit. Therefore, the goal of this article is, on the one hand, to isolate this dialectic in the texts of the Spanish Krausists, and, on the other hand, to demonstrate the traditional affirmation about the practical meaning of Krause’s philosophy, as shown in its Spanish version. This practical orientation of his thought was channelled through several disciplines and, especially, through the modern pedagogy known as active education. Throughout the article, I also show how to relate Krause’s philosophy to contemporary philosophical debates.


1991 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O. McCagg

In discussion of ethnic minorities in Eastern Europe, one hears regularly of appalling official misbehavior—not just about attempted genocide (though that too), but also about bureaucratic cruelties inflicted in every field of human activity and at every level of control. Nonetheless, it is always useful to have a measurable basis for assessing unfairness; and historians have the special task of inquiring rationally why and how unfairness came about. Hence the following paper, which attempts not just to condemn, but to explain and evaluate the Hungarian and Czechoslovak official treatment of the Gypsies in recent decades. As is fairly well known, this treatment has included not only harassment of populations which presently exceed 600,000 people in each country, but also (in both countries) systematic abduction of children by the state from unwilling Gypsy parents, and (in Czechoslovakia) equally systematic sterilization of Gypsy women.Since the point of the paper is to reach beyond mere indictment, I will use a comparative method. Specifically, in recounting each stage of the development of policy towards the Gypsies I will compare what was being done to two other groups: the Jews, on the one hand, and the physically disabled on the other.


2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-153
Author(s):  
Motomitsu Uchibori

This article is a synopsis of the research project embracing a variety of topics and themes concerning things that are accepted as resources in the multi-layered fields of human activity. The project aims at developing a new integrative perspective of anthropological research through focusing upon feedback processes between formations of ‘symbolic resources’ on the one hand, and of ‘ecological resources’ on the other. These two categories of resources combine to constitute the very basis that any human society works on. Theoretical attempts are directed at establishing the thesis that modes of their allocation, distribution and common sharing reveal the most fundamental aspects of social mechanisms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 263178772094252
Author(s):  
Martin Kornberger ◽  
Saku Mantere

Organization theory seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place: on the one hand, there are arguments that the field is too preoccupied with theory, leaving its work abstract and practically irrelevant. On the other hand, there are arguments that the field is overly empirical and too methods-driven, which hampers the creation of ideas that resonate with constituencies beyond the organization studies community. How to resolve this apparent conundrum? In this essay we argue that neither more theorizing nor more forensic data-driven work might address the problem; rather, and perhaps surprisingly, we propose that a philosophical stance might offer a remedy. The aim of this essay is (1) to explore thought experiments as a genuine philosophical method that is designed to develop promising ideas and concepts and (2) to reflect on how such conceptual work can help shape organization theory to be conceptually more stimulating and practically more relevant. We argue that this particular kind of conceptual work has been and should continue to be one of the hallmarks of organization theory. Thus thought experiments represent a valuable methodological extension of our toolkit as they provide crucial devices triggering transformations in thought and practice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Marciano ◽  
Antonio Nicita ◽  
Giovanni Battista Ramello

AbstractOne of the major challenges that result from the digital transformation occurring in our societies bears on its impact on the organization and regulation of the economy. This leads to a dramatic change to the economic institutions of capitalism—into what could be defined as platform capitalism—that rests on a fundamental dilemma between ‘decentralization’ on the one side and ‘concentration’ on the other. This is the main puzzle that the emergence of a big data driven economy is actually offering to law and economics scholars and to policy makers. This paper introduces to some of the major aspects of this dilemma.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio Bergillos

This short article focuses on the interrelation of two seemingly invisible phenomena that have a growing influence on our daily lives: on the one hand, our intimate relationship with devices and practices mediated by technology, which make up our media life, and on the other, the great impact that our way of life has on the planet that we inhabit, which invites us to think about our role in the Anthropocene, a new geological era in which human activity is the main agent of change in the Earth’s ecosystems. Regarding these key trends as closely connected gives us the opportunity to find accessible solutions to our daily concerns on environmental issues. In other words, considering our media life in the Anthropocene means to be aware of the challenges that we face while asking ourselves how to claim a responsible use of technology that ‐ in line with our humanity ‐ will help us to confront them.


2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Pietrandrea

This study presents a formal and functional data-driven characterization of sentence adverbs. We define epistemic sentence adverbs as semantic predicates that validate the truth value of their scopes and are macrosyntactically dependent on them. We distinguish epistemic sentence adverbs on the one hand from epistemic complement-taking predicates – i. e., semantic predicates that validate the truth value of their scopes and govern them microsyntactically – and on the other hand from epistemic pragmatic markers – i. e., semantic predicates that validate the truth value of their scopes and that are syntactically independent of them. We also hypothesize that epistemic sentence adverbs have a specific functional role. Unlike (most) epistemic complement taking predicates, they express a non-addressable epistemic evaluation of the scope; unlike pragmatic markers they serve to qualify, rather than negotiate, the epistemic evaluation of the scope. We show that such a distinction is not necessarily inscribed at the lexical level: even though some words invariably behave as sentence adverbs, other words can be classified as epistemic sentence adverbs in some syntactic contexts, and as other epistemic markers in other syntactic contexts.


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