The Changing Context for Broadband Evaluation

2021 ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
William Lehr
Keyword(s):  
Heterogeneous Data ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Healthcare Outcomes ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Broadband Service ◽  
The Social ◽  
Basic Infrastructure

Broadband Internet access is now widely recognized as basic infrastructure, like roads, water, and electricity. Identifying and reaching consensus on what constitutes an appropriate level of broadband service requires ongoing research to evaluate the social and economic impacts of broadband and broadband policies. As broadband has evolved, so too must the research focus. While availability and adoption of ever more advanced broadband will remain a concern, more of the focus should be on understanding how broadband is used and its effects on things like improved healthcare outcomes, educational performance, green/energy efficiency, and improving the quality of life for all society. We need more sector-specific and micro-studies of usage, and we need to tap into the different perspectives of the multiple academic disciplines. This will require multidisciplinary engagement among social scientists, network researchers, and policymakers. The research will require novel and more dynamic and heterogeneous data sets, metrics, and analytics tools.

A Methodology for Appropriate Testing When Data is Heterogeneous Using EXCEL

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-66
Author(s):  
Nguyen Khanh ◽  
Jimin Lee ◽  
Susan Reiser ◽  
Donna Parsons ◽  
Sara Russell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Operating System ◽  
Programming Languages ◽  
Operating Systems ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Heterogeneous Data ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Unequal Variances ◽  
Data Volume ◽  
Nonparametric Techniques

A Methodology for Appropriate Testing When Data is Heterogeneous was originally published and copy written in the mid-1990s in Turbo Pascal and a 16-bit operating system.  While working on an ergonomic dissertation (Yearout, 1987), the author determined that the perceptual lighting preference data was heterogeneous and not normal.  Drs. Milliken and Johnson, the authors of Analysis of Messy Data Volume I: Designed Experiments (1989), advised that Satterthwaite’s Approximation with Bonferroni’s Adjustment to correct for pairwise error be used to analyze the heterogeneous data. This technique of applying linear combinations with adjusted degrees of freedom allowed the use of t-Table criteria to make group comparisons without using standard nonparametric techniques.  Thus data with unequal variances and unequal sample sizes could be analyzed without losing valuable information.  Variances to the 4th power were so large that they could not be reentered into basic calculators.  The solution was to develop an original software package which was written in Turbo Pascal on a 7 ¼ inch disk 16-bit operating system.  Current operating systems of 32 and 64 bits and more efficient programming languages have made the software obsolete and unusable. Using the old system could result either in many returns being incorrect or the system terminating.  The purpose of this research was to develop a spreadsheet algorithm with multiple interactive EXCEL worksheets that will efficiently apply Satterthwaite’s Approximation with Bonferroni’s Adjustment to solve the messy data problem.  To ensure that the pedagogy is accurate, the resulting package was successfully tested in the classroom with academically diverse students.  A comparison between this technique and EXCEL’s Add-Ins Analysis ToolPak for a t-test Two-Sample Assuming Unequal Variances was conducted using several different data sets.  The results of this comparison were that the EXCEL Add-Ins returned incorrect significant differences.  Engineers, ergonomists, psychologists, and social scientists will find the developed program very useful. A major benefit is that spreadsheets will continue to be current regardless of evolving operating systems’ status.

Globalizations

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Osterhammel
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
World History ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Characteristic Features

The revival of world history towards the end of the twentieth century was intimately connected with the rise of a new master concept in the social sciences: globalization. Historians and social scientists responded to the same generational experience that the interconnectedness of social life on the planet had arrived at a new level of intensity. The conclusions drawn from this insight in the various academic disciplines diverged considerably. The early theorists of globalization in sociology, political science, and economics disdained a historical perspective. The new concept seemed ideally suited to grasp the characteristic features of contemporary society. It helped to pinpoint the very essence of present-day modernity. Globalization opened up a way towards the social science mainstream, provided elements of a fresh terminology to a field that had suffered for a long time from an excess of descriptive simplicity.

Social Science Data Analysis

2013 ◽  
pp. 131-147
Author(s):  
Anthony Scime ◽  
Gregg R. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Behavioral Predictions

Social scientists address some of the most pressing issues of society such as health and wellness, government processes and citizen reactions, individual and collective knowledge, working conditions and socio-economic processes, and societal peace and violence. In an effort to understand these and many other consequential issues, social scientists invest substantial resources to collect large quantities of data, much of which are not fully explored. This chapter proffers the argument that privacy protection and responsible use are not the only ethical considerations related to data mining social data. Given (1) the substantial resources allocated and (2) the leverage these “big data” give on such weighty issues, this chapter suggests social scientists are ethically obligated to conduct comprehensive analysis of their data. Data mining techniques provide pertinent tools that are valuable for identifying attributes in large data sets that may be useful for addressing important issues in the social sciences. By using these comprehensive analytical processes, a researcher may discover a set of attributes that is useful for making behavioral predictions, validating social science theories, and creating rules for understanding behavior in social domains. Taken together, these attributes and values often present previously unknown knowledge that may have important applied and theoretical consequences for a domain, social scientific or otherwise. This chapter concludes with examples of important social problems studied using various data mining methodologies including ethical concerns.

New platform of data analytics for mental health

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. S33-S33
Author(s):  
K. Suzuki
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Recommendation System ◽  
Clinical Decision Making ◽  
Heterogeneous Data ◽  
Individual Risk ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Healthcare Outcomes ◽  
Life Years ◽  
The Right ◽  
Data Analytic

IntroductionMental disorder is a key public health challenge and a leading cause of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) due to its high level of disability and mortality. Therefore, a slight improvement on mental care provision and management could generate solid benefits on relieving the social burden of mental diseases.ObjectivesThis paper presents a long-term vision of strategic collaboration between Fujitsu Laboratories, Fujitsu Spain, and Hospital Clinico San Carlos to generate value through predictive and preventive medicine improving healthcare outcomes for every clinical area, benefiting managers, clinicians, and patients.AimsThe aim is to enable a data analytic approach towards a value-based healthcare system via health informatics. The project generates knowledge from heterogeneous data sources to obtain patterns assisting clinical decision-making.MethodsThis project leverages a data analytic platform named HIKARI (“light” in Japanese) to deliver the “right” information, to the “right” people, at the “right” time. HIKARI consists of a data-driven and evidence-based Decision Support and Recommendation System (DSRS), facilitating identification of patterns in large-scale hospital and open data sets and linking data from different sources and types.ResultsUsing multiple, heterogeneous data sets, HIKARI detects correlations from retrospective data and would facilitate early intervention when signs and symptoms prompt immediate actions. HIKARI also analyses resource consumption patterns and suggests better resource allocation, using real-world data.ConclusionsWith the advance of ICT, especially data-intensive computing paradigm, approaches mixing individual risk assessment and environmental conditions become increasingly available. As a key tool, HIKARI DSRS can assist clinicians in the daily management of mental disorders.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.

Linguistics: A Rhetor's Guide

1994 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dick Leith
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Text Linguistics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language Study ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Linguistic Inquiry ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

Abstract: To non-specialists, academic disciplines invariably seem homogeneous, even monolithic. But even a relatively young discipline such as modem linguistics is more diverse in its procedures and concerns than might appear to those working in other fields. In this paper I attempt to show how certain kinds of linguistic inquiry might be relevant to those whose primary concern is rhetoric. I argue that these practices are often opposed to what I call the dominant paradigm in modern linguistics, with its commitment to abstraction and idealization. I discuss first those strands of linguistics, such as discourse analysis, text-linguistics, and stylistics, which tend to take the social formation for granted; I end by considering recent trends in so-called critical language study. Finally, I offer some thoughts on how linguistics may proceed in order to achieve a more programmatic rapprochement with rhetoric.

Value-driven issues throughout the development of sociological theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-160
Author(s):  
Gulbarshyn Chepurko ◽  
Valerii Pylypenko
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social System ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Different Levels

The paper examines and compares how the major sociological theories treat axiological issues. Value-driven topics are analysed in view of their relevance to society in times of crisis, when both societal life and the very structure of society undergo dramatic change. Nowadays, social scientists around the world are also witnessing such a change due to the emergence of alternative schools of sociological thought (non-classical, interpretive, postmodern, etc.) and, subsequently, the necessity to revise the paradigms that have been existed in sociology so far. Since the above-mentioned approaches are often used to address value-related issues, building a solid theoretical framework for these studies takes on considerable significance. Furthermore, the paradigm revision has been prompted by technological advances changing all areas of people’s lives, especially social interactions. The global human community, integral in nature, is being formed, and production of human values now matters more than production of things; hence the “expansion” of value-focused perspectives in contemporary sociology. The authors give special attention to collectivities which are higher-order units of the social system. These units are described as well-organised action systems where each individual performs his/her specific role. Just as the role of an individual is distinct from that of the collectivity (because the individual and the collectivity are different as units), so too a distinction is drawn between the value and the norm — because they represent different levels of social relationships. Values are the main connecting element between the society’s cultural system and the social sphere while norms, for the most part, belong to the social system. Values serve primarily to maintain the pattern according to which the society is functioning at a given time; norms are essential to social integration. Apart from being the means of regulating social processes and relationships, norms embody the “principles” that can be applied beyond a particular social system. The authors underline that it is important for Ukrainian sociology to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of axiology and make good use of those ideas because this is a prerequisite for its successful integration into the global sociological community.

TrustSVD: A Novel Trust-Based Matrix Factorization Model with User Trust and Item Ratings

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
K Sobha Rani
Keyword(s):  
Matrix Factorization ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Real World Data ◽  
Recommendation Algorithm ◽  
Active User ◽  
Factorization Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Matrix Factorization Technique

Collaborative filtering suffers from the problems of data sparsity and cold start, which dramatically degrade recommendation performance. To help resolve these issues, we propose TrustSVD, a trust-based matrix factorization technique. By analyzing the social trust data from four real-world data sets, we conclude that not only the explicit but also the implicit influence of both ratings and trust should be taken into consideration in a recommendation model. Hence, we build on top of a state-of-the-art recommendation algorithm SVD++ which inherently involves the explicit and implicit influence of rated items, by further incorporating both the explicit and implicit influence of trusted users on the prediction of items for an active user. To our knowledge, the work reported is the first to extend SVD++ with social trust information. Experimental results on the four data sets demonstrate that our approach TrustSVD achieves better accuracy than other ten counterparts, and can better handle the concerned issues.

The social wasp Vespula germanica (Fabricius) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) population dynamics in England over 39 years.

2018 ◽  
Vol 154 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-155
Author(s):  
Michael Archer
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Population Dynamic ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Social Wasp ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Vespula Germanica ◽  
The Social ◽  
Minimum Number ◽  
Suction Traps

1. Yearly records of worker Vespula germanica (Fabricius) taken in suction traps at Silwood Park (28 years) and at Rothamsted Research (39 years) are examined. 2. Using the autocorrelation function (ACF), a significant negative 1-year lag followed by a lesser non-significant positive 2-year lag was found in all, or parts of, each data set, indicating an underlying population dynamic of a 2-year cycle with a damped waveform. 3. The minimum number of years before the 2-year cycle with damped waveform was shown varied between 17 and 26, or was not found in some data sets. 4. Ecological factors delaying or preventing the occurrence of the 2-year cycle are considered.

On diversity in the social sciences: Why homogeneous research groups are an ethical mistake

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Nusbaum ◽  
Toby SantaMaria
Keyword(s):  
Minority Groups ◽  
Academic Science ◽  
Research Groups ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Responsibility ◽  
Principles Of Justice

The scientific enterprise reflects society at large, and as such it actively disadvantages minority groups. From an ethical perspective, this system is unacceptable as it actively undermines principles of justice and social good, as well as the research principles of openness and public responsibility. Further, minority social scientists lead to better overall scientific products, meaning a diverse scientific body can also be considered an instrumental good. Thus, centering minority voices in science is an ethical imperative. This paper outlines what can be done to actively center these scientists, including changing the way metrics are used to assess the performance of individual scientists and altering the reward structure within academic science to promote heterogenous research groups.

ISLAMIC SOCIAL SCIENCES

1988 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Abul Fadl
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Human Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
Western Values ◽  
Culture Brokers

The need for a relevant and instrumental body of knowledge that can secure the taskof historical reconstruction in Muslim societies originally inspired the da’wa for the Islamizationof knowledge. The immediate targets for this da’wa were the social sciences for obvious reasons.Their field directly impinges on the organization of human societies and as such carries intothe area of human value and belief systems. The fact that such a body of knowledge alreadyexisted and that the norms for its disciplined pursuit were assumed in the dominant practiceconfronted Muslim scholars with the context for addressing the issues at stake. How relevantwas current social science to Muslim needs and aspirations? Could it, in its present formand emphasis, provide Muslims with the framework for operationalizing their values in theirhistorical present? How instrumental is it in shaping the social foundations vital for the Muslimfuture? Is instrumentality the only criteria for such evaluations? In seeking to answer thesequestions the seeds are sown for a new orientation in the social sciences. This orientationrepresents the legitimate claims and aspirations of a long silent/silenced world culture.In locating the activities of Muslim social scientists today it is important to distinguishbetween two currents. The first is in its formative stages as it sets out to rediscover the worldfrom the perspective of a recovered sense of identity and in terms of its renewed culturalaffinities. Its preoccupations are those of the Muslim revival. The other current is constitutedof the remnants of an earlier generation of modernizers who still retain a faith in the universalityof Western values. Demoralized by the revival, as much as by their own cultural alientation,they seek to deploy their reserves of scholarship and logistics to recover lost ground. Bymodifying their strategy and revalorizing the legacy they hope that, as culture-brokers, theymight be more effective where others have failed. They seek to pre-empt the cultural revivalby appropriating its symbols and reinterpreting the Islamic legacy to make it more tractableto modernity. They blame Orientalism for its inherent fixations and strive to redress its selfimposedlimitations. Their efforts may frequently intersect with those of the Islamizing current,but should clearly not be confused with them. For all the tireless ingenuity, these effortsare more conspicuous for their industry than for their originality. Between the new breadof renovationists and the old guard of ‘modernizers’, the future of an Islamic Social Scienceclearly lies with the efforts of the former.Within the Islamizing current it is possible to distinguish three principal trends. The firstopts for a radical perspective and takes its stand on epistemological grounds. It questionsthe compatibility of the current social sciences on account of their rootedness in the paradigmof the European Enlightenment and its attendant naturalistic and positivist biases. Consistencedemands a concerted e€fort to generate alternative paradigms for a new social science fromIslamic epistemologies. In contrast, the second trend opts for a more pragmatic approachwhich assumes that it is possible to interact within the existing framework of the disciplinesafter adapting them to Islamic values. The problem with modern sciene is ethical, notepistemological, and by recasting it accordingly, it is possible to benefit from its strengthsand curtail its derogatory consequences. The third trend focuses on the Muslim scholar, rather ...

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