scholarly journals Doing Better Data Visualization

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 251524592110453
Author(s):  
Eric Hehman ◽  
Sally Y. Xie
Keyword(s):  
Data Visualization ◽  
Online Forum ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Discussion Threads ◽  
Other Consumers

Methods in data visualization have rapidly advanced over the past decade. Although social scientists regularly need to visualize the results of their analyses, they receive little training in how to best design their visualizations. This tutorial is for individuals whose goal is to communicate patterns in data as clearly as possible to other consumers of science and is designed to be accessible to both experienced and relatively new users of R and ggplot2. In this article, we assume some basic statistical and visualization knowledge and focus on how to visualize rather than what to visualize. We distill the science and wisdom of data-visualization expertise from books, blogs, and online forum discussion threads into recommendations for social scientists looking to convey their results to other scientists. Overarching design philosophies and color decisions are discussed before giving specific examples of code in R for visualizing central tendencies, proportions, and relationships between variables.

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

scholarly journals In defence of machine learning: Debunking the myths of artificial intelligence

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 734-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constance de Saint Laurent
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Recent Progress ◽  
Life Time ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
The Past ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
The Media

There has been much hype, over the past few years, about the recent progress of artificial intelligence (AI), especially through machine learning. If one is to believe many of the headlines that have proliferated in the media, as well as in an increasing number of scientific publications, it would seem that AI is now capable of creating and learning in ways that are starting to resemble what humans can do. And so that we should start to hope – or fear – that the creation of fully cognisant machine might be something we will witness in our life time. However, much of these beliefs are based on deep misconceptions about what AI can do, and how. In this paper, I start with a brief introduction to the principles of AI, machine learning, and neural networks, primarily intended for psychologists and social scientists, who often have much to contribute to the debates surrounding AI but lack a clear understanding of what it can currently do and how it works. I then debunk four common myths associated with AI: 1) it can create, 2) it can learn, 3) it is neutral and objective, and 4) it can solve ethically and/or culturally sensitive problems. In a third and last section, I argue that these misconceptions represent four main dangers: 1) avoiding debate, 2) naturalising our biases, 3) deresponsibilising creators and users, and 4) missing out some of the potential uses of machine learning. I finally conclude on the potential benefits of using machine learning in research, and thus on the need to defend machine learning without romanticising what it can actually do.

Conditions of Confinement within Security Prisons: Scandinavia and California

1985 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Snortum ◽  
Kåre Bødal
Keyword(s):  
Living Conditions ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Prison Programs ◽  
Staffing Ratios ◽  
The Past ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
State Prisons ◽  
And Function ◽  
American State

Within the past three decades, the Scandinavian countries have acquired an international reputation for the development of innovative and humane prisons. Most of the favorable attention from journalists and social scientists has centered upon the socalled “model prisons,” which are typically smaller, newer, and “open.” However, the majority of Scandinavian prisoners are still incarcerated in the larger, older, locked prisons that are rather traditional in design and function. One might question whether these traditional prisons are, in fact, superior to American state prisons and whether they would meet emerging U.S. standards for conditions of confinement. This investigation surveyed the nature of prison programs, staffing ratios, living conditions, and visiting conditions within 16 “closed” or secure prisons, including 4 each from Norway, Sweden, Finland, and California. On most measures, the conditions of confinement were most severe in California prisons, much less severe in Finnish prisons, and least severe in Norwegian and Swedish prisons.

Legal Reform and Social Construction: Violence, Gender, and the Law

1994 ◽  
Vol 19 (04) ◽  
pp. 829-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Frohmann ◽  
Elizabeth Mertz
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
The Social

As scholars and activists have addressed the problem of violence against women in the past 25 years, their efforts have increasingly attuned us to the multiple dimensions of the issue. Early activists hoped to change the structure of power relations in our society, as well as the political ideology that tolerated violence against women, through legislation, education, direct action, and direct services. This activism resulted in a plethora of changes to the legal codes and protocols relating to rape and battering. Today, social scientists and legal scholars are evaluating the effects of these reforms, questioning anew the ability of law by itself to redress societal inequalities. As they uncover the limitations of legal reforms enacted in the past two decades, scholars are turning—or returning—to ask about the social and cultural contexts within which laws are formulated, enforced, and interpreted.

scholarly journals Has fertility increased at very high levels of development?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hampton Gray Gaddy
Keyword(s):  
Human Development Index ◽  
National Level ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Clear Relationship ◽  
Fertility Rates ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Very High

Increasing development is historically associated with fertility declines. However, demographic paradigms disagree about whether that relationship should hold at very high levels of development. Using national-level data through 2005, Myrskylä, Kohler, and Billari (2009) found that very high levels of the Human Development Index (HDI) were associated with increasing total fertility rates (TFR). This paper updates that finding with data up to 2017. It investigates whether the observed association has continued to hold for the countries originally studied and whether it holds for countries that have more recently reached very high HDI. For countries that reached HDI ≥ 0.8 in 2000 or before (n=27), the data indicate no clear relationship between changes in HDI and TFR at HDI ≥ 0.8. There is also no clear relationship for countries that reached HDI ≥ 0.8 between 2001 and 2010 (n=13). For countries that reached HDI ≥ 0.8 in 2000 or before, there appear to have been notable increases in TFR between 2000 and 2010, but those gains appear to have completely reversed between 2010 and 2017. The past finding of TFR increases at very high levels of development has not borne out in recent years. In fact, TFRs declined markedly in very high development countries between 2010 and 2017. This paper contributes to the debate over the relationship between development and fertility. That debate has an important bearing on how low fertility is conceived by social scientists and policymakers.

scholarly journals Data Visualization + Scrollytelling for Election News Stories : Challenges and Perspectives

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Corbeil ◽  
Florent Daudens ◽  
Thomas Hurtut
Keyword(s):  
Data Visualization ◽  
French Language ◽  
Daily Newspaper ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Narrative Format ◽  
Election News ◽  
Data Visualizations

This visual case study is conducted by Le Devoir, a Canadian french-language independent daily newspaper gathering around 50 journalists and one million readers every week. During the past twelve months, in collaboration with Polytechnique Montreal, we investigated a scrollytelling format strongly relying on combined series of data visualizations. This visual case study will specifically present one of the news stories we published, which communicates electoral results the day after the last Quebec general election. It gathers all the lessons that we learnt from this experience, the challenges that we tackled and the perspectives for the future. Beyond the specific electoral context of this work, these conclusions might be useful for any practitioner willing to communicate data visualization based stories, using a scrollytelling narrative format.

Built Objects

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglass Bailey ◽  
Lesley McFadyen
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Architectural History ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Architectural Form ◽  
The Past ◽  
Neolithic Europe ◽  
Two Bodies ◽  
European Architecture

This article presents two bodies of work, both of which take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of buildings from Neolithic Europe. The first connects archaeology to theories in architectural history, while the second creates links between archaeology and art. This article works through four ideas about architecture which the article offers as disconnected propositions. There is no easy narrative for this article, just as there is none for the living built environment of the past or the present. This article proposes that archaeologists step away from accepted and comfortable knowledge of architectural form and interpretation. The aim of this article is to work through four case studies from our work on prehistoric European architecture. The case studies illuminate four propositions, which are offered as provocations for further work on architecture by archaeologists but also by anthropologists and other social scientists and humanities scholars whose work engages architecture concludes this article.

The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon D. Wisman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human History ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Role

Whereas President Barack Obama identified inequality as “the defining challenge of our time,” this book claims more: it is the defining issue of all human history. The struggle over inequality has been the underlying force driving human history’s unfolding. Drawing on the dynamics of inequality, this book reinterprets history and society. Beyond according inequality the central role in human history, this book is novel in two other respects. First, transcending the general failure of social scientists and historians to anchor their work in explicit theories of human behavior, this book grounds the origins and dynamics of inequality in evolutionary psychology, or, more specifically, Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. Second, this book is novel in according central importance to the critical historical role of ideology in legitimating inequality, a role typically ignored or given little attention by social scientists and historians. Because of the central role of inequality in history, inequality’s explosion over the past 45 years has not been an anomaly. It is a return to the political dynamics by which elites have, since the rise of the state, taken practically everything for themselves, leaving all others with little more than the means with which to survive. Due to elites’ persuasive ideology, even after workers in advanced capitalist countries gained the franchise to become the overwhelming majority of voters, inequality continued to increase. The anomaly is that the only intentional politically driven decline in inequality occurred between the 1930s and 1970s following the Great Depression’s partial delegitimation (this should remain delegitimation globally) of elites’ ideology.

The Making of Ritual Specialists: What Cultural Anthropologists can Contribute to Educating Funeral Service Practitioners

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherlyn Briller ◽  
Allison Kabel
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Therapy ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Collaborative Teaching ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Occupational Science ◽  
The Past ◽  
Health Practitioners ◽  
Funeral Service ◽  
Health Related

For the past five decades, anthropologists have taught health practitioners about how our discipline studies and addresses health-related issues. Important curricular reforms in the education of health professionals in the late 1960's and early 1970's greatly expanded such teaching roles for social scientists (Chrisman and Johnson, 1996). While anthropological teaching of certain types of health practitioners such as physicians and nurses are well-known, anthropologists' growing roles in teaching other kinds of practitioners are also being documented today. For example, the burgeoning intellectual, collaborative teaching and practice relationships between anthropology, occupational therapy and occupational science have been discussed by Frank (2007) and Frank & Zemke (2005).

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