Books on the topic 'Data-rich environments'

This book presents the results of the survey conducted by the University of Florence, in the years 2008-2012, at the site and in the surrounding territory of Uşaklı Höyük on the central Anatolian plateau in Turkey. Geological, geomorphological, topographic and geophysical research have provided new information and data relating to the environment and the settlement landscape, as well as producing new maps of the area and indicating the presence of large buried buildings on the site. Analysis of the rich corpus of pottery collected from the surface indicates that the site and its territory were continuously settled from the late Early Bronze Age through the Iron Age and down to the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. A few fragments of cuneiform tablets with Hittite texts, a sealing with two impressions of a stamp seal, and pottery stamps illustrate the importance of Uşaklı Höyük and support the hypothesis of its identification with the town of Zippalanda, known from the Hittite sources as a seat of the cult of the Storm God.

The city is a complex object. Some researchers look at its shape, others at its people, animals, ecology, policy, infrastructures, buildings, history, art, or technical networks. Some researchers analyse processes of in- or exclusion, gentrification, or social mobility; others biological evolution, traffic flows, or spatial development. Many combine these topics or add still more topics beyond this list. Some projects cross the boundaries of research and practice and engage in action research, while others pursue knowledge for the sake of curiosity. This volume embraces this variety of perspectives and provides an essential collection of methodologies for studying the city from multiple, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary perspectives. We start by recognizing that the complexity of the urban environment cannot be understood from a single vantage point. We therefore offer multiple methodologies in order to gather and analyse data about the city, and provide ways to connect and integrate these approaches. The contributors form a talented network of urban scholars and practitioners at the forefront of their fields. They offer hands-on methodological techniques and skills for data collection and analysis. Furthermore, they reveal honest and insightful reflections from behind the scenes. All methodologies are illustrated with examples drawn from the authors own research applying them in the city of Amsterdam. In this way, the volume also offers a rich collection of Amsterdam-based research and outcomes that may inform local urban practitioners and policy makers. Altogether, the volume offers indispensable tools for and aims to educate a new generation of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary-minded urban scholars and practitioners.

This book examines the changing roles of the librarian and how working within a rich digital environment has impacted on the ability of professionals to develop the appropriate 'know how', skills, knowledge and behaviours required in order to operate effectively. Expert specialists and opinion-makers from around the world discuss the challenges and successes of adapting existing practices, introducing new services and working with new partners in an environment that no longer recognizes traditional boundaries and demarcation of roles. The book is structured thematically, with a focus on three key strands where the impact of digital technologies is significant. The first strand, Rethinking Marketing and Communication, looks at strategic approaches and practices which harness social media and illustrate the importance of communication and marketing activities in these new online spaces. The second strand, Rethinking Support for Academic Practice, examines the professional expertise required of librarians who engage with and support new academic and learner practices in digitally rich teaching, learning and research environments. The third strand, Rethinking Resource Delivery, investigates the use of strategies to maximize access to online resources and services: harnessing system data to enhance collection management and user choice, designing and managing mobile 'friendly' learning spaces and providing virtual resources and services to an overseas campus. This timely and inspiring edited collection should make vital reading for librarians, library schools, departments of information science and other professional groups such as education developers, learning technologists and IT specialists.

This volume presents theoretical discussions, methodological outlines, and case-studies describing the discursive overlap of the theoretical and methodological framework of historical ecology, and the emerging sub-discipline of applied archaeology. Historical ecology is based on the recognition that humans are not only capable of modifying their environments, but that all environments on earth have already been directly or indirectly modified. This includes anthropogenic climate change, widespread deforestations, and species extinctions, but also very local alterations, the effects of which may last a few years, or may have legacies lasting centuries or more. The volume presents a range of case-studies that highlight how modern environments and landscapes have been shaped by humans, and includes outlines of the methods we can use to better understand these changes. Authors include anthropologists, archaeologists, human geographers, and historians, all of whom are focussed not just on defining human impacts in the past, but on the ways that understanding these changes can help inform contemporary practices and development policies. Some present examples of how ancient or current societies have modified their environments in sustainable ways, while others highlight practices that had unintended long-term consequences. The possibility of learning from these practices are discussed, as is the potential of using the long history of human resource exploitation as a method for building or testing models of future change. Rather than merely acting as advocates for historical data, the chapters collected here also warn of the limitations of drawing simple lessons from the history of interactions between humans and their environments, and note that doing so is potentially just as damaging as ignoring these rich sources of data.

This data-rich book demonstrates the value of existing national long-term ecological research in Australia for monitoring environmental change and biodiversity. Long-term ecological data are critical for informing trends in biodiversity and environmental change. The Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) is a major initiative of the Australian Government and one of its key areas of investment is to provide funding for a network of long-term ecological research plots around Australia (LTERN). LTERN researchers and other authors in this book have maintained monitoring sites, often for one or more decades, in an array of different ecosystems across the Australian continent – ranging from tropical rainforests, wet eucalypt forests and alpine regions through to rangelands and deserts. This book highlights some of the temporal changes in the environment that have occurred in the various systems in which dedicated field-based ecologists have worked. Many important trends and changes are documented and they often provide new insights that were previously poorly understood or unknown. These data are precisely the kinds of data so desperately needed to better quantify the temporal trajectories in the environment in Australia. By presenting trend patterns (and often also the associated data) the authors aim to catalyse governments and other organisations to better recognise the importance of long-term data collection and monitoring as a fundamental part of ecologically-effective and cost-effective management of the environment and biodiversity.

Investors in financial markets are faced with an abundance of potentially value-relevant information from a wide variety of different sources. In such data-rich, high-dimensional environments, techniques from the rapidly advancing field of machine learning (ML) are well-suited for solving prediction problems. Accordingly, ML methods are quickly becoming part of the toolkit in asset pricing research and quantitative investing. This book examines the promises and challenges of ML applications in asset pricing. Asset pricing problems are substantially different from the settings for which ML tools were developed originally. To realize the potential of ML methods, they must be adapted for the specific conditions in asset pricing applications. Economic considerations, such as portfolio optimization, absence of near arbitrage, and investor learning can guide the selection and modification of ML tools. Beginning with a brief survey of basic supervised ML methods, the book discusses the application of these techniques in empirical research in asset pricing and shows how they promise to advance the theoretical modeling of financial markets. The book presents the exciting possibilities of using cutting-edge methods in research on financial asset valuation.

The first part of the chapter surveys the traditional corpus-linguistic working environment for the study of varieties of English around the world, focussing on the International Corpus of English (ICE) as a major cooperative venture. The second part assesses the potential of larger digital text archives and the World-Wide Web as additional sources of data for the study of World Englishes. Corpora and digital text databases not only serve as rich and convenient sources of data, but also encourage a specific corpus-linguistic “take” on World Englishes and are thus also important for advancing the theoretical debate in the field. Analysis of traditional corpora has deepened our understanding of the nature of morphosyntactic variation in World Englishes as a whole and of fine-grained variety-internal variablility determined by medium (spoken vs. written), genre and style, whereas the use of Web data frequently highlights the role of standard and nonstandard Englishes in transnational and global domains. The chapter ends with a plea to develop corpora documenting World Englishes in their multilingual settings and thus bring together research on World Englishes and the related field of the sociolinguistics of globalisation.

Consumption decisions are crucial determinants of business cycles and growth. Knowledge of how consumers respond to the economic environment and how they react to the risks that they encounter during the life cycle is therefore crucial for evaluating stabilization policies and the effectiveness of fiscal packages implemented in response to economic downturns or financial crises. Do anticipated income changes have a different impact on consumption than unanticipated shocks? Do all consumers respond in the same way, or does the response vary by the economic circumstances and consumers’ characteristics? Do the rich increase consumption less than the poor when their income changes? In the past decades, economist have proposed many analytical perspectives, and studied these questions with a variety of data and approaches. This book attempts to guide readers through the most important theoretical papers in the field, and to evaluate theoretical models using facts or available empirical estimates. It is divided into three parts. The first seven chapters provide the basic ingredients of models with intertemporal choice, guiding the reader from a model without uncertainty to intertemporal models with precautionary saving and borrowing constraints. The central part of the book reviews recent empirical literature on the effect of income changes on consumption and on the relevance of precautionary saving. The last four chapters contain a selection of various extensions of the intertemporal model studied in the first part of the book.

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Planetary Science. Please check back later for the full article.Mars, which has a tenth of the mass of Earth, has cooled as a single lithospheric plate. Current topography gravity maps and magnetic maps do not show signs of the plate tectonics processes that have shaped the Earth’s surface. Instead, Mars has been shaped by the effects of meteorite bombardment, igneous activity, and sedimentary—including aqueous—processes. Mars also contains enormous igneous centers—Tharsis and Elysium, with other shield volcanoes in the ancient highlands. In fact, the planet has been volcanically active for nearly all of its 4.5 Gyr history, and crater counts in the Northern Lowlands suggest that may have extended to within the last tens of millions of years. Our knowledge of the composition of the igneous rocks on Mars is informed by over 100 Martian meteorites and the results from landers and orbiters. These show dominantly tholeiitic basaltic compositions derived by melting of a relatively K, Fe-rich mantle compared to that of the Earth. However, recent meteorite and lander results reveal considerable diversity, including more silica-rich and alkaline igneous activity. These show the importance of a range of processes including crystal fractionation, partial melting, and possibly mantle metasomatism and crustal contamination of magmas. The figures and plots of compositional data from meteorites and landers show the range of compositions with comparisons to other planetary basalts (Earth, Moon, Venus). A notable feature of Martian igneous rocks is the apparent absence of amphibole. This is one of the clues that the Martian mantle had a very low water content when compared to that of Earth.The Martian crust, however, has undergone hydrothermal alteration, with impact as an important heat source. This is shown by SNC analyses of secondary minerals and Near Infra-Red analyses from orbit. The associated water may be endogenous.Our view of the Martian crust has changed since Viking landers touched down on the planet in 1976: from one almost entirely dominated by basaltic flows to one where much of the ancient highlands, particularly in ancient craters, is covered by km deep sedimentary deposits that record changing environmental conditions from ancient to recent Mars. The composition of these sediments—including, notably, the MSL Curiosity Rover results—reveal an ancient Mars where physical weathering of basaltic and fractionated igneous source material has dominated over extensive chemical weathering.

With its origin dating back to as early as the 500 BC, the ukkil forms part of a centuries-old woodcarving art and tradition of the Suluk, one of the many indigenous ethnic groups of Nusantara (Southeast Asia). Suluk ukkil bears striking resemblance to the Malay ukir, both featuring similar patterns and motifs. The ukkil is often used to decorate jewellery, boats, houses, grave markers, and mosques. It is also used to decorate the hilts and sheaths of bladed weapons such as the barung. The barung refers to the thick, leaf-shaped sword of the Suluk. A barung with beautifully carved hilt and sheath, especially those using expensive wood, is considered high value and usually reserved for Suluk aristocrats. This book narrates the expressions, motifs and meanings behind ukkil carved on the barung. It is based on the results of a two-year field research conducted in different districts of Sabah. It presents data gathered through various interviews with owners, elders, and subject-matter experts. It also presents data from direct observations of heirloom barung that are still found in the hands of a few Suluk and individuals from other indigenous ethnic groups. It presents new insights from analysis made using the Theory of Iconology, a framework of analyzing art popularized by German art historian Erwin Panofsky. The predominant themes of ukkil found on ancient barung in Sabah are Islamic; zoomorphic such as birds, lizards, snakes, and squids; plantomorphic such as vines, flowers, and leaves; and cultural such as those depicting local myths, culture, values and traditions of the Suluk. Each of these images and themes represent realities that shaped the daily lives of the Suluk from the past until today, including the wind, the ocean waves and sea currents, all of which are essential for travel and navigation. They also depict concepts, beliefs and practices important to the Suluk such as freedom, livelihood, aristocracy, harmony within the community, leadership, spirituality, and Islamic principles. The Suluk are a sea-faring people who have a deep relationship with their immediate environment, especially the sea. Suluk carvers draw inspiration from nature, the environment around them, their local culture, their religious practices, and their own values and ideals in life. Both the ukkil and the barung are an embodiment of their rich past, their livelihood, creativity, their faith, their principles and their values in life. Sadly, the practice of ukkil-carving is fast declining nowadays, with only very few practitioners left and so few individuals interested in learning about it. The barung too, where the ukkil is often carved on, is no longer being produced in large numbers. As the ukkil, like all forms of art, constitute an integral part of a nation’s culture and identity, it is important for it to be understood, preserved, and protected. This book provides fresh knowledge and insights that will help the Suluk and other indigenous tribes of Malaysia and Nusantara in the understanding and preservation of the ukkil as an essential aspect of their country’s or their region’s culture and heritage. This book offers historical background that will help explain the identity of the Suluk as a culturally and artistically advanced people with deep interconnection with other indigenous ethnic groups in Malaysia and the rest of Nusantara as early as the pre-colonial period. Knowledge about the ukkil can help people connect and correct their thoughts about the Suluk while at the same time promote cultural awareness and diversity among Malaysians and other people in Southeast Asia. This book will hopefully pave the way for more research to be done on the arts and culture, not just of the Suluk but also of other indigenous ethnic groups in the region as well. That knowledge will serve as a medium for keeping harmony and cultural links among each and every Malaysian and Nusantaran.