Measure based metrics for aggregated data

Aggregated data arises commonly from surveys and censuses where groups of individuals are studied as coherent entities. The aggregated data can take many forms including sets, intervals, distributions and histograms. The data analyst needs to measure the similarity between such aggregated data items and a range of metrics are reported in the literature to achieve this (e.g. the Jaccard metric for sets and the Wasserstein metric for histograms). In this paper, a unifying theory based on measure theory is developed that establishes not only that known metrics are essentially similar but also suggests new metrics

Introduction to Library Trends 55 (3) Winter 2007: Libraries in Times of War, Revolution and Social Change

published or submitted for publicatio

Information revolutions, the information society, and the future of the history of information science

This paper aims to discuss the future of information history by interrogating its past. It presents in outline an account of the conditions and the trajectory of events that have culminated in today’s “information revolution” and “information society.” It suggests that we have already passed through at least two information orders or revolutions as we transition, first, from the long era of print that began over five hundred years ago with Gutenberg and the printing press. We have then moved through a predigital era after World War II, finally to a new era characterized by the advent of the ubiquitous technologies that are considered to herald a new “digital revolution” and the creation of new kind of “information society.” It argues that it is possible to see that the past is now opening itself to new kinds of scrutiny as a result of the apparently transformative changes that are currently taking place. It suggests that the future of the history of information science is best thought of as part of a still unrealized convergence of diverse historical approaches to understanding how societies are constituted, sustained, reproduced, and changed in part by information and the infrastructures that emerge to manage information access and use. In conclusion it suggests that different bodies of historical knowledge and historical research methodologies have emerged as we move into the digital world that might be usefully brought together in the future to broaden and deepen explorations of important historical information phenomena from Gutenberg to Google.published or submitted for publicationOpe

Sedation for Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Procedures in the Elderly: Getting Safer but Still Not Nearly Safe Enough

Previously published UK reports showed that excessively large doses of benzodiazepines and opiates were being commonly used to sedate elderly patients for gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy. This unsafe practice has lead to avoidable morbidity and mortality. We have taken the opportunity provided by recent reports to examine whether GI endoscopy sedation practice in the elderly has improved in the light of this evidence and the publication of guidelines in which specific recommendations on sedation dosage are given

Jamming Model for the Extremal Optimization Heuristic

Extremal Optimization, a recently introduced meta-heuristic for hard optimization problems, is analyzed on a simple model of jamming. The model is motivated first by the problem of finding lowest energy configurations for a disordered spin system on a fixed-valence graph. The numerical results for the spin system exhibit the same phenomena found in all earlier studies of extremal optimization, and our analytical results for the model reproduce many of these features.Comment: 9 pages, RevTex4, 7 ps-figures included, as to appear in J. Phys. A, related papers available at http://www.physics.emory.edu/faculty/boettcher

Polynomial-time approximation schemes for scheduling problems with time lags

We identify two classes of machine scheduling problems with time lags that possess Polynomial-Time Approximation Schemes (PTASs). These classes together, one for minimizing makespan and one for minimizing total completion time, include many well-studied time lag scheduling problems. The running times of these approximation schemes are polynomial in the number of jobs, but exponential in the number of machines and the ratio between the largest time lag and the smallest positive operation time. These classes constitute the first PTAS results for scheduling problems with time lags

Understanding non-governmental organizations in world politics: the promise and pitfalls of the early ‘science of internationalism’

The years immediately preceding the First World War witnessed the development of a significant body of literature claiming to establish a ‘science of internationalism’. This article draws attention to the importance of this literature, especially in relation to understanding the roles of non-governmental organizations in world politics. It elaborates the ways in which this literature sheds light on issues that have become central to twenty-first century debates, including the characteristics, influence, and legitimacy of non-governmental organizations in international relations. Amongst the principal authors discussed in the article are Paul Otlet, Henri La Fontaine and Alfred Fried, whose role in the development of international theory has previously received insufficient attention. The article concludes with evaluation of potential lessons to be drawn from the experience of the early twentieth century ‘science of internationalism’

'So wide and varied': The origins and character of British information science

This paper examines some characteristics of the ‘British School’ of information science. Three main forces driving the development of the new subject in Britain are identified: the documentation movement; special libraries; and the need for better treatment of scientific and technical information. Five characteristics which, taken together, distinguish the early British approach to information science from those adopted elsewhere are identified: its subject-based nature; its broad approach to information and information science; its status as an academic subject with a strong professional remit; its involvement with, but distinction from, information technology; and its involvement with memory institutions. Lessons are drawn for the future development of the information sciences