Monday, 6 May 2024 @ 14:00–15:00 CET
On-site:
University of Vienna
Seminarraum 9 (OG01)
Kolingasse 14–16
1090 Vienna
Online:
Zoom-Link: https://univienna.zoom.us/j/68154688415?pwd=anBCaXlnZ0ZRZ0R2YkV0U2hMSXdIQT09
Meeting-ID: 681 5468 8415
Passcode: 517043
Data in Conflict
Abstract:
While reusing high-quality data is critical for (spatial) data science, the well-known U=1-R challenge of why data that is useful for any given purpose is less reusable and, conversely, why highly reusable (R) data is often less useful (U) for any specific task is left to the domain of data management. Instead, we hide this fundamental problem within our data-wrangling workflows and accept that 'getting data in shape' consumes 80% of our resources. While such workflows work well for some domains, many others struggle to integrate highly diverse data across different scales, perspectives, thematic layers, and conceptualizations. From an information theoretic perspective, data representing different (potentially contradicting) perspectives are challenging to model computationally. For instance, when integrating locally consistent data, inconsistencies can arise at a global scale. These difficulties in handling multi-perspective data have substantial consequences for analyzing such data and, thus, quantifying social challenges such as migration, resilience, and conflict. In the past, we have developed a rich set of data-wrangling methods to handle fuzzyness, uncertainty, vagueness, and missing or noisy data. However, we have yet to make room for multi-perspective data. In this talk, we will explore the potential role knowledge graphs and their inferential services play in handling such multi-perspective data.
Bio:
Krzysztof Janowicz is a professor at the University of Vienna working on Spatial Data Science and Editors-in-Chief of the Semantic Web journal. Before, he was the director of the Center for Spatial Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and program chair of UCSB's Cognitive Science Program. Since 20211, he has been a full professor of Geoinformatics at the Geography Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Before, he was an Assistant Professor at the GeoVISTA Center, Department of Geography at the Pennsylvania State University, USA (2009-2011). Prior to moving to the US, Janowicz was working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Geoinformatics (ifgi), University of Münster in Germany for the international research training group on Semantic Integration of Geospatial Information and the Münster Semantic Interoperability Lab (MUSIL). Janowicz received his PhD in geoinformatics from the University of Münster in the summer of 2008. Before joining academia, he was running a start-up on client-side internet security and (early Linux) computer networks and authored an (open) book on this topic with O’Reilly Press (2001-2007). Methodologically, his niche is the combination of theory-driven (e.g., semantics) and data-driven (e.g., data mining) techniques.
