A number of friends and associates, for whom we have the greatest respect, say this is one of the best, most enriching conferences in the U.S.  It is not cheap, but there are vacation condos to be found in the area that would help to make this affordable.

We are back with our 4th UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference on Human Complex Systems.
from Wednesday April 25, 2007 through Sunday April 29, 2007.

We look forward to
another cross-disciplinary gathering of social scientists who employ
cutting-edge agent-based computational modeling and related
computational ideas and methods in their research and teaching. As in
past years, dozens of presenters from numerous disciplines are
presenting. We are also hosting evening panels, a live simulation, and
opportunities for networking and relaxation amid gorgeous surroundings.

Advancing Agent Modeling in the Social Sciences


The conference is a forum for sharing the most recent advances — in
theory, methodology and application – in the area of agent modeling
throughout the social sciences (e.g., Anthropology, Communication
Studies, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Sociology,
Urban Planning). We also welcome social scientists in professional
schools (e.g., Business, Education, International Relations, Public
Health, Public Policy, Social Welfare) and in the public and private
sectors. Researchers and theorists in Psychology, Media Studies and
social aspects of Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics
and related disciplines also welcome!

For a paper presentation, authors present for 20 minutes and receive an
additional 10 minutes for Q&A. We also welcome 90-120 minute
symposium proposals consisting of 3-4 individual papers on a related
topic of inquiry. Finally, we are open to someone wishing to organize
an evening panel discussion on a �hot topic� in agent modeling.

We're not wild about using “image” as a verb, but the conference looks promising and certainly appropriate for those journalists who understand that we have to learn to tell stories with more than just words and pictures.  Yup, “HCI” is where it's at, or where it's going to be at.

Imaging the City:

Recent
technological developments mark the city as a central and perhaps
special space for human-computer interaction research and practice.
Visions of ubiquitous computing, the resonance of the ‘urban probe’,
and the proliferation of interactive mapping services speak to the
significance of the urban landscape to studies of Human-Computer
Interaction. But such visions and technologies require, produce and
reproduce images of urban space that influence what these systems, and
our interactions with them, are and might be. Developing and employing
technologies for the urban environment requires visualization
techniques that both reflect and challenge how we image, and
consequently imagine, the city.

• How do we represent the city in HCI, and how do these representations inform HCI research and practice?
• What
  kinds of technological devices, services, and platforms support imaging
  the city now and might be created in the near future?
• How are and might these new representations of the city and urban imaging technologies be used for social and political ends?
• What new methods are required for developing technologies that image the city in new ways?
• What can we learn from the urban experience to design stronger representations and interfaces within HCI research and practice?

A interesting mapping project today from Abuquerque's DWI Resource Center.  A map showing a surprising clustering of the city's DWI-related events.  Wouldn't it again be an interesting reporting tool — and a draw for readers — if a newspaper were to create a dynamic and regularly updated map of this sort for its market area?

Bernalillo County (New Mexico) DWI Crash Map
http://www.dwiresourcecenter.org/crashmap.shtml

The Bernalillo County DWI Crash Map is a new tool to help citizens
avoid drunk drivers by assisting them in locating the more dangerous
roadways
in and around Albuquerque and allowing them to plan alterative
commuting routes and times. The DWI Crash Map indicates locations
around the county
with the highest incidents of alcohol-related crashes, and the areas in
the county with the highest concentrations of alcohol establishments.
The map
also contains charts showing alcohol-related crashes and DWI arrests by
time of day.

Although a citizen's best defense against a drunk driver is to
always wear a seat-belt and drive defensively, this map can assist you
in
planning your daily commute to avoid high-risk intersections and times
of day when alcohol-related crashes are most likely to occur.

To view the map, you will a need free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Here's another example of how most any newspaper could (a) create a database helpful to reporters and (b) generate revenue for the organization.  Not much, perhaps, but revenue.

Earlier this week, BT (formerly British Telecom) announced that it was partnering with Ancestry.co.uk to post “more than a century of its telephone books” online.  This will be of special interest to geneological researchers, of course, but surely reporters would find it a helpful tool to research individuals or companies.  To the extent that street addresses are available, this is also a potentially rich source of GIS data for historical mapping.

And here's the revenue connection:  “Publishing the BT Phone Books Archive, which is most complete set of
phone directories in existence, represents a coup for Ancestry.co.uk
who are establishing themselves as a leading proponent of family and
social history research on the internet.”  A subscription to Ancestory.com (though it is not easy to find the cost) is £69.95 (US$132) per year.  Surely, BT is going to get a cut of the phonebook-specific searches.

Obviously, all newspapers could do something similar.

Friend Laura Soto-Bara posts the following to the NewsLib listserv:

Any discipline always has subsets of argument, typically about definitions, methodologies, process or significance.  Statistics, of course, is no different.  Below is an interesting article from the Washington Monthly about what constitutes statistical significance.  The article is OK, but the commentary below it even better.  See http://www.blogware.com/admin/index.cgi/cmd=post_article

LIES, DAMN LIES, AND….Via Kieran Healy, here's something way off the beaten path: a new paper by Alan Gerber and Neil Malhotra titled “Can political science literatures be believed? A study of publication bias in the APSR and the AJPS.”
It is, at first glance, just what it says it is: a study of publication
bias, the tendency of academic journals to publish studies that find
positive results but not to publish studies that fail to find results.
The reason this is a problem is that it makes positive results look
more positive than they really are. If two researchers do a study, and
one finds a significant result (say, tall people earn more money than
short people) while the other finds nothing, seeing both studies will
make you skeptical of the first paper's result. But if the only paper
you see is the first one, you'll probably think there's something to it.


The chart on the right shows G&M's basic result. In statistics
jargon, a significant result is anything with a “z-score” higher than
1.96, and if journals accepted articles based solely on the quality of
the work, with no regard to z-scores, you'd expect the z-score of
studies to resemble a bell curve. But that's not what Gerber and
Malhotra found. Abovebelow
a z-score of 1.96 there are far fewer studies than you'd expect.
Apparently, studies that fail to show significant results have a hard
time getting published.

Eight or nine years back we attended one of the first Crime Mapping conferences sponsored by the National Institute of Justice and found it to be one of the most creative and practical events of this type.  (We also have very high regard for the ESRI Users Conference and the Special Libraries Assoc. meetings.)  So we want to be sure to let all analytic journos know about next year's Crime Mapping confab, scheduled for March 28 to 31, 2007 in Pittsburg, Penn.  Here's part of the official call for papers:

The Mapping & Analysis for Public Safety Program announces it's Call 
for Papers for the Ninth Crime Mapping Research Conference in Pittsburgh, 
PA at the Omni William Penn Hotel, March 28 to 31, 2007.  The deadline 
for submission is Friday, September 29th....
    
The theme of this conference will be Spatial Approaches to 
Understanding Crime & Demographics.  The use of Geographic Information Systems 
(GIS) and spatial data analysis techniques have become prominent tools for 
analyzing criminal behavior and the impacts of the criminal justice 
system on society.   Classical and spatial statistics have been merged to 
form more comprehensive approaches in understanding social problems 
from research and practical standpoints.  These methods allow for the 
measurement of proximity effects on places by neighboring areas that lead 
to a multi-dimensional and less static understanding of factors that 
contribute to or repel crime across space.

The 9th Crime Mapping Research Conference will be about demonstrating 
the use and development of methodologies for practitioners and 
researchers.  The MAPS Program is anticipating the selection of key accepted 
presentations for further development of an electronic monograph on GIS, 
Spatial Data Analysis and the Study of Crime in the following year.  Its 
purpose will be to demonstrate the fusing of classical and spatial 
analysis techniques to enhance policy decisions.  Methods should not be 
limited to the use of classical and spatial statistics but also 
demonstrate the unique capabilities of GIS in preparing, categorizing and 
visualization data for analysis....

For more, see: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/

If
you want to generate a glazed look of incomprehension in a audience of
journalists, just ask, “How many of you work for an organization that
has someone assigned to coordinate knowledge management throughout the
company or at least for the newsroom?”  

We're not talking
about someone who acquires and coordinates databases, a task typically
assigned to news researchers, but rather someone who studies what
digital (or potentially digital ) data resources exist within the
entire company and how might those be leveraged to generate new or
better insights, stories and, possibly, revenue streams.

The
first journalism-specific book on the topic came of Stephen Quinn, a
professor at Deakin University in Australia.  Quinn's book, “Knowledge Management in the Digital Newsroom,”
appeared in 2002 and draws examples from many U.S., European and Australian publications. 

Now comes a similar work by a team led by Prof. Guy Berger that studied African newspapers of varying size and sophistication.

Author/s: Weza et al.
Date Published: 31/08/2006
File:
download (1554.115 KB)

Description:
This book tracks the state-of-play in a selection of independent
African newspapers, both big and small. It also points the way forward,
with explanations of “convergence”, “content management”, and
“enterprise management”. In short, it shows what theories and systems
of Knowledge Management can offer the African media.
For other titles, see: http://www.highwayafrica.ru.ac.za/publications.cfm

We will be
posting a review in coming days, but until then, go to the link above
and download a copy for yourself.  The download price is right — free
— and doing so will save the mailing costs from Grahamstown, South
Africa.

Friend Steve Guerin tips us to “Cabspotting,” a fascinating site created by San Francisco's Exploratorium.  It's about georgraphy, traffic flow, and complexity.  Give a look to “Cabspotting”

We are currently in South Africa, primarily to participate in Highway Africa 2006 sponsored by the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.  But before heading to Grahamstown, we were asked to give a series of lectures in the Durban, South Africa area.  Below is the schedule and links to the presentations (as soon as they are uploaded).

• Tuesday, 5 September at the Natal Witness: “No, it is not all about telling stories.”
  

Wednesday, 6 September at Durban's Independent Newspaper: “Analytic Journalism: Investing in an Intellectual  Portfolio to Secure Journalism's Financial Future” and “Investigative Journalism in the Digital Age.”


Thursday, 7 September, School of Journalism – Durban University of Technology.  Opening of Annual Research Seminar.  “Investigative Journalism in the Digital Age” and “No, it is not all about telling stories.”

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