Digital Data Mining Research Articles

A vármegyei tisztikarok és karrierutak kutatásának historiográfi ája, forrás- és módszertani lehetőségei

The research of the county officers of the 18–19th centuries is a popular topic in Hungarian historical research; however, significant differences can be detected between certain counties and the methodologies used to analyze them. In the course of our work, we briefly introduce the authors and their works, whose methods can serve as examples, and point out what additions should be given to them. In the second half of the work, we present the administration of the selected counties (Baranya and Somogy), the structure of the county officers, and the changes that occurred in them in the period between 1790 and 1848. We also present the traditional archival sources for the history of the two counties, as well as the possibilities provided by digital data mining in addition to the literature and published databases. After all this, we present a general methodology that can serve as a guide for future works dealing with the middle-level public administration.

Democratization beyond the post-democratic turn: towards a research agenda on new conceptions of citizen participation

ABSTRACTFollowing extensive debates about post-democracy and post-politics, scholarly attention has shifted to conceptualizing the ongoing transformation of democracy. In this endeavour, the change in understandings, expectations and functions of political participation is a key parameter. Improving citizen participation is widely regarded as the hallmark of democratization. Yet, a variety of actors are also increasingly ambivalent about democratic institutions and the further expansion of participation. Meanwhile, new forms of participation are gaining in significance – neoliberal activation, the responsibilization of consumers, digital data mining, managed behaviour guided by choice architects – which some believe much improve representation, but which others perceive as a threat to the citizens’ autonomy. This article introduces a special issue focusing on the participation-democratization nexus in well-established democracies in the economically affluent global North. Based on a critical review of popular narratives of post-democracy and post-politics we sketch the notion of the post-democratic turn – which offers a new perspective on emerging forms of participation and in this special issue serves as a conceptual lens for their analysis. We then revisit more traditional conceptualizations of democratic participation which are challenged by the post-democratic turn. The article concludes with an overview of the individual contributions to this special issue.

What Mary Poppins Knew: Theory of Mind, Children's Literature, History

This essay investigates the phenomenon of "embedded" mental states in fiction (i.e., a mental state within a mental state within yet another mental state, as in, "Mrs. Banks wished that Mary Poppins wouldn't know so very much more about the best people than she knew herself"), asking if patterns of embedment manifest themselves differently in children's literature than they do in literature for "grownups." Looking at books for three age groups (nine to twelve, three to seven, and one to two), Zunshine finds significant differences in their respective patterns of embedment, while also arguing that a critical inquiry into complex mental states is not just a cognitive but also a historicist project. Drawing on research in developmental psychology, rhetorical narratology, and cultural history, as well as on digital data mining, this essay seeks to broaden the interdisciplinary and interpretive range of cognitive literary studies.

An Academic ECG Core Lab Perspective of the FDA Initiative for Digital ECG Capture and Data Management in Large-Scale Clinical Trials

Maximal utility of accessible data is attractive to all partners in clinical research, whether it directly improves patient care or more accurately allows identification of the safety and efficacy of a new drug or procedure. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has presented a guideline draft addressing digitization of electrocardiogram (ECG) data in clinical trials to improve the standards for collection, analysis, and storage of safety information on new medical therapies. This FDA initiative has led to discussions and collaboration among the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, the electrocardiography manufacturers, and the academic as well as the nonacademic ECG core labs. In this article, we present a broad-based viewpoint from two groups of academic ECG core labs, the Alliance of Academic ECG Core Labs and the Virtual Electronic ECG Corelab International Consortium. We have chosen to widen the perspective from using digitized ECG data in safety trials only, as addressed by the FDA guideline draft, to a discussion on the possibilities and the potential problems when using digitized ECG data also in large clinical trials focusing on efficacy measurements. We conclude that the benefit of digital data mining is probably well worth an initial incremental effort and expense.