Grand Designs: reflections on archaeology, the historic environment and the E-science programme Dr...
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Transcript of Grand Designs: reflections on archaeology, the historic environment and the E-science programme Dr...
Grand Designs: reflections on archaeology, the historic environment and the E-science programme
Dr William Kilbride
E-science? Eh?Collaboration? Data processingCan archaeology use these tools?
Co-ordinated problem solvingResource sharingVirtual organisationsAccess to scientific instrumentsGrid: data, access, computation
Hype?Mystery?
Is E-science different?
Gartner’s Hype Cycle: Helping William understand the E-science programme
Jargon is power! Helping William understand the E-science programme
Exclusive languageNot always clear what projects are doingComputing as discourseStandards should be controversialPolitical / industrial drivers
Hidden (overt) expectations of what arts and humanities are about?
In spite of all that … Can we use E-science tools to be better at archaeology?
Taken as read:Focus on archaeology needsAccess grid for meetings etcMoving large objects
Collaborative tools meets data gridComputational tools meets gridNeed to articulate needsNeed to be understood
Collaboration in e-space
Sharing data across multiple computersNot just httpDistributed file storesFederated databasesMulti-site use
Big (and small) researchChannel Tunnel Rail LinkHeathrow T5StanstedM74 …OASIS as an example
OASIS: what it used to be like …
Fieldwork unit
Print out Backlog Local Govt.
Print outNational MonumentsRecord
Backlog
Post
Post
In an ideal world the machines In an ideal world the machines should do the talking …should do the talking …
Fieldwork Print out Backlog Local Archive
govt
Print outNational agency
Backlog
Post
Post
But at each point where data is keyed in, it is validated by experts …
Local govt: local knowledgeIs this what it claims to be?Do we have monuments like that here?That’s the wrong parish nameThat field unit is no good
National Agency: national standardsIt’s not MIDAS compliantIt’s not like other recordsThe terminology is differentThat SMR is very good
So need to capture the validation process but eliminate the drudgery
Fieldwork
Local SMR
National Monuments Records
ArchSearch
OASIS record and report
Backlog and the rest of the country
Backlog bigger than front-log
Quality of grey literatureQuality of DC archaeology
Only grey literatureGeophysics? Survey?
Only DC archaeologyac.uk? DNA? C14? Dendro?
Closed processImport and export issuesOnly UKSharing data not processesSingle data source
Shared standards developmentIt works!Inherently collaborativeRoles and responsibilities clearMore records in the pipelineDC as big stickResolves duplicatesPersistent and pervasive
Not weaknesses:Areas for growth!
Strengths and weaknesses …
Computational power?
CPU resources from different machines are used to address a single problem:
Desktop scavengers or server grids
Geo-computation: viewshed (etc)Geo-temporal computation?Visualisation and recordingVR applicationsData mining and processingSimulation?Conservation and management
OthersContent-based image retrieval?Video and audio?William’s data mining example
Computational archaeology
How does it work?
Knowledge Map (classification)GatherersDocument Set (XML chunks)Text Mining Tools
Creates …Adaptive Concept Map
Every possible query already processedClick and browse instead of type and hopeVisualise the distribution of data against concepts
What’s the problem?
Scalability … Huge numbers of possible combinations5000 concepts and 1,000,000 documents = 50,000,000,000 possible combinations
Conceptually simpleHuge memory overheadsSpace is infinitely refined
Grand Designs: can archaeology, use the tools of the E-science programme
Dr William Kilbride
Of course we can! Only scratched the surface here…
Need to concentrate on archaeologyHype and jargon are problems but …CollaborationComputer processing:… both have a role in archaeology