Preliminary Programme

Wed 4 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 5 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30
    19.00 - 20.15
    20.30 - 22.00

Fri 6 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 7 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.00 - 17.00

All days
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Wednesday 4 April 2018 8.30 - 10.30
L-1 SPA11 Connectedness
PFC/02/013 Sir Peter Froggatt Centre
Network: Spatial and Digital History Chair: Douglas Brown
Organizers: - Discussants: -
Aleksandra Dul : Popularity and Socialising in Early 19th Century Poland Rural Community
The paper presents a methodological approach to identifying and analysing social ties and related phenomena within historical communities. It is based on extracting new type of data out of widely known and used demographical sources and building a digital database. The data can be further processed with graph-modeling software and ... (Show more)
The paper presents a methodological approach to identifying and analysing social ties and related phenomena within historical communities. It is based on extracting new type of data out of widely known and used demographical sources and building a digital database. The data can be further processed with graph-modeling software and thus serve as a proxy for social relations within a given community. The method is exemplified with a case study of male population of a rural parish in early 19th century Poland, but its core analytical patterns can be successfully applied to researching different kinds of communities across the time and space spectrum.
The aim is to identify key people in terms of both their popularity and contribution to solidifying the social network, but also to detect and evaluate smaller subnetworks. A set of parameters including occupation, literacy and religion is being analysed as possible factors in the shaping of the social structure of the community.
The strength of this approach lies in the ability to visualise and apply quantitative measurements to social phenomena often otherwise impossible to capture and express directly. The other valor is advanced analysing options including filtering and layering of the graphs to further trace and expose certain aspects of the network.
Additionally, this method allows us to study social relations within a given space with regards to the geographical location of the actors themselves. In the particular example case it is possible to visualise the intensity of social ties between neighbouring villages and analyse the impact of various factors, such as natural obstacles like creeks as well as socio-economic aspects like the issue of village ownership, and their contribution to the process of social clustering. (Show less)

Albertina Ferreira, Fernanda Olival : An Integrated Model to Analyse Geo-temporal Networks
Using prosopographical data from Portuguese Inquisition (local residential officers for all country from 1580 to 1773) this paper proposes a model to analyse geo-temporal networks, in a comparative way.
The model would allow historians to cross geographical data, like roads and relief, with socio-demographical historical information.
There important constraints to ... (Show more)
Using prosopographical data from Portuguese Inquisition (local residential officers for all country from 1580 to 1773) this paper proposes a model to analyse geo-temporal networks, in a comparative way.
The model would allow historians to cross geographical data, like roads and relief, with socio-demographical historical information.
There important constraints to face: 1) To deal with the theory of central places in the mapping distribution; 2) To solve the problem of the long term, considering prosopographical data; 3) To deal with the uncertain character of some historical data, such as the tracing of the old roads and its paths.
The software used at moment is ArcGIS and QuantumGis.
Even if these trials will be constructed from the Inquisition historical data, these model can be applied to the other research themes involving time/space/networks. (Show less)

Sebastian Klüsener, Martin Dribe & Francesco Scalone : Social and Spatial Connectivity in the Fertility Transition
The fertility decline as part of the demographic transition is one of the most remarkable global social change processes of modern times. Not surprisingly, this process has been the focus of considerable research. Nonetheless, important unanswered questions remain. Over the last 50 years one focus of the discussion has been ... (Show more)
The fertility decline as part of the demographic transition is one of the most remarkable global social change processes of modern times. Not surprisingly, this process has been the focus of considerable research. Nonetheless, important unanswered questions remain. Over the last 50 years one focus of the discussion has been on diffusion vs. adaptation hypotheses: Do couples adopt parity-specific fertility controlling strategies mainly in response to new attitudes, norms or knowledge about family limitation spreading in the societies, or were they predominantly adapting to changing socioeconomic and demographic circumstances? These perspectives are not mutually exclusive, also as in order for individuals to be aware about structural changes which could potentially foster a behavioral change, they largely benefit from access to information and communication processes. Nevertheless, the diffusion and adaptation perspectives have structured much of the research in the field.

This paper demonstrates that communication processes structured by social and spatial variation in communication links can potentially play an immanent role in shaping observed population-level fertility decline patterns by socio-economic status and region within countries during the demographic transition. Building up on considerations by Hägerstrand (1965) and Kohler (2001) we specify agent-based simulation models that allow us to quantitatively analyze diffusion processes in the fertility transition by social class in space and time. In our simulations we use migration links stratified by social status as proxies for the density of existing communication links through space. For the moment we have tested our models on data for Sweden in the late 19th century, and for Senegal in the late 20th century, but we plan to extend our simulations to other countries as well. Based on very simple initial conditions and simple communication algorithms and rules, we are able to produce socio-spatial fertility decline patterns that contain virtually all major social and spatiotemporal characteristics of the decline that were observed in Sweden, Senegal, and many other countries of the world. These characteristics include that upper social classes and big cities experienced the decline very early, while lower classes and farmers were laggards in the decline especially in rural areas. Our methodology can easily be generalized to other contexts and other diffusion processes. It only requires access to individual-level data that provide information on social status and communication links. These data can as in our case be obtained from micro-level census data, which thanks to IPUMS and NAPP are now readily available for many parts of the world, or from data obtained from internet social networks. (Show less)

Peter Meyer : A Wiki for Linking Records of Aeronautics and Early Aviation, 1800-1916
This paper describes an experimental database system which maintains links between data records that cover an extended historical period. The data cover patents, inventors, clubs, firms, exhibitions, and conferences related to aeronautics and aviation globally from 1800 to 1916. During this period, when the idea of flying machines ... (Show more)
This paper describes an experimental database system which maintains links between data records that cover an extended historical period. The data cover patents, inventors, clubs, firms, exhibitions, and conferences related to aeronautics and aviation globally from 1800 to 1916. During this period, when the idea of flying machines transitioned from a dream and a hobby into a new science and a startup industry. The data are kept on a wiki at http://aero.referata.com, where several authorized users edit it, their edits are tracked, and new changes are visible immediately to the others. It can include any number of additional users. The platform launched in November 2016, and uses a new wiki extension called Cargo for semantic functions to relate records to one another.
Over 13,000 patent records have information about the applicant, and over 30,000 bibliographic records of publications have some identification of the author. Smaller datasets cover early aeronautical clubs, aviation firms, exhibitions and conferences, and letters between aeronautical enthusiasts during this time period. At least 1000 individuals appear in these data sets or are otherwise thought to be significant to the invention and early development of airplanes. Our research links these records from multiple sources to construct individual and organizational histories and will eventually yield networks of co-authorships and partnerships. One challenge is that we do not have a unified definitive source of purely biographical information, such as birth date or full name. In time, specialists who are not part of the initial project can improve the underlying data and the matching.
In the period, patent category systems are changing and the source records have problems of ambiguity and uncertainty – that is, the historian cannot always ascertain whether two persons or documents are the same, or which one is referred to in a particular primary source or secondary historical work. The design of the database and its interface is intended to enable careful memory of historical facts and conclusions, and to support the use of human decisions about each record or document, while enabling the creation of statistical measures from the data as it evolves and grows.
A wiki is a web site that shows data records and allows users to edit the records directly from their web browser. Such systems are auditable in the sense that each past edit to a record is remembered, and it is straightforward to check who made an edit and when, and to compare the versions before and after the change. In a wiki, the records are easily hyperlinked to one another, and properties of these links are also usable data, for example, a link might be from a record about a patent to one of several category systems to classify what the patent is about. Each item can be classified in a number of ways, and its network relations to other items recorded and developed with hyperlinks. This helps historical conclusions be grounded to evidence. (Show less)

Diogo Paiva, Francisco Anguita : Filling the Gap: Completing Individual Life Courses by Linking Dutch and American Data
The Historical Sample of the Netherlands database (HSN) presents around 40.000 complete individual life courses, from a sample of 85.000 individuals born in the Netherlands between 1811 and 1920. By sampling the research persons from the register of birth certificates and following their evolution using marriage and death certificates and ... (Show more)
The Historical Sample of the Netherlands database (HSN) presents around 40.000 complete individual life courses, from a sample of 85.000 individuals born in the Netherlands between 1811 and 1920. By sampling the research persons from the register of birth certificates and following their evolution using marriage and death certificates and population registers, it is, in theory, possible to observe the complete life cycle (Mandemakers, 2006, Building life course datasets from population registers...). For most of the cases, it was possible to follow these individuals from cradle to grave and thus completely define their life courses. However, due to emigration, loosing track of persons, missing or damaged sources, for a considerable amount of sampled individuals this was impossible.
In an effort to recover information on those lost from observation, a process of data linkage between HSN database and the American census datasets provided by IPUMS (Integrated Public Use Micro-data Series) was developed. Although this is still a work in progress, preliminary results show the feasibility of data matching with reasonable degree of confidence.
With this paper, we aim to describe the several stages of data linkage, issues and problems encountered as well as the implemented solutions, including the methods applied for the matched records validation and triangulation or the creation of a dictionary with names and/or call names.
Additionally, built upon the results, a dataset for analysis will be presented. This data set will be constructed following the standard rules of the Intermediate Data Structure (Alters, Mandemakers and Gutmann, 2009, Defining and Distributing Longitudinal Historical Data...) and by means of the so called extraction software, tools that allow researchers to create standardised data sets suitable for longitudinal socio demographic analysis despite the database source they employ.
These results will be made available to researchers interested in not only international Dutch migration, but also in data linkage through large historical databases and its analysis through standardised tools and techniques. (Show less)



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