Political Science has traditionally employed empirical research and analytical resources to understand, explain and predict political phenomena. One of the long-standing criticisms against empirical modeling targets the static perspective provided by the model-invariant paradigm. In political science research, this issue has a particular relevance since political phenomena prove sophisticated degrees of context-dependency whose complexity could be hardly captured by traditional approaches. To cope with the complexity challenge, a new modeling paradigm was needed. This book is concerned with this challenge. Moreover, the book aims to reveal the power of computational modeling of political attitudes to reinforce the political methodology in facing two fundamental challenges: political culture modeling and polity modeling. The book argues that an artificial polity model as a powerful research instrument could hardly be effective without the political attitude and, by extension, the political culture computational and simulation modeling theory, experiments and practice. This book: Summarizes the state of the art in computational modeling of political attitudes, with illustrations and examples featured throughout. Explores the different approaches to computational modeling and how the complexity requirements of political science should determine the direction of research and evaluation methods. Addresses the newly emerging discipline of computational political science. Discusses modeling paradigms, agent-based modeling and simulation, and complexity-based modeling. Discusses model classes in the fundamental areas of voting behavior and decision-making, collective action, ideology and partisanship, emergence of social uprisings and civil conflict, international relations, allocation of public resources, polity and institutional function, operation, development and reform, political attitude formation and change in democratic societies. This book is ideal for students who need a conceptual and operational description of the political attitude computational modeling phases, goals and outcomes in order to understand how political attitudes could be computationally modeled and simulated. Researchers, Governmental and international policy experts will also benefit from this book.

This book provides a comprehensive survey of techniques, technologies and applications of Big Data and its analysis. The Big Data phenomenon is increasingly impacting all sectors of business and industry, producing an emerging new information ecosystem. On the applications front, the book offers detailed descriptions of various application areas for Big Data Analytics in the important domains of Social Semantic Web Mining, Banking and Financial Services, Capital Markets, Insurance, Advertisement, Recommendation Systems, Bio-Informatics, the IoT and Fog Computing, before delving into issues of security and privacy. With regard to machine learning techniques, the book presents all the standard algorithms for learning – including supervised, semi-supervised and unsupervised techniques such as clustering and reinforcement learning techniques to perform collective Deep Learning. Multi-layered and nonlinear learning for Big Data are also covered. In turn, the book highlights real-life case studies on successful implementations of Big Data Analytics at large IT companies such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Microsoft. Multi-sectorial case studies on domain-based companies such as Deutsche Bank, the power provider Opower, Delta Airlines and a Chinese City Transportation application represent a valuable addition. Given its comprehensive coverage of Big Data Analytics, the book offers a unique resource for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, educators and IT professionals alike.

Online research methods are popular, dynamic and fast-changing. Following on from the great success of the first edition, published in 2008, The SAGE Handbook of Online Research Methods, Second Edition offers both updates of existing subject areas and new chapters covering more recent developments, such as social media, big data, data visualization and CAQDAS. Bringing together the leading names in both qualitative and quantitative online research, this new edition is organised into nine sections: 1. Online Research Methods 2. Designing Online Research 3. Online Data Capture and Data Collection 4. The Online Survey 5. Digital Quantitative Analysis 6. Digital Text Analysis 7. Virtual Ethnography 8. Online Secondary Analysis: Resources and Methods 9. The Future of Online Social Research The SAGE Handbook of Online Research Methods, Second Edition is an essential resource for anyone interested in the contemporary practice of computer-mediated research and scholarship.

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.

Data Science and Big Data Analytics is about harnessing the power of data for new insights. The book covers the breadth of activities and methods and tools that Data Scientists use. The content focuses on concepts, principles and practical applications that are applicable to any industry and technology environment, and the learning is supported and explained with examples that you can replicate using open-source software. This book will help you: Become a contributor on a data science team Deploy a structured lifecycle approach to data analytics problems Apply appropriate analytic techniques and tools to analyzing big data Learn how to tell a compelling story with data to drive business action Prepare for EMC Proven Professional Data Science Certification Get started discovering, analyzing, visualizing, and presenting data in a meaningful way today!

Political Science has traditionally employed empirical research and analytical resources to understand, explain and predict political phenomena. One of the long-standing criticisms against empirical modeling targets the static perspective provided by the model-invariant paradigm. In political science research, this issue has a particular relevance since political phenomena prove sophisticated degrees of context-dependency whose complexity could be hardly captured by traditional approaches. To cope with the complexity challenge, a new modeling paradigm was needed. This book is concerned with this challenge. Moreover, the book aims to reveal the power of computational modeling of political attitudes to reinforce the political methodology in facing two fundamental challenges: political culture modeling and polity modeling. The book argues that an artificial polity model as a powerful research instrument could hardly be effective without the political attitude and, by extension, the political culture computational and simulation modeling theory, experiments and practice. This book: Summarizes the state of the art in computational modeling of political attitudes, with illustrations and examples featured throughout. Explores the different approaches to computational modeling and how the complexity requirements of political science should determine the direction of research and evaluation methods. Addresses the newly emerging discipline of computational political science. Discusses modeling paradigms, agent-based modeling and simulation, and complexity-based modeling. Discusses model classes in the fundamental areas of voting behavior and decision-making, collective action, ideology and partisanship, emergence of social uprisings and civil conflict, international relations, allocation of public resources, polity and institutional function, operation, development and reform, political attitude formation and change in democratic societies. This book is ideal for students who need a conceptual and operational description of the political attitude computational modeling phases, goals and outcomes in order to understand how political attitudes could be computationally modeled and simulated. Researchers, Governmental and international policy experts will also benefit from this book.

The evolution of advanced information environments is rapidly creating a new category of possible cyberaggression, which RAND researchers are calling virtual societal warfare in an analysis of the characteristics and future of this growing threat.