Milan's Data Science Insights #002

Welcome to the Second Issue of May! This edition covers topics as the recent aurora, a network science introduction, a research article digest, and more!

1. Did you see it?

The strongest geomagnetic storm of the past 20 years hit us on?May 10th, 2024, resulting in stunning aurora (Northern Lights) all around the Northern?Hemisphere. Check this animation and the related official data!

2. Tutorials

This issue’s tutorial topic is network analytics, starting with the theoretical foundations in the free online version of my mentor, Albert-László Barabási’s must-have book. Then, I also recommend some technical pieces, such as this and this thorough overview of the?popular?library NetworkX.?

Then, here you?find?three technical tutorials on how to build networks from various data sources:?

• Dune — A Hidden Network?
• Mapping out the connections of Oscar Winners???
• Where Do EU Horizon H2020 Fundings Go??

Finally, if you get tired of NetworkX, here is a collection of 38 network science tools, from Web-apps to Python libraries.?

3. Courses

The only missing bit from the recommended tutorials is network visualization. To cover this end, I will do a live workshop?focusing?on designing network visuals using my go-to tool, Gephi. These are just two illustrations of how Gephi visuals can look here and here - but?kind-of?hints what you should expect.

Sign up for my workshop here, and use the?15%?discount code?W5XQW4BF601W?dedicated for my subscribers?upon purchase - attention:?the code is valid until?the?May?24th,?11.59PM?CEST

4. Research Paper Digest

The latest digest on interesting articles and publications around data science, geospatial data, and network science:

• A fresh preprint from the Arxiv by Abrar et al. from the University of Maryland titled COVID-19’s Unequal Toll: An assessment of small business impact disparities?with respect to?ethnorace?in metropolitan areas in the US using mobility data?show?and?interesting?and impactful way of using aggregated cell phone-based mobility data to capture the economic and even social impact of COVID on small businesses, especially, on restaurants across US metro areas.
• A strong collaboration from Denmark, in their latest preprint Decomposing geographical and universal aspects of human mobility further contributes to the line of the research on mobility analytics by contributing to the fundamentals of the field. They quantify how geographic constraints, from settlement locations to landmasses and lakes, shape human mobility across various length scales.
• A scientists’ guide to data is in Tim Lou’s piece, Towards Data Science, titled -The Physics Behind Data. This piece is a nice overview of how hard science backgrounds, such as Physics, are compatible with data science. The author poses a question I, as a former Physicist as well, get frequently asked: “As a physicist turned data scientist, my colleagues and coworkers often ask me how my physics background is relevant.“
• A?difficult?trade-off discussed on?Phys.org? - Denser housing can be greener, too: How NZ can build better for biodiversity trying to find a delicate balance between sufficient human housing density while minimizing the loss of natural habitats and biodiversity. Check the piece for a list of role model solutions from tree planting to green-roof projects.
• An exciting recent research paper published in Nature’s Communications Earth & Environment, The Egyptian pyramid chain was built?along the now abandoned Ahramat Nile Branch, combines modern radar satellite imagery, geophysical data, and advanced modeling to uncover the ancient subsurface structure of the Nile Valley next to the iconic pyramids.

• Klingler et al.’s recently published paper, Large-scale green grabbing for wind and solar photovoltaic development in Brazil presents a country-wide analysis of the investment and ownership landscape of wind, solar, and PV assets across Brazil.
• A seriously technical piece for the end by?Dario Rade?i??-?Python One Billion Row Challenge — From 10 Minutes to 4 Seconds?on Medium.
• And a light and bright topic to close this selection - showing a great use-case of environmental data being used to quantify tourist decitiations This City Is the Sunniest Destination in Europe — With More Than 3,000 Hours of Sun a Year.

5. Random

I joined Substack - check-in for my welcome tutorial on visualizing global river GIS data sets!

Until next time,

Milan