Social Networks and Archival Context OpenRefine Plugin; Conflicting Beliefs about Video Games in the U.S.

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers extraordinary benefits, but some applications of AI are
controversial. For example, AI systems can manage and process vast and diverse datasets, but
some applications of AI may have addictive or behaviorally undesirable effects.
How can data from different institutions be reconciled efficiently? Social Networks and
Archival Context (SNAC) is an online resource that lets users search information about people
documented in primary source documents held in archival institutions globally. Institutions
structure records differently, making it difficult to store them consistently in the SNAC database.
It is impractical to restructure and clean the data manually. A plugin applying OpenRefine,
software for data transformation and cleaning, is developed to simplify the reconciliation
process. This will let institutions upload and consolidate large tracts of data in minutes.
How are defenders and critics of violent video games competing to influence their
perceived responsibility for social pathologies? Politicians and others have attributed shootings
to the effects of simulated but realistic violence of video games on their players. Gamers
generally reject these claims; some defenders of games allege beneficial effects of gameplay.
Allegations that video games cause violence are propagated by opponents of gun control so
vigorously that the charge gains some acceptance.

School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Technical Advisor: Ahmed Ibrahim
STS Advisor: Peter Norton
Technical Team Members: Charles Chang, Sandra Gould, John Perez, Victor Shen, Peter Tran, Grace Wu, Jessica Xu