A Link to the Past: Constructing Historical Social Networks from Unstructured Data
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Tilburg University A link to the past van de Camp, Matje Publication date: 2016 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in Tilburg University Research Portal Citation for published version (APA): van de Camp, M. (2016). A link to the past: Constructing historical social networks from unstructured data. Tilburg University. 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Download date: 25. sep. 2021 A Link to the Past Constructing Historical Social Networks from Unstructured Data PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan Tilburg University op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. E.H.L. Aarts, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties aangewezen commissie in de aula van de Universiteit op woensdag 2 maart 2016 om 14.15 uur door Margaretha Maria van de Camp geboren op 16 februari 1981 te Tilburg II Promotores: Prof. dr. A.P.J. van den Bosch Prof. dr. E.O. Postma Promotiecommissie: Prof. dr. L. Heerma van Voss Prof. dr. H.J. van den Herik Prof. dr. A. Mehler Prof. dr. M.F. Moens The research reported in this thesis was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) in the project Historical Timeline Mining and Extraction (HiTiME), grant number NWO 640.004.803. The HiTiME project is part of the Continuous Access To Cultural Heritage (CATCH) research programme. SIKS Dissertation Series No. 2016-08 The research reported in this thesis was carried out under auspices of SIKS, the Dutch Research School for Information and Knowledge Systems. TiCC Dissertation Series No. 44 ISBN: 978-94-6203-988-9 Printed by CPI Koninklijke Wöhrmann Cover design by Matje van de Camp © 2016, M. van de Camp All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically, mechanically, through photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would sincerely like to thank all who were involved with, or contributed to the completion of this thesis. There were times when even I did not think that I would make it to the end, but here we are, and what a journey it has been. First and foremost, my gratitude goes out to my promotors and supervisors, prof. dr. Antal van den Bosch and prof. dr. Eric Postma. Antal, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to discover my passion and for your guidance, support and patience throughout. I fondly remember our inspiring meetings and lunch walks. Eric, even though your involvement was not from the start of my PhD, your efforts to get me to the finish line were indispensable. Thank you for all the discussions and pep talks. I would like to thank all the members of the committee for reading my thesis and providing me with their comments: prof. dr. Jaap van den Herik, prof. dr. Alexander Mehler, prof. dr. Marie-Francine Moens, and prof. dr. Lex Heerma van Voss. Jaap, thank you sincerely for all the invaluable advice you gave me in the years when we were both at TiCC. Alexander, thank you for coming over from Germany for my defense. I enjoyed meeting you in Leipzig and look forward to discussing my methods and analyses with you during and after the ceremony. Marie-Francine, thank you for reading my thesis and for coming to Tilburg for the ceremony. I look forward to meeting you. Lex, thank you for the discussions that we had at IISH when you were part of the HiTiME advisory board. They were a direct inspiration for the work presented in this thesis. Thank you also in this respect to the rest of the HiTiME advisory board: dr. Dennis Bos, dr. Andrea Scharnhorst, dr. Angelie Sens, and project leader dr. Marien van der Heijden. Marien, thank you for continued enthusiasm for the project and for always receiving me with open arms at IISH. My time at TiCC was a turbulent one for me, personally, but my colleagues there have always made me feel like part of the family, which is something I really needed and will never forget. Martin, I knew we would get along the first time I heard you comment on the spelling mistakes in someone else's presentation. Thank you for being a mentor and a friend and for always believing in me. I look forward to many years of working together on whatever we can come up with. Ko, Menno, Sander and Bart, thank you for the fun evenings we spent at the university's pub quiz. I will think of f00f whenever I drink an Erdinger. Menno and Tanja, thank you for hosting those wonderful "winter barbies" where we all drank and sang and played VI pinball. And thank you to Iris (Balemans!), Martha, Steve, Herman, Alain, Maarten, Paai, Nanne, Yevgen and Yu for making my workdays so much more enjoyable. Good friends are hard to come by, but I am happy to realize that I have found some real gems. Anke Dijkstra and Anouk Gaillard, my beautiful paranymphs, I love and admire you both to no end. Anke, thank you for always providing an alternative viewpoint and helping me to put things in perspective, even from half way around the world. You continue to inspire me and I am so proud to be your friend. Anouk, you are without a doubt the most relaxed person that I have ever met. Thank you for your never-ending patience and all the trips, concerts and afternoons just hanging out. I look forward to many more years of that, while watching your beautiful daughter Aurora growing up. Roy, you are my cousin, but really you are a brother from another mother. I am so grateful that you are always there to listen and understand and for all the fun that we have in between. I hope we never lose that. And last, but definitely not least, a big thank you to Tony, Mili, Michiel and Margot for all the conversations, drinks and good times that we shared over the years. I truly cherish your friendship. Matje van de Camp Tilburg, 18 January 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... V TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................... VII 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1. RESEARCH MOTIVATION ................................................................................................... 2 1.2. PROBLEM STATEMENT AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...................................................... 3 1.3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................. 4 1.4. THESIS OUTLINE ................................................................................................................. 5 2 SOCIAL HISTORY ............................................................................................................. 7 2.1. SOCIAL HISTORY ................................................................................................................ 8 2.2. BWSA .................................................................................................................................. 8 2.3. CHALLENGES IN SOCIAL HISTORICAL RESEARCH .......................................................... 13 2.3.1. Accessibility .......................................................................................................... 13 2.3.2. Efficiency ............................................................................................................... 14 2.3.3. Technophobia ....................................................................................................... 15 2.4. RELATED RESEARCH ......................................................................................................... 15 3 WHAT’S IN A NAME? ..................................................................................................... 19 3.1. RECOGNITION AND IDENTIFICATION OF NAMED ENTITIES ......................................... 20 3.1.1. Ambiguity in names ............................................................................................. 20 3.1.2. Consequences of misidentification ...................................................................... 21 3.2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH INTO NER AND NED .................................................................. 22 3.2.1. Named Entity Recognition ................................................................................... 23 3.2.2. Named Entity Disambiguation ........................................................................... 24 3.3. BWSA-NERD .................................................................................................................. 25 3.3.1. Named Entity Recognition ..................................................................................