Within the Ariadne project two faculties of the Leiden University are involved, bringing together the required technical and subject knowledge: the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) from the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Archaeology.
LIACS is the computer science institute of Leiden University, engaged in both research and education in the area of computer science. The research at LIACS is broadly oriented with five research clusters, each responsible for exploring the next frontier of ideas and techniques in their area such as research in the emerging area of bioinformatics. Close cooperation with industrial and academic research institutes, nationally and internationally, is the rule, not the exception.
One of the research clusters at LIACS is the Algorithms cluster, lead by Prof. Dr.Thomas Bäck and Prof. Dr. Joost Kok. The Algorithms cluster performs fundamental research on methods and techniques for algorithm design and analysis, with an emphasis on natural computing and data mining algorithms. The aim is to apply the algorithms to research questions in other disciplines, for instance archaeology and history.
The Data Mining Group is concerned with fundamental and applied research in the areas of data mining and knowledge discovery. The theoretical research focuses on finding regularities in complex data such as large graphs, streams, time-series and relational databases. Data mining refers to the process of analyzing data in the hope of finding patterns that are novel, interesting, and useful. It is somewhat comparable to statistics (and often based on the latter), but takes it further in the sense that whereas statistics aims more at validating given hypotheses, in data mining often millions of potential patterns are generated and tested, in the hope of finding some that are potentially useful. The research of applied nature is concerned with producing understandable and actionable insights from data provided by partners from the academic and commercial domain. Typically, these application areas require the development of new mining techniques that solve the specific challenges of the data at hand. Read more: http://www.liacs.nl/home-en/
The Faculty of Archaeology at the Leiden University is the only Archaeology Faculty in the Netherlands. This independence makes it possible to actively steer policy in the fields of education and research, and to quickly take advantage of new research opportunities. Leiden can pride itself on a long archaeological tradition, going back to Professor Reuvens at the beginning of the 19th century.
The ambition of the faculty is to develop into a prominent archaeological research and training centre at a European level. In European terms, the faculty is an average-size institute, with a wide range of archaeological specializations and several scientific laboratories. Apart from the traditionally strong focus on Prehistory of Northwestern Europe and Classical Archaeology, Leiden offers (as the only university in the Netherlands) a specialization in the Palaeolithic, and in the archaeology of the civilizations of the Near East, Asia, and the Americas, as well as a number of archaeological sciences, such as archaeobotanical analysis, archaeozoology, osteoarchaeology, computer applications and material studies. Heritage management, Roman and Medieval archaeology have been added recently to this broad spectrum.
International collaboration has been a part of our research strategy for a long time, due to the truly international nature of the wide field of archaeological work. Individual members of staff have a widespread international network of colleagues and co-researchers abroad. The number of foreign staff members, form all over the world, participation in our research and education has increased over the last years attraction many English speaking students.The Computer Applications section, lead by Dr. Hans Kamermans, is small, but has been involved in the application of computers in the archaeological fieldwork and research from the very start. A wide range of topics have been addressed over the years, from relational databases, GIS, predictive modelling, the use of digital devices during excavations and field surveys, intra-site spatial analysis to digital archiving. The long lasting membership of the steering committee of Computer Applications and quantitative methods in Archaeology expresses the international character of the section. Read more: http://archaeology.leiden.edu/.
Within the Ariadne project, Leiden University will act as Work Package leader of WP16, Data Mining and Natural Language Processing. In which, the 6 partners involved would like to explore how we can put these new Ariadne infrastructure and tools to work on real archaeological research questions at a pan-European scale. Our role will include an active participation in the application of existing tools and procedures developed by the partners.
Website: Universiteit Leiden