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This extended abstract introduces the work of the Netherlands AI Media and Democracy lab, especially focusing on the research performed from an AI/computer science perspective at CWI, the Netherlands National Research Center for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam. We first provide an overview of the general aims and set-up of the lab, and then focuses in on the research areas of the 3 research groups at CWI, outlining there are of research and expected research contributions in the areas between AI and media & democracy.

Green spaces play an important role in urban areas. We study the accessibility of green urban areas by combining open data sets about green with population size data. We develop a mathematical model to define the population density of a green area and calculate the available green space depending on the location. To this end, we do not only consider walking distance to and size of the green area, but also take into account the local population size. Our model quantifies how the available green space depends on the location in the city, such that heavily populated areas have a small amount of green available, even when closely located to a green area.

Green spaces play an important role in urban areas. We study the accessibility of green urban areas by combining open data sets about green with population size data. We develop a mathematical model to define the population density of a green area and calculate the available green space depending on the location. To this end, we do not only consider walking distance to and size of the green area, but also take into account the local population size. Our model quantifies how the available green space depends on the location in the city, such that heavily populated areas have a small amount of green available, even when closely located to a green area.

There is an international shortage of Data Science students. Educators need to scale up and update their programmes in an attempt to meet the increasing demand for well-educated, talented students. Is this “yet another hype” or do we need to innovate education in these fields in a structural way?

On 27 May, Nanda Piersma of the IAS group made an appearance in the German ARD tv programme Europamagazin. She appeared in an item called 'Amsterdam digital' about garbage collection with the help of AI in the city of Amsterdam. The city aims at reducing traffic and saving personnel costs by guiding garbage trucks directly to the bins that are full, instead of driving a fixed route.

Data has been collected since mankind, but in the recent years the technical innovations enable us to collect exponentially growing amounts of data through the use of sensors, smart devices and other sources. In her lecture Nanda will explore the role of Big Data in urban environments. She will give an introduction to the world of Big Data and Smart Cities, and an assessment of the role that data analytics plays in the current state of the digital transformation in our cities. Examples are given in the field of energy and mobility.

In the past 5 years Electric Car use has grown rapidly, almost doubling each year. To provide adequate charging infrastructure it is necessary to model the demand. In this paper we model the distribution of charging demand in the city of Amsterdam using a Cross-Nested Logit Model with socio-demographic statistics of neighborhoods and charging history of vehicles. Models are obtained for three user-types: regular users, electric car-share participants and taxis. Regular users are later split into three subgroups based on their charging behaviour throughout the day: Visitors, Commuters and Residents.

Data has been collected since mankind, but in the recent years the technical innovations enable us to collect exponentially growing amounts of data through the use of sensors, smart devices and other sources. In her lecture Nanda will explore the role of Big Data in urban environments. She will give an introduction to the world of Big Data and Smart Cities, and an assessment of the role that data analytics plays in the current state of the digital transformation in our cities. Examples are given in the field of energy and mobility.

On 27 May, Nanda Piersma of the IAS group made an appearance in the German ARD tv programme Europamagazin. She appeared in an item called 'Amsterdam digital' about garbage collection with the help of AI in the city of Amsterdam. The city aims at reducing traffic and saving personnel costs by guiding garbage trucks directly to the bins that are full, instead of driving a fixed route.

In the past 5 years Electric Car use has grown rapidly, almost doubling each year. To provide adequate charging infrastructure it is necessary to model the demand. In this paper we model the distribution of charging demand in the city of Amsterdam using a Cross-Nested Logit Model with socio-demographic statistics of neighborhoods and charging history of vehicles. Models are obtained for three user-types: regular users, electric car-share participants and taxis. Regular users are later split into three subgroups based on their charging behaviour throughout the day: Visitors, Commuters and Residents.

Direct marketing firms want to transfer their message as efficiently as possible in order to obtain a profitable long-term relationship with individual customers. Much attention has been paid to address selection of existing customers and on identifying new profitable prospects. Less attention has been paid to the optimal frequency of the contacts with customers. We provide a decision support system that helps the direct mailer to determine mailing frequency for active customers. The system observes the mailing pattern of these customers in terms of the well known R(ecency), F(requency) and M(onetary) variables. The underlying model is based on an optimization model for the frequency of direct mailings. The system provides the direct mailer with tools to define preferred response behavior and advises the direct mailer on the mailing strategy that will steer the customers towards this preferred response behavior.

This paper studies decision rules for accepting reservations for stays in a hotel based on deterministic and stochastic mathematical programming techniques. Booking control strategies are constructed that include ideas for nesting, booking limits and bid prices. We allow for multiple day stays. Instead of optimizing a decision period consisting of a fixed set of target booking days, we simultaneously optimize the complete range of target booking dates that are open for booking at the moment of optimization. This yields a rolling horizon of overlapping decision periods, which will conveniently capture the effects of overlapping stays.

The parallel machine scheduling problem with unrelated machines is studied where the objective is to minimize the maximum makespan. In this paper, new local search algorithms are proposed where the neighborhood search of a solution uses the 'efficiency' of the machines for each job. It is shown that this method yields better solutions and shorter running times than the more general local search heuristics.