"open research" entries

Four short links: 11 June 2014

Four short links: 11 June 2014

Right to Mine, Summarising Microblogs, C Sucks for Stats, and Scanning Logfiles

by Nat Torkington | @gnat | +Nat Torkington | June 11, 2014
  1. UK Copyright Law Permits Researchers to Data Mine — changes mean Copyright holders can require researchers to pay to access their content but cannot then restrict text or data mining for non-commercial purposes thereafter, under the new rules. However, researchers that use the text or data they have mined for anything other than a non-commercial purpose will be said to have infringed copyright, unless the activity has the consent of rights holders. In addition, the sale of the text or data mined by researchers is prohibited. The derivative works will be very interesting: if university mines the journals, finds new possibility for a Thing, is verified experimentally, is that Thing the university’s to license commercially for profit?
  2. Efficient Online Summary of Microblogging Streams (PDF) — research paper. The algorithm we propose uses a word graph, along with optimization techniques such as decaying windows and pruning. It outperforms the baseline in terms of summary quality, as well as time and memory efficiency.
  3. Statistical Shortcomings in Standard Math Libraries — or “Why C Derivatives Are Not Popular With Statistical Scientists”. The following mathematical functions are necessary for implementing any rudimentary statistics application; and yet they are general enough to have many applications beyond statistics. I hereby propose adding them to the standard C math library and to the libraries which inherit from it. For purposes of future discussion, I will refer to these functions as the Elusive Eight.
  4. fail2ban — open source tool that scans logfiles for signs of malice, and triggers actions (e.g., iptables updates).
Four short links: 26 May 2014

Four short links: 26 May 2014

Statistical Sensitivity, Scientific Mining, Data Mining Books, and Two-Sided Smartphones

by Nat Torkington | @gnat | +Nat Torkington | May 26, 2014
  1. Car Alarms and Smoke Alarms (Slideshare) — how to think about and draw the line between sensitivity and specificity.
  2. 101 Uses for Content Mining — between the list in the post and the comments from readers, it’s a good introduction to some of the value to be obtained from full-text structured and unstructured access to scientific research publications.
  3. 12 Free-as-in-beer Data Mining Books — for your next flight.
  4. Dual-Touch Smartphone Concept — brilliant design sketches for interactivity using the back of the phone as a touch-sensitive input device.