After a brief incursion into LDA, it appeared to me that visualization of topics and of its components played a major role in interpreting the model. In this blog post I will write about my experience with PyLDAvis, a python package (ported from R) that allows an interactive visualization of a topic model.
Continue reading “Experiments on Topic Modeling – PyLDAvis”
Author: Lucia Dossin
Lucia Dossin (BR/NL) is a researcher/designer living in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She has a background in architecture and webdesign and holds a MA in Media Design & Communication from Piet Zwart Institute.
Her interests reside at the intersection of art and design, more precisely on the (actual/possible/desirable) relationships between humans and computers: user-friendliness, interfaces, user-generated data and digital literacy.
In the past few years she has been conducting experiments in hybrid publishing practices, in institutions such as the PublishingLab and the Publication Station but also independently.
Experiments on Topic Modeling – LDA
Topic modeling is an approach or a method through which a collection is organized/structured/labeled according to themes found in its contents. Continue reading “Experiments on Topic Modeling – LDA”
Mining patent data – preliminary results
The number of patents in which Facebook is the assignee currently surpasses the 5000. Not all these patents are closely related to our research, certainly – but how to make a good selection amongst such a huge amount of documents? The interface of the service we chose to use made it possible to use filters which certainly help ‘optimize’ the number of results. By using specific search terms, the displayed results are tailored to what one knows to be relevant. But what about the words that one does not know that could also be relevant? How can one have an overview of the existing content while selecting relevant pieces from it? This blog post is a brief overview of how we approached this issue. Continue reading “Mining patent data – preliminary results”
Mining patent data
Our mapping strategy relies on understanding the processes employed by Facebook to make inferences about their users. One possible way to accomplish that is by having a look at the patents they published. Continue reading “Mining patent data”
Mapping the Network
How to start a research that aims at identifying and describing Facebook’s strategies in mapping our desires?
When dealing with such a huge network of data, tools, categories and involved parties, it does not take much to get lost. Our preliminary intuition was to have a look at and register the most basic entry points: the tools that Facebook makes available for advertisers and developers. Continue reading “Mapping the Network”