What is Data Mining?

What is Data Mining? Good question.

After a great one week vacation away from the blog, it is good to be back. During my vacation I was asked to explain the difference between data mining and information retrieval; so this post goes.

Here is a standard definition I wrote for a graduate course syllabus to be taught next fall at a local university:

Being Quoted at University of Campinas, Brazil

More universities are quoting our tutorials. I’m happy to learn that these are read even in the huge and great nation that is Brazil.

Today we found out that Prof. Wu, Shin – Ting from Department of Computer Engineeering and Industrial Automation, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering State University of Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil and who teaches EA978 Graphic Information Systems is referencing our Matrix Tutorial 3: Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors.

The Problem with Translations Software

The simplest litmus test I have come with to know if a translation software is free from flaws consists in checking its output under a recursive translation between two languages. I like to call this “iterlation”. I like Spanish and English, so these are my preferred languages.

To iterlate text I normally do this. Defining x as an iteration step, do this:

Minerazzi: What in a name?

I’m building a client-side suite of text mining tools for extracting intelligence from text files, Web pages, and email documents.  It comes in four versions: basic,  intermediate,  advance,  and pro. The basic version provide the following reports:

Eigenvectors and Reggaeton Music = Eiggaeton

Eigenvectors and eigenvalues come in pairs; that is why we use the term eigenpair. Some have asked me about practical applications of eigenpairs. So this post goes.

Did you know the connection between eigenvectors and Reggaeton Music (or music in general)? How about eigenvectors and bridges, car designers, speakers, architecture, or oil companies?

Our Tutorials, Required Readings at University of Maryland

Yan Qu over at the College of Information Studies, University of Maryland taughts the graduate course

LBSC 670 Information Structure

For the course Qu selected as required readings our tutorials:

LSA: A Goldmine for Educators and Curriculum Developers

Marco Kalz, M.A. over at Educational Technology Expertise Centre Open University of the Netherlands, informed me months ago that the University of Netherlands was organizing the 1st European Workshop on LSA in Technology-Enhanced Learning. Marco is part of the Scientific Committee responsible for organizing the event and co-author of the workshop proceedings.

It is my pleasure to inform our readers that the event was a complete success. I will ask Marco for additional inside information, to perhaps include in our next issue of IRW Newsletter.

Upcoming IPAM Workshops

Dr. Mark Green, Director of the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA (IPAM) informed me by email of the upcoming workshops IPAM is organizing. I meet Dr. Green last year  during a one-week workshop they organized (The Document Space Workshop)

I am listing below the new workshops relevant to search engines:

The New Iteration of Mi Islita

Today I uploaded the new iteration of Mi Islita.com site.

I’ve added or updated the following resource pages:

IR Thoughts Archives – A sample of posts from this blog, powered by a homemade AJAX reader and regexps.

IR Calls – A list of conferences and industry events we recommend you to attend.

IR Tutorials – Tutorials on Vector Space and LSI Models, Matrix Algebra, and more.

Educational Links – Graduate theses and research projects referencing Mi Islita.

Marketing Links – Search engine marketing articles referencing Mi Islita.

Open Source Machine Learning Software

If you are an IR researcher looking for some open source software this post is for you.

During the second day of the OJOBuscador Congress 2.0 held in Madrid, Spain (March 8, 9) I attended the IR with Usability track.

The first speaker was Dr. Carlos Castillo from Yahoo! Research Spain. He presented on IR with Adversarial and Web Spam.

Then the next speaker and IR practitioner, Jose Ramon-Perez Aguera, presented on several open source software. I want to share with you a handly list, thanks to Jose’s presentation: