How to Discover Textual Groups

Textual Similarity: Comparing texts in order to discover how closely they discuss the same topics

This thesis describes the design and implementation of a tool for measuring textual similarity. The thesis looks into different aspects of text processing and graph searching in an attempt to define similarity. Furthermore, a solution for measuring textual similarity is proposed and implemented. Challenges such as disambiguation of word senses, part-of-speech tagging and several graph searching...

How Einstein Did Not Discover

What powered Einstein’s discoveries? Was it asking naïve questions, stubbornly? Was it a mischievous urge to break rules? Was it the destructive power of operational thinking? It was none of these. Rather, Einstein made his discoveries through lengthy, mundane investigations, pursued with tenacity and discipline. We have been led to think otherwise in part through Einstein’s brilliance at recou...

How Computers Discover How Computers Discover (A mini-review of algorithmic meta-discovery)

In traditional exerimental sciences one forms hypotheses explaining an empirical sample of some natural phenomenon. The hypothesis discovery process can in certain cases be automated using machine learning algorithms. I discuss some consequences of viewing scientific discovery, primarily computer based, itself as a natural phenomenon, whose empirical sample may be analyzed or hypothesized about...

How Do Users Search and Discover?

From Textual Chats to Interest Groups in 3D Virtual Space

While the textual chat is a highly popular tool for various kinds of social interactions, its extension to the visual three-dimensional domain remains almost untouched and without practical utilization yet. This paper discusses advantages and disadvantages of spatial virtual environment when used as a platform for connecting people and serving for social and cultural interaction. The difference...