Comments on: The Forgetting http://hunch.net/?p=205 Machine learning and learning theory research Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:46:22 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: chunyu http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-63275 chunyu Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:44:44 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-63275 Fresh researchers usually read the most recent work, and try to keep pace with the research trend in their area. Though there may be many fundamental problems to be solved, the interest bias of the main flow research community may only focus those easy to published ones. If we choose different research areas, it may be dangerous. Fresh researchers usually read the most recent work, and try to keep pace with the research trend in their area. Though there may be many fundamental problems to be solved, the interest bias of the main flow research community may only focus those easy to published ones. If we choose different research areas, it may be dangerous.

]]> By: Charles http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-56112 Charles Thu, 22 Feb 2007 18:54:42 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-56112 I really like the comment that only teachable ideas survive. That said, it's not an uncommon research contribution to make an unteachable idea become teachable. For example, simpler proofs are often found to replace important but complex ones; or complex algorithms are subsumed into a general framework that makes understanding them much simpler. The forward-backward algorithm is probably a good example of the latter phenomenon. I really like the comment that only teachable ideas survive. That said, it’s not an uncommon research contribution to make an unteachable idea become teachable. For example, simpler proofs are often found to replace important but complex ones; or complex algorithms are subsumed into a general framework that makes understanding them much simpler. The forward-backward algorithm is probably a good example of the latter phenomenon.

]]> By: A Vezhnevets http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-55854 A Vezhnevets Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:20:47 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-55854 I totally agree on the notion about the relation of papers simplicity and its survivability. Most of the papers that had significant impact in the fields I'm familiar with (machine learning and vision) were those, that proposed simple solutions to complicated tasks. It seems that simpler methods also achieve better results then complex once (Occam's razor?). The first thing that comes to my mind as an example is Boosting - student can understand and implement it in a few hours. I totally agree on the notion about the relation of papers simplicity and its survivability. Most of the papers that had significant impact in the fields I’m familiar with (machine learning and vision) were those, that proposed simple solutions to complicated tasks. It seems that simpler methods also achieve better results then complex once (Occam’s razor?). The first thing that comes to my mind as an example is Boosting – student can understand and implement it in a few hours.

]]> By: Joe Kondel http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-55738 Joe Kondel Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:31:47 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-55738 There have been some efforts towards this problem from the semantic web / large scale heterogeneous database systems area. One relatively recent one I remember is the Piazza system from U of Washington. <a>Here's one of the better papers</a>. There have been some efforts towards this problem from the semantic web / large scale heterogeneous database systems area. One relatively recent one I remember is the Piazza system from U of Washington. Here’s one of the better papers.

]]> By: hal http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-55651 hal Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:12:24 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-55651 I think there are two compounding issues. (1) old stuff often enters the common vocabulary and escapes citation. Decision trees often go uncited, for instance, especially in the context of boosting. (2) recent tutorial/collections/books supercede old papers; eg., many people cite SVMs as the Cristianini and Shawe-Taylor, or even the Vapnik book, rather than the original paper. Both a signs that an old technique is important, but reduce the recency of citation lists. I think there are two compounding issues. (1) old stuff often enters the common vocabulary and escapes citation. Decision trees often go uncited, for instance, especially in the context of boosting. (2) recent tutorial/collections/books supercede old papers; eg., many people cite SVMs as the Cristianini and Shawe-Taylor, or even the Vapnik book, rather than the original paper. Both a signs that an old technique is important, but reduce the recency of citation lists.

]]> By: Bill Jefferys http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-55574 Bill Jefferys Tue, 20 Feb 2007 00:14:49 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-55574 On the comment 4. "Old papers aren’t on the internet." This is field-dependent, and circumstances make some fields more fortunate than others. In astronomy, due to NASA money, the major journals...Astronomical Journal, Astrophysical Journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Astronomy and Astrophysics, to mention a few, are on line from their beginning (19th Century in some cases). This is possible because the size of these journals was small enough, even with 100+ years' accumulation, to be scanned in a reasonable amount of time. It may well be that government funds could be used similarly in other fields to advantage, and the cost might not be so large as to be prohibitive. Type "ADS Abstracts" into your browser to get a sense of what is available in this field. On the comment 4. “Old papers aren’t on the internet.”

This is field-dependent, and circumstances make some fields more fortunate than others. In astronomy, due to NASA money, the major journals…Astronomical Journal, Astrophysical Journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Astronomy and Astrophysics, to mention a few, are on line from their beginning (19th Century in some cases).

This is possible because the size of these journals was small enough, even with 100+ years’ accumulation, to be scanned in a reasonable amount of time.

It may well be that government funds could be used similarly in other fields to advantage, and the cost might not be so large as to be prohibitive.

Type “ADS Abstracts” into your browser to get a sense of what is available in this field.

]]> By: Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-55548 Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:54:46 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-55548 <strong>Scientific Papers in the Internet Age</strong> In a recent discussion at Machine Learning (Theory) blog the website called Faculty of 1000 (Biology) and Faculty of 1000 (Medicine) came up. It works as follows: users submit papers they like, and there is space for supporting and dissenting... Scientific Papers in the Internet Age

In a recent discussion at Machine Learning (Theory) blog the website called Faculty of 1000 (Biology) and Faculty of 1000 (Medicine) came up. It works as follows: users submit papers they like, and there is space for supporting and dissenting…

]]> By: furr http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-55184 furr Sun, 18 Feb 2007 16:59:34 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-55184 if you try attacking bigger problems you'll start citing older papers if you try attacking bigger problems you’ll start citing older papers

]]> By: Anonymous http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-54951 Anonymous Sun, 18 Feb 2007 00:18:26 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-54951 Kilian - fyi such a paper organization and peer-comment system does exist in biology and medicine, see: http://www.f1000biology.com/start.asp the flexibility of their topic hierarchy, and the breadth of commenting peers (right now only faculty members, surprising how many people have time to write!) and others may not be perfect, ... who in Google wants to improve this, or in other words, implement a "PaperPedia"? Kilian – fyi such a paper organization and peer-comment system does exist in biology and medicine, see: http://www.f1000biology.com/start.asp
the flexibility of their topic hierarchy, and the breadth of commenting peers (right now only faculty members, surprising how many people have time to write!) and others may not be perfect, … who in Google wants to improve this, or in other words, implement a “PaperPedia”?

]]> By: Kilian W. http://hunch.net/?p=205&cpage=1#comment-54855 Kilian W. Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:14:34 +0000 http://hunch.net/?p=205#comment-54855 John, I agree with your last point. The way papers are stored right now is clearly sub-optimal. It is too easy to miss important work because it was published at a conference that you are less familiar with, that was before your time, or because the title threw you off. Ideally, you could imagine a centralized, searchable, hierarchical data base where people and conferences upload their papers. If it is organized in a fine-grained hierarchy, you could subscribe to your topic/sub-tree of interest and receive weekly or daily emails with the latest additions. Going further, you could imagine allowing users to leave reviews or ratings for the papers (amazon or digg style). Isn’t there somebody at Google still searching for a useful 20% project? John, I agree with your last point. The way papers are stored right now is clearly sub-optimal. It is too easy to miss important work because it was published at a conference that you are less familiar with, that was before your time, or because the title threw you off. Ideally, you could imagine a centralized, searchable, hierarchical data base where people and conferences upload their papers. If it is organized in a fine-grained hierarchy, you could subscribe to your topic/sub-tree of interest and receive weekly or daily emails with the latest additions. Going further, you could imagine allowing users to leave reviews or ratings for the papers (amazon or digg style).

Isn’t there somebody at Google still searching for a useful 20% project?

]]>