Recently, I read a paper about Aardwark, a social search engine, which google bought recently. The paradigm shift in the search engine is that the users ask some questions and instead of searching for the answers in documents, the engine searches for people in a user's friends-of-friends list, who are most likely to answer the question and poses the question to them. Aardwark tries to imitate age-old human habit of taking opinion of friends, who we think have some knowledge about the activity, before doing some activity.
The primary steps in Aardvark are
- Labelling and Classifying users : To classify which users like and have knowledge of which topics
- Query Processing : To understand what the users want
- Ranking Function : To select the best resources to provide information.
Main ideas:
When a query comes, then the system tries to define how likely it is for a particular user to answer a query. The proabability of the query being answered by the user i, is the summation over all topics for P(ui/t)*P(t/q)
P(ui/q) = &Sigma &forall t (P(ui/t)P(t/q))
Second metric used is the scoring function,
s(ui,uj,q) = p(ui/uj)* p(ui/q)
The only thing that is calculated for the score S(ui, uj, q) on the fly when the query is generated is P(t/q), everything is pre-calculated and kept.
How to get P(t/ui) ?
-SVM identifies general subject area of the text
- Name entity resolution and tf-idf
- Periodically runs a Topic resolution algorithm for revision.
Connectedness P(ui/uj) can be measured by:
-the number of links
-Profile similarity
-Demographic similarity
-Politeness match
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Valentine's Day 2010
Valentine's Day is a day of love, peace and friendship. I celebrated today with my husband by eating at a Japanese restaurant and a having a lovely chocolate mousse dessert.
I asked Nirmal - "honey, how did we celebrate Valentine's Day when we were in college?"
Nirmal replied that "We never did because of Shiv Sena.We never went out because the Shiv Sena goons would beat couples in Varanasi."
Being so far away from these things, I realized that once i was also a victim of Shiv Sena and that they were successful in stopping millions of youg boys and girls from meeting each other on this wonderful day. And their tyranny has been growing.
It's a shameful for our nation that even after 63 years of independence, dating is frowned upon & girls-boys are not allowed to meet in public unless they are brothers-sisters. Isn't it a very natural thing to do when you are 16?
When other half of the world is on the verge of legalizing same sex marriage, I would like my country to embrace boy-girl relationship (outside of a wedlock) as a natural and healthy phenomenon.
I asked Nirmal - "honey, how did we celebrate Valentine's Day when we were in college?"
Nirmal replied that "We never did because of Shiv Sena.We never went out because the Shiv Sena goons would beat couples in Varanasi."
Being so far away from these things, I realized that once i was also a victim of Shiv Sena and that they were successful in stopping millions of youg boys and girls from meeting each other on this wonderful day. And their tyranny has been growing.
It's a shameful for our nation that even after 63 years of independence, dating is frowned upon & girls-boys are not allowed to meet in public unless they are brothers-sisters. Isn't it a very natural thing to do when you are 16?
When other half of the world is on the verge of legalizing same sex marriage, I would like my country to embrace boy-girl relationship (outside of a wedlock) as a natural and healthy phenomenon.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
TED 2010 LongBeach Day 2 & After
TED came to an end today and it was definitely the best use of my "Blizzard Holidays".
If I join the dot backwards, it almost feels that God wanted me to watch TED and so he sent the blizzard.
It is difficult to pick and choose amongst talks, since every speaker brought with him a brilliant idea that was truly worth spreading. Believe me, i m not being rhetorical.
Again, these are my interpretations of the ideas of the speakers - you may agree or disagree or dont care ! :)
One of the speakers was the great" James Cameron" - his speech was one of the most inspiring I have ever heard.
He spoke about his love for ocean and how one of his personal reasons for making Titanic was being able to go down and see the shipwreck. He said "In your life, keep failure as an option, not fear!!" and "enjoy the task of doing the task".
Sir Ken Robinson had really nice quotes about the current day ailing education system which he thinks has to be completely rethought and re-built.
Sir Robinson said that we have developed a linear and standardized model of education but education should be more of an organic process growing with steps and in whichever direction it wants.
In the past and present, education has dislocated a lot of people. He says its not easy to find your passion and what you are good at by searching at the top, you have to search deep inside you and it takes time.
I think i m doing what i wanted to do in life and everyone should also feel the same about their jobs.
The 12 year old girl - Adora Svitak, was really a prodigy. She spoke about how children shud be taken seriously and how silly behavior is not synonomous with chidish behavior. She is so good at 12, I wonder what she will become when she grows up.God Bless her!
Philip Howard spoke about how laws which were created to protect the people in this country, have tied people's hand and creativity. He has a famous book called "Life without Lawyers", I m planning to read it.
George Whitesides spoke about the power of simplicity and what reiterated what Einstein once said" Try to make things simple, not simpler". Simple things are easy to use and people find different ways of using simple things.
The best thing about the TED speakers is the way they connect to the audience. As Chris told in his interview, the speakers should be able to connect to the audience immediately and there should be no "ego" in the speaker at all. I think all of the speakers did that and I truly felt connected to the talks.
I cannot quote everyone's talk here but all of them are really worth spending the 18 minutes for.
Happy V Day !!
If I join the dot backwards, it almost feels that God wanted me to watch TED and so he sent the blizzard.
It is difficult to pick and choose amongst talks, since every speaker brought with him a brilliant idea that was truly worth spreading. Believe me, i m not being rhetorical.
Again, these are my interpretations of the ideas of the speakers - you may agree or disagree or dont care ! :)
One of the speakers was the great" James Cameron" - his speech was one of the most inspiring I have ever heard.
He spoke about his love for ocean and how one of his personal reasons for making Titanic was being able to go down and see the shipwreck. He said "In your life, keep failure as an option, not fear!!" and "enjoy the task of doing the task".
Sir Ken Robinson had really nice quotes about the current day ailing education system which he thinks has to be completely rethought and re-built.
Sir Robinson said that we have developed a linear and standardized model of education but education should be more of an organic process growing with steps and in whichever direction it wants.
In the past and present, education has dislocated a lot of people. He says its not easy to find your passion and what you are good at by searching at the top, you have to search deep inside you and it takes time.
I think i m doing what i wanted to do in life and everyone should also feel the same about their jobs.
The 12 year old girl - Adora Svitak, was really a prodigy. She spoke about how children shud be taken seriously and how silly behavior is not synonomous with chidish behavior. She is so good at 12, I wonder what she will become when she grows up.God Bless her!
Philip Howard spoke about how laws which were created to protect the people in this country, have tied people's hand and creativity. He has a famous book called "Life without Lawyers", I m planning to read it.
George Whitesides spoke about the power of simplicity and what reiterated what Einstein once said" Try to make things simple, not simpler". Simple things are easy to use and people find different ways of using simple things.
The best thing about the TED speakers is the way they connect to the audience. As Chris told in his interview, the speakers should be able to connect to the audience immediately and there should be no "ego" in the speaker at all. I think all of the speakers did that and I truly felt connected to the talks.
I cannot quote everyone's talk here but all of them are really worth spending the 18 minutes for.
Happy V Day !!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
My thoughts after seeing "The Blind Side"
I watched the movie "The Blind Side" today and loved it. It is motivating, sentimental, courageous and eye-opening.
It made me appreciate the things in my life that I take granted for - as simple thing as my bed. I like my bed but I always want something more in my bedroom- one more painting, another dresser or mirror. Maybe it's just the woman in me. But watching the movie really made me appreciate what i have and how lucky i m.
I liked the good intentions of the lady who adopted the child from the street and the right heart of the kid "Michael Oher'.
From my childhood i remember, my aunt tried to educate her servant. She sent him to school but he always ran away, at that time I thought that the servant was not worthy of an education but now i feel it might be that he needed some extra help.
It has been a dream of my husband and me, to do something to educate under-privileged children, especially girls.
One African scientist at TED said " Education is the husband who will never let you down". Very rightly so.
I, with my teammates at school, launched the web application "EachOneTeachOne" for free online tutoring.
For EachOneTeachOne, I visited several schools in the Prince Georges County and tried to see if the schools needed some extra help in Math education and if science and engineering students, spending time on social networking sites, could be of some help.
The response i received from the teachers was the same - "YES" . There was a lack of math teachers, the students were not interested to study on top of that the student to teacher ratio was 30:1. All the schools needed extra help and welcomed my initiative.
Alas, EachOneTeachOne is at a stall for lack of time due to my PhD commitments and the issues of safety of communicating with adults over internet.Before watching the movie, I always thought that the time i spent visiting the schools and meeting kids could have been utilized to write a research paper or do an internship. But now I feel that it was worth having it and has much more value than anything i ll do for myself.
I would like to resume the project soon and try to continue my task of " Nar Seva" which means "Service to Humanity".
It made me appreciate the things in my life that I take granted for - as simple thing as my bed. I like my bed but I always want something more in my bedroom- one more painting, another dresser or mirror. Maybe it's just the woman in me. But watching the movie really made me appreciate what i have and how lucky i m.
I liked the good intentions of the lady who adopted the child from the street and the right heart of the kid "Michael Oher'.
From my childhood i remember, my aunt tried to educate her servant. She sent him to school but he always ran away, at that time I thought that the servant was not worthy of an education but now i feel it might be that he needed some extra help.
It has been a dream of my husband and me, to do something to educate under-privileged children, especially girls.
One African scientist at TED said " Education is the husband who will never let you down". Very rightly so.
I, with my teammates at school, launched the web application "EachOneTeachOne" for free online tutoring.
For EachOneTeachOne, I visited several schools in the Prince Georges County and tried to see if the schools needed some extra help in Math education and if science and engineering students, spending time on social networking sites, could be of some help.
The response i received from the teachers was the same - "YES" . There was a lack of math teachers, the students were not interested to study on top of that the student to teacher ratio was 30:1. All the schools needed extra help and welcomed my initiative.
Alas, EachOneTeachOne is at a stall for lack of time due to my PhD commitments and the issues of safety of communicating with adults over internet.Before watching the movie, I always thought that the time i spent visiting the schools and meeting kids could have been utilized to write a research paper or do an internship. But now I feel that it was worth having it and has much more value than anything i ll do for myself.
I would like to resume the project soon and try to continue my task of " Nar Seva" which means "Service to Humanity".
TED 2010 Day 1
Before I loose the magic of TED, I want to share with my friends my take home from Day 1 of the TED Conference.And for those who dont have time to watch the 18 minute talks, i might be saving you sometime :)
I m writing about the three best talks on Day 1 TED 2010 according to me.These are entirely my interpretations of what the speakers meant and you can agree or disagree or dont care :)
William Li - A scientist and a doctor spoke about Anti- Angiogenesis as a cure to cancer. His claim was that cancer causes prolific growth of the cells in the body as well as a growth of the blood capillaries - which grow to provide nourishment to the tumor cells. If we can prohibit the growth of the blood capillaries, then the growth of the cancer cells will be stopped since the cells wont have any food to live on. William Li's drugs have proven successful for many kinds of cancers .
According to him, by eating right kind of food - we can have our own kemotherapy atleast 3 times a day. Foods include - green tea, turmeric, tomotoes, berries, soybeans, etc.
For more information, please check his website -http://www.angio.org/
Also watch his TED talk when its out. :)
Chef Dan Barber - runs the BlueHillFarms restaurant in NY and he spoke about sustainable agriculture . His fishes come from the most sustainable farms and are naturally grown and thats wht he says make them soft and delicious.
Did I tell you that we have already finished 90% of fishes in the oceans and our children might not have any coral reefs to look at ? ;)
Watch his TED talk for more and try bluehillfarms too :)
Jamie Oliver's, London's famous chef, has come to America to fight childhood obesity and wants to change the kind of food served in school cafeterias. I m from India so have no knowledge about it but someone told me all food items in schools are processed and packaged outside.
Then what is a cafeteria for, I dont understand?
I agree with Jamie that everyone should know atleast 10 things to cook before they graduate from high school :)
I m writing about the three best talks on Day 1 TED 2010 according to me.These are entirely my interpretations of what the speakers meant and you can agree or disagree or dont care :)
William Li - A scientist and a doctor spoke about Anti- Angiogenesis as a cure to cancer. His claim was that cancer causes prolific growth of the cells in the body as well as a growth of the blood capillaries - which grow to provide nourishment to the tumor cells. If we can prohibit the growth of the blood capillaries, then the growth of the cancer cells will be stopped since the cells wont have any food to live on. William Li's drugs have proven successful for many kinds of cancers .
According to him, by eating right kind of food - we can have our own kemotherapy atleast 3 times a day. Foods include - green tea, turmeric, tomotoes, berries, soybeans, etc.
For more information, please check his website -http://www.angio.org/
Also watch his TED talk when its out. :)
Chef Dan Barber - runs the BlueHillFarms restaurant in NY and he spoke about sustainable agriculture . His fishes come from the most sustainable farms and are naturally grown and thats wht he says make them soft and delicious.
Did I tell you that we have already finished 90% of fishes in the oceans and our children might not have any coral reefs to look at ? ;)
Watch his TED talk for more and try bluehillfarms too :)
Jamie Oliver's, London's famous chef, has come to America to fight childhood obesity and wants to change the kind of food served in school cafeterias. I m from India so have no knowledge about it but someone told me all food items in schools are processed and packaged outside.
Then what is a cafeteria for, I dont understand?
I agree with Jamie that everyone should know atleast 10 things to cook before they graduate from high school :)
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