Steve, I guest the point of this exercise is to determine if there are search correlations that can be teased out of (the incredibly dirty) twitter data which can be used to produce meaningful studies.
Other people say they've used Twitter data to produce more accurate and/or timely influenza outbreak predictions than, say, the CDC. But on the other hand, Google Flu Trends totally missed the boat this year. Plus, I just like airing messy code. --Doug On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 12:26 PM, Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > Doug - > > So the point is to attempt "early detection" of an outbreak of something > based on what people are tweeting? > > ( "influenza", "flu", "cold", "fever", "H1N1", "H3N2", "sneezing", > "aching", "ache", "achy", "congested" ) > > It certainly sounds like there might be some utility to it, but I'm > wondering what kinds of reasoning went into this? Is it based on any > models of who tweets or what they are likely to tweet about? > > Was it more of a demonstration or team-building exercise, or does someone > expect to actually put it to use? > > So, the data was pre-archived, but I presume a more useful version would > work from more real-time data and probably would have a sliding time > (exponential moving average?) window? > > Do you know about Norm Packard's (of Eudaimonic, Prediction, > ProtoLife<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Packard>fame) latest venture > called > LuckySort <http://luckysort.com/>? It's R interface is called > TopicWatchr<http://luckysort.com/products/r-package>and seems to be doing > something roughly similar (but without specific > geolocation?). Their examples suggest that they are aiming this at the > Investment sector. > > Our own Mick Thompson (well, SFX if not FRIAM) was working on related > things before the startup Collecta went dark... I'm not sure if he's still > in this game (or on this list?). I used Collecta when it was alive... it > aggregated Twitter as well as some subset of blog and maybe newsfeeds? > For example, stuck in northbound traffic on I-25 near La Cienega one time, > I was able to discover within seconds of stopping my vehicle that 3 people > also stuck in traffic had mentioned that they too were stuck and one of > them was close enough to the front of the line to see that it was a fuel > truck that had been involved in an accident so they weren't inclined to let > anyone past it until the HazMat or Fire folks had determined there was no > risk. On the other hand a CB Radio and/or a Police Scanner (oldschool) > would have told me all that and more in time to take the La Cienega exit > and frontage on into town with only a minor delay. > > > > One of my projects is funded by NIH, and it sponsored (read: paid for) a > group of 15 of us software developer types from 10 different organizations > across the country who are working on the project to get together last week > in Las Vegas, NV to conduct a two-day hackathon. We split into three > groups, and my group produced some rough, ugly, but working Python and R > code. > > The Python code conducts keyword searches on archived 1% Twitter API > data, filtered to only search only those tweets that have valid > geolocation data. The short piece of R code calls a Google map API and > plots the data on a Google map in a browser, allowing the user to click on > the geolocated map points to view the originator's tweet text. > > Our next step will be to replace the R code with Python for calling the > Google map API. > > Here, it's ugly, but it's free. Don't say I never gave you anything. > > --Doug > > -- > *Doug Roberts > d...@parrot-farm.net* > *http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*<http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins> > * > 505-455-7333 - Office > 505-672-8213 - Mobile* > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > -- *Doug Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net* *http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins*<http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins> * <http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins> 505-455-7333 - Office 505-672-8213 - Mobile*
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