This is a great idea for a thread! We should have these at regular intervals.
I’m working on turning my PhD work into a product. The idea is to take logic-based specifications, expressed as structured english, and produce working information systems (such as web apps) from them. I have a prototype which got me the PhD but I need more work to get to a viable product. An intermediate step I am focusing on at the moment is using this technology to write validation checks for existing large datasets to pick out errors/outliers. So someone would apply the rule “Each patient with diabetes type I must be prescribed insulin” on a relevant dataset and the system would pick out cases where this does not hold. Normally this would need a complex SQL query that must be written by a developer and cannot be verified by the domain expert.
The other thing I’m working on is nurturing my addiction to the 17x17 challenge. This is my first forray into ‘serious’ math and I’m finding it extremely addictive. I usually dive into this when my motivation is low, and lo and behold, I’m motivated again! Having spent 7 of the last 14 months on this, still no solution, but I do think that if the filters I have work right, I will have trimmed the problem space I’m focusing on to about 52 cpu-days. Now I’m working on implementing these filters and speeding up my primary algorithms to reduce that further.
Finally, my perpetually on hold project is a social news community that provides a personalised experience, is spam-free and requires no moderation. Some of the ideas were expressed in my optimization by proxyarticles. The conceptual framework is complete, but coding and productising is too much of an energy draw at the moment, so I’m leaving it aside or pushing it forward at a very slow pace.
If anyone wants to know more about any of the above, just ask.
Monthly is great! It’d be great to have regular progress updates from all the people in this thread. I’m part of a group in London that has biweekly meetings to do just that, and I think it’s a great way of motivating people.
About my PhD stuff, I can point you to papers, but I’m not sure that’s what you have in mind. I do have a software prototype but it has not been released as of yet. So far, I have been demoing it to interested people over skype. (I should probably record a screencast. You know what, I’ll take that as an action item for the next thread.)
The motivation initially was nothing particularly noble. As a web developer I got sick and tired of rewriting forms over and over so I went and made a kind of declarative model-driven solution. Then, instead of polluting it with processes and workflows, I built a constraint-based system on top of it. (6 years in 2 sentences!) It’s grand mission, if it has one, is to break people out of the process-based way of designing systems.
The application I’m working on right now though, has been mentioned as a way to help decision-making by someone I was talking to. Particularly, applying these rules to real-time data streams (such as startup dashboards) and flagging situations that need decision maker attention.
Another similar theme I could imagine would be to gradually build a model around a datastream and have the system inform you if any of your assumptions are broken by the data. (in which case you’d need to revise your model).
Will give a bit more thought to this “evidence-based decision making” concept, thanks.
This is a great idea for a thread! We should have these at regular intervals.
I’m working on turning my PhD work into a product. The idea is to take logic-based specifications, expressed as structured english, and produce working information systems (such as web apps) from them. I have a prototype which got me the PhD but I need more work to get to a viable product. An intermediate step I am focusing on at the moment is using this technology to write validation checks for existing large datasets to pick out errors/outliers. So someone would apply the rule “Each patient with diabetes type I must be prescribed insulin” on a relevant dataset and the system would pick out cases where this does not hold. Normally this would need a complex SQL query that must be written by a developer and cannot be verified by the domain expert.
The other thing I’m working on is nurturing my addiction to the 17x17 challenge. This is my first forray into ‘serious’ math and I’m finding it extremely addictive. I usually dive into this when my motivation is low, and lo and behold, I’m motivated again! Having spent 7 of the last 14 months on this, still no solution, but I do think that if the filters I have work right, I will have trimmed the problem space I’m focusing on to about 52 cpu-days. Now I’m working on implementing these filters and speeding up my primary algorithms to reduce that further.
Finally, my perpetually on hold project is a social news community that provides a personalised experience, is spam-free and requires no moderation. Some of the ideas were expressed in my optimization by proxy articles. The conceptual framework is complete, but coding and productising is too much of an energy draw at the moment, so I’m leaving it aside or pushing it forward at a very slow pace.
If anyone wants to know more about any of the above, just ask.
I’ve been thinking about making this a regular occurrence as well. ~ Monthly seem about right?
Is motivation for your PhD related project is primarily to facilitate “evidenced based decision making”? Also, do you have a link?
Monthly is great! It’d be great to have regular progress updates from all the people in this thread. I’m part of a group in London that has biweekly meetings to do just that, and I think it’s a great way of motivating people.
About my PhD stuff, I can point you to papers, but I’m not sure that’s what you have in mind. I do have a software prototype but it has not been released as of yet. So far, I have been demoing it to interested people over skype. (I should probably record a screencast. You know what, I’ll take that as an action item for the next thread.)
The motivation initially was nothing particularly noble. As a web developer I got sick and tired of rewriting forms over and over so I went and made a kind of declarative model-driven solution. Then, instead of polluting it with processes and workflows, I built a constraint-based system on top of it. (6 years in 2 sentences!) It’s grand mission, if it has one, is to break people out of the process-based way of designing systems.
The application I’m working on right now though, has been mentioned as a way to help decision-making by someone I was talking to. Particularly, applying these rules to real-time data streams (such as startup dashboards) and flagging situations that need decision maker attention.
Another similar theme I could imagine would be to gradually build a model around a datastream and have the system inform you if any of your assumptions are broken by the data. (in which case you’d need to revise your model).
Will give a bit more thought to this “evidence-based decision making” concept, thanks.
I now plan to do a thread like this once a month on the first Thursday. If they don’t seem popular, I will stop them.