Author Archives: Philippe Fournier-Viger

Choosing data structures according to what you want to do

Posted on 2013-06-12 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

Today, I write a post about programming. I want to share a simple but important idea for writing optimized code. The idea is to choose data structures according to what you want to do instead of what you want to … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Mining, Programming | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Analyzing the source code of the SPMF data mining software

Posted on 2013-05-16 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

Hi everyone, In this blog post, I will discuss how I have applied an open-source tool that is named Code Analyzer ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/codeanalyze-gpl/ )  to analyze the source code of my open-source data mining software named SPMF. I have applied … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Mining, Java, open-source, Pattern Mining, Programming, spmf | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

How to auto-adjust the minimum support threshold according to the data size

Posted on 2013-05-11 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

Today, I will do a quick post on how to automatically adjust the minimum support threshold of frequent pattern mining algorithms such as Apriori, FPGrowth and PrefixSpan according to the size of the data. The problem is simple.  Let’s consider … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Mining, Programming | Tagged , , , , , | 48 Comments

How to characterize and compare data mining algorithms?

Posted on 2013-04-15 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

Hi, today, I will discuss how to compare data mining algorithms.  This is an important question for data mining researchers who want to evaluate which algorithm is “better” in general or for a given situation.  This question is also important … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Mining, Programming, Research | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

A Map of Data Mining Algorithms (offered in SPMF v092c)

Posted on 2013-04-09 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

Hi, I have made a map to visualize the relationship between the 52 different data mining algorithms offered in the SPMF data mining software.  You can view it in PNG format by clicking on the picture below: Or you can … Continue reading →

Posted in Data Mining, Java, open-source, Pattern Mining, Programming, spmf | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

On the quality of peer-review for academic journals (updated)

Posted on 2013-04-09 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

Nowadays, there are a lot of low-quality academic journal popping everywhere on the Web. Actually, it does not take much to start a low-quality journal (just a website). What is the goal of low-quality journals?  It is generally to earn … Continue reading →

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Why researchers should make their research papers available on internet?

Posted on 2013-03-30 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

In this blog post, I will discuss the importance of making research papers available on the internet. As you probably knows, many researchers nowadays prefer to search for papers/articles on the internet instead of searching at their university’s library. Searching … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Research | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

What does it takes to do a good Ph.D?

Posted on 2013-03-27 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

Today, I will discuss this question: “What does it takes to do a good Ph.D ?“.  We can answer this question from several points of view. First, from a personal level, some people think that “talent” is the most important … Continue reading →

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How to choose a research advisor for M.Sc. / Ph.D ?

Posted on 2013-03-26 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

In this post I will discuss how to choose a research advisor for doing a M.Sc. or Ph.D.  This is a very important decision for any graduate students that can have an important impact on their success, and on their … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Research | Tagged , , , | 22 Comments

How to choose a conference for publishing research papers?

Posted on 2013-03-21 by Philippe Fournier-Viger

Today, I will discuss how to choose conferences for publishing papers.  It is important to make good choices because it can have a huge impact on a researcher’s career. There are several things to consider for choosing a conference. First, does … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Research | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments