Discovery

Data Mining and Computational Creativity

The Discovery group develops novel methods and tools for data mining and computational creativity. Our focus is on algorithmic methods for discovering links and patterns in data, and recently also on their use in creative systems. Application areas range from link discovery in bioinformatics to computational generation of poetry.

Methodologically, we focus on analysis and exploration methods for weighted (biological) graphs. We identify relevant computational problems, develop new concepts and algorithms, and apply them. We have recently developed a range of novel methods to simplify large networks into simpler ones or for extracting relevant information from them. These methods allow more efficient and user-friendly analysis of social networks, biological networks, etc.

The more applied line of this research has produced Biomine, a search engine prototype that integrates and indexes data from several publicly available biological databases. Biomine presents the data as a weighted graph, and its query tools aid explorative discovery of non-trivial connections between biological entities, such as genes and phenotypes. See http://biomine.cs.helsinki.fi/.

A new focus area is computational creativity, interesting on its own right but also as an application area for data mining methods. We mostly work on verbal creativity, i.e., computational poetry and humour. We are developing novel methods that minimize the need for manually coded or language specific knowledge.

The group works jointly under the Department of Computer Science at University of Helsinki, and The Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT). We constitute a part of Algodan (Algorithmic Data Analysis), a national Centre of Excellence in research.

See the Discovery Group home page for more information.

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