fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Just Released: Neighborhood Policing Evaluation One-Pager
By: Nyc Opportunity
Tags: Evaluation, Government, New York City, Police, Community Engagement

Neighborhood Policing

Today, the RAND Corporation (RAND) released a one-pager summarizing details of a newly launched evaluation of Neighborhood Policing — an initiative of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) designed to improve communication and collaboration between community residents and police officers while continuing to enhance the NYPD’s crime-fighting capabilities.

The Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity) regularly partners with City agencies and other Mayoral offices to assist with evaluations of key citywide Mayoral initiatives, which are conducted by one of NYC Opportunity’s eight contracted independent evaluation firms. RAND’s evaluation of Neighborhood Policing is the newest example of this ongoing work. Additional NYC Opportunity projects conducted in support of City agency partners have included evaluations of Pre-K for All, IDNYC, and Community Schools.

For this evaluation, RAND — a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization — will examine whether Neighborhood Policing has achieved its goals of reducing crime, improving New Yorkers’ trust in the NYPD, and increasing NYPD’s collaboration both with the community and within the agency itself. The findings of the evaluation will be used to refine and make improvements to Neighborhood Policing.

For more information, please see the one-page summary of the evaluation on RAND’s website.

For more examples of NYC Opportunity’s evaluations, please visit https://www1.nyc.gov/site/opportunity/reports/evaluations.page
February 2019 Member of the Month
By: Thursday Network
Tags: Membership, Community Service, Civic Engagement, Health, Community Engagement

February 2019 Member of the Month

Antwion Jefferson serves as the Executive Assistant of the Community Engagement, Advocacy and Government Affairs department at Children’s National. In addition to overseeing a multi-million dollar fiscal budget, he facilitates efforts to address social determinants of health through partnerships with both community and government organizations under leadership’s guidance.

Prior to joining the CNHS, Antwion served as Deputy Project Manager for Zimmerman Associates Inc. (ZAI), a government services contractor dedicated to providing technology-enabled solutions in processing management and customer satisfaction, where he outlined goals, implemented strategies and provided training and technical assistance to the Library of Congress.

Antwion earned a Bachelor’s of Applied Science in Business Administration with a minor in Sociology from University of Maryland University College (UMUC) and an Associate’s of Applied Science in Business Management from Prince George’s Community College.
Why I Love This, By The Little Monsters Community
By: Jeremy Ross
Tags: Social Media, Community Engagement, Audience Engagement, Lady Gaga, Little Monsters

Little Monsters by Lady Gaga is a unique place filled with passionate fans that love to connect with not only Lady Gaga, but with others who share the same love and passion. It’s a home built by Little Monsters, For Little Monsters.

Born This Way Is A Staple Of Lady Gaga’s Community

The Challenges Of Large, Flat Social Platforms

Specialized content, unique experience, and exclusive access can be a driving force behind the power of a social network. There’s much to be said on delivering loads of great content and information to your audience, but the power of a connected network must go deeper than simply the platform itself.

The unifying component in large platforms is often times the diversity of the content and network-effect of content potentially going viral and reaching the masses. In focused networks, the central component or, “Why Am I Here” question has to be a bold vision that unites the community and brings people together for reasons other than simply the appeal of going viral.

Communities need leaders; not owners. Little Monsters is a place where Gaga fans want to be because the leaders in the community consistently reinforce the mission and vision that Lady Gaga has set forth. Monsters are accepted for who they are, regardless of religion, sex, skin tone or beliefs. All users and members of the community have a unique place and are welcome in this community.

Little Monsters Is Special

We asked the Little Monsters community why they love being apart of the community and how this unique space is something near and dear to their heart.
Horizon State selected as semi-finalists for AcceliCITY 2021
By: Dan Crane
Tags: Smart Cities, Blockchain, Community Engagement, Voting

Leading Cities, an early pioneer in the global Smart City ecosystem, is proud to announce the end of the QBE AcceliCITY Resilience Challenge solution provider application process and congratulates the semi-finalists in this year’s competition. Leading Cities and QBE North America are excited to work with these semi-finalists who each demonstrated the critical role they can play in building smarter cities worldwide. The purpose of AcceliCITY is to further the potential impact Smart and Resilient City solutions will have in cities and towns around the world. The AcceliCITY program and its partners, help these companies succeed by connecting them with mentors from Leading Cities’ global network of smart city experts and city leaders. Of the more than 500 companies from 44 countries that applied to be a part of the AcceliCITY program, Horizon State was one of the 50 selected companies that stood out as an exceptional contender. The applicants represent 24 different verticals such as, Internet of Things, AI/Machine Learning, Mobility/Transportation, Urban Agriculture, Smart Health, Smart Water, Security, Environment, Clean Energy, Building Technologies, to name a few.

Read more about Horizon State making the semi-finals here : https://bit.ly/3q1Nj9y
Juneteenth and Parade the City
By: Cleveland Museum Of Art
Tags: Quilting, Community Engagement, Juneteenth, Textile, Women Artists

Parade the City is a reimagination of the annual Parade the Circle. It coincides with the opening of the CMA’s Community Arts Center, the new home of the community arts program which hosts Parade the Circle, Chalk Festival, Winter Lights Lantern Festival, and Studio Go. For Parade the City, local artists collaborated with community groups throughout Cleveland to create eight celebratory art installations across the city.

CMA’s 2021 Parade the City map

One of the art installations is the Extended Family Underground Railroad quilt, which commemorates Juneteenth, by artist Sue Berry in collaboration with Extended Family.

Juneteenth flag

Juneteenth, a word that combines June and nineteenth, is a federal holiday that marks the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. It is also refered to as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day. The holiday, which originated in Galveston, Texas, is celebrated on June 19, the anniversary of an announcement in 1865 by Union Army General Gordon Granger proclaiming the freedom of slaves in Texas. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, delivered almost two and a half years prior, officially outlawed slavery in all states in rebellion against the Union. However, the Proclamation’s enforcement depended upon victory of Union troops in rebel territory.
Selling is both an art and a science.
Tags: Selling, Tribes, Money, Marketing Strategies, Community Engagement

Selling is both an art and a science.

To sell you need a lasting product or provide an instant service experience.

What sells in the end is the experience.

Online is no different than offline.

People come to an event, webinar, seminar or even a family gathering to be educated or entertained.

Networking is a by product of special and good energy that is flowing around that bonds people together.

Tribe building is the new trend.

Tribes are the new micro networks. They have been around but identities have been fuzzy.

Stay loyal to your tribe and be rewarded.

Identity match making is now the new normal.

People are looking for relevance not legacy.

Legacy building is no more trending.

Hashtags are the new cashtags. No one cares who posted what. No one owns content.

Content is king but trust is the emperor.

No more faking it. Show the real you and get the attention.

Homemade does better than tailormade.

Young are no longer the only resource that is relevant.

Society is democratising faster than the speed of light.

New means old since new becomes old faster than you can snap your fingers.

Personal branding is a dying phenomenon.

Give now, take more later.

Planet is resetting and us as settlers are better than ready to welcome the new her.

We are children of this planet that needs us as much as we need her.

Nature is our eternal mother.
Becoming a Mentor
By: Justin Hager
Tags: Helping Out, Community Outreach, Being Involvd, Mentoring, Community Engagement

Mentoring can be helpful in many ways. Mentors have developed skills through personal life lessons, many growing from the help of their mentors. Becoming a mentor helps to raise the aspirations of the young people that you are mentoring and will help them to know that there is someone around them; they can trust and be a confidant.

What a Mentor Aims To Do

A mentor aims to help improve the life of another. They help someone form goals, whether it be in life, sports, or another area. Create a set of clear objectives in what you want to accomplish as a mentor, how you feel the skills that you pass on could help add experience to someone else’s life. Mentoring kids that have troubled pasts could be both challenging and rewarding. You could mean the possibility of them getting into a better school, joining a sport, or even having them help out in their community to understand the rewards of helping others.

Community Engagement

An article called The Mentoring Effect found that the role of a mentor had a massive effect on the lives of others. One in three people will grow up without the help of a mentor. But a mentor could be seen as a variety of people, from teachers to coaches to counselors. All those people could be considered mentors in a young person’s life. Getting involved in a young person’s life could be exponentially beneficial to them, especially if they are coming from a rough background. Talk to those in your community and find out if any mentoring programs could help you in your endeavor.

Finding out about mentoring is as easy as a quick google search to find out what is available in your community. Mentoring can also be a great way to get involved with your community and work to help improve it. You may help to change someone’s life for the better.
Average People Do Not Like See Others Go Beyond Average
Tags: Workplace, Celebration, People, Empowered, Community Engagement

How often this scenario happened at workplace or even in life when either us, colleague or a friend have successfully solved a difficult task. Most people will give you a cool reply like "Oh, good." or "Lastime I also did that..."

Celebrate When Others See Success

Not everyone views success the way you do. We must be willing to look at things from others people’s point of view. What are their dreams? What goals have they set? What battles are they fighting? When they achieved something that is important to them, then celebrate! Be sure to celebrate with enthusiasm. Never steal another person’s thunder.

Celebrate Successes Others Don’t Yet See

Sometimes haven’t you worked on a project and felt discourage by your progress, but had a friend marvel at what you had accomplished? Doesn’t it inspiring and makes you want to work that much harder? If you haven’t had a friend do that for you, then you may need some new friends.

What is the hinders keep people from celebrating others success?

Emotional insecurity, a scarcity mind-set and petty jealousy. They constantly compare themselves to others and find themselves wanting. As a result, they have a hard time getting beyond themselves.
Listen
By: Greg Stowers
Tags: Community, Listen, Community Engagement

It’s okay to be quiet. In 33 years, I’ve learned much more from listening than talking, especially in instances where inserting myself into the conversation can be viewed as demeaning the experiences of others. I’ve got a lot to say, but I’m much more interested in hearing from the voices of these young people, specifically younger black women who’s leadership and voices are well overdue to be amplified.

I usually extend the hand in a one-on-one way to address these issues behind the scenes, but I’m tired man. It’s already exhausting enough going through this, I just can’t do it today. It’s really okay to be quiet.

I stand with protesters and while I don’t agree with rioting, I understand.

I understand.

I understand how various factors play into the mindset of those who feel society has forgotten them or their pain hasn’t been acknowledged.

I understand because I’ve felt that pain my entire life.

I understand because I’ve extended the hand and provided support far outside the parameters of social media. Ask around.

I also understand how time and time again others have tried to monopolize the black experience for their personal or organizational gain.

While graffiti tags and the perception of vandalism from protestors may make you frustrated, riots (rebellions) don’t happen out of nowhere. In a society with so much opportunity, what does it say about us, when people are driven to these ends?
Individual sovereignty and responsibility
By: Saujanya Timalsena
Tags: Search, Philosophy, Responsibility, Existentialism, Life

Sitting inside one’s room life looks boring, unfair and insignificant. People become only a part of themselves, fixed on their frail preoccupations, caught by life’s inhibition and totally fixated with all that is stressful but unnecessary.

There is no way but the only you choose for yourself.

But then, just when they step out of their room to the world, out of themselves: their fraility, vanity and a bit of insanity to the well of human society they sense that deep inside everybody is trying to get out of themselves and find their redemption. People feel that human beings are ignorant of their condition or fine even when they realise their situation is like a caged bird, like a toad living happily in a dirty and dark well.

They get a horrible and terrifying sense of not only their condition but all of human beings. They have a strong sense of connection with all the people by realising if all people could unmask their persona all of them are bleeding, crying, and asking for help.

Yet, no one is willing to ask for help because all of them know, there is no help coming except from themselves. People are paralyzed because that’s alot to be obliged for, alot to take upon one’s soldier: the responsibility of oneself and eventually life itself.

The main man.

So, they instead keep on dwelling desperately, escaping obsessively and hiding heniously from themselves and the conscience, the call to action, the demand of their highest self. People have remorse for themselves because all this leads to existential guilt.All of them very well know they are betraying themselves by inaction .People are ashamed of themselves for their place in existence and their inability to act upon this, accept the self-imposed constraints, limitations and problems.

Hence, why wouldn’t there be all the voilence, suffering, misery, resentment, anger, envy, scapegoating, because it all stems from one’s inability to deal with their place in the universe. Taking responsibility for one’s life is too much for many people because being ignorant is easy. Ignorance is bliss!
How we built ‘Global Search’ to improve discovery
By: Aayush Sharda
Tags: Search, Elasticsearch, Programming, Startup

Search has always been an interesting (and hard) problem to solve. This becomes even more of a challenge when you have a large and heterogeneous search space. As a Super App, GOJEK has myriad services to offer, which makes discovery a challenge for the user.

This is why Global Search is important.

Let me brief you about the problem that Global Search aims to solve:

There are two types of behaviours we broadly expect a user to exhibit: 1. Users have some idea what they want to order or search for.

2. Users don’t know what they want and are just browsing different products in the app.

Out of the two behaviours mentioned above, Global Search currently aims to solve the first one.

To give you an idea about the search space in GOJEK, users can search for:

Location (GO-RIDE/GO-CAR)

Food — Dishes/Restaurants/Cuisines (GO-FOOD)

Events — Movies/Theatres (GO-TIX)

E-commerce Products (GO-MART)

This post takes a dive into how we went about implementing a search system that could search across domains.

Implementation

We use Elasticsearch (ES) as the backbone of our search system.

The easiest approach to search would be searching across all the domains with the user query. However, this would put unnecessary load on our systems and also lead to inefficient ranking because Elasticsearch has to rank across domains (more data).

To tackle this issue, before a query is sent to Elasticsearch, it is augmented so as to find the right domain to search in.

The following steps are taken to augment the user query.

1. Intent Classification

One of the most important ingredients in Global Search is determining the user’s intention. If we are able to precisely determine which domain the user is referring to, we can efficiently search only that domain and serve relevant results to the user.

We use a supervised classification model (trained using fastText) on catalog data. This results in a theoretical precision of 95%. The model is trained to classify the intent into domains like location, restaurant, dish, e-commerce product, events etc.
“I’m Feeling Lucky” — Building Great Search Experiences for Today’s Users
By: Daniel Newman
Tags: Search, Voice Assistant, Process, Iac19, Design

Introduction

Hello! Today I want to talk to you about designing and building great search experiences for your users.

But before I do that, I need to tell you a little about myself. In 2010, I joined the nascent UX team at Wolfram Research in Champaign, Ill. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with Wolfram, it is a math and science software company. Wolfram is, perhaps, best known for creating Wolfram Alpha , the knowledge engine was one of the earliest data partners in Siri. Even today, WolframAlpha powers the answers to many factual and computational questions on platforms like Siri and Alexa. As UX Manager, I oversaw the team tasked with thinking about user experience for this new kind of search-ish experience.

Then, in 2014, I joined NPR, where I’ve had the opportunity to work across our product portfolio, including NPR.org, NPR One, and many of the journalist-facing tools and services that power those platforms. And while I’ve been here, I’ve worked on several search- and search-adjacent projects… but we’ll get into that in a little bit.

First, let’s go back in time:

So, 20 years ago, NPR was talking about Yahoo!, Excite, Lycos, Alta Vista, HotBot. And how well they did — or didn’t — work. Clearly, the players involved have changed and the technology has evolved, and yet we still wonder if search is delivering the experiences that we expect for our users.

Now, I have a question for you: Take a moment, and think about the last time you searched for something online. For most of you, I’m guessing that was in the last 24–48 hours.

Let me ask you: how many of you thought about using a search experience from Google or Amazon? And remember: Google also means asking a question of Google Assistant on your phone or searching on YouTube, and Amazon also means asking Alexa a question or searching to watch on Prime Video. These two companies, among other technology stalwarts, are changing our user’s expectations when it comes to search, and it’s up to us to keep up with the search experiences that we build into our products.

Now, here’s some good news: Although the landscape is changing, the core user needs for search systems still remain remarkably consistent. Take, for instance, this definition from Jakob Nielsen:
Semantic search
By: Ane Berasategi
Tags: Search, Semantics, Language, Data Science, Linguistics

Semantic search

Semantic search is search with meaning. This “meaning” can refer to various parts of the search process:

understanding the query, instead of simply finding literal matches,

or representing knowledge in a way suitable for meaningful retrieval.

Semantic search goes beyond the ‘static’ dictionary meaning of a query to understand the searcher’s intent within a specific context. By learning from past results and creating links between entities, a search engine can make use of contextual meaning of terms as they appear in the searchable database to generate more relevant results.

It also allows the user to ask natural language questions, as opposed to adapting our language for computers to understand: ‘how do I start a career in data science?’ vs. ‘data science career steps and tips’. In the second case, there are no verbs or unecessary words, just keywords that the user believes are relevant to the search engine.

Semantic search results also require that information from several different sources is brought together to answer the query satisfactorily.

In this example, the main result is a YouTube video about Jimmy Kimmel and Guillermo regarding Maddie Zieger, the ‘star of Sia’s Chandelier music video’.

Google ‘understands’ that the query ‘who is X’ must have a person’s name as a result.

Note that both ‘Maddie Ziegler’ and ‘Guillermo’ are highlighted, and this is an incorrect result from Google. On the other side, ‘Jimmy’ is not highlighted. Probably because Guillermo is closer to the verb ‘dance’ in the sentence than ‘Jimmy’ is. For more advanced readers, you might notice that the pronoun ‘he’ in the third line refers to Jimmy, and both men are in the same category and therefore equally close to the verb ‘dance’, but successfully linking ‘he’ to ‘Jimmy’ is another linguistic problem, called coreference resolution and is not resolved well in this example. (Wikipedia link, Stanford NLP Group’s implementation)

There is no literal match for ‘dancer in chandelier video’ with ‘star of chandelier music video … who is a phenomenal dancer’. The words don’t appear next to each other, yet the search engine makes the connection between ‘star in a music video’ and ‘dancer’.

In this example, the result is not only correctly displayed but it has a user-friendly section with a picture, as well as other similar buildings and their heights.

The examples displayed are Google results. Even if other search engines have imlpemented semantic search functionality in recent years, Google was the first to do so, with the Hummingbird update in 2013, and the most accurate one as to date.
Redesigning Search Experience — UI/UX Case Study
By: Chethan Kvs
Tags: Search, UI, Visual Design, UX, Product

So I recently joined Unacademy as a Product Designer. And in my first week, I was given the task to work on the redesigning the search experience on the web.

Before we get started let me give you a quick introduction to what Unacademy is. Unacademy is an ed-tech startup based in Bangalore, India. We are proud to be India’s largest learning platform. We bring star educators together with millions of students in need of quality education. The network of registered educators and learners has steadily grown in the last two years. Powered by a young & dynamic team, Unacademy is on its path to an education revolution.

Alright, so now let’s get into the main part of the article — Redesigning Search on Web. The first search design was designed 2 years back when the company has just launched. Since then the only focus of the company was to bring in new features and improve the mobile experience. The focus was not much on the web as a majority of our target learners use our mobile app rather than the website. And so, we thought that it was time to redesign the search experience on the web to make it much better and easier to use.

Tap on the GIF to view the Dribbble Shot

But why?

There are quite a few reasons that we decided to redesign the search on the web. The main reason would be to align it with the search on the app. As I mentioned earlier we were focusing a lot on the app and not the web. As a result, search on the web was missing out on a lot of things. Elements like filters, auto-suggest, and recent and popular search terms. Also, the search results page had an outdated visual look.

Design Process

We started off by splitting the search functionality into 2 parts.

Before search (the part until the learner taps on the enter/return key) After search (the search results page)

And for those you who are wondering what design tool we use, we use FIGMA. Why Figma? Its simple, FIGMA ROCKS!

Before search

Search is primarily used in 2 situations. Either when a learner is unable to find something or when they want to find something very specific. Good UX comes into the picture when the learner is assisted while they are searching. Just having a good looking search bar won’t do the trick.

So the first thing that we decided to put in place was to show the Recent and Popular search terms. We wanted to show around 15 results to the learner when they click on the search bar but has not typed anything yet. I came up with a simple 2 column layout for this. I did not use a single column layout as 15 items in a single column would take up a lot of real estate on the screen. But what if the search suggestion is too long? Well, it is highly unlikely for it to be very long. But just to be on the safer side I gave a lot of room in both the columns. If we still did end up showing a very long suggestion, we would truncate it.
WEB FRUSTRATIONS:
Tags: Search, Time, Frustration, Web Design, Consideration

The latest recommendation that I received from TED was a talk that I have both heard and for which I’ve written a recommendation. After typing into the search box the criteria ~ precisely word 4 word as what I’ve identified as the subject of this email* ~ to find a location with which members/participants are enabled with bidirectional communication to use with anyone at TED whose connection WITH TED hasn’t placed in a position of insulation from, and one elevated above any necessity for communication with common riffraff like myself; and, finding an apparent elitist attitude has made bidirectional communication an option that’s either nonexistent, or very well hidden, in addition to receiving a recommendation from TED to listen to a talk for which I’ve already written a recommendation, I’ve developed serious concerns about continuing our relationship.

I don’t have time to waste sifting through search results only to be disappointed to find nothing that comes anywhere close to that for which I’ve searched. Being able to notify TED of such things shouldn’t be THAT difficult! Under the impression that TIME IS MONEY, I’ve operated for decades; but, from the first day of getting acquainted with doing anything online, that time/money concept, it seems, is one of great importance to site owners in terms of THEIR time; but, for those same site owners is an afterthought concern without ANY significant consideration in terms of their USERS’ time. Apologies for having made TED the object of my venting; but, frustration with this specific issue being an epidemic level infestation all across the web is a frustration I experience on a near daily basis; and, one for which only a limited amount am I able to make accommodation.

* Providing TED with feedback
Look for an idea
By: Ruslan Nazarov
Tags: Search, Philosophy, New, Startup, Ideas

Looking for an idea of what it’s like? No, not like that. To be tormented by the idea. Sounds too literary.

But I never realized these torments as something important. I just wanted to get away from them quickly.

In my head all the time the questions are spinning. You’ve been solving the problem all day. Well here’s the example: how the hell is it possible that the tree has nothing to do with the seed. Sounds like crap. And that’s nonsense. But from that he is no less agonizing.

I seldom thought why I should look for answers to this and similar questions at all. After all, the simplest is not to look for answers in general and not to ask questions. But even if you ask, why not choose such questions, approximate answers to which are known or the way of finding answers is known.

Idea, own idea, even though slightly different from strangers, it is very attractive. But what lies behind this few understand. Although it depends on the direction of the idea.

After all, if you have chosen an idea that is fundamentally different from the usual views, then how to support this idea. How to fight for it? How to be in the face of other people who defend completely different ideas?

With the idea within the usual, within what is called a paradigm, it is much easier to live. Another thing is an idea that does not change the paradigm but throws it away. It’s hard to live with such an idea. And It is difficult to develop it. It is difficult to change their views, but it is almost impossible to start seeing the world in a different paradigm.

At some point it doesn’t matter that you’ve discovered something new, something that can change people’s perceptions of reality. There is only a desire to finish the begun, to complete the ideas, to splash out. At this moment the struggle for the idea is stopped and its distribution begins.

If you are interested in these ideas, write to me: runaz@protonmail.com
Don’t Google That
By: Mariana Pinedo
Tags: Search, Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Paid Advertising, Digital Marketing

I don’t think I am alone when I say Google is often a source of information for me. I know, we shouldn’t believe everything we read on the internet, but it is an easy tool to quickly get answers to many questions. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, I have used Google often for updates on the current situation. That’s why I was completely appalled to learn that up until early July, ads spreading misinformation on the virus had been running on the platform. Conspiracy theories, such as the notion that the virus is a hoax, is a bio-weapon or that it was created by Microsoft were being advertised on Google for months. It is completely mind-boggling that anybody would actually invest in spreading misinformation, but then again questionable human behavior is less surprising these days. What is shocking is that Google allowed this to go on for so long. In my opinion, it is entirely irresponsible on their side. Misinformation on this particular subject is dangerous. How could the spread of the virus be controlled with a growing number of individuals who are non-compliant with health experts recommendations? Although it is great that Google has taken action against these harmful advertisements, I am actually disturbed at how long this was allowed.

This has made me realize that the amount of responsibility on Google’s shoulders is massive. As the world’s main source of information, they should be held accountable for misinformation advertised on the platform. I am certain they have the tools to control this issue, or to at least make changes more swiftly than they did in this instance.

The situation has also made me question Google as a source. In the future, when it comes to certain subjects, maybe next time I wont be using Google, and will instead head directly to official websites reporting on the issue.
Building with isochrones
Tags: Search, App Development, Logistics, Demo, Isochrones

“Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.”— Waldo Tobler

This First Law of Geography lays the groundwork for how we understand and analyze spatial data. A common approach to mapping proximity is to draw a circle, or “buffer,” around a point of interest to see what is nearby.

Isochrones take another approach: Using travel time as a proxy for distance. By starting at the point of interest and mapping travel time in every direction, we can define a more useful map of temporal proximity.

Isochrones used to be hard to generate — requiring building and maintaining a routable network, configuring a routing engine capable of returning results in an acceptable response time, and hosting and caring for databases and servers to keep everything running.

But now, with the Mapbox Isochrone API, access isochrones on-demand with a single-line API request. Like this:

https://api.mapbox.com/isochrone/v1/mapbox/driving/-77.034,38.900?contours_minutes=10&polygons=true&access_token=[YOUR ACCESS TOKEN]

And just like that, an isochrone:

Everything within a 10-minute drive of the Mapbox DC office

You might notice the tendrils of accessible areas that reach out along fast highways, and the constrained travel to the North and East where DC surface streets are slower moving. If we are trying to understand actual closeness for a given mode of travel (car, in this case) this is a better picture than drawing an X-mile radius buffer.

But this is just the beginning! Being able to build the isochrone so easily opens up tons of opportunity for analysis. The Isochrone API response is GeoJSON, which makes it possible to use it in conjunction with Turf.js to combine it with other data that is in the map, all client-side.

You can use isochrones to define delivery or service areas, help electric vehicle drivers find charging stations, or identify nearby amenities in real estate searches.

Combining isochrones with other Mapbox APIs can increase their utility, as well. In this example, we have two isochrones, each representing the area that two people in different parts of a city can reach within a certain amount of time. If those areas overlap, we can use Turf.js to identify the area the two isochrones have in common. Then comes the really cool part: incorporating the new Mapbox Local Search endpoint, now in beta. (Contact us for more information.) By searching within a certain category, like cafes or bars, and limiting results to that common area, we can find the best place to meet.

See the interactive demo here: https://demos.mapbox.com/isochrone_intersect/

You can leverage the Isochrone API and our Search API to increase the value and stickiness of your application with minimal engineering investment. Check out the documentation pages for the APIs:

What ideas do you have for using isochrones in your analysis? Sign up for an account to take it for a spin, and keep an eye out for our upcoming Local Search API.
Can You Optimise These 2 Lines of Code?
By: Linas Medžiūnas
Tags: Search, Benchmark, Algorithms, Performance, JVM

Before continuing, I must explain how this algorithm works, and how does it pack so much power (searching for multiple strings by inspecting every input byte only once) in just 2 lines of code.

The secret behind it is a Finite State Automaton supported by a trie (built from the set of search strings). For example, for a set of search strings “SEE”, “SEAM” and “EAST”, it would look like this (I have omitted some arrows for a cleaner picture):

Trie based automaton of Aho-Corasic

The root node is marked with zero. There are three terminal (green) nodes indicating the match for search strings “SEE” (3), “SEAM” (5) and “EAST” (9). Building this structure requires a rather sophisticated algorithm (explaining which is out of the scope of this article). But using it for the actual search process is straightforward — this is why it can be expressed in just a couple lines of code.

Here’s how it works: we start the search at the root node “0”. Then, for each symbol of the input, we follow the arrow from the current node that is marked with that symbol. If there is no arrow with the symbol being processed, we jump back to the root node. Whenever we hit a terminal node, we have a match.

For example: if our input is “SEAST”, we will traverse the nodes 0→ 1→ 2→ 4→ 8→ 9 (where 9 is the terminal node for our search string “EAST”).

Another example: for input “SEEAST”, we will traverse the nodes 0→ 1→ 2→ 3→ 7→ 8→ 9. This time we hit not just one, but two terminal nodes along the way: 3 (for “SEE”), and 9 (for “EAST”). As you can see, it can even find partially overlapping search words (if we don’t reset to the root node after every match).
Implementing Fibonacci Search algorithm in Python
By: Ajinkya Sonawane
Tags: Search, Algorithms, Daily Python, Programming, Python

This article is a tutorial on implementing the Fibonacci Search algorithm in Python and is in continuation with Daily Python #21

This article is a part of Daily Python challenge that I have taken up for myself. I will be writing short python articles daily.

There are no additional requirements for this article.

If you haven’t read Part 1 of basic searching algorithms then you can read it from here:

Fibonacci Search

Source: GeeksForGeeks

Fibonacci Search is a comparison-based technique that uses Fibonacci numbers to search an element in a sorted array.

Works for sorted arrays A Divide and Conquer Algorithm. Has Log n time complexity.

Differences with Binary Search:

Fibonacci Search divides given array in unequal parts Binary Search uses the division operator to divide range. Fibonacci Search doesn’t use /, but uses + and -. The division operator may be costly on some CPUs. Fibonacci Search examines relatively closer elements in subsequent steps. So when the input array is big that cannot fit in CPU cache or even in RAM, Fibonacci Search can be useful.

Background:

Fibonacci Numbers are recursively defined as F(n) = F(n-1) + F(n-2), F(0) = 0, F(1) = 1. First few Fibonacci Numbers are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, …

Let’s define a function to generate a Fibonacci number at the index of n

def FibonacciGenerator(n):

if n < 1:

return 0

elif n == 1:

return 1

else:

return FibonacciGenerator(n - 1) + FibonacciGenerator(n - 2)

Let’s consider the following array and the number to be searched

arr = [10, 22, 30, 44, 56, 58, 60, 70, 100, 110, 130]

x = 60

Now, let’s define a function that will divide the list and search for the number as per the Fibonacci Search

def FibonacciSearch(arr, x):

m = 0

while FibonacciGenerator(m) < len(arr): #

m = m + 1

offset = -1

while (FibonacciGenerator(m) > 1):

i = min( offset + FibonacciGenerator(m - 2) , len(arr) - 1)

print('Current Element : ',arr[i])

if (x > arr[i]):

m = m - 1

offset = i

elif (x < arr[i]):

m = m - 2

else:

return i

if(FibonacciGenerator(m - 1) and arr[offset + 1] == x):

return offset + 1

return -1 print('Number found at index : ',FibonacciSearch(arr, x))

Snip of the output of the above code snippet

I hope this article was helpful, do leave some claps if you liked it.

Follow the Daily Python Challenge here:
How To Configure Elasticsearch Heap Size to Change Max Memory Size
By: Yusuf Kahveci
Tags: Search, Elasticsearch, Configuration, NoSQL, Database

It is a very important setting for ElasticSearch. In order for this setting to be set correctly, the system must be well monitored. In short, we determine the amount of memory that Elasticsearch will allocate at the beginning and maximum memory usage, with this config.

Before configuring Heap Size, I will talk about the heap memory concept to monitor heap size correctly. Java applications use the “stack” and “heap” methods to save data to memory.

In Stack type, the operating system manages whether the data will be stored or deleted in memory.

In Heap type, the application manages memory usage and cleaning. In Java, objects are stored in the heap memory and thanks to the structures called Garbage Collector, heap memory management is provided.

What is Garbage Collector?

In Java, memory management is done in the background with JVM and the Garbage Collector included in it. Garbage Collector simplifies application development and shortens coding time with automatic memory management. Again, Garbage Collector is able to deal with the problem of leaking memory areas caused by coding errors.

Garbage Collection is an automated memory management mechanism. it looks at Heap memory, detects used objects and deletes non-referenced ones. The space occupied by unused / non-referenced objects is cleared from memory and this increases available free memory. The mechanism that performs this process is called Garbage Collector.

Excessive heap size can be used for caching, but excessive heap size can cause pauses on the garbage collector. Return to end-user can be very long when GC stops.

When the long pause is experienced, access does not occur in distributed systems such as Elasticsearch, as the node may be isolated from the cluster. There is no reading or writing operation on this node. If the node is a Master node, a new Master node can be selected. If the node is data node, it may cause the shards to be placed in other data nodes. In this case, it increases the network traffic, the input-output operations on the disk and the load of the cluster.

Briefly, if heap size is set to be less than you need, other problems may be encountered besides memory errors.

Some Best Practice Notes;

It is highly recommended that Heap size not be more than half of the total memory. So if you have 64 GB of memory, you should not set your Heap Size to 48 GB.

Heap Size is not recommended to exceed 32 GB.

In Default, Xms1g and Xmx1g is 1 GB.

To change the JVM heap size, the default path address is /etc/elasticsearch/jvm.options.

Apart from these, you can share other factors that should be considered, as comments.

Thank you

Good luck with.
Presenting our PoC on document search for the Norwegian Courts Administration at Booster 2019
By: David Skålid Amundsen
Tags: Search, Booster2019, Teknologi, Poc

This was the first time I attended Booster, and the first time I attended an IT-conference. One of the nice things about Booster is that it has something for everyone — from developers to functional architects and project leads. I was only able to participate on the second and third day of the conference, but found the number of workshops very refreshing compared to the academic conferences I have been to previously.

On the first day of the conference, Elin Langholm talked about “proof of concepts” (PoCs) and how PoCs can be used to quickly check if an idea will create business value and, if you fail, you fail fast and safe without large costs. On the second day Elin and I gave a talk on a specific PoC we made for the Norwegian Courts Administration the summer of 2018 on intelligent search, and the lessons we learned on the way. You can watch a recording of our talk below.

Building an intelligent search PoC

Elin Langholm & David Skålid Amundsen (30 minutes short talk)

All verdicts from the Norwegian Supreme Court (Høyesterett) must be made public and searchable on lovdata.no, but there is no such requirement on verdicts from the District Court (Tingretten) and the Court of Appeals (Lagmannsretten). Only a small fraction of the verdicts from these two courts are published on Lovdata. In the early summer of 2018 a judge in the District Court approached us and asked if we could help them search among all verdicts, not only those that are published on Lovdata. And not much time passed from the idea was first discussed to we started working on a PoC. We wanted to show that we could not only make a traditional search solution, but also use machine learning to improve the ranking of the documents and personalise the ranking to the person performing the search — increasing the business value even further.

In our talk we presented how we worked internally, putting together people with different backgrounds and skill sets, and with the customer. We also discussed our solution and the technology behind it, showed a live demo, and talked about things we learned that can be useful for others making PoCs. Here is the recording of our talk.
Are you Discovering too?
By: Rhonda Krol
Tags: Search, Discovery, Mistakes, Jesus, Christianity

Photo by Isaac Davis on Unsplash

Are you Discovering too?

The more I read in Medium, the more I see all sorts of curious folks poking at stuff and finding it poking them back, inspiring and bringing joy to lives, and ours as they share it.

Then I feel sad. The realization of how little we really prod and prove our surroundings for those stimuli is one reason.

But the main mind-bender is how much we have been handed down within our Christian heritage that gets thrown out.

Before you click me off, think of how often we hear stuff and never check the source. The oh-that-can’t-be-true syndrome hits and we go our merry way passing up the most profound, life-changing realities just because we think it can’t be true. Or somebody else says so…even lots of somebodies.

It got Christ crucified, you know.

“No prophet arises from Galilee,” the authorities of the day were heard to say to the one member of the group amongst them who had been to talk with Jesus, Nicodemus.*

All Nicodemus pointed out to the scoffers was that their law surely did not judge someone without giving them a hearing.*

We know from the prophet Micah**, then the gospel account, sure enough, the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem. That was the birthplace of Jesus. Later his family settled in Nazareth.

Oops. They thought they knew…

In that same chapter, we see his own brothers giving him publicity advice. Jesus was not interested.

Truth seekers. He was looking for them. Nicodemus had gone in search of truth to Jesus. By night, granted, but he went.

Before Jesus began teaching at the festival, many expressed doubt, and most said nothing because of the fear of the political-correction police. Sound familiar?

Then he spoke.

The spectators were now astonished at his learning. And healing.

Then he said it. “I know Him…” and “Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own.”*

The coming of the son of man, who for eons had been predicted to re-write our existence, came into our earthly reality and basically turned everything upside-down.

More later. The upside-down part has taken us further than we can imagine. I am just prodding and discovering how much! And after all these years.

……………………………………………………….

* the Gospel of John chapter 7, Nicodemus, also John 3. ** Micah 5:2