Mon 9 January 2017 | 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Rise - Ahad Haam 54, Tel Aviv,

Agenda

18:30-19:00: Gathering (food and drinks)
19:00 –20:30- “Controversy Detection and Analysis”- Shiri Dori-Hacohen, founder of AuCoDe

Abstract
Seeking information on a controversial topic is often a complex task. Alerting users about controversial search results can encourage critical literacy, promote healthy civic discourse and counteract the “filter bubble” effect, and therefore would be a useful feature in a search engine or browser extension. Additionally, presenting information to the user about the different stances or sides of the debate can help her navigate the landscape of search results beyond a simple “list of 10 links”. Our existing work has made strides in the emerging niche of controversy detection and analysis. In our work, we’ve made a few conceptual and technical contributions, including: (1) Improving the current state-of-the-art controversy detection in Wikipedia by employing a stacked model using a combination of link structure and similarity; and (2) the first automated approach to detecting controversy on the web, using a KNN classifier that maps from the web to similar Wikipedia articles. We also propose further work to create a computational definition of controversy. I also recently founded a startup aiming to bring this research & technology to practical uses. This talk will largely focus on contribution (1) above, and touch on the other aspects briefly as time allows.

Bio
Shiri Dori-Hacohen is a PhD Candidate in Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, working in the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval (CIIR) under the supervision of Prof. James Allan. Her research focuses on automated controversy detection from an Information Retrieval perspective. Shiri is also the founder of a new startup aiming to bring this research to market.
Previously, Shiri was at the University of California, San Diego, and her industry experience in the tech industry includes Facebook, Google, and IBM Research. She received her MSc and BSc (cum laude) at the University of Haifa in Israel as well as an MS from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the 2011 Google Lime Scholarship, and recently won first place in the Innovation Challenge, a startup competition held by the UMass Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship.

Special thanks for Rise for hosting us!

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