A new document has been added to the Society for Political Methodology Website.

 Title:     Automated Production of High-Volume, Near-Real-Time Political Event Data

Author(s):     Philip Schrodt

Entry Date:     2010-08-30

Keyword(s):     event data, ICEWS, DARPA, natural language processing, open source, forecasting, prediction, conflict

Abstract:      This paper summarizes the current state-of-the-art for generating high-volume, near-real-time event data using automated coding methods, based on recent efforts for the DARPA Integrated Crisis Early Warning System (ICEWS) and NSF-funded research. The ICEWS work expanded by more than two orders of magnitude previous automated coding efforts, coding of about 26-million sentences generated from 8-million stories condensed from around 30 gigabytes of text. The actual coding took six minutes. The paper is largely a general ``how-to'' guide to the pragmatic challenges and solutions to various elements of the process of generating event data using automated techniques. It also discusses a number of ways that this could be augmented with existing open-source natural language processing software to generate a third-generation event data coding system.

http://polmeth.wustl.edu/mediaDetail.php?docId=1253

**********************************************************
             Political Methodology E-Mail List
   Editors: Diana O'Brien        <[log in to unmask]>
            Jon C. Rogowski <[log in to unmask]>
**********************************************************
        Send messages to [log in to unmask]
  To join the list, cancel your subscription, or modify
           your subscription settings visit:

          http://polmeth.wustl.edu/polmeth.php

**********************************************************