{"id":6230,"date":"2019-11-07T14:20:26","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T14:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/blog\/?p=6230"},"modified":"2019-11-07T14:20:41","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T14:20:41","slug":"on-finding-research-topics-notes-from-a-data-scientist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/blog\/on-finding-research-topics-notes-from-a-data-scientist\/","title":{"rendered":"On Finding Research Topics: Notes from a Data Scientist"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_45_1 counter-flat ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" area-label=\"ez-toc-toggle-icon-1\"><label for=\"item-69f1dad229cd7\" aria-label=\"Table of Content\"><span style=\"display: flex;align-items: center;width: 35px;height: 30px;justify-content: center;direction:ltr;\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/label><input  type=\"checkbox\" id=\"item-69f1dad229cd7\"><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/blog\/on-finding-research-topics-notes-from-a-data-scientist\/#1_Geographic_cancer_clusters_in_the_US\" title=\"1. Geographic cancer clusters in the U.S.\">1. Geographic cancer clusters in the U.S.<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/blog\/on-finding-research-topics-notes-from-a-data-scientist\/#2_Longevity_in_the_US\" title=\"2. Longevity in the U.S.\">2. Longevity in the U.S.<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/blog\/on-finding-research-topics-notes-from-a-data-scientist\/#3_Skin_mole_image_database\" title=\"3. Skin mole image database\">3. Skin mole image database<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/blog\/on-finding-research-topics-notes-from-a-data-scientist\/#4_Skin_mole_automated_analysis\" title=\"4. Skin mole automated analysis\">4. Skin mole automated analysis<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Data scientist and physicist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/find-an-expert\/ilan-dan-gur?utm_source=Blog&amp;utm_medium=Post&amp;utm_campaign=Research-Topics\">Ilan Dan-Gur<\/a> writes about how he was able to find and pursue <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/blog\/ensuring-reproducibility-in-ai-driven-research-how-freelance-experts-can-help-in-biotech-and-healthcare\/\">research<\/a> topics that used his skills and have the potential to make a real-world impact.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Finding an interesting and worthwhile topic to investigate, and to apply all your education and passion toward, is an issue close to the heart of many scientists who do not have full-time employment. While searching platforms such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/f?utm_source=Blog&amp;utm_medium=Post&amp;utm_campaign=Research-Topics\">Kolabtree<\/a> for projects that may benefit from your knowledge is an important option that may result in financial gains and the personal satisfaction of helping others, you may also feel a need to find your own research topics either as a way to start a business or to make a name for yourself and showcase your abilities.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, there is a growing belief among scientists that finding interesting topics to investigate is more difficult now than ever as the body of scientific knowledge keeps growing. Paul Dirac famously said later in his life about the early days of quantum mechanics: &#8220;It was very easy in those days for any second-rate physicist to do first-rate work&#8230;It is very difficult now for a first-rate physicist to do second-rate work.&#8221; But if you are not looking to produce anything remotely so grandiose, you may be able to find opportunities if you dig into information and data about topics that are interesting to you even if you are working from home using only your computer and WiFi (along with your college education, passion to investigate, and perhaps the local public library). For example, you may be able to analyze existing data in a new way that no one had thought of (or at least no one had published about), or perhaps you will be able to add new data to the current collection.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My formal education is in physics and electro-optics, and while my own experience is obviously subjective I would like to offer four examples of topics that I was able to &#8220;single-handedly&#8221; (well, nothing in science truly is) think about and investigate from home (or many times a coffee shop), that required applying my scientific knowledge, had a reasonable chance of attracting public interest, and were exciting to do because they guaranteed to add something unique to the body of knowledge that had existed in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1_Geographic_cancer_clusters_in_the_US\"><\/span>1. Geographic cancer clusters in the U.S.<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Large databases of U.S. public health records are freely available [1], courtesy of the U.S. government. In 2017, while browsing through cancer-rate data of different U.S. states, and doing basic online research using google, it occurred to me that no article had been published with a focus on shared borders between states with high cancer rates. Specifically, no article had been published that simply counted the number of shared borders between states with the highest cancer rates, even through the data to do such an analysis was readily available on the CDC website, and the investigation would have been straightforward and easy to do. Put differently, my intention was to take a large amount of data and &#8220;connect the dots&#8221; (i.e. organize) the data in a way that had never been done before, while intentionally ignoring the more complex question of whether such an analysis would be useful and to whom. I posted the investigation and the results on my website [2], as well as a secondary statistical analysis [3].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further, while doing the analysis and looking at the data, I realized there was a need to coin and define a new term which was central to the analysis, a &#8220;shared-border ratio,&#8221; and that added excitement to the investigation.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"2_Longevity_in_the_US\"><\/span>2. Longevity in the U.S.<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similar to example 1 above, using statistical mortality data from the U.S., I came up with and investigated unique questions related to longevity [4].<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"3_Skin_mole_image_database\"><\/span>3. Skin mole image database<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While today there is a large selection of mobile apps to analyze skin moles for signs of cancer, long before smartphones apps became popular I was the first to offer the public a free advice on signs of skin cancer [5] in return for posting their mole images on my website. While my intention was to educate the public about signs of skin cancer, as well as to advertise a software I had written for performing the analysis (see example 4 below), the result of offering a free analysis was the largest online database of user-contributed skin mole images [6], which, as I later found out, was used (with proper accreditation to my company, Opticom Data Research) in a book published in 2015 [7, 8] discussing advancements in mathematics and statistics (unrelated to my own website and analysis).<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"4_Skin_mole_automated_analysis\"><\/span>4. Skin mole automated analysis<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2001, after being told by various dermatologists I was at a high risk for skin cancer, and after having been through eight skin biopsies, I decided to write (and try to sell) a software for personal computers (which I wrote at the time using C++ [9], and more recently translated to JavaScript for free-use on web browsers [10, 11, 12]), that analyzed images of moles. Before smartphones and mobile apps became popular I was able to sell copies of the C++ software worldwide, along with a simple mechanical attachment that I designed to hold a camera close to the skin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>REFERENCES<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[1] https:\/\/wonder.cdc.gov\/DataSets.html<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[2] http:\/\/opticomdataresearch.com\/statistics\/cancer\/clusters\/main.htm<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[3] http:\/\/opticomdataresearch.com\/statistics\/cancer\/clusters\/shared-borders-statistics.htm<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[4] http:\/\/opticomdataresearch.com\/statistics\/how-long-will-i-live.htm<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[5] https:\/\/www.prweb.com\/releases\/2008\/07\/prweb1060104.htm<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[6] http:\/\/opticomdataresearch.com\/mobile\/mole-on-skin.htm<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[7] Applications of Computer Algebra (Springer proceedings in mathematics and statistics, 2015)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[8] https:\/\/books.google.ca\/books?id=tW0uDwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA184&amp;dq=opticom+data+research<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[9] http:\/\/opticomdataresearch.com\/molesense.htm<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[10] https:\/\/chrome.google.com\/webstore\/search\/skin%20cancer<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[11] http:\/\/opticomdataresearch.com\/mobile\/skin-cancer-image-search.htm<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[12] http:\/\/www.opticomdataresearch.com\/mobile\/atypical-mole.htm<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Data scientist and physicist Ilan Dan-Gur writes about how he was able to find and pursue research topics that used his skills and have the potential to make a real-world impact.\u00a0 Finding an interesting and worthwhile topic to investigate, and to apply all your education and passion toward, is an issue close to the heart<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kolabtree.com\/blog\/on-finding-research-topics-notes-from-a-data-scientist\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":6232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[398,304,403,247,319,435],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v20.1 (Yoast SEO v20.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>On Finding Research Topics: Notes from a Data Scientist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Data scientist and physicist Ilan Dan-Gur writes about how he found four research topics that 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