I’m still trying to figure out what all I can do with the [Saffron][] browser/visualizer. It claims to analyze the research communities of natural language processing, information retrieval, and the semantic web through “text mining and linked data principles.”

The list of research domains is rather short and under-explained for the uninitiated:

Saffron’s List of Research Domains

I clicked on [ANLP][], which is *applied natural language processing, and you get both a list of hot topics:

Hot Topics in ANLP

As well as a taxonomy network/tree that offers labels when you hover over nodes, which are themselves clickable links:

Taxonomy Network for ANLP

Clicking on one of the “hot topics,” in this case [natural language text][], gives you a bar chart of the frequency of the topic in documents for the past thirty years:

Frequency of Natural Language Text as a Topic over 30 Years

A list of similar topics:

A list of experts:

Saffron’s List of Experts Associated with “Natural Language Text”

And a list of publications:

The Top 5 Publications for “Natural Language Text”

Like a lot of browsers, this kind of static presentation of the results impoverishes the exploration that it encourages. I also haven’t explored what are its inputs: I wonder how full/complete its historical record is.

[Saffron]: http://saffron.deri.ie
[ANLP]: http://saffron.deri.ie/acl_anlp
[natural language text]: http://saffron.deri.ie/acl_anlp/topic/natural_language_text/