Study: Text Mining Approaches for Postmarket Food Safety Surveillance Using Online Media
Researchers from San Diego State University, Virginia Tech, Loyola Marymount University, and Radford University are using text mining to try to pinpoint unique words and phrases in posts online, which identify consumers' experiences with hazardous food products.
The scientists say that they hope this will "provide a practical and inexpensive means for rapidly monitoring food safety in real time." They compiled a large data set of labeled consumer posts spanning two major websites, and were able to utilize a data set of over four million online reviews.