FRAUDSTERS beware, sports nerds rejoice: a new search technology that turns graphs and charts back into raw data could make it easier to spot research cheats and tally sporting statistics, among other things.
Computer scientists Lee Giles and Prasenjit Mitra have worked with chemist William Brouwer at Pennsylvania State University to develop a system that can extract information from illustrations in research papers. “Academics frequently report important findings in graphs,” says Brouwer. “We want to see the data liberated from these images.” That would allow others to reuse the data, perhaps to compare results.
Now that most scientific papers exist…
