Nina Di Cara

Nina Di Cara

PhD student, researching mental health on social media

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New (Academic) Year Resolutions 2019/20

2 minute read

Published:

Something about the start of the new academic year makes me reflect, far more than the start of an actual new year. Crispy September mornings make me think about starting the new school year with fresh textbooks, new curriculums, seating plans and the feelings of being that little bit older and mature than you were this time last year. It also tends to be when I start to think about my aims for the next year, what I want to achieve and how I’m going to do it. Given that, I thought I’d do a post to mark the start of the ‘new year’ and the start of my second year of my PhD with the things I’ve been thinking about achieving this year…

On virtue-signalling, power and shame

4 minute read

Published:

I recently read on Twitter a thread made by a scientist. In it they spoke about they way in which they refer to people of different heritages in papers and their desire to make these references more accurate. But, they didn’t want to be seen as ‘virtue signaling’.

Building a reproducible analysis framework

6 minute read

Published:

Since starting in research I’ve learnt some home truths about reproducibility in science. Thanks some fantastic researchers (listed at the end) I’ve also been taught some amazing lessons about reproducibility, and how to do it. So much so that I can’t see why you would work any other way, which is itself testament to the power of educating a new generation of scientists with lessons learned.

MQ Mental Health Science 2019

8 minute read

Published:

Writing this up a little late, but at the beginning of February I got to attend MQ’s Mental Health Science conference. It was a two-day conference with a huge range of speakers talking about all sorts of research related to mental health, and was my first conference!

Tweet Semantics in Python

7 minute read

Published:

One of my PhD aims will be around analysing data from Tweets using machine learning/ NLP (natural language processing, not neuro-linguistic programming – social work problems).

blog

Yes, algorithms are racist (because we are)

5 minute read

Published:

A journalist tweeted this week that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) said that algorithms, driven by math, are racist. Something about the way the tweet was written struck me as sceptical, and many people in tech seemed to feel the same way. A lot of tech-experienced people weighed in to defend AOC, because if you have an understanding of how algorithms are made, and the existence of systemic racism, then you’ll understand that she’s right.

Merging Multiple Dataframes in R

1 minute read

Published:

I’m publishing this on the blog in case anyone else has been facing the same problem as me and is unsure how to get around it!

Why We’re Going to Die #2

2 minute read

Published:

As predicted, there are more reasons we’re going to die. The tabloids just can’t resist a bit of fear and provocation in the science section.

Why We’re Going to Die #1

3 minute read

Published:

Now, I don’t have a particular problem with being told that we’re all going to die, mostly because I’m fairly convinced that is the way we’re headed. However, the level to which, and number of different ways in which we are told we are going to die has started to become both inconceivable and slightly obscene. As such, this is the first in what I anticipate being a series of Why We’re All Going to Die. Welcome to Episode 1.