In a historic feat, four Bachelor of Science in Statistics students from UP Visayas took home the top prize in this year’s Philippine Statistics Association, Inc. (PSAI) Annual Conference Best Student Paper Competition held at Diversion 21 Hotel, Iloilo City.
Senior Statistics students Glenn Ivan Macitas, Jace Grant Cayot, Arpachshad Panoy, and Francis Yestin Javiero bested 34 other student papers from across the country with their paper titled “Mapping COVID-19 Research Publications: A Bibliometric and Topic Modelling Approach” which Macitas presented during the conference.
The paper utilized advanced text mining techniques to analyze Scopus metadata related to COVID-19 research in the Philippines. The team conducted a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of scientific publications and employed Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)—a probabilistic graphical model used to discover hidden themes within large collections of text. Specifically, the study examined the evolving themes in COVID-19 literature in the Philippines, offering new insights into the pandemic’s academic and scientific discourse.
“This study is especially relevant in helping us understand the breadth of COVID-19 research, identifying key trends, and mapping the evolving areas of focus in the scientific community,” Macitas explained.
According to Macitas, the paper initially began as a capstone project for their Statistical Analysis of Text Data course under Prof. Daniel David Pamplon who recognized its potential and encouraged them to refine and continue the research, making the recognition they received all the more fulfilling.
“In today’s age of big data and AI, the relevance of statistics has never been greater. I hope future researchers continue to leverage statistical tools and probabilistic models and contribute to the body of knowledge,” Macitas ended.
The PSAI Annual Conference serves as a key platform for the promotion of statistical research and the exchange of ideas between statisticians from various fields. This year’s conference, themed “Statistics in the Age of Intelligence and Innovations: Balancing Progress and Responsibility,” ran from September 10 to 12, 2024. The PSAI, established in 1951, is a private non-stock and non-profit foundation dedicated to advancing statistics in the Philippines, improving statistical literacy, and promoting the proper application of statistics across all fields of learning and professional practice. The conference also featured research presentations from both government and academic institutions.
The Best Student Paper Award was also shared with a team from the University of the Philippines Diliman School of Statistics.
