Automatic generation of scientific article metadata

A computer-implemented method of updating a set of causation scores, each respective causation score corresponding to one of a plurality of agent-outcome pairs, the method comprising:

• on a regular time interval, polling a source of scientific literature articles for new scientific literature articles;
• in response to the polling of the source of scientific literature articles, downloading a plurality of new scientific literature articles from the source of scientific literature articles;
• for each respective article in the plurality of new scientific literature articles, automatically classifying the respective article as relevant or not relevant to each respective agent-outcome pair in the plurality of agent-outcome pairs, based on natural language processing on the text of the respective article;
• aggregating, into a first set of articles, a subset of the plurality of new scientific literature articles that are classified as relevant to a first agent-outcome pair including a first agent and a first outcome;
• generating metadata for each article in the first set of articles by:
• generating directionality data for each article, indicating whether the respective article supports or rejects a hypothesis that the first agent causes the first outcome, generated using natural language processing on the text of the respective article,
• generating evidence data for each article, indicating how well methodology of the respective article can demonstrated a causal relationship between the first agent and the first outcome, generated using natural language processing on the text of the respective article, and
• generating a proximity categorization for each article, indicating directness of evidence in the respective article, generated using natural language processing on the text of the respective article;
• computing a causation score based on the metadata for each article in the first set of articles by:
• determining a respective magnetism score for each respective article in the first set of articles based on the directionality data and the evidence data associated with the respective article,
• aggregating the respective magnetism scores for the articles in the first set of articles to obtain a magnetism score for the first set of articles,
• weighting the magnetism score based on the proximity categorization for each article, and
• computing the causation score based on the weighted magnetism score;
• and
• updating the set of causation scores, including replacing a previous causation score associated with the first agent-outcome pair with the causation score computed based on the weighted magnetism score.

A computer-implemented method of updating a general causation visualization displayed on a remote device, the method comprising:

• displaying, in the general causation visualization on the remote device, a plurality of causation score representations, each associated with a respective causation score, including:
• displaying a first causation score representation associated with a first causation score computed based on literature metadata relevant to the first causation score;
• while the plurality of causation score representations are displayed on the remote device, receiving user input at the remote device selecting first literature criteria, wherein applying the first literature criteria to the literature metadata includes a first subset of the literature metadata and excludes a second subset of the literature metadata;
• in response to the user input at the remote device selecting the first literature criteria, computing a plurality of updated causation scores including computing an updated first causation score based on the first subset of the literature metadata and not the second subset of the literature metadata by:
• aggregating respective magnetism scores for each article in the first subset to obtain a magnetism score for the first subset,
• weighting the magnetism score based on proximity categorizations of each article in the first subset, and
• computing the first causation score based on the weighted magnetism score;
• and
• updating the general causation visualization on the remote device to display a plurality of updated causation score representations, each associated with a respective updated causation score in the plurality of updated causation scores.