The Machine Learning “Advent Calendar” Day 23: 1D CNN for Text in Excel

A 1D Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) can understand crucial text context by analyzing word order, a task where simpler models often fail. The network operates by sliding small filters across numerical word representations, known as embeddings, to detect specific local phrases like "not bad." After these filters identify various linguistic patterns throughout a sentence, a pooling step selects the strongest evidence for each one. These powerful pattern signals are then fed into a final classification layer to determine an overall