A Study of Immediate Requery Behavior in Search

© Haotian Zhang, Mustafa Abualsaud and Mark D. Smucker, 2018. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in the Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Human Information Interaction & Retrieval, (CHIIR'18), ACM. , https://doi.org/10.1145/3176349.3176400When search results fail to satisfy users' information needs, users often reformulate their search query in the hopes of receiving better results. In many cases, users immediately requery without clicking on any search results. In this paper, we report on a user study designed to investigate the rate at which users immediately reformulate at different levels of search quality. We had users search for answers to questions as we manipulated the placement of the only relevant document in a ranked list of search results. We show that as the quality of search results decreases, the probability of immediately requerying increases. We find that users can quickly decide to immediately reformulate, and the time to immediately reformulate appears to be independent of the quality of the search results.Finally, we show that there appears to be two types of users. One group has a high probability of immediately reformulating and the other is unlikely to immediately reformulate unless no relevant documents can be found in the search results. While requerying takes time, it is the group of users who are more likely to immediately requery that are able to able find answers to questions the fastest.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grants CRDPJ 468812-14 and RGPIN-2014-03642), in part by Google, and in part by the University of Waterloo

Patterns of Search Result Examination: Query to First Action.

To determine key factors that affect a user's behavior with search results, we conducted a controlled eye-tracking study of users completing search tasks using both desktop and mobile devices. We focus our investigation on users' behavior from their query to the first action they take with the search engine results page (SERP): either a click on a search result or a reformulation of their query. We found that a user deciding to reformulate a query rather than click on a result is best understood as being caused by the user's examination pattern not including a relevant search result. If a user sees a relevant result, they are very likely to click it. Of note, users do not look at all search results and their examination may be influenced by other factors. The key factors we found to explain a user's examination pattern are: the rank of search results, the user type, and the query quality. While existing research has identified rank and user types as important factors affecting examination patterns, to our knowledge, query quality is a new discovery. We found that user queries can be understood as either of weak or strong quality. Weak queries are those that the user may believe are more likely to fail compared to a strong query, and as a result, we find that users modify their examination patterns to view fewer documents when they issue a weak query, i.e. they give up sooner.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Grant CRDPJ 468812-14 || Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Grant RGPIN-2014-03642 || Google || University of Waterlo

Interactive Machine Learning with Applications in Health Informatics

Recent years have witnessed unprecedented growth of health data, including millions of biomedical research publications, electronic health records, patient discussions on health forums and social media, fitness tracker trajectories, and genome sequences. Information retrieval and machine learning techniques are powerful tools to unlock invaluable knowledge in these data, yet they need to be guided by human experts. Unlike training machine learning models in other domains, labeling and analyzing health data requires highly specialized expertise, and the time of medical experts is extremely limited. How can we mine big health data with little expert effort? In this dissertation, I develop state-of-the-art interactive machine learning algorithms that bring together human intelligence and machine intelligence in health data mining tasks. By making efficient use of human expert's domain knowledge, we can achieve high-quality solutions with minimal manual effort. I first introduce a high-recall information retrieval framework that helps human users efficiently harvest not just one but as many relevant documents as possible from a searchable corpus. This is a common need in professional search scenarios such as medical search and literature review. Then I develop two interactive machine learning algorithms that leverage human expert's domain knowledge to combat the curse of "cold start" in active learning, with applications in clinical natural language processing. A consistent empirical observation is that the overall learning process can be reliably accelerated by a knowledge-driven "warm start", followed by machine-initiated active learning. As a theoretical contribution, I propose a general framework for interactive machine learning. Under this framework, a unified optimization objective explains many existing algorithms used in practice, and inspires the design of new algorithms.PHDComputer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147518/1/raywang_1.pd

Users, Queries, and Bad Abandonment in Web Search

After a user submits a query and receives a list of search results, the user may abandon their query without clicking on any of the search results. A bad query abandonment is when a searcher abandons the SERP because they were dissatisfied with the quality of the search results, often making the user reformulate their query in the hope of receiving better search results. As we move closer to understanding when and what causes a user to abandon their query under different qualities of search results, we move forward in an overall understanding of user behavior with search engines. In this thesis, we describe three user studies to investigate bad query abandonment. First, we report on a study to investigate the rate and time at which users abandon their queries at different levels of search quality. We had users search for answers to questions, but showed users manipulated SERPs that contain one relevant document placed at different ranks. We show that as the quality of search results decreases, the probability of abandonment increases, and that users quickly decide to abandon their queries. Users make their decisions fast, but not all users are the same. We show that there appear to be two types of users that behave differently, with one group more likely to abandon their query and are quicker in finding answers than the group less likely to abandon their query. Second, we describe an eye-tracking experiment that focuses on understanding possible causes of users' willingness to examine SERPs and what motivates users to continue or discontinue their examination. Using eye-tracking data, we found that a user deciding to abandon a query is best understood by the user's examination pattern not including a relevant search result. If a user sees a relevant result, they are very likely to click it. However, users' examination of results are different and may be influenced by other factors. The key factors we found are the rank of search results, the user type, and the query quality. For example, we show that regardless of where the relevant document is placed in the SERP, the type of query submitted affects examination, and if a user enters an ambiguous query, they are likely to examine fewer results. Third, we show how the nature of non-relevant material affects users' willingness to further explore a ranked list of search results. We constructed and showed participants manipulated SERPs with different types of non-relevant documents. We found that user examination of search results and time to query abandonment is influenced by the coherence and type of non-relevant documents included in the SERP. For SERPs coherent on off-topic results, users spend the least amount of time before abandoning and are less likely to request to view more results. The time they spend increases as the SERP quality improves, and users are more likely to request to view more results when the SERP contains diversified non-relevant results on multiple subtopics

The role of concomitant drugs in the aetiology of fatal heroin- and methadone- related overdose

Heroin and methadone poisoning are significant causes of death of young people in the United Kingdom. In a high proportion of these fatalities concomitant substances are also detected. This thesis is concerned with the significance of this observation and the hypothesis that these substances are risk factors for fatal heroin- and methadone-related overdose. A referential database was developed incorporating post-mortem toxicology data from 1,222 heroin and methadone overdose fatalities from around England and Wales. The most commonly detected concomitant drugs were ethanol, diazepam, temazepam, an additional opioid and cocaine. In the first of two studies, statistical models were derived, using multiple linear regression, to assess the potential effect of these concomitant substances on the lethality of heroin and methadone. Log-log and semi-log models were considered and regression coefficients were estimated by ordinary least squares. Ethanol blood concentrations were associated with significantly reduced blood levels of total morphine and methadone, consistent with a causal role for this substance. There was an absence of evidence of a similar effect for other commonly detected concomitants

Custom Visualization without Real Programming

Information Visualization tools have simplified visualization development. Some tools help simple users construct standard visualizations; others help programmers develop custom visualizations. This thesis contributes to the field of Information Visualization and End-User Development. The first contribution of the thesis is a taxonomy for Information Visualization development tools. Existing taxonomies for Information Visualization are helpful, but none of them can properly categorize visualization tools from a user development perspective. The categorization of 20 Information Visualization tools proves the applicability of this taxonomy, and the result showed that there are no Drag-and-Drop tools that allow end-user developers as well as programmers to create custom visualizations. The results can be used by the End-User Development and the Information Visualization community to identify future avenues of research. The second contribution is a new visualization development approach, the Drag-Drop-Set-View-Interact approach provided by the visualization too

Effects of Data Replication on Data Exfiltration in Mobile Ad hoc Networks Utilizing Reactive Protocols

A swarm of autonomous UAVs can provide a significant amount of ISR data where current UAV assets may not be feasible or practical. As such, the availability of the data the resides in the swarm is a topic that will benefit from further investigation. This thesis examines the impact of le replication and swarm characteristics such as node mobility, swarm size, and churn rate on data availability utilizing reactive protocols. This document examines the most prominent factors affecting the networking of nodes in a MANET. Factors include network routing protocols and peer-to-peer le protocols. It compares and contrasts several open source network simulator environments. Experiment implementation is documented, covering design considerations, assumptions, and software implementation, as well as detailing constant, response and variable factors. Collected data is presented and the results show that in swarms of sizes of 30, 45, and 60 nodes, le replication improves data availability until network saturation is reached, with the most significant benefit gained after only one copy is made. Mobility, churn rate, and swarm density all influence the replication impact

The busy coder's guide to Android development

380 p. ; il. , Indice.Libro ElectrónicoIf you are interested in programming for Android, you will need at least basic understanding of how to program in Java. Android programming is done using Java syntax, plus a class library that resembles a subset of the Java SE library (plus Android-specific extensions). If you have not programmed in Java before, you probably should quick learn how that works before attempting to dive into programming for Android. The book does not cover in any detail how to download or install the Android development tools, either the Eclipse IDE flavor or the standalone flavor. The Android Web site covers this quite nicely. The material in the book should be relevant whether you use the IDE or not. You should download, install, and test out the Android development tools from the Android Web site before trying any of the examples listed in this book.Welcome to the Warescription!xiii Prefacexv Welcome to the Book!xv Prerequisitesxv Warescriptionxvi Book Bug Bountyxvii Source Code Licensexviii Creative Commons and the Four-to-Free (42F) Guaranteexviii The Big Picture1 What Androids Are Made Of3 Activities3 Content Providers4 Intents4 Services4 Stuff At Your Disposal5 Storage5 Network5 Multimedia5 GPS5 Phone Services6 Project Structure7 Root Contents7 The Sweat Off Your Brow8 iii Subscribe to updates at http://commonswarecom Special Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 30 License Edition And Now, The Rest of the Story8 What You Get Out Of It9 Inside the Manifest11 In The Beginning, There Was the Root, And It Was Good11 Permissions, Instrumentations, and Applications (Oh, My!)12 Your Application Does Something, Right?13 Creating a Skeleton Application17 Begin at the Beginning17 The Activity18 Dissecting the Activity19 Building and Running the Activity21 Using XML-Based Layouts23 What Is an XML-Based Layout?23 Why Use XML-Based Layouts?24 OK, So What Does It Look Like?25 What's With the @ Signs?26 And We Attach These to the JavaHow?26 The Rest of the Story27 Employing Basic Widgets29 Assigning Labels29 Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?30 Fleeting Images31 Fields of Green Or Other Colors31 Just Another Box to Check34 Turn the Radio Up37 It's Quite a View39 Useful Properties39 Useful Methods39 Working with Containers41 Thinking Linearly42 Concepts and Properties42 Example45 All Things Are Relative50 iv Subscribe to updates at http://commonswarecom Special Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 30 License Edition Concepts and Properties50 Example53 Tabula Rasa56 Concepts and Properties56 Example59 Scrollwork60 Using Selection Widgets65 Adapting to the Circumstances65 Using ArrayAdapter66 Other Key Adapters67 Lists of Naughty and Nice68 Spin Control70 Grid Your Lions (Or Something Like That)74 Fields: Now With 35% Less Typing!78 Galleries, Give Or Take The Art82 Employing Fancy Widgets and Containers83 Pick and Choose83 Time Keeps Flowing Like a River88 Making Progress89 Putting It On My Tab90 The Pieces91 The Idiosyncrasies91 Wiring It Together93 Other Containers of Note96 Applying Menus97 Flavors of Menu97 Menus of Options98 Menus in Context100 Taking a Peek102 Embedding the WebKit Browser107 A Browser, Writ Small107 Loading It Up109 Navigating the Waters111 v Subscribe to updates at http://commonswarecom Special Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 30 License Edition Entertaining the Client111 Settings, Preferences, and Options (Oh, My!)114 Showing Pop-Up Messages117 Raising Toasts117 Alert! Alert!118 Checking Them Out119 Dealing with Threads123 Getting Through the Handlers123 Messages124 Runnables127 Running In Place127 Utilities (And I Don't Mean Water Works)128 And Now, The Caveats128 Handling Activity Lifecycle Events131 Schroedinger's Activity131 Life, Death, and Your Activity132 onCreate() and onCompleteThaw()132 onStart(), onRestart(), and onResume()133 onPause(), onFreeze(), onStop(), and onDestroy()134 Using Preferences137 Getting What You Want137 Stating Your Preference138 A Preference For Action138 Accessing Files143 You And The Horse You Rode In On143 Readin' 'n Writin'147 Working with Resources151 The Resource Lineup151 String Theory152 Plain Strings152 String Formats153 Styled Text153 Styled Formats154 vi Subscribe to updates at http://commonswarecom Special Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 30 License Edition Got the Picture?158 XML: The Resource Way160 Miscellaneous Values163 Dimensions163 Colors164 Arrays165 Different Strokes for Different Folks166 Managing and Accessing Local Databases171 A Quick SQLite Primer172 Start at the Beginning173 Setting the Table174 Makin' Data174 What Goes Around, Comes Around176 Raw Queries176 Regular Queries177 Building with Builders177 Using Cursors179 Change for the Sake of Change179 Making Your Own Cursors180 Data, Data, Everywhere180 Leveraging Java Libraries183 The Outer Limits183 Ants and Jars184 Communicating via the Internet187 REST and Relaxation187 HTTP Operations via Apache Commons188 Parsing Responses190 Stuff To Consider192 Email over Java193 Creating Intent Filters199 What's Your Intent?200 Pieces of Intents200 Stock Options201 vii Subscribe to updates at http://commonswarecom Special Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 30 License Edition Intent Routing202 Stating Your Intent(ions)203 Narrow Receivers205 Launching Activities and Sub-Activities207 Peers and Subs208 Start 'Em Up208 Make an Intent209 Make the Call209 Finding Available Actions via Introspection215 Pick 'Em216 Adaptable Adapters220 Would You Like to See the Menu?223 Asking Around225 Using a Content Provider229 Pieces of Me229 Getting a Handle230 Makin' Queries231 Adapting to the Circumstances233 Doing It By Hand235 Position235 Getting Properties236 Setting Properties237 Give and Take238 Beware of the BLOB!239 Building a Content Provider241 First, Some Dissection241 Next, Some Typing242 Step #1: Create a Provider Class243 ContentProvider243 DatabaseContentProvider252 Step #2: Supply a Uri252 Step #3: Declare the Properties252 Step #4: Update the Manifest253 viii Subscribe to updates at http://commonswarecom Special Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 30 License Edition Notify-On-Change Support254 Requesting and Requiring Permissions257 Mother, May I?258 Halt! Who Goes There?259 Enforcing Permissions via the Manifest260 Enforcing Permissions Elsewhere261 May I See Your Documents?262 Creating a Service263 Getting Buzzed264 Service with Class264 When IPC Attacks!266 Write the AIDL267 Implement the Interface268 Manifest Destiny270 Where's the Remote?271 Invoking a Service273 Bound for Success274 Request for Service276 Prometheus Unbound276 Manual Transmission276 Alerting Users Via Notifications279 Types of Pestering279 Hardware Notifications280 Icons281 Letting Your Presence Be Felt281 Accessing Location-Based Services287 Location Providers: They Know Where You're Hiding288 Finding Yourself288 On the Move292 Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet?292 TestingTesting296 Mapping with MapView and MapActivity299 The Bare Bones299 ix Subscribe to updates at http://commonswarecom Special Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 30 License Edition Exercising Your Control301 Zoom301 Center302 Reticle303 Traffic and Terrain303 Follow You, Follow Me305 Layers Upon Layers307 Overlay Classes308 Drawing the Overlay308 Handling Screen Taps310 Playing Media313 Get Your Media On314 Making Noise315 Moving Pictures321 Handling Telephone Calls325 No, No, No – Not That IPhone326 What's Our Status?326 You Make the Call!326 Searching with SearchManager333 Hunting Season333 Search Yourself335 Craft the Search Activity336 Update the Manifest340 Try It Out342 The TourIt Sample Application347 Installing TourIt347 Demo Location Provider347 SD Card Image with Sample Tour348 Running TourIt349 Main Activity350 Configuration Activity352 Cue Sheet Activity354 Map Activity355 x Subscribe to updates at http://commonswarecom Special Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 30 License Edition Tour Update Activity357 Help Activity358 TourIt's Manifest359 TourIt's Content360 Data Storage361 Content Provider361 Model Classes361 TourIt's Activities362 TourListActivity362 TourViewActivity363 TourMapActivity367 TourEditActivity367 HelpActivity367 ConfigActivity36

To Host a Legacy System to the Web

The dramatic improvements in global interconectivity due to intranets, extranets and the Internet has led to many enterprises to consider migrating legacy systems to a web based systems. While data remapping is relatively straightforward in most cases, greater challenges lie in adapting legacy application software. This research effort describes an experiment in which a legacy system is migrated to a web-client/server environment. First, this thesis reports on the difficulties and issues arising when porting a legacy system International Invoice (IIMM) to a web-client/server environment. Next, this research analyzes the underlying issues, and offer cautionary guidance to future migrators and finally this research effort builds a prototype of the legacy system on a web client/server environment that demonstrates effective strategies to deal with these issues