5 research outputs found

    An approach to decentralizing search, using stigmergic hyperlinks

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    A stigmergic hyperlink, or “stigh”, is an object that looks and behaves like a regular HTML hyperlink, but runs at the server side. A system of stighs displays interesting emergent behaviors, of some complexity, but a stigh alone is very simple: it has a life attribute, only reinforced when users click it, and methods to provide meta-information about its destination. We reason that stigmergic hyperlinks could support a more decentralized approach to the Web search problem, particularly for addressing the “Deep Web”, which we consider all the WWW that is uncharted by search engines. We discuss vertical and horizontal solutions for the “Deep Web” and present a specialized system that makes searchable the publications hiding at the biggest Portuguese digital magazines site. The index that the system builds, feeds the search related methods of a stigmergic hyperlink linking to that destination. Our contributions are, to make the case for a broader “Deep Web” concept, that goes beyond databases hiding behind HTML forms; describe an approach that could decentralized Web search, based on stigmergic hyperlinks and a supporting business model; and to exemplify one specialized system that enables searching the biggest Portuguese digital magazines website

    Stigmergic hyperlink's contributes to web search

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    Stigmergic hyperlinks are hyperlinks with a "heart beat": if used they stay healthy and online; if neglected, they fade, eventually getting replaced. Their life attribute is a relative usage measure that regular hyperlinks do not provide, hence PageRank-like measures have historically been well informed about the structure of webs of documents, but unaware of what users effectively do with the links. This paper elaborates on how to input the users’ perspective into Google’s original, structure centric, PageRank metric. The discussion then bridges to the Deep Web, some search challenges, and how stigmergic hyperlinks could help decentralize the search experience, facilitating user generated search solutions and supporting new related business models.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    High-quality Web information provisioning and quality-based data pricing

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    Today, information can be considered a production factor. This is attributed to the technological innovations the Internet and the Web have brought about. Now, a plethora of information is available making it hard to find the most relevant information. Subsequently, the issue of finding and purchasing high-quality data arises. Addressing these challenges, this work first examines how high-quality information provisioning can be achieved with an approach called WiPo that exploits the idea of curation, i. e., the selection, organisation, and provisioning of information with human involvement. The second part of this work investigates the issue that there is little understanding of what the value of data is and how it can be priced – despite the fact that it is already being traded on data marketplaces. To overcome this, a pricing approach based on the Multiple-Choice Knapsack Problem is proposed that allows for utility maximisation for customers and profit maximisation for vendors

    Multi-Agent Systems

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    A multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Multi-agent systems can be used to solve problems which are difficult or impossible for an individual agent or monolithic system to solve. Agent systems are open and extensible systems that allow for the deployment of autonomous and proactive software components. Multi-agent systems have been brought up and used in several application domains

    Street Furniture and the Nation State: A Global Process

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    In the popular imagination, street furniture has traditionally been understood as evoking a sense of national or local identity. From Paris’ metro entrances, DDR lampposts in Berlin, and London’s york stone pavements, the designed environment has been able to contribute to the unique qualities of a place. In some instances this was deliberate. In postwar Britain for instance, the Council of Industrial Design – a state-funded design organization - often appeared to measure the quality of street furniture on the basis of its national characteristics. On other occasions, the relationship between such objects and identity emerged accidentally. In Britain during the 1980s, for example, the replacement of Gilbert Scott's red telephone box with an alternative BT model provoked considerable debate. For many people, this act was not just a Conservative attack on nationalization and state-ownership, but also on the very fabric of British identity. This understanding of street furniture has retained its currency for many years, and cities across the world have used street furniture to provide a sense of visual coherency for neighbourhoods in need of new identities, strengthening their character and improving the public's relationship to them. In this way, street furniture has been employed as a cipher for the narrative of regeneration, in which - as a means of altering the identity of a space - street furniture can project a new face upon the street. Increasingly however, advertising companies are able to lever themselves into the street furniture market by offering to provide the service to the local authorities for free in return for advertising space. In offering this service, global companies like JC Decaux, Wall and Clear Channel command a huge amount of commercial power within the city. The excessive homogenization of street furniture coupled with the overwhelming presence of advertising which is increasingly sanctioned by local authorities keen to reduce costs, has resulted in the perception of poorer quality streets. Thus, the irony of regeneration is that by seeking to promote the unique identity of a city, many places often end up looking more and more alike. This paper will examine recent developments in the process by which the street is furnished and the agents responsible. It will specifically look at how these changes have affected the relationship between street furniture and identity, and equally the effect this process has had on understandings of national design histories. Clearly, evaluating contemporary street furniture through the lens of the nation-state is of very little value, since the international differences between street furniture are considerably less marked than they used to be. This extraordinary aesthetic convergence is partly linked to economies of scale - after all, just how many different kinds of bus stop can Europe afford to have? Yet it also reflects some of the challenges posed by globalization and privatization of public space. This paper will reflect upon that process, and how these bigger narratives increasingly affect the landscape of the street
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