A matter of words: NLP for quality evaluation of Wikipedia medical articles

Automatic quality evaluation of Web information is a task with many fields of applications and of great relevance, especially in critical domains like the medical one. We move from the intuition that the quality of content of medical Web documents is affected by features related with the specific domain. First, the usage of a specific vocabulary (Domain Informativeness); then, the adoption of specific codes (like those used in the infoboxes of Wikipedia articles) and the type of document (e.g., historical and technical ones). In this paper, we propose to leverage specific domain features to improve the results of the evaluation of Wikipedia medical articles. In particular, we evaluate the articles adopting an "actionable" model, whose features are related to the content of the articles, so that the model can also directly suggest strategies for improving a given article quality. We rely on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and dictionaries-based techniques in order to extract the bio-medical concepts in a text. We prove the effectiveness of our approach by classifying the medical articles of the Wikipedia Medicine Portal, which have been previously manually labeled by the Wiki Project team. The results of our experiments confirm that, by considering domain-oriented features, it is possible to obtain sensible improvements with respect to existing solutions, mainly for those articles that other approaches have less correctly classified. Other than being interesting by their own, the results call for further research in the area of domain specific features suitable for Web data quality assessment

Adding dimensions to the analysis of the quality of health information of websites returned by Google. Cluster analysis identifies patterns of websites according to their classification and the type of intervention described.

Background and aims: Most of the instruments used to assess the quality of health information on the Web (e.g. the JAMA criteria) only analyze one dimension of information quality, trustworthiness. We try to compare these characteristics with the type of treatments the website describe, whether evidence-based medicine or note, and correlate this with the established criteria. Methods: We searched Google for “migraine cure” and analyzed the first 200 websites for: 1) JAMA criteria (authorship, attribution, disclosure, currency); 2) class of websites (commercial, health portals, professional, patient groups, no-profit); and 3) type of intervention described (approved drugs, alternative medicine, food, procedures, lifestyle, drugs still at the research stage). We used hierarchical cluster analysis to assess associations between classes of websites and types of intervention described. Subgroup analysis on the first 10 websites returned was performed. Results: Google returned health portals (44%), followed by commercial websites (31%) and journalism websites (11%). The type of intervention mentioned most often was alternative medicine (55%), followed by procedures (49%), lifestyle (42%), food (41%) and approved drugs (35%). Cluster analysis indicated that health portals are more likely to describe more than one type of treatment while commercial websites most often describe only one. The average JAMA score of commercial websites was significantly lower than for health portals or journalism websites, and this was mainly due to lack of information on the authors of the text and indication of the date the information was written. Looking at the first 10 websites from Google, commercial websites are under-represented and approved drugs over-represented. Conclusions: This approach allows the appraisal of the quality of health-related information on the Internet focusing on the type of therapies/prevention methods that are shown to the patient

Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE QUALITY CONTROL OF EPIDEMIOLOGICAL LECTURES ON THE INTERNET

Finding high quality materials for the preparation of epidemiological lectures is a serious challenge for epidemiologists and public health professionals across the world. The emergence of the Internet in the early 90's offered a way to ease the access to the epidemiological lectures; however it also raised important questions about the quality of the educational lectures which are freely available on the Internet. In this research, we analyzed the quality of epidemiological lectures in the Global Health Network Supercourse lecture library. We selected a random sample of 100 lectures in the Supercourse that accumulated at least 3 reviews from the visitors of the Supercourse sites. We found 7 experts, leading researchers in the field of public health and medicine, who were also very experienced in reviewing papers for journals. These experts evaluated the same set of 100 lectures and gave us their expert opinion on their quality. Overall, the lectures were rated positively by both expert and the Supercourse reviewers. Although t-test indicated that the difference between the means was statistically significant, this difference is not meaningful due to large sample size. Kappa statistic and intraclass correlations indicated that inter rater agreement for experts and non-experts was surprisingly low (less than 0.4). We also observed HALO affect with overall score being a good predictor of other scores. Our findings were consistent with existing research in the area of peer review, demonstrating low inter rater agreement. This poor inter rater agreement was demonstrated for the first time for the Internet lectures. Our findings suggested that questionnaires assessing the quality of the Internet lectures may actually be replaced by one rating, similar to the system utilized in Amazon.com or hotel ratings. This research was significant for the field of public health because it was one of the first efforts to evaluate the quality of epidemiological lectures on the Internet. The quality of lectures on the web has rarely been assessed scientifically for epidemiological and public health lectures. Future research in this area may need to concentrate on alternatives to the peer review system

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report (Second edition; fully revised and updated)

No sooner was the Internet upon us than anxiety arose over the ease of accessing pornography and other controversial content. In response, entrepreneurs soon developed filtering products. By the end of the decade, a new industry had emerged to create and market Internet filters....Yet filters were highly imprecise from the beginning. The sheer size of the Internet meant that identifying potentially offensive content had to be done mechanically, by matching "key" words and phrases; hence, the blocking of Web sites for "Middlesex County," or words such as "magna cum laude". Internet filters are crude and error-prone because they categorize expression without regard to its context, meaning, and value. Yet these sweeping censorship tools are now widely used in companies, homes, schools, and libraries. Internet filters remain a pressing public policy issue to all those concerned about free expression, education, culture, and democracy. This fully revised and updated report surveys tests and studies of Internet filtering products from the mid-1990s through 2006. It provides an essential resource for the ongoing debate

Alter ego, state of the art on user profiling: an overview of the most relevant organisational and behavioural aspects regarding User Profiling.

This report gives an overview of the most relevant organisational and\ud behavioural aspects regarding user profiling. It discusses not only the\ud most important aims of user profiling from both an organisation’s as\ud well as a user’s perspective, it will also discuss organisational motives\ud and barriers for user profiling and the most important conditions for\ud the success of user profiling. Finally recommendations are made and\ud suggestions for further research are given

Investigating Patient Outcome Measures in Mental Health

This report examines the feasibility of incorporating patient outcomes in mental health into a productivity measure. It examines which outcome measures are most commonly used in mental health, the practical issues about collecting these outcome measures, whether they can be converted into a generic measure, whether there is a time series of data available, and whether the data exists to examine changes in the mix of treatments over time. The criteria that were assumed to be important for an outcome measure to be included in a productivity index, were that it should have wide coverage, should be routinely collected, could readily be linked to activity data, could potentially be converted to a generic outcome measure, and would be available as a time-series. The report focuses predominantly on mental health outcomes within the working age population. Literature searches on outcome measurement in mental health covered numerous databases and retrieved over 1500 records. Around 170 full papers were obtained.

The application of social media for marketing strategies in pharma healthcare

Digital is transforming the way the world does business, and healthcare is no exception. The COVID-19 outbreak has had a significant impact on internet use and accelerated the digital transition worldwide as well as in Portugal. Social media is the fastest communication network among worldwide people. During the outbreak, the usage of social media platforms increased two times more compared with normal days. With increasing health literacy and access to technology, consumers are becoming more informed and proactive towards health issues and selfmedication, 67% of them are researching health problems and symptoms tracking and 81% conduct online research before making a purchase. This change has expanded communication from offline to the internet. Electronic word-of-mouth communication (eWOM), based on social media, brought more variables to marketing communication and became an interesting field for research considering its communication potential. Indeed, several studies have shown the ability to influence interpersonal communications on products or services in the purchase intention of consumers. As so, in recent years, some authors discussed the impact of eWOM on consumer online purchasing decisions; however, the literature is still relatively nascent regarding the Pharmaceutical Industry and the self-medication segment market of Over-the-Counter medicines (OTC). Pharmaceutical companies must be aware of this paradigm change: the patient is an indispensable and active stakeholder in the present and future of healthcare, besides the physician and the payer. Pharma marketing may be moving into a more digitalized space, but there is still room for improvement, especially when it comes to social media there is an unexploited territory for pharma marketers as most pharmaceutical companies are not yet to answer these consumers habits with an effective digital presence. The current research aims to study the application of Social Media platforms for marketing or communication purposes in pharma healthcare in Portugal.digital está a transformar a forma como os negócios se fazem no mundo, e a saúde não é exceção. A pandemia de COVID-19 teve um impacto significativo na utilização da Internet e acelerou a transição digital a nível mundial, incluindo Portugal. Com o aumento da literacia em saúde e o acesso à tecnologia, os consumidores estão a tornar-se mais informados e proativos em relação aos seus cuidados com a saúde e à automedicação, 67% destes pesquisam problemas de saúde e sintomas e 81% realizam pesquisas online antes de fazer uma compra. Esta mudança de comportamento expandiu a comunicação do offline para a Internet. A comunicação electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), baseada nos media sociais, envolve mais variáveis para a comunicação de marketing; nos últimos anos, alguns autores discutiram o impacto do eWOM nas decisões de compra do consumidor online; entretanto, a literatura ainda é relativamente incipiente no que diz respeito à Indústria Farmacêutica e ao segmento de automedicação do mercado de medicamentos de venda livre (OTC). As empresas farmacêuticas devem estar atentas a esta mudança de paradigma: o paciente é uma parte indispensável e ativa no presente e no futuro da área da saúde, além do médico e do pagador. O marketing farmacêutico está a evoluir para a digitalização, mas ainda há espaço para melhorias, especialmente no âmbito das redes sociais que ainda são um território pouco explorado pelos profissionais de marketing farmacêutico. A maioria das empresas farmacêuticas ainda não se adaptou a estes hábitos de consumo com uma presença digital eficaz. A presente investigação pretende identificar a aplicação de plataformas de redes sociais para efeitos de marketing ou comunicação na área da indústria farmacêutica em Portugal

The effect of Web interface features on consumer online shopping intentions

Amid the storm of hype over Internet adoption, it is observed that during the past years, organizations have taken considerable interest in eagerly acquiring computer hardware and software to implement electronic commerce (e-commerce) applications mostly to the detriment of human aspects of the information technology (IT) solutions (Freemantle, 2002; Lockwood & Lamp, 2000). Various Internet technologies, mostly the Web, have been implemented to offer online goods and services. Many credible estimates suggest that Internet buying and selling will account for close to $2 trillion of annual economic activity by 2004 (Citrin et al., 2003; Fry, 2000). While the promise of the Internet has become a reality many businesses cannot afford to ignore, use of this medium for communication and information has not been matched by its equivalent use for shopping (Citrin et al., 2003). Most notable are Web design problems that frustrate consumers\u27 online exchange activities (A. T. Kearney, 2000). This study proposes that features incorporated in the design of Web site interfaces can affect consumer online behavioral intentions to purchase and revisit. The study draws upon theories and prior studies in the fields of management, consumer behavior, management information systems, and related disciplines to address the research question of whether and how Web site interface design features determine online consumers\u27 perceptions, attitudes, flow experienced, and their online purchase and revisit intentions. Using data from a sample of 266 online consumers, the “best fit” structural model was selected among three a priori structural models. Results of the study confirmed most of the relationships hypothesized in the research model. It was found that, indeed, different categories of interface features have different influence levels on consumers\u27 perceptions. Whereas motivator factor was significantly related to the perceived informativeness, entertainment, and irritation; hygiene factor indicated significant relationships with only irritation. The study also found statistically significant support for the relationships between most of the perceptual variables and perceived usefulness of the site as well attitude toward the site. The role of flow experienced in determining purchase and revisit intentions received statistically significant support. Overall, the results of this study provide important insights into the online consumer experience, with implications for academic research and e-commerce systems design