130,837 research outputs found
Hybrid group recommendations for a travel service
Recommendation techniques have proven their usefulness as a tool to cope with the information overload problem in many classical domains such as movies, books, and music. Additional challenges for recommender systems emerge in the domain of tourism such as acquiring metadata and feedback, the sparsity of the rating matrix, user constraints, and the fact that traveling is often a group activity. This paper proposes a recommender system that offers personalized recommendations for travel destinations to individuals and groups. These recommendations are based on the users' rating profile, personal interests, and specific demands for their next destination. The recommendation algorithm is a hybrid approach combining a content-based, collaborative filtering, and knowledge-based solution. For groups of users, such as families or friends, individual recommendations are aggregated into group recommendations, with an additional opportunity for users to give feedback on these group recommendations. A group of test users evaluated the recommender system using a prototype web application. The results prove the usefulness of individual and group recommendations and show that users prefer the hybrid algorithm over each individual technique. This paper demonstrates the added value of various recommendation algorithms in terms of different quality aspects, compared to an unpersonalized list of the most-popular destinations
Learning from MARQuIS: future direction of quality and safety in hospital care in the European Union.
This article summarises the significant lessons to be drawn from, and the policy implications of, the findings of the Methods of Assessing Response to Quality Improvement Strategies (MARQuIS) project--a part of the suite of research projects intended to support policy established by the European Commission through its Sixth Framework Programme. The article first reviews the findings of MARQuIS and their implications for healthcare providers (and particularly for hospitals), and then addresses the broader policy implications for member states of the European Union (EU) and for the commission itself. Against the background of the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme, it then outlines a number of future areas for research to inform policy and practice in quality and safety in Europe. The article concludes that at this stage, a unique EU-wide quality improvement system for hospitals does not seem to be feasible or effective. Because of possible future community action in this field, attention should focus on the use of existing research on quality and safety strategies in healthcare, with the aim of combining soft measures to accelerate mutual learning. Concrete measures should be considered only in areas for which there is substantial evidence and effective implementation can be ensured
An Architecture for Integrated Intelligence in Urban Management using Cloud Computing
With the emergence of new methodologies and technologies it has now become
possible to manage large amounts of environmental sensing data and apply new
integrated computing models to acquire information intelligence. This paper
advocates the application of cloud capacity to support the information,
communication and decision making needs of a wide variety of stakeholders in
the complex business of the management of urban and regional development. The
complexity lies in the interactions and impacts embodied in the concept of the
urban-ecosystem at various governance levels. This highlights the need for more
effective integrated environmental management systems. This paper offers a
user-orientated approach based on requirements for an effective management of
the urban-ecosystem and the potential contributions that can be supported by
the cloud computing community. Furthermore, the commonality of the influence of
the drivers of change at the urban level offers the opportunity for the cloud
computing community to develop generic solutions that can serve the needs of
hundreds of cities from Europe and indeed globally.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
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