2,988 research outputs found

    Click-words: learning to predict document keywords from a user perspective

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    Motivation: Recognizing words that are key to a document is important for ranking relevant scientific documents. Traditionally, important words in a document are either nominated subjectively by authors and indexers or selected objectively by some statistical measures. As an alternative, we propose to use documents' words popularity in user queries to identify click-words, a set of prominent words from the users' perspective. Although they often overlap, click-words differ significantly from other document keywords

    The equivalence of numbers: The social value of avoiding health decline: An experimental web-based study

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    BACKGROUND: Health economic analysis aimed at informing policy makers and supporting resource allocation decisions has to evaluate not only improvements in health but also avoided decline. Little is known however, whether the "direction" in which changes in health are experienced is important for the public in prioritizing among patients. This experimental study investigates the social value people place on avoiding (further) health decline when directly compared to curative treatments in resource allocation decisions. METHODS: 127 individuals completed an interactive survey that was published in the World Wide Web. They were confronted with a standard gamble (SG) and three person trade-off tasks, either comparing improvements in health (PTO-Up), avoided decline (PTO-Down), or both, contrasting health changes of equal magnitude differing in the direction in which they are experienced (PTO-WAD). Finally, a direct priority ranking of various interventions was obtained. RESULTS: Participants strongly prioritized improving patients' health rather than avoiding decline. The mean substitution rate between health improvements and avoided decline (WAD) ranged between 0.47 and 0.64 dependent on the intervention. Weighting PTO values according to the direction in which changes in health are experienced improved their accuracy in predicting a direct prioritization ranking. Health state utilities obtained by the standard gamble method seem not to reflect social values in resource allocation contexts. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that the utility of being cured of a given health state might not be a good approximation for the societal value of avoiding this health state, especially in cases of competition between preventive and curative interventions

    MEDQUAL: Improving Medical Web Search over Time with Dynamic Credibility Heuristics

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    Performing a search on the World Wide Web (WWW) and traversing the resulting links is an adventure in which one encounters both credible and incredible web pages. Search engines, such as Google, rely on macroscopic Web topology patterns and even highly ranked 'authoritative' web sites may be a mixture of informed and uninformed opinions. Without credibility heuristics to guide the user in a maze of facts, assertions, and inferences, the Web remains an ineffective knowledge delivery platform. This report presents the design and implementation of a modular extension to the popular Google search engine, MEDQUAL, which provisions both URL and content-based heuristic credibility rules to reorder raw Google rankings in the medical domain. MEDQUAL, a software system written in Java, starts with a bootstrap configuration file which loads in basic heuristics in XML format. It then provides a subscription mechanism so users can join birds of feather specialty groups, for example Pediatrics, in order to load specialized heuristics as well. The platform features a coordination mechanism whereby information seekers can effectively become secondary authors, contributing by consensus vote additional credibility heuristics. MEDQUAL uses standard XML namespace conventions to divide opinion groups so that competing groups can be supported simultaneously. The net effect is a merger of basic and supplied heuristics so that the system continues to adapt and improve itself over time to changing web content, changing opinions, and new opinion groups. The key goal of leveraging the intelligence of a large-scale and diffuse WWW user community is met and we conclude by discussing our plans to develop MEDQUAL further and evaluate it

    Content marketing : how product presentation and search engine optimization techniques can improve the online customer experience : case study of Mercadão

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    The e-commerce market’s growing competitiveness forced companies to stand out with strategies that meet consumers’ needs. In fact, the online channel is still not well accepted by many as it involves some challenges related to the “need to touch” products. With that in mind, this work seeks to understand the relevance of content marketing strategies to consumers' online experiences, proposing two research questions: “How product presentation can influence the online customer experience?” and “How SEO techniques can influence the online customer experience?”. To address these, case study research was carried out based on Mercadão’s activity and, to understand the e-commerce market and the company’s activity, some data was collected by direct observation, considering my internship at the company. Quantitative studies were developed that allowed to acquire important knowledge on the brand responses and the importance consumers attach to online product presentations and SEO techniques. Studies’ results showed that consumers identify product presentation and informative product descriptions as important and decisive factors in their online shopping experiences. They also demonstrated to be sensitive to brands that appear in 1st in search engines and considered important to have easy and efficient access to websites. These outcomes allowed to conclude how crucial it is for online companies to consider those strategies to meet consumers' needs, developing better online customer experiences.O crescente aumento da competitividade no mercado do e-commerce, obrigou as empresas a diferenciarem-se com estratégias que vão ao encontro das necessidades dos consumidores. De facto, o canal online não é ainda aceite por muitos, pois envolve vários desafios relacionados com a “necessidade de toque” dos produtos. Assim, este trabalho pretende compreender a relevância de estratégias de content marketing para as experiências online dos consumidores, propondo duas questões de investigação: “Como é que a apresentação de produto pode influenciar a experiência online dos clientes?” e “Como é que as técnicas de SEO podem influenciar a experiência online dos clientes?”. Para responder às questões, foi desenvolvido um caso de estudo baseado na atividade do Mercadão e, para melhor compreender o mercado do e-commerce e a atividade da empresa, alguns dados foram recolhidos através de observação direta, ao longo do meu estágio na empresa. Três estudos quantitativos foram desenvolvidos que permitiram obter informações cruciais em relação à marca Mercadão e à importância que os consumidores atribuem à apresentação online de produtos e às técnicas de SEO. Os resultados dos estudos demonstraram que os consumidores identificam as apresentações e descrições informativas dos produtos como fatores importantes e decisivos nas suas experiências de compras online. Para além disso, demonstraram ser sensíveis às marcas que aparecem em 1º nos motores de busca e consideraram importante o acesso fácil e eficiente aos websites das marcas. Assim, concluiu-se o quão importante é que as empresas considerem estas estratégias para responderem às necessidades dos consumidores, melhorando as suas experiências de compras online

    NASA Data Archive Evaluation

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    The purpose of this study was to expose a range of naive individuals to the NASA Data Archive and to obtain feedback from them, with the goal of learning how useful people with varied backgrounds would find the Archive for research and other purposes. We processed 36 subjects in four experimental categories, designated in this report as C+R+, C+R-, C-R+ and C-R-, for computer experienced researchers, computer experienced non-researchers, non-computer experienced researchers, and non-computer experienced non-researchers, respectively. This report includes an assessment of general patterns of subject responses to the various aspects of the NASA Data Archive. Some of the aspects examined were interface-oriented, addressing such issues as whether the subject was able to locate information, figure out how to perform desired information retrieval tasks, etc. Other aspects were content-related. In doing these assessments, answers given to different questions were sometimes combined. This practice reflects the tendency of the subjects to provide answers expressing their experiences across question boundaries. Patterns of response are cross-examined by subject category in order to bring out deeper understandings of why subjects reacted the way they did to the archive. After the general assessment, there will be a more extensive summary of the replies received from the test subjects

    Improving infinIT Usability at EMC Corporation

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    The purpose of this MQP was to assist the Client Experience Team at EMC Corporation in redesigning the user experience of a globally used internal portal at EMC. The MQP team conducted two benchmarking and two formative studies to assess the portal’s current state and identify improvement opportunities. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods such as eye-tracking, surveys, and interviews, the results of the bench marking studies were used to propose recommendations for improving the portal’s content, layout, and visual appeal. The results of the formative studies confirmed the effectiveness of the recommendations and provided insight for the next step in the process. This MQP served as an integral part of the User Centric Software Development Life Cycle at EMC IT

    Undergraduate Admissions Decisions of Selective Institutions: The Impact of Social Media Information

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    This causal comparative study examines the impact of decisions made by college admissions personnel at colleges and universities ranked as Highly Competitive, Highly Competitive Plus, Most Competitive, Very Competitive, and Very Competitive Plus by Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges (2018). Admissions representatives were asked to evaluate social media content of hypothetical applicants to their institution then complete a trait inference task based on the Deese-Roediger-McDermott false recognition paradigm. A total of 413 institutions were invited to participate in the online activity to establish the effect of online impression formation by admissions personnel and its impact on admissions decisions. The survey was completed by 44 institutional admissions representatives (n = 44). Admissions decisions results were then compared for effects of the treatment utilizing two one-way ANOVAs. A Welch’s t-test was then utilized to compare decisions between institutions with a self-reported policy regarding inclusion of social media in admissions decisions and those without such a policy in place. Results found significance on the false recognition paradigm, but not on admissions decisions based on the social media posts nor when institutions were classified by the presence of an institutional policy regarding its use in the admissions process. Thus, it was determined this sample of admissions personnel made spontaneous trait inferences from social media posts of hypothetical applicants. Suggestions for future research are included

    Dreamstime.com v. Google

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    AH 2003 : workshop on adaptive hypermedia and adaptive web-based systems

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