Summarization from Medical Documents: A Survey

Objective: The aim of this paper is to survey the recent work in medical documents summarization. Background: During the last decade, documents summarization got increasing attention by the AI research community. More recently it also attracted the interest of the medical research community as well, due to the enormous growth of information that is available to the physicians and researchers in medicine, through the large and growing number of published journals, conference proceedings, medical sites and portals on the World Wide Web, electronic medical records, etc. Methodology: This survey gives first a general background on documents summarization, presenting the factors that summarization depends upon, discussing evaluation issues and describing briefly the various types of summarization techniques. It then examines the characteristics of the medical domain through the different types of medical documents. Finally, it presents and discusses the summarization techniques used so far in the medical domain, referring to the corresponding systems and their characteristics. Discussion and conclusions: The paper discusses thoroughly the promising paths for future research in medical documents summarization. It mainly focuses on the issue of scaling to large collections of documents in various languages and from different media, on personalization issues, on portability to new sub-domains, and on the integration of summarization technology in practical applicationsComment: 21 pages, 4 table

An Investigation into the design and effectiveness of interactive multimedia interfaces

Human abilities should be amplified, not impeded, by using computers -- Mark T. Maybury In an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of various screen interfaces utilized in interactive multimedia, an interactive thesis project was prepared to conduct tests. Walt Disney anima tion was chosen for the theme. The project was duplicated so that there were three identical copies - each representing different styles of interface navigation, button feedback, and Help systems. The multimedia projects were displayed on neighboring computers simul taneously so that a person could move directly from one to another with ease and no disrup tions. Each person was given an evaluation sheet for each multimedia project and completed them one at a time. The sheets were then tallied and analyzed for signs of favoritism toward any style in particular. Multimedia interfaces are computer interfaces that communicate with users using multiple media (e.g., language, graphics, animation, video, non-speech audio), sometimes using multiple modes together such as written text together with spoken language (Maybury, 1993). The three styles of interface navigation that the author tested are as follows; a rectangular navigation palette containing all necessary buttons, a navigation bar on the bottom right containing general navigation buttons with the more specific buttons next to their representative areas on the monitor, and last, an interface with all of the buttons scattered across the monitor. For button feedback, visual feedback (highlighting a button) was tested against verbal feed back (a click ). One interface had no button feedback at all. One Help system was created as a diagram, one animated, and one that was text only. Interfaces are critical in determining the success and/or failure of any piece of multimedia on the market today. The main goal of most multimedia projects is to present information of some kind. Many of the CD-ROMs on the market today have vastly different interfaces even for the most basic of commands. This adds to the consumer\u27s confusion as to how to navigate through a project to find the desired information. This project yielded some surprising results, for instance, one class, when verbally surveyed after testing and evaluating the multimedia projects, gave responses that were equally divided into thirds when asked which interface navigation method they preferred. This was as sur prising to the author as it was to them who each clearly thought that their method was the best (and proceeded to try and tell each other so rather loudly). Another interesting result found was that males preferred the verbal button feedback ( click ) and the females preferred the visual button feedback (highlighting the button). In some cases, the males did not notice the visual feedback until it was discussed at the end of class. The results of this project provided some much needed interface design statistics and com ments which will enable designers to better understand consumer preferences and make appropriate changes to any future projects

Multimedia Information Retrieval nelle biblioteche

The paper aims to introduce libraries to the view that operating within the terms of traditional Information Retrieval (IR), only through textual language, is limitative, and that considering broader criteria, as those of Multimedia Information Retrieval (MIR), is necessary. The paper stresses the story of MIR fundamental principles, from early years of questioning on documentation to today’s theories on semantic means. New issues for a LIS methodology of processing and searching multimedia documents are theoretically argued, introducing MIR as a holistic whole composed by content-based and semantic information retrieval methodologies. MIR offers a better information searching way: every kind of digital document can be analyzed and retrieved through the elements of language appropriate to its own nature. MIR approach directly handles the concrete content of documents, also considering semantic aspects. Paper conclusions remark the organic integration of the revolutionary contentual conception of information processing with an improved semantics conception, gathering and composing advantages of both systems for accessing to information.L'articolo vuole introdurre le biblioteche alla prospettiva che operare entro i termini dell'Information Retrieval (IR) tradizionale mediante il solo uso del linguaggio testuale è limitativo, e che prendere in considerazione i criteri più ampi del Multimedia Information Retrieval (MIR) è invece necessario. L'articolo illustra la storia dei principi fondamentali del MIR, a partire dai primi anni di dibattito sulla documentazione fino alle teorie odierne sui significati semantici. Vengono dibattute nuovi argomentazioni teoriche per una metodologia LIS di trattamento e ricerca di documenti multimediali, proponendo il MIR come un tutto olistico composto da metolodogie di information retrieval semantico e basato sul contenuto. Il MIR offre modalità di ricerca migliori: ogni tipologia di documento digitale può essere analizzata e recuperata attraverso elementi del linguaggio appropriato alla sua specifica natura. L'approccio del MIR si basa sulla gestione diretta del contenuto dei documenti, considerando anche gli aspetti semantici. Le conclusioni dell'articolo rimarcano l'integrazione organica della rivoluzione della concezione di tipo contenutistico del trattamento dell'informazione con una concezione semantica migliorata, raccogliendo e componendo i vantaggi di entrambi i sistemi per l'accesso all'informazione