Searching the World-Wide-Web using nucleotide and peptide sequences

*Background:* No approaches have yet been developed to allow instant searching of the World-Wide-Web by just entering a string of sequence data. Though general search engines can be tuned to accept ‘processed’ queries, the burden of preparing such ‘search strings’ simply defeats the purpose of quickly locating highly relevant information. Unlike ‘sequence similarity’ searches that employ dedicated algorithms (like BLAST) to compare an input sequence from defined databases, a direct ‘sequence based’ search simply locates quick and relevant information about a blunt piece of nucleotide or peptide sequence. This approach is particularly invaluable to all biomedical researchers who would often like to enter a sequence and quickly locate any pertinent information before proceeding to carry out detailed sequence alignment. 

*Results:* Here, we describe the theory and implementation of a web-based front-end for a search engine, like Google, which accepts sequence fragments and interactively retrieves a collection of highly relevant links and documents, in real-time. e.g. flat files like patent records, privately hosted sequence documents and regular databases. 

*Conclusions:* The importance of this simple yet highly relevant tool will be evident when with a little bit of tweaking, the tool can be engineered to carry out searches on all kinds of hosted documents in the World-Wide-Web.

*Availability:* Instaseq is free web based service that can be accessed by visiting the following hyperlink on the WWW
http://instaseq.georgetown.edu 
&#xa

Quality of Information Regarding Repair Restorations on Dentist Websites: Systematic Search and Analysis

Background: Repairing instead of replacing partially defective dental restorations represents a minimally invasive treatment concept, and repairs are associated with advantages over complete restoration replacement. To participate in the shared decision-making process when facing partially defective restorations, patients need to be aware of the indications, limitations, and advantages or disadvantages of repairs. Patients are increasingly using the internet to gain health information like this online. Objective: We aimed to assess the quality of German-speaking dentist websites on repairs of partially defective restorations. Methods: Three electronic search engines were used to identify German-speaking websites of dental practices mentioning repairs. Regarding information on repairs, websites were assessed for (1) technical and functional aspects, (2) comprehensiveness of information, and (3) generic quality and risk of bias. Domains 1 and 3 were scored using validated tools (LIDA and DISCERN). Comprehensiveness was assessed using a criterion checklist related to evidence, advantages and disadvantages, restorations and defects suitable for repairs, and information regarding technical implementation. Generalized linear modeling was used to assess the impact of practice-specific parameters (practice location, practice setting, dental society membership, and year of examination or license to practice dentistry) on the quality of information. An overall quality score was calculated by averaging the quality scores of all three domains and used as primary outcome parameter. Quality scores of all three domains were also assessed individually and used as secondary outcomes. Results: Fifty websites were included. The median score of quality of information was 23.2% (interquartile range [IQR] 21.7%-26.2%). Technical and functional aspects (55.2% [IQR 51.7%-58.6%]) showed significantly higher quality than comprehensiveness of information (8.3% [IQR 8.3%-16.7%]) and generic quality and risk of bias (3.6% [IQR 0.0%-7.1%]; P.05/generalized linear modeling). Conclusions: The quality of German-speaking dentist websites on repairs was limited. Despite sufficient technical and functional quality, the provided information was neither comprehensive nor trustworthy. There is great need to improve the quality of information to fully and reliably inform patients, thereby allowing shared decision making

The Current State of Online Philanthropy

Based on an analysis of fifty-five online nonprofit databases and giving platforms, examines the range and quality of information and services provided, the providers, the users, the distribution of traffic among the sites, and areas for improvement

Optimising content clarity for human-machine systems

This paper details issues associated with the production of clearly expressed and comprehensible technical documentation for domestic appliances and human-machine systems, and describes an approach to optimising the clarity of such content. The aim is to develop support for authors in checking the likely comprehensibility of chosen forms of expression by reference to an external measure of 'likely familiarity'. Our DOcumentation Support Tool (DoST) will assist in identifying words and expression forms that are likely to be unfamiliar to end users

Explicit diversification of event aspects for temporal summarization

During major events, such as emergencies and disasters, a large volume of information is reported on newswire and social media platforms. Temporal summarization (TS) approaches are used to automatically produce concise overviews of such events by extracting text snippets from related articles over time. Current TS approaches rely on a combination of event relevance and textual novelty for snippet selection. However, for events that span multiple days, textual novelty is often a poor criterion for selecting snippets, since many snippets are textually unique but are semantically redundant or non-informative. In this article, we propose a framework for the diversification of snippets using explicit event aspects, building on recent works in search result diversification. In particular, we first propose two techniques to identify explicit aspects that a user might want to see covered in a summary for different types of event. We then extend a state-of-the-art explicit diversification framework to maximize the coverage of these aspects when selecting summary snippets for unseen events. Through experimentation over the TREC TS 2013, 2014, and 2015 datasets, we show that explicit diversification for temporal summarization significantly outperforms classical novelty-based diversification, as the use of explicit event aspects reduces the amount of redundant and off-topic snippets returned, while also increasing summary timeliness

Questionnaire surveys to discover academic staff and library staff perceptions of a National Union catalogue

During the feasibility study into a National Union catalogue for the UK (UKNUC), a questionnaire survey was undertaken of the needs of both academic staff in higher education and library staff. A response rate of 40-50 per cent was achieved, 846 questionnaires being returned for academics and 724 for librarians. The analysis suggests that a UKNUC would be highly valued and heavily used by all categories. Academics felt it would have a positive effect on their information searching, and wished to include the holdings of the British Library, and libraries of both the major research universities and the ``traditional’’ universities. They wanted it to be comprehensive and easy to use, to include locations of both books and journals, and to facilitate subject collection searching. Library staff have similar priorities to academics, although there are more variations by sector and a recognition of a UKNUC’s value as a potential source of bibliographic records

An Assessment of Cross-National Regulatory Burden Comparisons

The Article compares several rankings systems for national regulatory compliance costs. It finds the ranking systems are limited to differentiating between those countries least burdened by regulation from those most burdened by regulation. It concludes the rankings could be an important tool for deciding which countries would be the most promising for regulatory burden reduction initiatives

An Assessment of Cross-National Regulatory Burden Comparisons

The Article compares several rankings systems for national regulatory compliance costs. It finds the ranking systems are limited to differentiating between those countries least burdened by regulation from those most burdened by regulation. It concludes the rankings could be an important tool for deciding which countries would be the most promising for regulatory burden reduction initiatives