Innovations in Discovery Systems: User Studies and the Bento Approach

Over the past 30 years, library discovery services have evolved through expanded OPACs, federated search systems employing broadcast searching; Web-scale discovery systems (WSDS) that aggregate metadata and full-text content into a single integrated index; and, currently, hybrid bento-style systems that use federated techniques over WSDS, OPACs, and local information content. The bento systems partition search results into separate zoned screen displays grouped by content format type and/or local service results. Recent studies on Web-scale discovery systems have identified a number of user access issues centering on problems with blended result displays, problematical relevancy rankings of search results, full-text search problems, and the inability of WSDS to adequately provide access to local library services and resources. The concept of “full library discovery,” a phrase first coined by Lorcan Dempsey, has been introduced to refer to discovery approaches that move beyond the retrieval of collection materials to also include local information services and local content and links. The bento-based systems are an attempt to address the identified problems with WSDS and also provide discovery services that address user needs, in particular known item search and streamlined full-text access. This presentation will provide an analysis of the 38 libraries presently employing the bento approach and will look at identified user needs and search behaviors, as revealed in detailed search and clickthrough transaction log analyses. There is a clear need for an evidence-based analysis of user search behaviors in retrieval environments characterized by access to distributed information resources

Modelling and trading the Greek stock market with gene expression and genetic programing algorithms

This paper presents an application of the gene expression programming (GEP) and integrated genetic programming (GP) algorithms to the modelling of ASE 20 Greek index. GEP and GP are robust evolutionary algorithms that evolve computer programs in the form of mathematical expressions, decision trees or logical expressions. The results indicate that GEP and GP produce significant trading performance when applied to ASE 20 and outperform the well-known existing methods. The trading performance of the derived models is further enhanced by applying a leverage filter

Tabs and Tabulations: Results of a Transaction Log Analysis of a Tabbed-Search Interface

The following study analyzes user search behavior using a tabbedsearch interface. For this study, a transaction log was used to collect information about user searches and included tab used; search terms; date, time, and location of search (on campus or off campus); as well as a unique ID to identify the user session and another ID to identify each transaction. This article explains the process for examining 4,300 search queries conducted on the library homepage during an academic semester and presents findings from the analysis. The article also details enhancements that were made to the tabbed-search interface as a result of the transaction log analysis. Additionally, the article discusses the merits of using a transaction log as a method of ongoing assessment of a library Web site’s search interface

The effect of open innovation activities during unstable economic conditions on subsequent product innovation performance: an analysis of German SMEs

During the past decades, the business environment experienced vast changes and unstable economic conditions. The recent economic crisis had a pervasive influence on companies’ viability and inhibited them in their innovation efforts. As a matter of fact, SMEs that typically possess fewer resources are even more constrained and affected during recessions. Much literature highlighted the strategic importance of Open Innovation practices for innovation performance. Specifically, technological co-operation is assumed to be one of the most effective Open Innovation activity that brings in external resources and thus influences product innovation performance. Nonetheless, even though some literature examined what types of companies are able to maintain or increase innovative efforts during recessions, few studies investigated in how far economic recessions change the willingness of companies to open up their innovation practices and the effect of R&D co-operation on subsequent product innovation performance. This research study investigates if open innovation activities are a possible strategy for SMEs to weather economic recessions and positively impact subsequent product innovation performance. Consequently, is gradually opening up innovation activities and participating in R&D co-operation during crisis beneficial? Having analyzed data of German SMEs, the study confirms that a higher degree of openness, compared to a closed innovation system during crisis positively affects radical and incremental innovation performance. Furthermore, R&D co-operation is more likely to affect only incremental performance. However, only vertical co-operation is found to be significant, whereas engaging with multiple different co-operation partners even deteriorates innovation performance

The “Black Box”: How Students Use a Single Search Box to Search for Music Materials

Given the inherent challenges music materials present to systems and searchers (formats, title forms and languages, and the presence of additional metadata such as work numbers and keys), it is reasonable that those searching for music develop distinctive search habits compared to patrons in other subject areas. This study uses transaction log analysis of the music and performing arts module of a library’s federated discovery tool to determine how patrons search for music materials. It also makes a top-level comparison of searches done using other broadly defined subject disciplines’ modules in the same discovery tool. It seeks to determine, to the extent possible, whether users in each group have different search behaviors in this search environment. The study also looks more closely at searches in the music module to identify other search characteristics such as type of search conducted, use of advanced search techniques, and any other patterns of search behavior.Ope

Modelling cellphone trace travel mode with neural networks using transit smartcard and home interview survey data

This study proposes a framework to impute travel mode for trips identified from cellphone traces by developing a deep neural network model. In our framework, we use the trips from a home interview survey and transit smartcard data, for which the travel mode is known, to create a set of artificial pseudo-cellphone traces. The generated artificial pseudo-cellphone traces with known mode are then used to train a deep neural network classifier. We further apply the trained model to infer travel modes for the cellphone traces from cellular network data. The empirical case study region is Montevideo, Uruguay, where high-quality data are available for all three types of data used in the analysis: a large dataset of cellphone traces, a large dataset of public transit smartcard transactions, and a small household travel survey. The results can be used to create an enhanced representation of origin-destination trip-making in the region by time of day and travel mode

Use and Usability of a Discovery Tool in an Academic Library

In order to assess the use and usability of a new discovery tool, staff at the University of Kansas Libraries conducted usability tests with twenty-seven users and analyzed three semesters of the tool’s usage as measured by custom event tracking implemented in Google Analytics and usage statistics drawn from the discovery tool and server logs. An initial study with sixteen users was conducted prior to launching the new tool, and a subsequent study with eleven users was conducted a semester after the launch. This article describes test participants’ success using the new tool to complete basic library research tasks, details the specific features they used in their attempts (e.g., facets, “did you mean” suggestions), and identifies areas where changes were made to address problems identified in the studies, including changes outside the tool itself. In addition, comparisons between feature use in the discovery system as observed in usability testing and feature use as measured by event tracking and log analysis are discussed, including implications for the design of future tests

Carbon markets, institutions, policies, and research

The scale of investment needed to slow greenhouse gas emissions is larger than governments can manage through transfers. Therefore, climate change policies rely heavily on markets and private capital. This is especially true in the case of the Kyoto Protocol with its provisions for trade and investment injoint projects. This paper describes institutions and policies important for new carbon markets and explains their origins. Research efforts that explore conceptual aspects of current policy are surveyed along with empirical studies that make predictions about how carbon markets will work and perform. The authors summarize early investment and price outcomes from newly formed markets and point out areas where markets have preformed as predicted and areas where markets remain incomplete. Overall the scale of carbon-market investment planned exceeds earlier expectations, but the geographic dispersion of investment is uneven and important opportunities for abatement remain untapped in some sectors, indicating a need for additional research on how investment markets work. How best to promote the development and deployment of new technologies is another promising area for study identified in the paper.Carbon Policy and Trading,Energy and Environment,Environment and Energy Efficiency,Climate Change,Transport and Environment

Use of Discovery Tools in ARL Libraries

Libraries provide discovery tools as a means to bring together resources that will assist researchers in locating the best sources for their information needs. As the Web evolves and user expectations for library resources change, librarians are questioning the effectiveness of these tools and are considering if libraries should explore other options that could provide a similar or better user experience. Survey invitations were e-mailed to academic libraries that were members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to investigate current trends in the use of discovery tools at their institutions. Twenty-five of the 112 libraries responded. The survey results point to areas where improvements are most needed

Economic Impacts of GO TO 2040

The economy of the Chicago metropolitan region has reached a critical juncture. On the one hand, Chicagoland is currently a highly successful global region with extraordinary assets and outputs. The region successfully made the transition in the 1980s and 1990s from a primarily industrial to a knowledge and service-based economy. It has high levels of human capital, with strong concentrations in information-sector industries and knowledge-based functional clusters -- a headquarters region with thriving finance, business services, law, IT and emerging bioscience, advanced manufacturing and similar high-growth sectors. It combines multiple deep areas of specialization, providing the resilience that comes from economic diversity. It is home to the abundant quality-of-life amenities that flow from business and household prosperity.On the other hand, beneath this static portrait of our strengths lie disturbing signs of a potential loss of momentum. Trends in the last decade reveal slowing rates, compared to other regions, of growth in productivity and gross metropolitan product. Trends in innovation, new firm creation and employment are comparably lagging. The region also faces emerging challenges with respect to both spatial efficiency and governance.In this context, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) has just released GO TO 2040, its comprehensive, long-term plan for the Chicago metropolitan area. The plan contains recommendations aimed at shaping a wide range of regional characteristics over the next 30 years, during which time more than 2 million new residents are anticipated. Among the chief goals of GO TO 2040 are increasing the region's long-term economic prosperity, sustaining a high quality of life for the region's current and future residents and making the most effective use of public investments. To this end, the plan addresses a broad scope of interrelated issues which, in aggregate, will shape the long-term physical, economic, institutional and social character of the region.This report by RW Ventures, LLC is an independent assessment of the plan from a purely economic perspective, addressing the impacts that GO TO 2040's recommendations can be expected to have on the future of the regional economy. The assessment begins by describing how implementation of GO TO 2040's recommendations would affect the economic landscape of the region; reviews economic research and practice about the factors that influence regional economic growth; and, given both of these, articulates and illustrates the likely economic impacts that will flow from implementation of the plan. In the course of reviewing the economic implications of the plan, the assessment also provides recommendations of further steps, as the plan is implemented, for increasing its positive impact on economic growth