Synchronous collaborative information retrieval with relevance feedback

Collaboration has been identified as an important aspect in information seeking. People meet to discuss and share ideas and through this interaction an information need is quite often identified. However the process of resolving this information need, through interacting with a search engine and performing a search task, is still an individual activity. We propose an environment which allows users to collaborate to satisfy a shared information need. We discuss ways to divide the search task amongst collaborators and propose the use of relevance feedback, a common information retrieval process, to enable the transfer of knowledge across collaborators during a search session. We describe the process by which co-searchers can collaborate effectively with little redundancy and how we can combine relevance judgements from multiple searchers into a coherent model for synchronous collaborative information retrieva

Effect of urban vs. rural residence on the association between atopy and wheeze in Latin America: findings from a case-control analysis.

BACKGROUND: The association between atopy and asthma is attenuated in non-affluent populations, an effect that may be explained by childhood infections such as geohelminths. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between atopy and wheeze in schoolchildren living in urban and rural areas of Ecuador and examine the effects of geohelminths on this association. METHODS: We performed nested case-control studies among comparable populations of schoolchildren living in rural communities and urban neighbourhoods in the Province of Esmeraldas, Ecuador. We detected geohelminths in stool samples, measured recent wheeze and environmental exposures by parental questionnaire, and atopy by specific IgE (sIgE) and skin prick test (SPT) reactivity to aeroallergens. RESULTS: Atopy, particularly sIgE to house dust mite (HDM), was more strongly associated with recent wheeze in urban than rural schoolchildren: (urban, adj. OR 5.19, 95% CI 3.37-8.00, P < 0.0001; rural, adj. OR 1.81, 95%CI 1.09-2.99, P = 0.02; interaction, P < 0.001). The population fractions of wheeze attributable to atopy were approximately two-fold greater in urban schoolchildren: SPT to any allergen (urban 23.5% vs. rural 10.1%), SPT to HDM (urban 18.5% vs. rural 9.6%), and anti-HDM IgE (urban 26.5% vs. rural 10.5%), while anti-Ascaris IgE was related to wheeze in a high proportion of rural (49.7%) and urban (35.4%) children. The association between atopy and recent wheeze was attenuated by markers of geohelminth infections. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that urban residence modifies the association between HDM atopy and recent wheeze, and this effect is explained partly by geohelminth infections

DCU and UTA at ImageCLEFPhoto 2007

Dublin City University (DCU) and University of Tampere(UTA) participated in the ImageCLEF 2007 photographic ad-hoc retrieval task with several monolingual and bilingual runs. Our approach was language independent: text retrieval based on fuzzy s-gram query translation was combined with visual retrieval. Data fusion between text and image content was performed using unsupervised query-time weight generation approaches. Our baseline was a combination of dictionary-based query translation and visual retrieval, which achieved the best result. The best mixed modality runs using fuzzy s-gram translation achieved on average around 83% of the performance of the baseline. Performance was more similar when only top rank precision levels of P10 and P20 were considered. This suggests that fuzzy sgram query translation combined with visual retrieval is a cheap alternative for cross-lingual image retrieval where only a small number of relevant items are required. Both sets of results emphasize the merit of our query-time weight generation schemes for data fusion, with the fused runs exhibiting marked performance increases over single modalities, this is achieved without the use of any prior training data

Risk of Tooth Loss After Cigarette Smoking Cessation

INTRODUCTION. Little is known about the effect of cigarette smoking cessation on risk of tooth loss. We examined how risk of tooth loss changed with longer periods of smoking abstinence in a prospective study of oral health in men. METHODS. Research subjects were 789 men who participated in the Veterans Administration Dental Longitudinal Study from 1968 to 2004. Tooth status and smoking status were determined at examinations performed every 3 years, for a maximum follow-up time of 35 years. Risk of tooth loss subsequent to smoking cessation was assessed sequentially at 1-year intervals with multivariate proportional hazards regression models. Men who never smoked cigarettes, cigars, or pipes formed the reference group. Hazard ratios were adjusted for age, education, total pack-years of cigarette exposure, frequency of brushing, and use of floss. RESULTS. The hazard ratio for tooth loss was 2.1 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.5-3.1) among men who smoked cigarettes during all or part of follow-up. Risk of tooth loss among men who quit smoking declined as time after smoking cessation increased, from 2.0 (95% CI, 1.4-2.9) after 1 year of abstinence to 1.0 (95% CI, 0.5-2.2) after 15 years of abstinence. The risk remained significantly elevated for the first 9 years of abstinence but eventually dropped to the level of men who never smoked after 13 or more years. CONCLUSION. These results indicate that smoking cessation is beneficial for tooth retention, but long-term abstinence is required to reduce the risk to the level of people who have never smoked.U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Epidemiology (Merit Review grant); Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center; National Institutes of Health (R01 DA10073, R03 DE016357, R15 DE12644, K24 DE00419

Pengaruh Terapi Kelompok Suportif Terhadap Tingkat Ansietas Keluarga Dalam Merawat Anak Tunagrahita

Mental retardation is a special needs child who has a physical or social limitations that need care and responsibilities of all time. Care and responsibility it takes time, effort, and cost quite a bit, and could pose a anxiety to the family, so the need to strengthen support in the form of supportive group therapy. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of supportive group therapy toward the anxiety level in the care of children at SLB Banyumas District. This study used a quasi experimental design, pre-post test with control group, which will be compared to family anxiety levels between the intervention group and the control group. The results of the statistical test obtained p value of 0.008 indicating a significant difference in anxiety levels between the family intervention group and the control group after administration of supportive group therapy (p≤: 0.05). Supportive group therapy contributes to improved family functioning psychologically so as to reduce anxiety levels of caring for mental retardation. Recommendations of this study is to establish a parent support group in SLB, composed of families who have children with mental retardation

Towards the disintermediation of creative music search: Analysing queries to determine important facets

Purpose: Creative professionals search for music to accompany moving images in films, advertising, television. Some larger music rights holders (record companies and music publishers) organise their catalogues to allow online searching. These digital libraries are organised by various subjective musical facets as well as by artist and title metadata. The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of written queries relating to creative music search, contextualised and discussed within the findings of text analyses of a larger research project whose aim is to investigate meaning making in this search process. Method: A facet analysis of a collection of written music queries is discussed in relation to the organisation of the music in a selection of bespoke search engines. Results: Subjective facets, in particular Mood, are found to be highly important in query formation. Unusually, detailed Music Structural aspects are also key. Conclusions: These findings are discussed in relation to disintermediation of this process. It is suggested that there are barriers to this, both in terms of classification and also commercial / legal factors

Les pratiques informationnelles individuelles et collectives

Communication faite lors de la journée d\u27étude Thémat\u27IC 2007 "La maîtrise de l\u27information par les adultes : enjeux et méthodes", Strasbourg, mars 2007

Information science research via graduate education in Cuba up to the year 2010

Los estudios de posgraduación en cualquier campo del conocimiento suponen un elevado nivel de especialización en los resultados de investigación. Conocer la evolución de la producción investigadora a través de parámetros empleados en la evaluación de la ciencia, como los indicadores bibliométricos, adquiere, por tanto, relevancia cuando los datos que se analizan provienen de estudios de este tipo. En este artículo se analiza el caso de la investigación posgraduada en el campo de la información en Cuba y se ofrecen resultados a través del análisis de indicadores, como la cantidad de tesis defendidas por año y grado, los tutores más productivos, la colaboración en la tutoría, el comportamiento de estas investigaciones por línea de investigación, así como los tópicos más estudiados y los tipos de investigación predominantes en el campo. También se analiza la filiación institucional y geográfica de los graduados. Del total de 156 tesis, 35 son de doctorado y 121 de maestría. Los tutores más representados son figuras prestigiosas de la especialidad; la línea de investigación más tratada es la relacionada con la gestión documental, de información y del conocimiento y la mayor parte de las investigaciones (71 %) son de carácter empírico. La mayor parte de los egresados de programas de posgrado en la especialidad pertenecen al Ministerio de Educación Superior y se concentran mayoritariamente en la capital del país.Graduate studies in any area of knowledge presuppose a high level of specialization in research results. Understanding the evolution of research production usingscience evaluation parameters such as bibliometric indicators, is even more relevant when the data under analysis come from this type of study. The paper examines the status of graduate research in the field of information science in Cuba. The results provided are based on the analysis of indicators such as the number of theses submitted per year and degree, the most productive supervisors, the number of joint supervisions, the behavior of research tasks per research line, the topics most frequently dealt with, and the predominant research types in the field. An analysis is also conducted of the institutional affiliation and geographic location of graduates. Of the total 156 theses, 35 are doctoral and 121 correspond to the master's degree. The most represented supervisors are prestigious professionals from the specialty. The most common research line was document, information and knowledge management, and most studies (71%) were empirical. Most participants in graduate programs from the specialty belong to the Ministry of Higher Education and most of them live in the country's capital

İstanbul Üniversitesi Bilgi ve Belge Yönetimi Bölümü’nde Araştırma Eğilimleri 1967-2008: Lisansüstü Tezlerinin İçerik Analizi

The main purpose of this study is to identify and discuss the research trends in the Department of Information Management, Istanbul University through content analysis of the graduate theses which were submitted to the Department for the period from 1967-2008. In order to achieve this purpose, firstly, a total of 58 master’s and PhD theses were investigated in terms of organization context, topic, method and the data collection techniques for period from 1995 to 2008. The classification schemes for topics and research methods of LIS used in the content analysis were those based on Jarvelin and Vakkari's. Apart from the master’s and PhD theses, the data provided in the article written by Yontar (1995) has also been referred to obtain pertinent findings for the period from 1967-1994. These data sources have provided an opportunity to compare the obtained results and helped to determine trends. The overall findings reveal that the total number of theses has tripled over the last 15 years. Although it is encouraging to see the increase in the numbers, a strong interest in certain subcategories (in terms of organization context, topic, and method) can be seen as a problem. The article also discusses the reasons for this problem.Bu araştırmanın temel amacı, İstanbul Üniversitesi Bilgi ve Belge Yönetimi Bölümü’ndeki araştırma eğilimlerini, 1967-2008 yılları arasında tamamlanmış lisansüstü tezlerini içerik analizi yöntemiyle inceleyerek belirlemektir. Bu amacı gerçekleştirmek üzere, öncelikle 1995-2008 yılları arasında İstanbul Üniversitesi Bilgi ve Belge Yönetimi Bölümü’nde yapılmış 58 lisansüstü tezinde incelenen örgüt türleri, ana ve alt konular ile kullanılan araştırma stratejileri (yöntem türleri) ve veri toplama teknikleri içerik analizi yöntemiyle incelenmiştir. Bu amaçla Jarvelin ve Vakkari (1990; 1993) ’nin içerik analizi modeli kullanılmıştır. 1967-1994 yılları arasında yapılmış tezler, Yontar (1995) tarafından daha önce içerik analizi yöntemiyle incelendiğinden bu araştırmada tekrar analiz edilmemiş; fakat, Yontar’ın 1967-1994 yılları arasındaki döneme ilişkin olarak elde ettiği bulgular, 1995-2008 dönemiyle karşılaştırma yapmak üzere kullanılmış; böylece, hem dönemler arasındaki benzerlikler ve farklılıklar belirlenmeye, hem de Bölüm’ün araştırma eğilimlerine/karakteristiklerine toplu bir bakış (1967-2008) sağlanmaya çalışılmıştır. Araştırmanın genel sonuçlarıİstanbul Üniversitesi Bilgi ve Belge Yönetimi Bölümü’nde Araştırma Eğilimleri 1967-2008: Lisansüstü Tezlerinin İçerik AnaliziResearch Trends in the Department of Information Management, Istanbul University 1967-2008: A Content Analysis of the Graduate Theses        | 536göstermektedir ki, son 15 yılda, Bölüm’de yapılan lisansüstü tezlerinin sayısı en az üçe katlanmıştır. Sayısal artış sevindiricidir; fakat incelenen tezlerin belirli birkaç alt kategori (örgüt türü, konu ve yöntem açılarından) altında yoğunlaşması sorun olarak görülebilecek bir tür dengesizliğe işaret etmektedir. Çalışmada, bu durumun nedenleri de açıklanmaya çalışılmaktadır