Examining assessor attributes at HARD 2005

The TREC HARD (High accuracy Retrieval from Documents) track was motivated to investigate techniques for personalised retrieval of documents. Through the use of a limited dialogue with the TREC assessors, the track facilitated the gathering and exploitation of information about the assessors' personal search context (e.g. knowledge of search topic) which could be used to improve document retrieval. In this paper we describe experiments, run within the context of the 2005 HARD track, which indicate that assessor attributes such as familiarity, interest and confidence when searching a topic can help determine when the utilisation of automatic query expansion improves retrieval over the original document ranking

A multi-collection latent topic model for federated search

Collection selection is a crucial function, central to the effectiveness and efficiency of a federated information retrieval system. A variety of solutions have been proposed for collection selection adapting proven techniques used in centralised retrieval. This paper defines a new approach to collection selection that models the topical distribution in each collection. We describe an extended version of latent Dirichletallocation that uses a hierarchical hyperprior to enable the different topical distributions found in each collection to be modelled. Under the model, resources are ranked based on the topical relationship between query and collection. By modelling collections in a low dimensional topic space, we can implicitly smooth their term-based characterisation with appropriate terms from topically related samples, thereby dealing with the problem of missing vocabulary within the samples. An important advantage of adopting this hierarchical model over current approaches is that the model generalises well to unseen documents given small samples of each collection. The latent structure of each collection can therefore be estimated well despite imperfect information for each collection such as sampled documents obtained through query-based sampling. Experiments demonstrate that this new, fully integrated topical model is more robust than current state of the art collection selection algorithm

Strings with Extrinsic Curvature: An Analysis of the Crossover Regime

We present the results of a set of Monte Carlo simulations of Dynamically Triangulated Random Surfaces embedded in three dimensions with an extrinsic curvature dependent action. We analyze several observables in the crossover regime and discuss whether or not our observations are indicative of the presence of a phase transition.Comment: (Contribution to Lattice 92 Proceedings.) Latex file (5 pages), requires espcrc2.sty. 2 figures not included. Syracuse preprint SU-HEP-4241-52

Persuasive, authorative and topical answers for complex question answering

The ciqa track investigates the role of interaction in answering complex questions: questions that relate two or more entities by some specified relationship. As in the ciqa 2006, our interest in ciqa 2007 was on contextual factors that may affect how answers are assessed. In ciqa 2006 we investigated factors such as topical knowledge or confidence in assessing answers through direct questioning – asking the ciqa assessors to directly estimate values for such variables using ordinal or categorical scales. In ciqa 2006 we found many useful relationships between personal contextual variables and how assessors judged answers. This year we were keen to follow this line of investigation, following a more specific research question: how do contextual variables affect the judgement of different types of information surrogate

Critical Slowing Down of Cluster Algorithms for Ising Models Coupled to 2-d Gravity

We simulate single and multiple Ising models coupled to 2-d gravity using both the Swendsen-Wang and Wolff algorithms to update the spins. We study the integrated autocorrelation time and find that there is considerable critical slowing down, particularly in the magnetization. We argue that this is primarily due to the local nature of the dynamical triangulation algorithm and to the generation of a distribution of baby universes which inhibits cluster growth.Comment: 7 pages including 5 postscript figures, epsf.sty late

Folksonomic Tag Clouds as an Aid to Content Indexing

Social tagging systems have recently developed as a popular method of data organisation on the Internet. These systems allow users to organise their content in a way that makes sense to them, rather than forcing them to use a pre-determined and rigid set of categorisations. These folksonomies provide well populated sources of unstructured tags describing web resources which could potentially be used as semantic index terms for these resources. However getting people to agree on what tags best describe a resource is a difficult problem, therefore any feature which increases the consistency and stability of terms chosen would be extremely beneficial. We investigate how the provision of a tag cloud, a weighted list of terms commonly used to assist in browsing a folksonomy, during the tagging process itself influences the tags produced and how difficult the user perceived the task to be. We show that illustrating the most popular tags to users assists in the tagging process and encourages a stable and consistent folksonomy to form.Comment: SIGIR 2009 Workshop on Search in Social Media (SSM 2009

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Thatcherism and independent popular music recording in the UK (1979-1990)

Discourses in the popular music press and trade journals of the post-punk period often portray ‘independence’ as an ideological end-in-itself (rather than merely an economic necessity) and opposition to corporate major labels is represented in terms of attempts to disrupt prevailing power structures in the music industry. A paradigm is constructed of major vs. indie - of protagonists and antagonists - which is often reinforced in the rhetoric of musicians, music journalists and recording industry representatives. Independence is valourised and a connection is established between the conditions of the production and distribution of music, and its cultural value. Simultaneously, such discourses frequently cite an intrinsic opposition to the policies and political philosophy of the government of Margaret Thatcher, a resistance not only embodied in numerous anti-Thatcher songs and gestures, but in the organisational practices of the independent music sector and the emergence of an ideology of independence which emphasised collectivism and co-operation (as evinced by the formation of the Cartel, a UK-wide distribution network which linked independent labels with independent retailers). Nevertheless, closer observation of the relationship between Thatcherism and popular music culture suggests a more complementary relationship than is generally suggested. For example, The Enterprise Allowance Scheme an initiative instigated to support small businesses and help create the ‘enterprise culture’ Thatcherism demanded, proved invaluable to numerous start-up record labels during this period including three of the most successful and iconic: Creation, Earache and Warp. Could, therefore, the independent labels set up during this period be regarded as examples of classic Thatcherite entrepreneurship? Or rather can the collectivism of the independent sector be seen as a repudiation of core Thatcherite values? Similarly, a critical examination of narratives around independence exposes considerable ambiguities around the relationship between independents and majors and the simplistic dichotomy of the ‘good’ independent and ‘bad’ major is frequently contested in media discourses. Such narratives also play out with regards to the vital area of distribution, as a variety of independent distributors emerge to challenge the dominancy of major label distributors. Distribution has been historically controlled by the major labels and the attempt to challenge this dominance can be regarded as the defining feature of the independent popular music recording sector during the punk and postpunk period. Examining this underresearched area of the recording industry will shed significant light on; discourses around independence, the relationship between Thatcherism and independent popular music culture (collectivism vs. entrepreneurship) and attempts to establish a genuine alternative to the economic and industrial power of major labels. The larger implication of the study will be to consider the legacy of the independent popular music recording sector of the post-punk era and the extent to which the model of independent distribution which emerged remains important to independent music production in today’s much-changed industry environment