Web Content Extraction - a Meta-Analysis of its Past and Thoughts on its Future

In this paper, we present a meta-analysis of several Web content extraction algorithms, and make recommendations for the future of content extraction on the Web. First, we find that nearly all Web content extractors do not consider a very large, and growing, portion of modern Web pages. Second, it is well understood that wrapper induction extractors tend to break as the Web changes; heuristic/feature engineering extractors were thought to be immune to a Web site's evolution, but we find that this is not the case: heuristic content extractor performance also tends to degrade over time due to the evolution of Web site forms and practices. We conclude with recommendations for future work that address these and other findings.Comment: Accepted for publication in SIGKDD Exploration

The Interaction of Adversity, Hope, Social Support, and Academic Resilience in Emerging Appalachian Adults

The negative impact of adverse childhood experiences on both short-term and long-term wellbeing has been repeatedly validated across multiple populations. While adverse childhood experiences have been thoroughly researched in many contexts, this is not the case for Appalachia, which has often been relegated to the fringe of scholarly research, resulting in an overall lack of research on Appalachia. Further lacking is research into how protective factors might be utilized to help overcome adversity. While some recent research on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences, hope, and resilience has been conducted, it too has been limited to select populations. It is for these reasons that this quantitative cross-sectional study of the relationship between adversity, hope, resilience, and perceived social support among emerging Appalachian adults was conducted. The study included 200 emerging Appalachian adults who submitted survey responses on their level of exposure to adverse childhood experiences, level of hope, level of academic resilience, and level of perceived social support. The data were analyzed using correlation analysis, linear regression analysis, and mediation and moderation analysis. The results very clearly illustrated and reinforced the negative implications of adverse childhood experiences. However, the results also reflected that higher levels of perceived social support amplified hope in individuals who have experienced adverse childhood experiences and indicated that higher levels of hope positively correlated to academic resilience. These findings supported the notion that while exposure to adverse childhood experiences is detrimental, hope can be harvested to help individuals display resilience in the face of adversity

113th Congress

Report that briefly outlines an array of science and technology policy issues that may come before the 113th Congress

Project BioShield

Many potential biological terrorism agents lack available countermeasures. President Bush proposed Project BioShield to address this need and signed into law on July 21, 2004 S. 15 (The Project BioShield Act of 2004). The main provisions of this law include (1) relaxing procedures for bioterrorism-related procurement, hiring, and awarding of research grants; (2) guaranteeing a federal government market for new biomedical countermeasures; and (3) permitting emergency use of unapproved countermeasures

Energy Efficiency and the Rebound Effect: Does Increasing Efficiency Decrease Demand?

Intuitively it seems obvious to most observers that increasing energy efficiency will ultimately reduce demand for an energy resource such as electricity. Paradoxically, economic theory suggests that this decrease in demand and subsequent decrease in cost of using the resource could cause a rebound in demand. A commonly cited example is an increase in the efficiency of home air conditioning which may reduce the resident’s monetary incentive to conserve. The resident may opt to change the thermostat setting to keep the amount he pays constant, but living at a more comfortable temperature. When actually measured this “Rebound Effect” is generally acknowledged to lower predicted reductions in electricity demand by 10%-40% depending on the device that is made more efficient