Dublin City University at the TREC 2006 terabyte track

For the 2006 Terabyte track in TREC, Dublin City University’s participation was focussed on the ad hoc search task. As per the pervious two years [7, 4], our experiments on the Terabyte track have concentrated on the evaluation of a sorted inverted index, the aim of which is to sort the postings within each posting list in such a way, that allows only a limited number of postings to be processed from each list, while at the same time minimising the loss of effectiveness in terms of query precision. This is done using the Físréal search system, developed at Dublin City University [4, 8]

Integrity Agency Funding: The case of Australasian Auditors General

There have been calls for greater financial independence for integrity agencies, and this paper seeks to advance understanding of the options available to achieve this by assessing the legislation and issues for Australasian Auditors General. Audit offices are the oldest form of integrity agency and have the most detailed previous consideration of their financial independence. The paper identifies four characteristics: control, transparency, adequacy and certainty and key features for each. Analysis indicates that in four jurisdictions the Executive keeps a tight rein, in three there is a recognition for a significant role for the Parliament and in the remaining two this role is dominant. As there isn’t a consistent approach to funding and there are many differences of detail, the paper develops a checklist of key provisions to inform decisions regarding the funding of audit offices and integrity agencies more generally. The paper observes that an increased role for Parliament in funding can raise new challenges for independence including the tensions between the interests of Government and Opposition MPs and the ability of committees to function effectively

An investigation into weighted data fusion for content-based multimedia information retrieval

Content Based Multimedia Information Retrieval (CBMIR) is characterised by the combination of noisy sources of information which, in unison, are able to achieve strong performance. In this thesis we focus on the combination of ranked results from the independent retrieval experts which comprise a CBMIR system through linearly weighted data fusion. The independent retrieval experts are low-level multimedia features, each of which contains an indexing function and ranking algorithm. This thesis is comprised of two halves. In the first half, we perform a rigorous empirical investigation into the factors which impact upon performance in linearly weighted data fusion. In the second half, we leverage these finding to create a new class of weight generation algorithms for data fusion which are capable of determining weights at query-time, such that the weights are topic dependent

Vision and Reading Difficulties Part 5: Clinical protocol and the role of the eye-care practitioner

This series of articles has described various aspects of visual characteristics of reading difficulties and the background behind techniques such as the use of coloured filters in helping to reduce the difficulties that are experienced. The present article, which is the last in series, aims to describe a clinical protocol that can be used by the busy eye care practitioner for the investigation and management of such patients. It also describes the testing techniques that can be used for the various assessments. Warning: DO NOT LOOK AT FIGURE 7 IF YOU HAVE MIGRAINE OR EPILEPSY

Vision and Reading Difficulties Part 4: Coloured filters - how do they work?

This article is the fourth in a series of five about vision and reading difficulties. The first article provided a general overview and the second covered conventional optometric correlates of reading difficulties (e.g. binocular vision problems). The present article continues on from the third article by describing the use of coloured filters in treating a condition now known as visual stress. Visual stress is often associated with reading difficulties, but also a variety of other neurological conditions. This article concentrates on the possible mechanisms for the benefit from coloured filters, beginning with obvious peripheral factors. The terminology for this condition has changed over the years (e.g. Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome, and Meares-Irlen Syndrome) and the issue of terminology is discussed at the end of this article. Warning: DO NOT LOOK AT FIGURE 6 ON PAGE 33 IF YOU HAVE A MIGRAINE OR EPILEPSY

Vision and Reading Difficulties Part 3: Coloured filters - do they work?

This is the third article in a series of five on Vision and Reading Difficulties. The first article provided a general overview of learning disabilities and specific learning difficulties (SpLD). It outlined the role of the optometrist in helping people with SpLD. The second article covered conventional optometric correlates of reading difficulties (e.g. binocular vision problems) This article and the next will describe the use of coloured filters to treat a condition now know as "visual stress", which is often associated with reading difficulties; the symptoms of visual stress were described in Part 1. The terminology for this condition has changed over the years (e.g. Scotopic Sensitivity syndrome, Meares-Irlen syndrome). Terminology is discussed more in Part 4

Vision and Reading Difficulties Part 1: Specific learning difficulties and vision

This article is the first in a series of five about vision and reading difficulties, and provides an introduction and an overview of learning disabilities and specific learning difficulties. It outlines the role of the optometrist in helping people with such problems; it describes the symptoms that optometrists should look for and it provides an introduction of the evidence-based approach. The second article in this series will cover the optometric and orthoptic correlates of reading difficulties. Articles three and four will describe the use of coloured filters, including background, techniques, evidence, and mechanism. The final article will draw together the themes in the series of articles and discuss the clinical protocol and the role of the eye care practitioner in managing visual factors associated with reading difficulties

Top subset retrieval on large collections using sorted indices

In this poster we describe alternative inverted index structures that reduce the time required to process queries, produce a higher query throughput and still return high quality results to the end user. We give results based upon the TREC Terabyte dataset showing improvements that these indices give in terms of effectiveness and efficiency

Dublin City University at the TREC 2005 terabyte track

For the 2005 Terabyte track in TREC Dublin City University participated in all three tasks: Adhoc, E±ciency and Named Page Finding. Our runs for TREC in all tasks were primarily focussed on the application of "Top Subset Retrieval" to the Terabyte Track. This retrieval utilises different types of sorted inverted indices so that less documents are processed in order to reduce query times, and is done so in a way that minimises loss of effectiveness in terms of query precision. We also compare a distributed version of our Físréal search system [1][2] against the same system deployed on a single machine

Vision and Reading Difficulties Part 2: Optometric correlates of reading difficulties

In this second article of the series on vision and reading difficulties, the optometric factors (for example refractive error and orthoptic function) that may be associated with reading problems are discussed in detail. The first article of this series introduced the correlates of, and interventions for, reading difficulties that have been supported by evidence-based research. This present article describes the optometric correlates more specifically, providing details of the aspects of visual function that ought to be considered for further investigation