Email Search Research Articles

Interactive visual facets to support fluid exploratory search

Exploratory search starts with ill-defined goals and involves browsing, learning, and formulating new targets for search. To fluidly support such dynamic search behaviours, we focus on devising interactive visual facets (IVF), visualising information facets to support user comprehension and control of the information space. We reviewed existing faceted search interfaces and derived two design requirements (DR) that have not been fully addressed to support fluid interactions in exploratory search. We then exemplified the requirements through devising an IVF tool, which coordinates a linear and a categorical facet representing the distribution and summarisation of items, respectively, and providing context for faceted exploration (DR1). To support rapid transitions between search criteria (DR2), the tool introduces a novel design concept of using facets to select items without filtering the item space. Particularly, we propose a filter-swipe technique that enables users to drag a categorical facet value sequentially over linear facet bars to view the items in the intersection of the two facets along with the categorical facet dynamically summarising the items in the intersection. Three applications with various datasets demonstrate how the features support information discovery with ease. A comparison with a baseline system provided evidence that the task performance of the IVF tool was comparable to the typical query search interface. Another study of 11 participants with realistic email search tasks shows that dynamic suggestions through the timeline navigation can help discover useful suggestions for search; the novel design concept was favoured over using facet values as filters. Based on these practices, we derive IVF design implications for fluid, exploratory searches.Graphical abstract

The Influence of Online Marketing on Marketing Performance of Small and Medium Scale Businesses in Akwa Ibom State Nigeria

Online marketing entails carrying out marketing activities with the use of internet-based application. The main objective of the study was to ascertain the relationship between online marketing and marketing performance of small and medium scale enterprises in Akwa Ibom State. The sample consisted of 366 SMEs operators across the three senatorial districts in Akwa Ibom State. Survey research design was adopted by the researcher. Data were collected with the use of structured questionnaire. Two hypotheses were formulated tested and analyzed using the simple linear regression. It was discovered that there is significant relationship between the two proxies of online marketing and marketing performance of small and medium scale enterprises in Akwa Ibom State. In line with the findings, the researchers concluded that e-mail marketing and search engine marketing does enhance marketing performance of micro, small and medium scale enterprises in Akwa Ibom State. The researcher further recommended SMEs that have not been using these dimensions to a large extent should do so in order to be competitive and enhance their performance.

Interrupting an e-mail search: Influence of the complexity and the timing of the interruption

Interrupting an e-mail search: Influence of the complexity and the timing of the interruption

Personal information retrieval: smartphones vs. computers, emails vs. files

Millions of people retrieve their emails and files using their smartphones, yet smartphone retrieval of such personal information has never been studied or compared to retrievals from PCs. In our within-subjects study, we compared the retrievals of our 57 participants in four conditions: files using PCs, emails using PCs, files using smartphones, and emails using smartphones. Our results indicate that when using smartphones, retrievals were significantly less successful and efficient than when using PCs, casting doubt on the implicit assumption that the use of these devices is equivalent. Our results also indicate that participants used the search facility for emails about seven times more than for files, which can encourage vendors to invest more efforts in improving email search engines and file navigation systems. Finally, we found that the tendency to search shows interpersonal differences but consistency across different situations for the same individual and therefore can be regarded as a personal trait. Future research can attempt to explain the search tendency trait in terms of cognitive abilities and personality traits, incorporating it to well-established theories. This may pave the way to a new trait-related theory in the field of information science.

The Effect of Information and Communication Technologies Utilization Patterns on Self-Rated Health

Background: An increasing number of older adults are using information and communication technologies (ICTs), and ICTs have become a major resource for older adults for improving health-related quality of life. ICTs possibly help older adults seek health information online, collaborate with other users in their decision making process, and receive social support. Although there have been some studies highlighting positive associations between ICT utilization and health, there is still limited knowledge about various patterns of ICT utilization among older adults. Objective: This study aims to extend the empirical evidence regarding the patterns of older adults’ ICT utilization, investigate different attributes across various ICT utilization patterns, and further examine how these patterns influence self-rated health. Methods: Data came from the 2012 and 2014 Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative sample of Americans aged 51 and older. Our sample was restricted to individuals who responded to a special survey about technology use asked only to a subsample of 2012 interviews (N=1504). Latent class analysis was used to identify ICT utilization patterns based on ICT utilization variables: (1) communication-related utilization, including use of email, social networking sites, online video call, instant messenger, and smartphones; (2) finance-related utilization, such as online bill payment and online banking; (3) health-related utilization, including exercise equipment, exercise videos, online wellness programs, online health information, health monitoring devices, and Wii Fit; and (4) entertainment-related utilization, including e-readers/tablets, mp3 players, online streaming media, and video game. Ordinary least squares regressions were used to examine the effects of ICT utilization patterns on self-rated health at follow-up as compared to baseline. Results: Four ICT utilization patterns were identified: multifarious (n=90: high level of ICT utilization across most variables), e-commerce-oriented (n=147: high level of finance-related utilization), fundamental (n=280: email and online search focused utilization), and minimal users (n=552: low level of ICT utilization across most variables). We found that multifarious users were younger, more often female, married, and had higher education and income levels and better physical and mental health than other groups. Minimal users were more likely to be older, non-white, and single, and more likely to have lower level of education and income and poor physical and mental health. Regression models showed multifarious users were most likely to have better self-rated health, and minimal users tended to have the worst self-rated health over time, even after controlling for sociodemographic attributes and health conditions. E-commerce-oriented users were more likely to have better self-rated health than fundamental users. Conclusions: This study identified clearly different ICT utilization patterns among older adults and demonstrated positive effects of ICT utilization on health among older adults. Improving access to ICTs and ICT education programs will help to improve health outcomes of older adults, but the effects of different ICT utilization patterns need to be highlighted in future studies.

On Correcting Misspelled Queries in Email Search

We consider the problem of providing spelling corrections for misspelled queries in Email Search using user’s own mail data. A popular strategy for general query spelling correction is to generate corrections from query logs. However, this strategy is not effective in Email Search for two reasons: 1) query log of any sin- gle user is typically not rich enough to provide potential corrections for a new query 2) corrections generated us- ing query logs of other users are not particularly useful since the mail data as well as search intent are highly specific to the user. We address the challenge of design- ing an effective spelling correction algorithm for Email Search in the absence of query logs. We propose SpEQ, a Machine Learning based approach that generates cor- rections for misspelled queries directly from the user’s own mail data.

Finding people and their utterances in social media

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the web entered a phase of explosive growth. Since then, a multitude of platforms has become available for users to publish information, communicate with others, connect to like-minded individuals, and share anything that they want to share. These platforms are commonly known as social media. Social media enables many-to-many communication: many people can create content, which in turn can be read by many others. To make interesting content findable for many people, machines need to be able to identify the "right" pieces of content or the "appropriate" content creators. That is, we need ways to intelligently access information in social media. The main motivation for the research in my thesis is that we want to enable intelligent access to, and analysis of, the information contained in social media. To this end, we must determine the topical relevance of social media documents, while countering the specific challenges posed by their noisy and creative nature. We identify two entry points for accessing information in social media: (i) the people creating the social media and (ii) their individual utterances (e.g., blog posts, tweets). These entry points act as a doorway to the information in social media. The aim of the thesis is to improve searching for people and their utterances in social media, thereby offering intelligent access to the information it contains. In the thesis we explore ways to improve retrieval effectiveness, for both people and their utterances, in five research chapters. We start with an extensive analysis of the query logs of a people search engine and show that users are mainly interested in finding social media profiles of people for whom they search. We continue with our focus on searching for people in the second chapter, but adopt a more technical perspective. We use blog posts as representation of bloggers' interests and show that for blogger finding a combination of two models, one based on individual blog posts and one on aggregated blogger models, is both effective and efficient. In the remaining three chapters we move away from finding people and focus on individual utterances. Specifically, we look at blog post retrieval in two chapters and email retrieval in mailing lists in the last chapter. For blog post retrieval we explore the use of indicators obtained from a credibility framework. We propose ways of estimating these indicators and rerank an initial list of blog posts based on these (combined) indicator scores. We find that incorporating these indicators leads to improvements and our analysis determines indicators that are most influential. The second chapter on blog post retrieval and the chapter on email search both use a notion of "context" to help improve retrieval effectiveness. For blog post retrieval we observe that much of what is written in blog posts is based on things happening the bloggers' environments. To use this observation we propose a generative retrieval model that uses information from a set of external sources. We test our model using a news collection, Wikipedia, and a web collection as external sources. We find that our model is capable of improving retrieval performance on most topics and that the per-topic collection importance is a very useful component of the model. Finally, the last research chapter uses the direct context of emails to refine queries; we explore the use of threads, the entire mailing list, and the pages from within the same community as sources for query expansion terms. Besides that, we also incorporate the previously mentioned credibility-inspired indicators in this setting. We find that context helps in improving retrieval performance, as do the credibilityinspired indicators. Concluding, my thesis provides new insights into search behavior in social media and shows that a diverse set of methods can help improve retrieval effectiveness for multiple information access tasks within social media. Available online at http://wouter.weerkamp.com/.

Letter by Regal Regarding Article, “Delirium in Acute Stroke: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis”

HomeStrokeVol. 43, No. 7Letter by Regal Regarding Article, “Delirium in Acute Stroke: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” Free AccessLetterPDF/EPUBAboutView PDFView EPUBSections ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload citationsTrack citationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InMendeleyReddit Jump toFree AccessLetterPDF/EPUBLetter by Regal Regarding Article, “Delirium in Acute Stroke: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” Paul Regal, MD, FRACP, FRCP Paul RegalPaul Regal Senior Lecturer in Geriatrics University of Newcastle Wyong Hospital Kanwal, New South Wales 2263 Australia E-mail (Regal) Search for more papers by this author Originally published3 May 2012https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.112.657692Stroke. 2012;43:e66Other version(s) of this articleYou are viewing the most recent version of this article. Previous versions: January 1, 2012: Previous Version 1 To the Editor:Shi and colleagues1 have published a useful review of delirium occurring within 10 days of admission of ischemic stroke, intracerebral hematoma, subarachnoid hemorrhage, or transient ischemic attack. As a former stroke physician for 12 years who has since worked with dementia and delirium for 15 years and is pursuing a PhD in delirium in older persons, I have a number of comments.Stroke is an extremely common disease. To find only 10 studies with 2004 patients meeting inclusion criteria is very surprising. I would have expected >10 000. This suggests that delirium has been given a very low priority in the stroke research community, which is not surprising given that neurology journals seldom publish articles on the topic.Diagnostic instruments for delirium depend on whether you are a psychiatrist, in which case you use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV ), or you are a nonpsychiatrist (neurologist or geriatrician), in which case since 1990 you use the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM).2 Only 1 of the 10 articles included in Shi's analysis is from a psychiatric journal: Melkas.3 The remainder are from neurological,5 geriatric medical,2 or general journals.1 I would therefore have expected that at least 8 of the 10 articles used the CAM. In fact, only 4 of 10 used the CAM. Is this because the studies use psychiatrists to adjudicate delirium? The mean prevalence plus incidence of delirium in the 4 CAM studies was 19.4%, versus 25.8% in the 6 studies using DSM and other non-CAM instruments.I have worked in 6 hospitals in the past 27 years, and in 6 of 6 hospitals, old-age psychiatrists (psychogeriatricians) diagnose delirium in approximately 65% of delirium-free older patients by the CAM who we refer to them for problems such as depression and anxiety. This is largely because of the fact that when psychiatrists detect features of medical illness, such as pneumonia, they assume that features such as confusion, inattention, or hallucinations must be caused by delirium rather than by dementia or psychosis.To illustrate how on rare occasions a psychiatrist using the CAM finds 6-fold less delirium than does a psychiatrist using the International Classification of Diseases or DSM, read the interesting articles by Watkin and colleagues4; they found 12.5% prevalence of delirium in older persons with the CAM. Gover and colleagues5 using ICD found delirium in 65.6% of older persons.If a community dwelling person has a stroke and then develops delirium, the latter symptom is probably not a priority for a stroke neurologist or stroke physician. The stroke unit may not be adapted for delirium in the way that a geriatric unit specializing in delirium and behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia would. Hence, discharge to a nursing home after delirium is sometimes a sign that the delirium was not managed in a specialized unit in the same way that acute stroke is managed in a stroke unit. In 2011, I managed 32 patients with delirium by the CAM in an acute care for the elderly unit. Zero of 32 patients died in the hospital, 66% returned home, and 31% entered nursing homes.Did the 10 studies describe the efforts they took to rule out dementia before stroke? Such methods might include gathering medical records from the primary care physician, neurologist, geriatrician, psychiatrist, and hospital medical records. What efforts were taken to check hospital records for previous admissions for delirium?Paul Regal, MD, FRACP, FRCP Senior Lecturer in Geriatrics University of Newcastle Wyong Hospital Kanwal, New South Wales 2263 Australia E-mail [email protected]DisclosuresNone.FootnotesStroke welcomes Letters to the Editor and will publish them, if suitable, as space permits. Letters must reference a Stroke published-ahead-of-print article or an article printed within the past 3 weeks. The maximum length is 750 words including no more than 5 references and 3 authors. Please submit letters typed double-spaced. Letters may be shortened or edited. Include a completed copyright transfer agreement form (available online at http://stroke.ahajournals.org and http://submit-stroke.ahajournals.org).

Neutral Cholesterol Ester Hydrolases in Macrophages: Still a Matter of Debate

HomeCirculation ResearchVol. 108, No. 10Neutral Cholesterol Ester Hydrolases in Macrophages: Still a Matter of Debate Free AccessLetterPDF/EPUBAboutView PDFView EPUBSections ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload citationsTrack citationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InMendeleyReddit Jump toFree AccessLetterPDF/EPUBNeutral Cholesterol Ester Hydrolases in Macrophages: Still a Matter of Debate Dagmar Kratky Dagmar KratkyDagmar Kratky Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Medical University of Graz Graz, Austria E-mail (Kratky) Search for more papers by this author Originally published13 May 2011https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.111.245829Circulation Research. 2011;108:e13To The Editor:In a recent study, Igarashi et al1 reported knockdown experiments using adenoviral short hairpin RNA constructs targeting human neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase-1 (NCEH1, originally named KIAA1363) and the potential cholesterol ester hydrolase CES1. The authors concluded that “NCEH1 is the only enzyme that requires attention when dealing with neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase activity in human macrophages,” reinforcing similar observations by the same group on murine macrophages.2 This created a controversy,3 because our group demonstrated identical neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase activity in wild-type and Nceh1 knockout mice,4 which argues against a critical role of NCEH1 as cholesterol ester hydrolase. The validity of our observations was questioned5 by claiming that we failed to present “data demonstrating the clean knockout of KIAA1363 of this model by Western and/or Northern blot analyses.” This is at variance with Figure 4F of our report,4 which demonstrated the lack of NCEH1 in macrophages of Nceh1 knockout mice by Western blotting with a specific anti-NCEH1 antibody. Moreover, Figure 1 of the supplemental material of our study confirmed homologous recombination by Southern blot analysis and PCR. Thus, we provided comprehensive information on the generation of the Nceh1 knockout mice and compelling evidence that we used macrophages from a “complete and clean” Nceh1 knockout mouse model for our cholesterol ester hydrolase activity assays.The major conclusion drawn by Igarashi et al1 that “NCEH1 is quantitatively the most important neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase in human macrophages and atherosclerosis” is insufficiently supported by the data presented. Despite an almost complete knockdown of NCEH1 in human monocyte-derived macrophages, neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase activity was reduced by only 50%, which leads us to question the conclusion that “NCEH1 is the only enzyme that requires attention when dealing with neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase activity in human macrophages.” In contrast to NCEH1, CES1 knockdown lacked any reduction in cholesterol ester hydrolase activity. Knockdown of CES1, however, was less efficient, and substantial amounts of CES1 protein were present in CES1-silenced macrophages.The claim that NCEH1 (KIAA1363) is the neutral cholesterol ester hydrolase in human1 and murine2 macrophages, therefore, continues to be at variance with observations made by us4 and others.3Dagmar Kratky Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Medical University of Graz Graz, Austria E-mail [email protected]Sources of FundingD.K. is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (SFB-LIPOTOX F30, DK-MCD, and P19186) and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research (GEN-AU project GOLD).DisclosuresNone.FootnotesLetters to the Editor will be published, if suitable, as space permits. They should not exceed 1000 words (typed double-spaced) in length and may be subject to editing or abridgment.

Nitric Oxide and the Ryanodine Receptor Ca-Release Channel

To the Editor: I have read with interest the recent review on the role of S -nitrosylation in cardiovascular signaling, in which Lima et al1 provide a very useful digest on the current status of research in this important but burgeoning field of cardiovascular physiology. On the other hand, I believe that one of the many functions of a scientific review, especially when summarizing the status of a field with a certain degree of ambiguity, is to promote further progress. This is, perhaps, best achieved if all the available data relevant to the field are summarized and discussed, even those that seem to be contradictory to the intended conclusion of the review. Although the review in question cites almost 200 works, it …

User Feedback Shapes Internet Progress

In his Policy Forum “Can we reinvent the Internet?” (24 July, p. [396][1]), V. Mayer-Schonberger concludes that current connectedness of the Internet impedes software coders' ability to innovate. I disagree. ![Figure][2] CREDIT: [ISTOCKPHOTO.COM][3] Whether for commercial or for open-source purposes, software coders' motivation and inspiration for innovation originate primarily from user feedback, including expectations, demands, and even complaints. Frequent software upgrades reflect constant innovation. These upgrades should not be considered simply minor improvements. They are solid and steady steps to advanced evolution. The more heterogeneous the users, the more individualization will be required, and the more innovations coders will devise to meet these needs. Software written by coders who are disconnected to the users will likely be novel but impractical. There is no scientific tool to measure or quantify objectively whether an improvement is incremental or radical. Can we deny the magnitude of previous innovations that constitute integral parts of and lead to subsequent innovations? In Internet history, different versions of e-mail applications, Web browsers, search engines, Web logs, iPhones, and e-commerce represent different stages of development on one innovation continuum. If software coders who are isolated from social ties did build a radical program or reinvent the Internet, in addition to a series of technical problems such as compatibility and data conversion, users' learning cost would be substantial. The cost would be felt by consumers worldwide, including African students who have just learned how to use computers and software because of financial support from the international community. Current innovations are changing the face of the Internet, even though they may not be radical. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1178418 [2]: pending:yes [3]: http://ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

When Does Low Oxygen Become Hypoxia? Implications for Nitrite Reduction

To the Editor: Webb and Milsom et al1 present the intriguing finding that endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and potentially RBCs is responsible under hypoxic conditions for nitrite (NO2•) reduction to nitric oxide (NO). Based on several practical and theoretical points of view, the conclusions that the authors draw regarding their data are flawed. It is important that these are considered by the wider Circulation Research readership. The authors conclude that lack of oxygen (O2) availability to eNOS promotes NO2• reduction to NO. Whereas the RBC experiments involve measurement of NO produced by RBC under nitrogen and acidic conditions, the HUVEC experiments were carried out at 5% O2 and 5% CO2 (refer to online data supplement that accompanies the article for details). Although there is no question 5% …

The role of individual and organisational factors in the adoption and use of new technology: the case of internet use by business school faculty in Thailand

Even though many academics and practitioners around the world look to the USA for ideas and mechanisms for the creation and adoption of new technologies, many related innovations are occurring in Asian countries, including Thailand. Using a sample of 99 faculty members drawn randomly from Thai business schools, we investigate ways in which the internet is used for teaching and research, as well as the individual and organisational factors associated with faculty adoption of the internet. We found that: the World Wide Web, e-mail and internet search engines are the three major aspects of the internet used in business schools in Thailand; several individual characteristics explain the degree to which faculty adopted the internet (namely, computer literacy, faculty attitude concerning the importance of the internet, the highest degree earned by faculty, and age); and organisational characteristics which affect internet use are: having computers in offices, information technology (IT) staff support, and reward systems. Implications for management and future research areas are discussed.

Comparing AGRICOLA by Vendor

ABSTRACT AGRICOLA is a widely used bibliographic database of over 4,000,000 records covering all aspects of agriculture and related sciences. In addition to free access via the National Agricultural Library's web site, AGRICOLA is available through a variety of vendors. To help librarians understand the different versions of AGRICOLA, this article compares access through CSA, Community of Science, FirstSearch, Ovid and SilverPlatter. Evaluation criteria include: search modes and limits allowed; display options; capacity to link to library catalog and document delivery services; ability to save, print, and/or e-mail search results; ability to save searches, or to search multiple databases; and availability of alert services.

Eptifibatide and 7E3, but Not Tirofiban, Inhibit α v β 3 Integrin–Mediated Binding of Smooth Muscle Cells to Thrombospondin and Prothrombin

To the Editor: The recent article in Circulation by Lele et al1 reports αvβ3 inhibitory activity of eptifibatide. Surprisingly, the authors contend that this is a novel observation. Lele et al1 demonstrate inhibition of αvβ3-mediated adhesion of human aortic smooth muscle cells (HASMCs) to thrombospondin (TSP) or prothrombin, human umbilical vein endothelial cell attachment to TSP or vitronectin, as well as the inhibition of TSP-induced proliferation of HASMCs mediated by αvβ3, with IC50 values of approximately 30 μmol/L in each assay. All of these data are consistent with the original publication on the αIIbβ3 antagonist, eptifibatide, by Scarborough et al.2 The authors reported that this agent is a highly selective integrin antagonist. They also showed that at higher concentrations, eptifibatide can …