Web Searcher Research Articles

Methodologies in Chat Bot Learning

Chatbots, or conversational interfaces as they are furthermore known, present another way for individuals to participate with PC systems. By and large, to get a request answered by an item program included using a web searcher, or adjusting a structure. A chatbot empowers a customer to simply present request along these lines that they would address a human. The most outstanding chatbots starting at now are voice chatbots: Alexa and Siri. Nevertheless, chatbots are starting at now being gotten at a high rate on PC talk stages.

From punched cards to Google: an outline history of information retrieval

This paper reviews the history of information re-trieval (IR) from punched cards and the first pro-grammable computer (the ENIAC of 1945) to the present day Web searcher Google and Microsoft’s “cognitive technology” Watson. The review is based on three major factors in the development of IR; (1) the enormous increase in computing power over the last 72 years, (2) the “competition” between statis-tical analysis of text and Natural Language Pro-cessing (NLP) in which the two have finally to a large extent converged, and (3) the corresponding changes in human intervention in the IR process.

Context & Semantics in News & Web Search

This thesis presents research towards a core aim of information retrieval (IR): providing users with easy access to information. Three research themes guide the research presented in this thesis, contributing to three aspects of IR research: the domain in which an IR system is used, the users interacting with the system, and the different access scenarios in which these users engage with an IR system. Central to these research themes is the aim to gain insights into the behavior of searchers and develop algorithms to support them in their quest, whether it is a researcher exploring or studying a large collection, a web searcher struggling to find something, or a television viewer searching for related content. The first research theme is motivated by the information seeking tasks of researchers exploring and studying large collections. To enable their search on a larger scale, we propose computational methods to connect collections and to infer the perspective offered in a news story. Motivated by how historians select documents for close reading, we propose novel methods for connecting collections using automatically extracted temporal references. To illustrate how these algorithms can be used to automatically create connections between collections, we introduce a novel search interface to explore and analyze the connected collections. The interface highlights different perspectives and requires little domain knowledge. Based on how communication scientists study framing in news, we propose an automatic thematic content analysis approach. The second research theme is addressed in a mixed-methods study on how web searchers behave when they cannot find what they are looking for. Based on large-scale log analysis, crowd-sourced labeling, and predictive modeling we show behavioral differences given task success and failure. Based on these findings we propose ways in which systems can reduce struggling in search. To support searchers, we propose and evaluate algorithms that accurately predict the nature of future actions and their anticipated impact on search outcomes. Our findings have implications for the design of search systems that help searchers struggle less and succeed more. In the third and final research theme, we consider a pro-active search scenario, specifically in a live television setting. We propose algorithms that leverage contextual information to retrieve diverse related content for a leaned-back TV viewer. While watching television, people increasingly consume additional content related to what they are watching. Two methods to automatically retrieve content based on subtitles are introduced, one using entity linking, and one that uses reinforcement learning to generate effective queries for finding related content. Both methods are highly efficient and are currently used in a live television setting in near real time. Each research chapter in this thesis provides insights and algorithms that help searchers when using IR applications. For varying domains, users, and access scenarios, the research presented in this thesis improves the ease of access to information.

Ontology based indexing of hidden web: Review

We think is that what we can access easily on the internet is whole of the information available. But actually the amount of information available is much larger in volume. Because the web is divided into two parts surface web which we can access easily and the deep web which is invisible to us as the search engines are unable to index it directly. To handle this huge volume of information, Web searcher uses search engines. But hidden web contains a large collection of data that is unreachable by normal hyperlinkbased search engines. To access this content, one must submit valid input values to the HTML form. The resultant web pages from the previous step are stored and then to improvise the search results for a user query we need indexing techniques. Indexing of hidden web is done to reveal the relevance of the document according to the context of the search. The objective is to find out different ways for indexing the web pages from the hidden web using ontology and analyze the different techniques that are previously proposed. The main advantage of storing an index is to optimize the speed and performance while finding relevant documents from the search engine storage area for a user given search query.

Exploring the Effect of Mental Demand in Web Searches: A Pilot Study

This pilot study explored the effect of mental demand on a Web searcher’s thoughts, emotions, efforts, and performance in Web searches in order to address whether or not there is any difference between searchers exposed to mental demand manipulation and searchers not exposed. Research data were collected via think-aloud protocol (TAP) with a dual-task in experiments and interviews with 10 subjects who participated in this study. For the searcher’s thoughts, relevance judgment was found to be hindered by mental demand. For the searcher’s emotions, the experimental group was more frustrated than the control group. With respect to the searcher’s efforts, searchers for the experimental group with mental demand manipulation were more likely to spend more time, make fewer queries, and visit fewer pages but work harder to find more relevant information that they needed. Lastly, with regard to the searcher’s performance, it is likely that performance was highly dependent upon the completion of the search tasks for both groups. The NASA-TLX six components and cognitive load scores of searchers did not make a significant difference in the outcome. The findings support the use of a dual-task methodology as a promising approach for the assessment of cognitive load induced by complex Web searches.

Branded by the Pink Triangle by K. Setterington

Setterington, Ken. Branded by the Pink Triangle. Toronto, ON: Second Story Press, 2013. Print. One of the problems that gay youth face is that they do not grow up connected to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community history as there are no elders in their families that can tell them what it was like to be gay in days past. This well written and engaging book tells the story of an important time in LGBT history as it documents the Nazi persecution of gay men in WWII and documents the first use of the pink triangle (today reclaimed as a symbol of gay pride) as a Nazi symbol of gay persecution. Branded by the Pink Triangle seamlessly blends factual history with compelling narrative to engage teen readers. The book begins with a description of Berlin in the 1920s that was quite tolerant of lesbians and gay men and had many businesses that catered to the gay community. The rise of the Nazi Party to political power brought a radical shift to German attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Tolerance ended and a law that had been rarely enforced before was suddenly used to round up and imprison gay men. As the Nazis gained more power, they changed the law to send gay men to concentration camps where they were literally worked to death. Setterington tells of the actual experiences of gay survivors of the concentration camps with compassion and includes many personal pictures that add depth to the stories. He also provides a follow up chapter that shares what happened after the war to those gay men who survived the camps. One minor criticism of this text is that the treatment of these men by the Allies at the end of the war in handled a bit too briefly. When the Allies liberated the concentration camps, they did not release gay prisoners. These men were transferred to prisons and made to complete their sentences for just being homosexual. Branded by the Pink Triangle is highly recommended for school and public libraries as well as for junior and senior high social studies classrooms.Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sandra Anderson Sandra Anderson is the Librarian at the Alberta Teachers’ Association Library. Sandra loves connecting people to the information they need – whether it is in books or online. She is an expert web searcher who has taught wb searching skills to a range of audiences. She cares deeply about social justice, technology, and the environment.

Wittgenstein and web facets

The World Wide Web has grown exponentially in the last few years. The popularity of Web search engines has also grown in a similar manner. The task of a Web search engine is to provide the Web searcher with accurate and targeted information from the plethora of information available on the Web. This is a daunting task that requires the careful usage of language to ensure accuracy. As a result, the importance of the usage and meaning of language in the Web domain has become the focus of recent research. In this paper, the author will explore Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of language as it applies to the language used in the search result pages of a Web search engine in an effort to broaden the understanding of language usage within this domain.

Tourism in European Cities: Insights into the Dynamics of Weekend Hotel Accommodation

The rationalization of the cost of accommodation for the most representative night of the weekend (from Saturday to Sunday) was examined using hotel price information from the Internet. The overall data are related to 20 benchmark European cities, but also include brief comparisons with other cities around the world. The tool used to obtain the information was a web searcher with similar characteristics to a travel agency, which allows booking via the Internet. The amount of data thus collected was much greater than could have been produced from any other available information source, enabling a more robust and detailed analysis. ‘Yield management’, as used by airlines, especially as it relates to price discrimination and ‘peak load pricing’, drives hotel prices. An overview of differences among the main types of customer is provided, distinguishing mainly between those travelling for financial reasons and those travelling for pleasure. The results reveal that ‘sun-and-beach’ destinations, especially abundant in southern European countries, and in particular in Spain, usually offer cheap prices. However, the best-known southern cities present prices in accordance with the price lists of the rest of Europe and, in some cases, their prices are even higher than those in some Nordic cities. Apart from price analysis, the quality of the hotels is also taken into account using the ‘coefficient by star’ parameter.

To what degree can log data profile a web searcher?

AbstractIn this paper, we report ongoing efforts in a large scale research project to develop methods for profiling individual Web search engine users by leveraging data recorded in the transaction logs of search engines. Our research aim is to investigate how completely one can profile a Web searcher using log data. Taking a broad brush approach, we present an array of profiling attributes to illustrate the spectrum of user characteristics possible from log data. Specifically, we present ongoing research for determining a user 's location, geographical interest, topic of interest, level of interest, the degree of commercial intent, whether the user plans to make a purchase, and whether the user will click a link. We present the state of our ongoing research in user profiling along with that of other researchers. Our findings show that one can develop a fairly robust profile of a Web searcher using log data. We also discuss issues of determining the specific identity of the user. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for the areas of system development, online advertising, privacy, and policies concerning the use of such profiling.

Geographic intention and modification in web search

Web searchers signal their geographic intent by using place‐names in search queries. They also indicate their flexibility about geographic specificity by reformulating their queries. By examining this data we can learn to understand web searcher flexibility with respect to geographic intent. We examine aggregated data of queries with locations, and locations identified from IP addresses, to identify overall distance preferences, as well as distance preferences by search topic. We also examine query rewriting: both deliberate query rewriting, conducted in web search sessions, and automated query rewriting, with manual relevance judgments of geo‐modified queries. We find geo‐specification in 12.7% of user query rewrites in search sessions, and show the breakdown into sub‐classes such as same‐city, same‐state, same‐country and different‐country. We also measure the dependence between US‐state‐name and distance‐of‐modified‐location‐from‐original‐location, finding that Vermont web searchers modify their locations greater distances than California web searchers. We find that automatically‐modified queries are perceived as much more relevant when the geographic component is unchanged. We look at the relationship between the non‐location part of a query and the distance from the user. We see that people search for child day‐care near their locations and maps far from where they are located. We also give distance profiles for the top topics which cooccur with place‐names in queries, which could be used to set document priors based on document proximity and query topic.

Forming an instructional approach to teach web searching skills to non‐English users

PurposeLocating information on the internet is an important skill in the Information Society. Some recent studies showed that searching using non‐English terms is a more demanding task than searching in English. Based on these observations, this paper aims to apply the Instructional System Design (ISD) methodology to analyse, design and implement a training course for Greek users. This instructional approach considers the explanation of the internal search engine intelligence and inefficiencies with respect to non‐English natural language as its basic structural element.Design/methodology/approachBased on the ISD methodology, the tasks that needed to be trained as a web searcher were identified and a six‐phase instructional sequence was constructed. The instructional methodology is evaluated with the aid of students in an authentic environment.FindingsThe evaluation revealed that learners who followed the structured approach and were aware of the search engines' limitations relating to the Greek language performed better in the web searching experiments.Originality/valueThe instructional methodology described can be applied in any course which aims at teaching basic web searching skills. The instructional approach presented can also be adapted to other non‐English languages.

Web searcher interaction with the Dogpile.com metasearch engine

Metasearch engines are an intuitive method for improving the performance of Web search by increasing coverage, returning large numbers of results with a focus on relevance, and presenting alternati...

Defining a session on Web search engines

AbstractDetecting query reformulations within a session by a Web searcher is an important area of research for designing more helpful searching systems and targeting content to particular users. Methods explored by other researchers include both qualitative (i.e., the use of human judges to manually analyze query patterns on usually small samples) and nondeterministic algorithms, typically using large amounts of training data to predict query modification during sessions. In this article, we explore three alternative methods for detection of session boundaries. All three methods are computationally straightforward and therefore easily implemented for detection of session changes. We examine 2,465,145 interactions from 534,507 users of Dogpile.com on May 6, 2005. We compare session analysis using (a) Internet Protocol address and cookie; (b) Internet Protocol address, cookie, and a temporal limit on intrasession interactions; and (c) Internet Protocol address, cookie, and query reformulation patterns. Overall, our analysis shows that defining sessions by query reformulation along with Internet Protocol address and cookie provides the best measure, resulting in an 82% increase in the count of sessions. Regardless of the method used, the mean session length was fewer than three queries, and the mean session duration was less than 30 min. Searchers most often modified their query by changing query terms (nearly 23% of all query modifications) rather than adding or deleting terms. Implications are that for measuring searching traffic, unique sessions may be a better indicator than the common metric of unique visitors. This research also sheds light on the more complex aspects of Web searching involving query modifications and may lead to advances in searching tools.

Web searcher interaction with the Dogpile.com metasearch engine

AbstractMetasearch engines are an intuitive method for improving the performance of Web search by increasing coverage, returning large numbers of results with a focus on relevance, and presenting alternative views of information needs. However, the use of metasearch engines in an operational environment is not well understood. In this study, we investigate the usage of Dogpile.com, a major Web metasearch engine, with the aim of discovering how Web searchers interact with metasearch engines. We report results examining 2,465,145 interactions from 534,507 users of Dogpile.com on May 6, 2005 and compare these results with findings from other Web searching studies. We collect data on geographical location of searchers, use of system feedback, content selection, sessions, queries, and term usage. Findings show that Dogpile.com searchers are mainly from the USA (84% of searchers), use about 3 terms per query (mean 5 2.85), implement system feedback moderately (8.4% of users), and generally (56% of users) spend less than one minute interacting with the Web search engine. Overall, metasearchers seem to have higher degrees of interaction than searchers on non‐metasearch engines, but their sessions are for a shorter period of time. These aspects of metasearching may be what define the differences from other forms of Web searching. We discuss the implications of our findings in relation to metasearch for Web searchers, search engines, and content providers.

Interface agents personalizing Web-based tasks

The volume of information available on the Web is constantly growing. Due to this situation, users looking for documents relevant to their interests need to identify them among all the available ones. Intelligent agents have become a solution to assist users in this task since they can retrieve, filter and organize information on behalf of their users. In this paper we present two experiences in the development of interface agents assisting users in Web-based tasks: PersonalSearcher, a personalized Web searcher, and NewsAgent, a personalized digital newspaper generator. The main challenge we faced to personalize the tasks carried out by these agents was learning and modeling specific and dynamic user interests. Our proposed approach consists of incrementally building a hierarchy of users' relevant topics and adapting it as agents interact with users over time.

Electronic Egypt: the shape of archaeological knowledge on the Net

Unlike many regional archaeologies the study of Egypt has always had widespread appeal, from archaeologists to Afrocentrists, orientalists to occultists. According to one web-site, ‘Egypt dominates the history of the world.’ This ever-popular fascination has spilled over into the electronic media since the inception of the Internet. Thus, Egypt proves to be a telling casestudyin net politics and potentialities. Simply typing the word ‘Egypt’ into a Web searcher elicits over 1 million sites, and the content of that material runs the gamut from scholarly resources closely matching those known in print to fringe sites and sci-fi web pages. This makes electronic Egypt an intellectual and ethical minefield for the uninitiated, especially as there proves often little to differentiate between this panoply of sites in terms of presentation and professionality. It palpably illustrates the homogenization of knowledge on the net and prompts us to consider the construction of archaeology and archaeological knowledges.