Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
User Preferences (user + preference)
Selected AbstractsUser preference: A measure of query-term qualityJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 12 2006Nina Wacholder The goal of this research is to understand what characteristics, if any, lead users engaged in interactive information seeking to prefer certain sets of query terms. Underlying this work is the assumption that query terms that information seekers prefer induce a kind of cognitive efficiency: They require less mental effort to process and therefore reduce the energy required in the interactive information-seeking process. Conceptually, this work applies insights from linguistics and cognitive science to the study of query-term quality. We report on an experiment in which we compare user preference for three sets of terms; one had been preconstructed by a human indexer, and two were identified automatically. Twenty-four participants used a merged list of all terms to answer a carefully created set of questions. By design, the interface constrained users to access the text exclusively via the displayed list of query terms. We found that participants displayed a preference for the human-constructed set of terms eight times greater than the preference for either set of automatically identified terms. We speculate about reasons for this strong preference and discuss the implications for information access. The primary contributions of this research are (a) explication of the concept of user preference as a measure of query-term quality and (b) identification of a replicable procedure for measuring preference for sets of query terms created by different methods, whether human or automatic. All other factors being equal, query terms that users prefer clearly are the best choice for real-world information-access systems. [source] User preferences in the classification of electronic bookmarks: Implications for a shared systemJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 7 2001Lisa Gottlieb Using the financial industry as a context, the following study seeks to address the issue of the classification of electronic bookmarks in a multi-user system by investigating what factors influence how individuals develop categories for bookmarks and how they choose to classify bookmarks within those organizational categories. An experiment was conducted in which a sample of 15 participants was asked to bookmark and to categorize 60 web sites within Internet Browser folders of their own creation. Based on the data collected during this first component of the study, individual, customized questionnaires were composed for each participant. Whereas some of the questions within these surveys focused on particular classificatory decisions regarding specific bookmarks, others looked at how the participant defined, utilized, and structured the category folders that comprised his or her classification system. The results presented in this paper focus on issues investigated in Kwasnik's (Journal of Documentation, 1991, 47, 389,398) study of the factors that inform how individuals organize their personal, paper-based documents in office environments. Whereas classificatory attributes culled from questionnaire responses nominally resembled those identified by Kwasnik, it was found that a number of these factors assumed distinctive definitions in the electronic environment. The present study suggests that the application of individual instances of classificatory attributes and the distinction between Content and Context Attributes emphasized by Kwasnik play a minimal role in the development of a multi-user classification system for bookmarks. [source] Adaptive Logarithmic Mapping For Displaying High Contrast ScenesCOMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 3 2003F. Drago We propose a fast, high quality tone mapping technique to display high contrast images on devices with limited dynamicrange of luminance values. The method is based on logarithmic compression of luminance values, imitatingthe human response to light. A bias power function is introduced to adaptively vary logarithmic bases, resultingin good preservation of details and contrast. To improve contrast in dark areas, changes to the gamma correctionprocedure are proposed. Our adaptive logarithmic mapping technique is capable of producing perceptually tunedimages with high dynamic content and works at interactive speed. We demonstrate a successful application of ourtone mapping technique with a high dynamic range video player enabling to adjust optimal viewing conditions forany kind of display while taking into account user preference concerning brightness, contrast compression, anddetail reproduction. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.3.3 [Image Processing and Computer Vision]: Image Representation [source] User preference: A measure of query-term qualityJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 12 2006Nina Wacholder The goal of this research is to understand what characteristics, if any, lead users engaged in interactive information seeking to prefer certain sets of query terms. Underlying this work is the assumption that query terms that information seekers prefer induce a kind of cognitive efficiency: They require less mental effort to process and therefore reduce the energy required in the interactive information-seeking process. Conceptually, this work applies insights from linguistics and cognitive science to the study of query-term quality. We report on an experiment in which we compare user preference for three sets of terms; one had been preconstructed by a human indexer, and two were identified automatically. Twenty-four participants used a merged list of all terms to answer a carefully created set of questions. By design, the interface constrained users to access the text exclusively via the displayed list of query terms. We found that participants displayed a preference for the human-constructed set of terms eight times greater than the preference for either set of automatically identified terms. We speculate about reasons for this strong preference and discuss the implications for information access. The primary contributions of this research are (a) explication of the concept of user preference as a measure of query-term quality and (b) identification of a replicable procedure for measuring preference for sets of query terms created by different methods, whether human or automatic. All other factors being equal, query terms that users prefer clearly are the best choice for real-world information-access systems. [source] Users want more sophisticated search assistants: Results of a task-based evaluationJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 13 2005Udo Kruschwitz The Web provides a massive knowledge source, as do intranets and other electronic document collections. However, much of that knowledge is encoded implicitly and cannot be applied directly without processing into some more appropriate structures. Searching, browsing, question answering, for example, could all benefit from domain-specific knowledge contained in the documents, and in applications such as simple search we do not actually need very "deep" knowledge structures such as ontologies, but we can get a long way with a model of the domain that consists of term hierarchies. We combine domain knowledge automatically acquired by exploiting the documents' markup structure with knowledge extracted on the fly to assist a user with ad hoc search requests. Such a search system can suggest query modification options derived from the actual data and thus guide a user through the space of documents. This article gives a detailed account of a task-based evaluation that compares a search system that uses the outlined domain knowledge with a standard search system. We found that users do use the query modification suggestions proposed by the system. The main conclusion we can draw from this evaluation, however, is that users prefer a system that can suggest query modifications over a standard search engine, which simply presents a ranked list of documents. Most interestingly, we observe this user preference despite the fact that the baseline system even performs slightly better under certain criteria. [source] Augmented reality agents for user interface adaptationCOMPUTER ANIMATION AND VIRTUAL WORLDS (PREV: JNL OF VISUALISATION & COMPUTER ANIMATION), Issue 1 2008István Barakonyi Abstract Most augmented reality (AR) applications are primarily concerned with letting a user browse a 3D virtual world registered with the real world. More advanced AR interfaces let the user interact with the mixed environment, but the virtual part is typically rather finite and deterministic. In contrast, autonomous behavior is often desirable in ubiquitous computing (Ubicomp), which requires the computers embedded into the environment to adapt to context and situation without explicit user intervention. We present an AR framework that is enhanced by typical Ubicomp features by dynamically and proactively exploiting previously unknown applications and hardware devices, and adapting the appearance of the user interface to persistently stored and accumulated user preferences. Our framework explores proactive computing, multi-user interface adaptation, and user interface migration. We employ mobile and autonomous agents embodied by real and virtual objects as an interface and interaction metaphor, where agent bodies are able to opportunistically migrate between multiple AR applications and computing platforms to best match the needs of the current application context. We present two pilot applications to illustrate design concepts. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] When Popular Participation Won't Improve Service Provision: Primary Health Care in UgandaDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 2 2005Frederick Golooba-Mutebi Advocates of participatory approaches to service delivery see devolution as key to empowering people to take charge of their own affairs. Participation is portrayed as guaranteeing the delivery of services that are in line with user preferences. It is assumed that people are keen to participate in public affairs, that they possess the capacity to do so, and that all they need is opportunities. Using evidence from ethnographic research in Uganda, this article questions these views. It shows that, to succeed in the long term, devolution and participation must take place in the context of a strong state, able to ensure consistent regulation, and a well-informed public backed up by a participatory political culture. [source] MCORE: a context-sensitive recommendation system for the mobile WebEXPERT SYSTEMS, Issue 1 2007Joon Yeon Choi Abstract: Recommendation systems for the mobile Web have focused on endorsing particular types of content to users. Today, mobile service providers have a more direct recommendation channel, namely the short messaging service. Therefore, mobile service providers should consider both the timing and context of recommendation messages (push messages) that are sent to users. Mobile service providers can learn context-specific user preferences by analysing mobile Web use logs and user responses to push messages. In this paper, we present a context-sensitive recommendation system that can be used to select the optimal context in which to send recommendation messages. We call this system the mobile context recommender system (MCORE). We compared user responses to push messages delivered in and out of suitable contexts as determined by MCORE. The precision of push messages delivered within a suitable context was higher than that of messages delivered outside of one. [source] Highway alignment optimization through feasible gatesJOURNAL OF ADVANCED TRANSPORTATION, Issue 2 2007Min Wook Kang Abstract An efficient optimization approach, called feasible gate (FG), is developed to enhance the computation efficiency and solution quality of the previously developed highway alignment optimization (HAO) model. This approach seeks to realistically represent various user preferences and environmentally sensitive areas and consider them along with geometric design constraints in the optimization process. This is done by avoiding the generation of infeasible solutions that violate various constraints and thus focusing the search on the feasible solutions. The proposed method is simple, but improves significantly the model's computation time and solution quality. Such improvements are demonstrated with two test examples from a real road project. [source] Automated Alignment and Nomenclature for Consistent Treatment of Polymorphisms in the Human Mitochondrial DNA Control RegionJOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES, Issue 5 2010Bruce Budowle Ph.D. Abstract:, Naming mtDNA sequences by listing only those sites that differ from a reference sequence is the standard practice for describing the observed variations. Consistency in nomenclature is desirable so that all sequences in a database that are concordant with an evidentiary sequence will be found for estimating the rarity of that profile. The operational alignment and nomenclature rules, i.e., "Wilson Rules," suggested for this purpose do not always guarantee a single consistent sequence description for all observed polymorphisms. In this work, the operational alignment/nomenclature rules were reconfigured to better reflect traditional user preferences. The rules for selecting alignments are described. In addition, to avoid human error and to more efficiently name mtDNA sequence variants, a computer-facilitated method of aligning mtDNA sample sequences with a reference sequence was developed. There were 33 differences between these hierarchical rules and the data in SWGDAM, which translates into a 99.92% consistency between the new rules and the manual historical nomenclature approach. The data support the reliability of the current SWGDAM database. As the few discrepancies were changed in favor of the new hierarchical rules, the quality of the SWGDAM database is further improved. [source] MPEG-7 tools for Universal Multimedia AccessJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 9 2007José M. Martínez Universal Multimedia Access (UMA) deals with seamless access to once-only-created content via any kind of terminal and any kind of network connectivity, which implies that the content should be adapted in order to fit a variety of terminal and network characteristics, as well as user preferences. The MPEG-7 standard offers some support for UMA within its section on Multimedia Description Schemes (MDS). Within the standard, several groups of tools serve this purpose. For instance, the Navigation and Access Tools provide some Description Schemes that allow the description of adapted content variations and summaries and allow for preprocessed content versions. Some support is also found in the Content Metadata Tools (Media and Usage Tools), for real-time ease in creation of online content versions and in limited support for session description, which is completed in MPEG-21. [source] A decision theoretic approach to combining information filters: An analytical and empirical evaluationJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 3 2006Yuval Elovici The outputs of several information filtering (IF) systems can be combined to improve filtering performance. In this article the authors propose and explore a framework based on the so-called information structure (IS) model, which is frequently used in Information Economics, for combining the output of multiple IF systems according to each user's preferences (profile). The combination seeks to maximize the expected payoff to that user. The authors show analytically that the proposed framework increases users expected payoff from the combined filtering output for any user preferences. An experiment using the TREC-6 test collection confirms the theoretical findings. [source] Evaluating interest profiles based on users' judgment, interest change, and class specificity in the context of filtering medical documentsPROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2002Luz M. Quiroga Quality of profiles is critical for the performance of information filtering systems. A series of experiments were conducted to investigate factors that can impact the profile acquisition process. Profiles in MedSIFTER, the system used in the study, are represented as degrees of interests over a set of fixed classes and for this research were based on established MeSH categories. We collected data from 12 subjects, who used the system in a mode where profile acquisition is exclusively based on feedback provision. User-provided profiles, machine-built profiles, transaction log records and written statements of subjects were the main empirical data. Profile similarities and consistency of feedback with explicit preferences for classes were measured. Results suggested that the system captured user preferences better when these preferences involved specific classes and when the user preferences didn't change significantly. Feedback assessments were more conducive to the representation of user preferences when these preferences involved specific classes. Discrepancies between what the subjects stated, when explicitly expressing their preferences, and what they actually did, when providing feedback, pointed to key factors related to the representation and modeling of the documents and profiles. [source] Block-based fine granularity scalable video coding with optimized rate allocation for content-aware streamingINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF IMAGING SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 6 2003Yuwen He Abstract This article proposes a novel block-based fine granularity scalable (FGS) video coding structure with optimized rate allocation for content-aware streaming, which is more flexible than MPEG-4 FGS specified in the streaming profile of MPEG-4 standard (IS-14496). In MPEG-4 FGS streaming, rate allocation can only be based on frame because MBs' compressed data are interlaced between bit-planes. However in the proposed coding structure, every MB's data are independent; therefore, streaming server can allocate bits according to content's importance, and the quality of those regions of interest is enhanced selectively with more bits allocated. In this way, the streaming server can have a differentiated delivery strategy to support a personalized streaming service considering user's preference. But the uniform rate allocation of proposed block-based FGS coding will result in a greater loss of coding efficiency than that of MPEG-4 FGS within a quite wide bit-rate range. An optimized and fast rate allocation method according to block's rate-distortion is proposed to solve this critical issue. And the coding efficiency is improved successfully, which can be comparable with MPEG-4 FGS coding and is even better up to 0.5 dB, with some sequences at medium bit-rates. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol 13, 322,330, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ima.10066 [source] A decision theoretic approach to combining information filters: An analytical and empirical evaluationJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 3 2006Yuval Elovici The outputs of several information filtering (IF) systems can be combined to improve filtering performance. In this article the authors propose and explore a framework based on the so-called information structure (IS) model, which is frequently used in Information Economics, for combining the output of multiple IF systems according to each user's preferences (profile). The combination seeks to maximize the expected payoff to that user. The authors show analytically that the proposed framework increases users expected payoff from the combined filtering output for any user preferences. An experiment using the TREC-6 test collection confirms the theoretical findings. [source] Library portal images that positively influence their users' perception of the portalPROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2008James P. Smith This paper provides an example of how visual information , the images used on academic library Web portals (ALWPs) , transforms users' perceptions of, and preference for, the portal. As a result of the information derived from this research the manner in which visual information is presented in ALWPs may be transformed. The study reported here compared the effect that high-image-pertinent (HIP) academic library portals and low-image-pertinent (LIP) academic library portals have on the users' preference for one portal over the other. One hundred undergraduate students searched for the answers to two ten-question information retrieval exercises using matched-pairs of HIP and LIP academic library portals. The exercises were constructed of questions similar to those asked at an academic library's reference desk. Data collected and statistically analyzed included: the scores from the information retrieval exercises, the time to complete the information retrieval exercises, the mouse-clicks used to complete the information retrieval exercises and the users' stated portal preference. The HIP portals outperformed the LIP portals and the subjects preferred the HIP portals to the LIP portals in 3 out of 4 measures of performance and preference. [source] The impact of cognitive styles on perceptual distributed multimedia qualityBRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY, Issue 4 2003Gheorghita Ghinea Multimedia technology has been widely used in web-based instruction, but previous studies have indicated that individual differences, especially cognitive styles, have significant effects on users' preferences with respect to presentation of multimedia content. However, such research has thus far neglected to examine the effect of cognitive styles on users' subjective perceptions of multimedia quality. This study aims to examine the relationships among users' cognitive styles, the multimedia Quality of Service (QoS) delivered by the underlying network, and Quality of Perception (QoP), which encompasses user levels of enjoyment and understanding of the informational content provided by multimedia material. Accordingly, 132 users took part in an experiment in which they were shown multimedia video clips presented with different values of two QoS parameters (frame rate and colour depth). Results show that, whilst the two QoS parameters do not impact user QoP, multimedia content and dynamism levels significantly influence the user understanding and enjoyment component of QoP. [source] | ||||||||||||||||