Information Need

Hospitals are convenient settings for the deployment of context-aware applications. The information needs of hospital workers are highly dependent on contextual variables, such as location, role and activity. While some of these parameters can be easily determined, others, such as activity are much more complex to estimate. This paper describes an approach to estimate the activity being performed by hospital workers. The approach is based on information gathered from a workplace study conducted in a hospital, in which 196 h of detailed observation of hospital workers was recorded. Contextual information, such as the location of hospital workers, artifacts being used, the people with whom they collaborate and the time of the day, is used to train a back propagation neural network to estimate hospital workers activities. The activities estimated include clinical case assessment, patient care, preparation, information management, coordination and classes and certification. The results indicate that the user activity can be correctly estimated 75% of the time (on average) which is good enough for several applications. We discuss how these results can be used in the design of activity-aware applications, arguing that recent advances in pervasive and networking technologies hold great promises for the deployment of such applications.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to present a framework model for outsourcing asset management services in municipalities.Design/methodology/approachThe authors have analysed the outsourcing of asset management services in the municipal sector. A survey document containing a series of questions was developed and issued to administrative (policy‐making) staff members at senior management level. These staff members are concerned with the strategic planning of facilities beyond the five‐year horizon.FindingsThe survey indicated that outsourcing is being utilized in almost all functions relating to the management of municipal infrastructure, and that the criterion for selecting a specific contractor for a service is lowest price. The findings section in the paper also presents a list of the advantages of outsourcing along with the rated priority of each, the disadvantages of outsourcing along with the rated severity of each, and the strategies that could be followed to achieve a successf...

We propose a Core Product Model (CPM) for modeling product information suitable for supporting the information needs of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems over the lifecycle of the product from the earliest ideation to manufacturing, operation and disposal. We make this claim because in CPM a product is modeled as a triad of its function (what it is intended to do), its form (what is its shape and material) and its behavior (how it implements its function). Early pre-design activities can thus deal with the function without having a geometric model of the form, and activities subsequent to design can extend the behavior by the evaluation of multiple causal models (e.g., what is the product's market share). The components of the conceptual model of CPM are presented in terms of the product's function, form and behavior, as well as the decompositions, associations and various kinds of relationships among these concepts. The model is represented in UML so as to provide interoperability with other models. An implementation model in XML and an example are presented to illustrate the principal elements of the proposed CPM model.

This paper considers the use of controlled languages for query translation in a legislative document retrieval system. Problem statement and analysis of the approach are described. The use of controlled languages is motivated by the fact that precision is very important in our case. In many information retrieval systems, the use of unrestricted language resources such as general purpose machine translation or bilingual lexica, provides better recall at the expense of precision. Ambiguities and polysemy make the search engine retrieve irrelevant documents as semantic knowledge is missing. Controlled languages help to better specify the word sense according to the domain of interest. Thus ambiguities are avoided and polysemy is specified according to the domain. We will implement our idea in the area of VAT regulation in Europe.

We present a framework based on Statistical Topics Models, Language Models, Information Extraction, and Ontology Analysis to retrieve healthcare related documents for the CLEF eHealth 2013 Task 3. In this framework we add global information based on latent topics from the documents to improve the document retrieval. We perform six different experiments which consist of a baseline and six variants of the model. Preliminary results show that the use of Language Models with a bag of words scheme results better estimates. However model tunning in the Topic Based model is required to achieve optimal results.

Reading is one of the most important skills in today's society. The ubiquity of this activity has naturally affected many information systems; the only goal of some is the presentation of textual information. One concrete task often performed on a computer and involving reading is finding relevant parts of text. In the current study, we investigated if word-level relevance, defined as a binary measure of an individual word being congruent with the reader's current informational needs, could be inferred given only the text and eye movements of readers. We found that the number of fixations, first-pass fixations, and the total viewing time can be used to predict the relevance of sentence-terminal words. In light of what is known about eye movements of readers, knowing which sentence-terminal words are relevant can help in an unobtrusive identification of relevant sentences.

Short descriptive outlines, both for the processes that occur in the photovoltaic effect and the simplest form of a stand alone photovoltaic system, are described in the present paper. System sizing, description of a few small to medium capacity PV installations, preliminary economic analysis, the information needs for diffusing this technology into rural areas with particular reference to developing countries etc. are other main subtopics discussed here. Photovoltaic effect Solar cell System sizing Stand alone PV system Economic analysis

It is hereby notified that no part of this thesis maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior consent of the author, except for academic purposes. iv CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION OF DISSERTATION I, Luke John Banda, do hereby certify that this dissertation is the product of my own work and, in submitting it for my MPH (Environmental Health) programme further attest that it has not been submitted in part or in whole to another University. Signature: _________________________ Date: _______________________ Supervisors: I, Allan R. Mbewe, Having submitted and read this dissertation, I am satisfied that this is the original work of the author under whose name it is being presented. I, therefore, confirm that the worker has been completed satisfactorily and is hereby ready for presentation to the examiners. Signature: ______________________ Date: ________________________ I, Dr. S. H. Nzala, Having submitted and read this dissertation, I am satisfied that this is the original work of the author under whose name it is being presented. I confirm that the worker has been completed satisfactorily and is hereby ready for presentation to the examiners. Signature: ____________________ Date: ___________________________ I, Dr. H. Halwindi, Having submitted and read this dissertation, I am satisfied that this is the original work of the author under whose name it is being presented. I, therefore, confirm that the worker has been completed satisfactorily and is hereby ready for presentation to the examiners.

This paper seeks to contribute to an improved information management and exchange between humanitarian organisations and military agents in complex emergencies. To do so, a theoretical information management process model was developed and applied to the case of information management between International Security Assistance Force troops and humanitarian organi sations such as Cordaid, DACAAR and the International Office for Migration in Kabul, Afghanistan. Based on this analysis the main shortcomings and problems in each stage of the information management process were identified. These include a lack of structured informa tion databases, the absence of identification of information needs, and an overclassification of documents by the military. Using a logical framework analysis, six major improvement tactics were developed, including the creation of more overlap in rotations of personnel, the specification of aims and tasks regarding information management, the improvement of skills and compe tences of personnel involved, and the introduction of regular joint civil-military evaluations.

The Clairvoyance team participated in the High Accuracy Retrieval from Documents (HARD) Track of TREC 2004, submitting three runs. The principal hypothesis we have been pursuing is that small numbers of documents in clusters can provide a better basis for relevance feedback than ranked lists or, alternatively, than top-N pseudo-relevance feedback (PRF). Clustering of a query response can yield one or more groups of documents in which there are “significant” numbers (greater than 30%) of relevant documents; we expect the best results when such groups are selected for feedback. Following up on work we began in our TREC-2003 HARD-Track experiments [Shanahan et al. 2004], therefore, we continued to explore approaches to clustering query response sets to concentrate relevant documents, with the goal of (a) providing users (assessors) with better sets of documents to judge and (b) making the choices among sets easier to evaluate. Our experiments, thus, focused primarily on exploiting asse...

In a time of change focusing on the application of technology, there is a high risk of underestimating the compliance of internal needs and adaption to context. The research study employs a qualitative approach using the case study methodology. The source of data comes from five different manufacturing companies categorized as Small to Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs). A multidisciplinary team performed semi-structured interviews and fieldwork at each site, along with regular online meetings with the partners. The study employs five dimensions of the information quality perspective to assess information utilized to support deviation handling and connects the information quality deficiencies to the digital tools’ impact. The empirical findings indicate the need for the companies to perform a requirement analysis of information needs before the adoption of digital systems or digital tools, to assess their current state in terms of data and information. The paper discusses the impact dig...

Although heart disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality the majority of patients do not access existing rehabilitation programs and patient resources are not designed to facilitate patient choice and decision-making. The objective of this study was to develop and test a series of risk factor modules and corresponding patient information leaflets for secondary prevention of CHD. In phase one, a series of risk factor modules and management options were developed following analysis of literature and interviews with health professionals. In phase two, module information leaflets were developed using published guidelines and interviews of people with CHD. In phase three, the leaflets were tested for quality (DISCERN), readability (Flesch) and suitability (SAM) and were compared to the existing cardiac rehabilitation (CR) information leaflet. Finally, the patients assessed the leaflets for content and relevance. Four key risk factors identified were cholesterol, blood pressure,...

The Ecological Processes and Effects Committee of the US Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board conducted a self‐initiated study and convened a public workshop to characterize the state of the ecological risk assessment (ERA), with a view toward advancing the science and application of the process. That survey and analysis of ERA in decision making shows that such assessments have been most effective when clear management goals were included in the problem formulation; translated into information needs; and developed in collaboration with decision makers, assessors, scientists, and stakeholders. This process is best facilitated when risk managers, risk assessors, and stakeholders are engaged in an ongoing dialogue about problem formulation. Identification and acknowledgment of uncertainties that have the potential to profoundly affect the results and outcome of risk assessments also improves assessment effectiveness. Thus we suggest 1) thorough peer review of ERAs be...

World Wide Web content continuously grows in size and importance. Furthermore, users ask Web search engines to satisfy increasingly disparate information needs. New techniques and tools are constantly developed aimed at assisting users in the interaction with the Web search engine. Query recommender systems suggesting interesting queries to users are an example of such tools. Most query recommendation techniques are based on the knowledge of the behaviors of past users of the search engine recorded in query logs. A recent query-log mining approach for query recommendation is based on Query Flow Graphs (QFG). In this paper we propose an evaluation of the effects of time on this query recommendation model. As users interests change over time, the knowledge extracted from query logs may suffer an aging effect as new interesting topics appear. In order to validate experimentally this hypothesis, we build different query flow graphs from the queries belonging to a large query log of a real-world search engine. Each query flow graph is built on distinct query log segments. Then, we generate recommendations on different sets of queries. Results are assessed both by means of human judgments and by using an automatic evaluator showing that the models inexorably age.

Various sensing modalities are presently used or conceptualized for use in roadway management projects. These include, among others, bind-type (utilizing inductive loops, reflected light, etc.), acoustical, and radar sensors. However, due to lower cost; flexibility in installation, maintenance and use; high information content; lack of emissions; and wide sensing area, some researchers have argued that the use of video cameras and computer vision techniques offer the best choice. Nonetheless, due to various issues - including lighting condition sensitivity and computational complexity - even the latter approach can be less than optimal. One possible reason that a computer vision scheme can become overly complex and sensitive to lighting conditions is that too much local information needs to be captured/analyzed by the algorithm. Utilizing a patent-pending approach, this paper discusses a just-enough-smart, largely-global technique based on a simplified version of the fly's eye ...

Intelligent Information Filtering is the process of receiving or monitoring large amounts of dynamically generated information and extracting the subset of information that would be of interest to a user based on some specified information need. Historically, this need has been based on user profiles that are directly evaluable-the information can be immediately classified as interesting or not. In this thesis I introduce a new type of user interestingness criterion which is prospective-the criterion defines the interestingness of an information item based on events that happen subsequent to the information item appearing. Hence, the interestingness cannot be directly evaluated. A new technique is described which takes such a criterion and operationalizes it, using machine learning to generate a predictive model that can directly evaluate a piece of information. I show that this technique works statistically significantly better than Arunava Banerjee helped me out by implementing the entropy-based split point algorithm as well as the C4.5 split-point extraction utility which were used in the second part of this dissertation. Chapters 3-5 were published in SIGIR-2001 [MHP + 01]. Portions of Chapters 6-8 were published as a conference paper at IJCAI-2001 [MHBD01], an extended version of which will appear in an upcoming publication of the Artificial Intelligence Journal [MHBD]. Initial results in the wireless email domain was published at IJCAI-1999 [MDH99].

This study sets out to determine the influence of recognition of information need on the research practices of graduate students in the university libraries of South East, Nigeria. The objective was to ascertain how information recognition need abilities as provided by libraries and librarians can enhance research practices of graduate students. As a guide to the study, three specific objectives which reflect essential components of the recognition of information need standards namely; recognition of nature of information need, and recognition of scope of information need are formulated. Also, three research questions and one hypothesis are also formulated to direct the study. The study adopts ex-post facto research design. Proportionate sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 556 graduate students out of a population of 5,565 registered graduate student users in the university libraries of South East Nigeria. The instrument for data collection is a researcherdeveloped and validated questionnaire. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was .742. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation, while regression method was used to test the hypothesis at .05 level of significance. Findings of the study showed that the individual recognition of information need indicators (recognition of nature of information need, and recognition of scope of information need) investigated, all have significant influence on graduate students' research practices in the university libraries of South East, Nigeria, though at varying degrees. Findings of the study also showed a significant combined influence of information need indicators on the graduate students' research practices. It is recommended among others that Librarians should collaborate with faculty members by sensitizing them on the need to engage students in regular information problem-solving tasks so that the students will be adequately trained on recognizing and defining their information need in their learning and research tasks and to do that early in the research process.

Proyecto académico sin fines de lucro, desarrollado bajo la iniciativa de acceso abierto Key wrrlr: dengue, epidemiologic surveillince, Aedes a e e p t i E L DENGUE EN las Américas ha ido definiendo su identidad como problema de salud pública poco a poco. Su incierta evolución dentro de la historia de las epidemias en la Región se inicia con la importación tanto del vector como del agente1 y continúa con la lenta adaptación deeste binomio a las condiciones locales en forma paralela al proceso de desarrollo de las sociedades en nuestro continente. Los primeros datos sobre la presencia del dengue en Las Amtricas se registraron en Filadelfia en 1790. Pocos anos después, en 1827, se pre-

One way to tailor analysis to the special information needs of multiparty decisionmaking processes is discussed. A scenario-based multiattribute trade-off analysis framework is described that parallels the stages in negotiated decisionmaking, focusing on the key task of evaluating trade-offs among choices en route to a consensus decision. Sorting techniques with carefully managed normative content are employed to reveal overlapping preferences regarding choices among alternatives in spite of widely divergent views about fundamental issues. The same techniques are also shown to be useful for closing gaps in negotiating positions. These concepts are illustrated with data from a recent energy and environmental planning application.

The potentialities of the use of the UAV survey as a base for the generation of the context mesh are illustrated through the experiments on the case study, the Crotone Fortress, proposing a systematic general methodology and two procedural workflows for the importation of the triangulated model, maintaining its real geographical coordinates, in the Autodesk Revit environment through a Dynamo Visual Programming script [VPL]. First, the texturisation of the mesh of the urban context was experimented with, using the real-sized photogrammetric orthoimage as Revit material; therefore, the reproduction of the discretised detailed areas of the urban context was tested. They were imported via Dynamo by reading the coordinates of the vertices of every single face that constitutes the triangulated model and associating to each of them the corresponding real colorimetric data. Starting from the georeferenced context of the photogrammetric mesh, nine federated BIM models were produced: the general context models, the detailed models and the architectural model of the fortress.

Grid computing involves the close coordination of many different sites which offer distinct computational and storage resources to the Grid user community. The resources at each site need to be monitored continuously. Static and dynamic site information needs to be presented to the user community in a simple and efficient manner. This paper will present both the design and implementation of the Grid3 monitoring infrastructure and the design details and the functionalities of a new application called the GridCat. The Grid3 monitoring architecture follows a useroriented design that specifies standard metrics and utilizes underlying monitoring tools to collect them into a diversified framework. Then existing tools can be integrated, their functionality extended and new tools developed. The primary tools used include the ACDC Job Monitoring system from University at Buffalo, Ganglia, a preliminary version of GridCat, Globus MDS, the University of Chicago Grid telemetry MDViewer, and US ...

Pregnancy and the early years of life (0-3 years) are of crucial importance for a child's survival, health, growth and development. Improving care for young children is now considered fundamental to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. With support from WHO and Intervida (an international non-governmental organization), implementation on care for early childhood development was carried out by Survival for Women and Children Foundation in 100 villages in Haryana, India. In addition to the implementation of evidence-based interventions, mHealth (phone message (SMS) and phone call) was used as a complementary strategy. The intention was to promote self-care, increase coverage, and improve inter-sectoral collaboration. One message per day was developed (915 messages) and 1564630 SMS were sent to all beneficiaries and providers to facilitate interaction. Based on learnings, the consolidation of this approach into 46 core themes helped to refine interactions. Lot Quality Assurance Sampling was used for evaluation. SMS was received, read and practiced by the caregivers and the care providers in the intervention block, being substantially higher than in the control blocks. There was a remarkable improvement in under-nutrition and wasting; however, the reduction in stunting was modest in the intervention area as compared with two control blocks. This is attributed to implementation of all strategies in the project including the complementary approach of use of mHealth. The application of SMS and phone communication continues to have relevance, since people most in need are poor and require integrated package of services maximally during this crucial period for improving equity and coverage.

Solvent extraction of bituminous coals has been used as a means of coproducing clean liquid transportation fuels as well as solid fuels for gasification. Coal solvents are created by hydrogenating coal tar distillate fractions to the level of a fraction of a percent, thus enabling bituminous coal to enter the liquid phase under conditions of high temperature (above 400 oC). The pressure is controlled by the vapor pressure of the solvent and the cracked coal. Once liquefied, mineral matter can be removed via centrifugation, and the resultant superheavy crude can be processed to make pitches, cokes as well as lighter products. Low emission liquefaction processes are particularly important in a scenario in which greenhouse gas mitigation is essential. Likely such scenarios will emphasize the use of technologies such as wind and nuclear power for central station power, while hydrocarbons will be increasingly reserved for liquid transportation fuel applications. Lower rank coals such as ...

Although the information available to human operators can increase without obvious bound, human information processing capacities remain fixed. Finding and selecting the relevant information to display in this deluge of options imposes a burden on the user. We describe a domain-general system, Responsive Adaptive Display Anticipates Requests (RADAR), that learns to highlight the information a user would select if the user searched through all possible options. By offloading this selection process to RADAR, the user can concentrate on the primary task. Tests with human subjects in a tank video game environment that required monitoring several information channels while maintaining situation awareness revealed that players performed better with RADAR selecting which channel to display. RADAR can customize its predictions to a user to take into account individual differences and changes within a user over time. RADAR's emphasis on learning by observing minimizes the need for explicit guidance from subject matter experts.

Scholarly communication is the essence of all scientific work (Gravey, 1979). With the emergence of digital information resources and internet, the modes of accessing, searching, retrieving and consuming scholarly information have been rapidly changed. This scenario is “effectively transforming science into e-science”(Robert, 2009). The major developments in scientists' world are: globalization, exponential growth of S&T literature, increasing tendency of team research (multidisciplinary & interdisciplinary), collaboration ...

Many methods have been developed and adapted to help designers to understand, empathise with, and quantify users' situations, both through direct user involvement and more indirect use of user data. These methods vary widely, with different goals and suited for use in different situations. However, designers often find it difficult to select the most appropriate for their needs, often leading to inappropriate method use. We therefore propose a framework to help designers to make informed decisions about methods. The framework identifies the key information needs of designers in making these decisions, based on observations, interviews, card-sorting studies and a literature review. We further discuss how the framework may be populated, giving an example and discussing key issues.

This study examines the disconnect between the theory and practice of value-based education in Kenya. It finds that Kenyan primary schools lack a culture of values and ethics, and that the curriculum fails to systematically integrate values. The study argues that the exam-focused education system hinders the development of ethical behavior, and recommends a whole-school approach to teaching values, curriculum integration of four core values (Respect, Tolerance, Equality, and Peace), and examination reform.

Background: There is increasing interest in developing peer-led and 'expert patient'-type interventions, particularly to meet the support and informational needs of those with long term conditions, leading to improved clinical outcomes, and pressure relief on mainstream health services. There is also increasing interest in telephone support, due to its greater accessibility and potential availability than face to face provided support. The evidence base for peer telephone interventions is relatively weak, although such services are widely available as support lines provided by user groups and other charitable services. Methods/Design: In a 3-arm RCT, participants are allocated to either an intervention group with Telecare service provided by a Diabetes Specialist Nurse (DSN), an intervention group with service provided by a peer supporter (also living with diabetes), or a control group receiving routine care only. All supporters underwent a 2-day training in motivational interviewing, empowerment and active listening skills to provide telephone support over a period of up to 6 months to adults with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes who had been recommended a change in diabetes management (i.e. medication and/or lifestyle changes) by their general practitioner (GP). The primary outcome is self-efficacy; secondary outcomes include HbA1c, total and HDL cholesterol, blood pressure, body mass index, and adherence to treatment. 375 participants (125 in each arm) were sought from GP practices across West Midlands, to detect a difference in self-efficacy scores with an effect size of 0.35, 80% power, and 5% significance level. Adults living with type 2 diabetes, with an HbA1c > 8% and not taking insulin were initially eligible. A protocol change 10 months into the recruitment resulted in a change of eligibility by reducing HbA1c to > 7.4%. Several qualitative studies are being conducted alongside the main RCT to describe patient, telecare supporter and practice nurse experience of the trial. With its focus on self-management and telephone peer support, the intervention being trialled has the potential to support improved self-efficacy and patient experience, improved clinical outcomes and a reduction in diabetes-related complications.

Purpose: Query suggestions are contributive in formulating queries and improving search results on the Web. This tool is used in most search and retrieval systems like the search engines, databases, personal search tools and so on. The factors affecting the use of query suggestions by the users from the perspective of experts are identified. Methodology: First, a number of factors are identified through the documentary methodology, and next the significance of each factor is determined through the fuzzy Delphi method here. Findings: A total of 48 factor is extracted from the available literature view and is classified into 13 categories of demographic characteristics, search experience, domain knowledge and expertise, linguistic features, user's query, creativity creation, psychological and cognitional, source of creation of query suggestions, contextual factors, semantic features of query suggestions, structural characteristics of query suggestions, increasing the user's pe...

This paper is an outgrowth of an effort undertaken by the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Research to assess the fundamental research needs to support a national program in carbon management (Benson et al, 1998). Five topics were identified as areas where carbon management strategies and technologies might be developed: (1) capture of carbon dioxide, decarbonization strategies, and carbon dioxide disposal and utilization; (2) hydrogen development and fuel cells; (3) enhancement of the natural carbon cycle; (4) biomass production and utilization; and (5) improvement of the efficiency of energy production, conversion, and utilization. Within each of these general areas, experts came together to identify targets of opportunity for fundamental research likely to lead to the development of mid-to long-term solutions for stabilizing or decreasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Basic research to support the options outlined above are far reaching-from understanding natural global processes such as the ocean and terrestrial carbon cycles to development of new materials and concepts for chemical separation. Examples of fundamental research needs are described in this paper.

Recent concerns about the potential of certain chemicals to modulate estrogen-regulated processes have led to questions as to how chemicals should be tested for such effects. Therefore, AIHC has developed a comprehensive, resource-efficient, and flexible tiered strategy for estrogen modulation (EM) testing. Levels of evaluation include Tier 0, in which exposure, along with alerts based on structure-activity, persistence, bioaccumulation, and other data, are assessed to prioritize chemicals for preliminary testing. In Tier I, short term in vitro, ex vivo, and/or in vivo assays are used to obtain a preliminary indication of EM potential. Among these, an in vivo response assay is considered the most reliable at this time. However, none of these tests are intended for risk assessment, but rather to aid in choosing chemicals for further testing and in guiding the extent of that testing. Tier II is alimed at risk assessment and involves whole animal tests that contain EM-sensitive end points (e.g., two-generation reproduction study). Tier III consists of hypothesis-driven research reserved for situations where targeted research can reduce levels of uncertainty. This tiered approach provides a framework for the strategic and effective application of EM test methods to address specific information needs on a case by case basis.

Virtual communities have a potential to improve the community building process and care services through support for activities, participation and information needs. In this paper, we propose a mobile virtual community platform for elderly healthcare. The requirements for this platform are collected from interview sessions with clients and caregivers in a care institution, and a workshop with multiple stakeholders. We focus on the technical platform that fulfills the requirements gathered from this approach. The platform is an elaboration of our existing mobile virtual community platform and enables tailoring through an adaptable set of mobile and platform services. Reminder services, remote monitoring, video communication and (delegated) friend and service finding are discussed and exemplified through a case study.

The rapid growth of visual data over the last few years has lead to many schemes for retrieving such data. With content-based systems today, there exists a significant gap between the user's information needs and what the systems can deliver. We propose to bridge this gap, by introducing the novel idea of Semantic Visual Templates (SVT). Each template represents a personalized view of concepts (e.g. slalom, meetings, sunsets etc.), The SVT is represented using a set of successful queries, which are generated by a two-way interaction between the user and the system. We have developed algorithms that interact with the user and converge upon a small set of exemplar queries that maximize recall. SVT's emphasize intuitive models that allow for easy manipulation and queries to be composited. The resulting system performs well, for example with small number of queries in the "sunset" template, we are able to achieve 50% recall and 24% precision over a large unannotated database.

Interactions and Transformation in the Chemical Sciences Division. His research interests include theories of chemical reactions, with focus on the effects of molecular environment (liquids, solids, and interfaces) on chemical reaction rates, molecular theories of gas-to-particle nucleation, and molecular simulations of molecular processes at aqueous interfaces. He is an American Physical Society Fellow.

Advances in the understanding of every oceanic process of concern to scientists, marine resource managers, disaster managers and other decision makers require improved understanding of properties such as sea surface temperature, circulation, air-land-sea interactions, sea floor bathymetry, eddy propagation and other subjects in which regional informational needs remain unfulfilled. To address this situation, the University of Puerto Rico and the University of the Virgin Islands, with the authority and support of an interagency consortium of US agencies, have organized CaRA, the Caribbean Regional Association. As part of a national system of similar organizations, CaRA is charged with advancing the state of observational platforms and related infrastructure in the region. Its mandate also calls for assembling existing data streams and inventories of databases, data management protocols, and regionally focused expertise into a sustainable, integrated observing system that improves and advances monitoring of the ocean in the Caribbean region and contributes substantially to the understanding of ocean processes. It has begun its mission by engaging regional stakeholders, identifying their needs for information about the ocean and coasts, conducting an inventory of existing ocean observing system assets, formalizing its own structure, and facilitating collaborations and pilot projects that demonstrate the utility of the integrated ocean observing concept.

We present an intelligent agent designed to compile a daily news program for individual users. Based on feedback from the user, the system automatically adapts to the user’s preferences and interests. In this paper we focus on the system's user modeling component. First, we motivate the use of a multi-strategy machine learning approach that allows for the induction of user models that consist of separate models for long-term and short-term interests. Second, we investigate the utility of explicitly modeling information that the system has already presented to the user. This allows us to address an important issue that has thus far received virtually no attention in the Information Retrieval community: the fact that a user's information need changes as a direct result of interaction with information. We evaluate the proposed algorithms on user data collected with a prototype of our system, and assess the individual performance contributions of both

Use of science in wetland management has increased considerably over the last 50 years but there is still scope for improving the transfer of research results into management. Issues that lead to less than optimal transfer include: (1) managers not accessing existing technical information adequately, (2) researchers addressing issues of peripheral importance to management rather than key information needs, (3) managers failing to identify significant information gaps and to resource appropriate research in a timely way, (4) scale of research and certainty of results being inappropriate for application to broad-scale situations by managers responsible for outcomes, and (5) funding bodies not fully recognizing that transfer of research results to management requires a development phase. Establishment of recovery catchments in the Western Australian wheatbelt, with the aim of maintaining regional biodiversity in the face of increasing dryland salinisation, is a program that relies on transferring research results into management. However, the multidisciplinary nature of managing salinisation is a challenge for many catchment managers and formal management systems are probably an important adjunct to close knowledge of the catchment when making management decisions. An examination of management planning and actions in the Lake Warden Natural Diversity Recovery Catchment, south-west Western Australia, highlights the continuum between research and management, the importance of understanding the physical environment when managing biodiversity, and the fact that much wetland conservation relies on management action in terrestrial landscapes.