The influence of pre-processing on the estimation of readability of web documents

This paper investigates the effect that text pre-processing approaches have on the estimation of the readability of web pages. Readability has been highlighted as an important aspect of web search result personalisation in previous work. The most widely used text readability measures rely on surface level characteristics of text, such as the length of words and sentences. We demonstrate that different tools for extracting text from web pages lead to very different estimations of readability. This has an important implication for search engines because search result personalisation strategies that consider users reading ability may fail if incorrect text readability estimations are computed.

Delivering information and technology to the mango industry - Stage 2

Access to relevant and timely information and training resources has emerged as a significant issue from the Delivering Mango Technology (DMT) project. This project will facilitate providing managing information and technology tools for growers. Using a range of methods, including workshops, events, and web based technology facilitated through the Australian Mango Industry Association’s (AMIA) website, DMT stage 2 will develop a high profile delivery vehicle to building industry knowledge and resources .

Development and adoption of a web-based irrigation management tool for improved water use efficiency

Develop a web-based tool to assist farmers and consultants make strategic and tactical irrigation decisions.

AQUAMAN: a web-based decision support system for irrigation scheduling in peanuts

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is an economically important legume crop in irrigated production areas of northern Australia. Although the potential pod yield of the crop in these areas is about 8 t ha(-1), most growers generally obtain around 5 t ha(-1), partly due to poor irrigation management. Better information and tools that are easy to use, accurate, and cost-effective are therefore needed to help local peanut growers improve irrigation management. This paper introduces a new web-based decision support system called AQUAMAN that was developed to assist Australian peanut growers schedule irrigations. It simulates the timing and depth of future irrigations by combining procedures from the food and agriculture organization (FAO) guidelines for irrigation scheduling (FAO-56) with those of the agricultural production systems simulator (APSIM) modeling framework. Here, we present a description of AQUAMAN and results of a series of activities (i.e., extension activities, case studies, and a survey) that were conducted to assess its level of acceptance among Australian peanut growers, obtain feedback for future improvements, and evaluate its performance. Application of the tool for scheduling irrigations of commercial peanut farms since its release in 2004-2005 has shown good acceptance by local peanuts growers and potential for significantly improving yield. Limited comparison with the farmer practice of matching the pan evaporation demand during rain-free periods in 2006-2007 and 2008-2009 suggested that AQUAMAN enabled irrigation water savings of up to 50% and the realization of enhanced water and irrigation use efficiencies.

Web-based active learning and frequent feedback: Engaging first-year university students

Web-based technology is particularly well-suited to promoting active student involvement in the processes of learning. All students enrolled in a first-year educational psychology unit were required to complete ten weekly online quizzes, ten weekly student-generated questions and ten weekly student answers to those questions. Results of an online survey of participating students strongly support the viability and perceived benefits of such an instructional approach. Although students reported that the 30 assessments were useful and reasonable, the most common theme to emerge from the professional reflections of participating lecturers was that the marking of questions and answers was unmanageable.

User centred design for engineering e-government web usability

E-government provides a platform for governments to implement web enabled services that facilitate communication between citizens and the government. However, technology driven design approach and limited understanding of citizens' requirements, have led to a number of critical usability problems on the government websites. Hitherto, there has been no systematic attempt to analyse the way in which theory of User Centred Design (UCD) can contribute to address the usability issues of government websites. This research seeks to fill this gap by synthesising perspectives drawn from the study of User Centred Design and examining them based on the empirical data derived from case study of the Scottish Executive website. The research employs a qualitative approach in the collection and analysis of data. The triangulated analysis of the findings reveals that e-government web designers take commercial development approach and focus only on technical implementations which lead to websites that do not meet citizens' expectations. The research identifies that e-government practitioners can overcome web usability issues by transferring the theory of UCD to practice.

Developing Peer-To-Peer Web Applications

As the virtual world grows more complex, finding a standard way for storing data becomes increasingly important. Ideally, each data item would be brought into the computer system only once. References for data items need to be cryptographically verifiable, so the data can maintain its identity while being passed around. This way there will be only one copy of the users family photo album, while the user can use multiple tools to show or manipulate the album. Copies of users data could be stored on some of his family members computer, some of his computers, but also at some online services which he uses. When all actors operate over one replicated copy of the data, the system automatically avoids a single point of failure. Thus the data will not disappear with one computer breaking, or one service provider going out of business. One shared copy also makes it possible to delete a piece of data from all systems at once, on users request. In our research we tried to find a model that would make data manageable to users, and make it possible to have the same data stored at various locations. We studied three systems, Persona, Freenet, and GNUnet, that suggest different models for protecting user data. The main application areas of the systems studied include securing online social networks, providing anonymous web, and preventing censorship in file-sharing. Each of the systems studied store user data on machines belonging to third parties. The systems differ in measures they take to protect their users from data loss, forged information, censorship, and being monitored. All of the systems use cryptography to secure names used for the content, and to protect the data from outsiders. Based on the gained knowledge, we built a prototype platform called Peerscape, which stores user data in a synchronized, protected database. Data items themselves are protected with cryptography against forgery, but not encrypted as the focus has been disseminating the data directly among family and friends instead of letting third parties store the information. We turned the synchronizing database into peer-to-peer web by revealing its contents through an integrated http server. The REST-like http API supports development of applications in javascript. To evaluate the platform s suitability for application development we wrote some simple applications, including a public chat room, bittorrent site, and a flower growing game. During our early tests we came to the conclusion that using the platform for simple applications works well. As web standards develop further, writing applications for the platform should become easier. Any system this complex will have its problems, and we are not expecting our platform to replace the existing web, but are fairly impressed with the results and consider our work important from the perspective of managing user data.

Implementing WWWISIS for Providing Web Access to Bibliographic Databases

CDS/ISIS, an advanced non-numerical information storage and retrieval software was developed by UNESCO. With the emergence of WWW technology, most of the information activities are becoming Web-centric. Libraries and information providers are taking advantage of these Internet developments to provide access to their resources/information on the Web. A number of tools are now available for publishing CDS/ISIS databases on the Internet. One such tool is the WWWISIS Web gateway software, developed by BIREME, Brazil. This paper illustrates porting of sample records from a bibliographic database into CDS/ISIS, and then publishing this database on the Internet using WWWISIS.

A Tutorial on Integrating CDS/ISIS Databases with the World Wide Web

With the emergence of Internet, the global connectivity of computers has become a reality. Internet has progressed to provide many user-friendly tools like Gopher, WAIS, WWW etc. for information publishing and access. The WWW, which integrates all other access tools, also provides a very convenient means for publishing and accessing multimedia and hypertext linked documents stored in computers spread across the world. With the emergence of WWW technology, most of the information activities are becoming Web-centric. Once the information is published on the Web, a user can access this information from any part of the world. A Web browser like Netscape or Internet Explorer is used as a common user interface for accessing information/databases. This will greatly relieve a user from learning the search syntax of individual information systems. Libraries are taking advantage of these developments to provide access to their resources on the Web. CDS/ISIS is a very popular bibliographic information management software used in India. In this tutorial we present details of integrating CDS/ISIS with the WWW. A number of tools are now available for making CDS/ISIS database accessible on the Internet/Web. Some of these are 1) the WAIS_ISIS Server. 2) the WWWISIS Server 3) the IQUERY Server. In this tutorial, we have explained in detail the steps involved in providing Web access to an existing CDS/ISIS database using the freely available software, WWWISIS. This software is developed, maintained and distributed by BIREME, the Latin American & Caribbean Centre on Health Sciences Information. WWWISIS acts as a server for CDS/ISIS databases in a WWW client/server environment. It supports functions for searching, formatting and data entry operations over CDS/ISIS databases. WWWISIS is available for various operating systems. We have tested this software on Windows '95, Windows NT and Red Hat Linux release 5.2 (Appolo) Kernel 2. 0. 36 on an i686. The testing was carried out using IISc's main library's OPAC containing more than 80,000 records and Current Contents issues (bibliographic data) containing more than 25,000 records. WWWISIS is fully compatible with CDS/ISIS 3.07 file structure. However, on a system running Unix or its variant, there is no guarantee of this compatibility. It is therefore safe to recreate the master and the inverted files, using utilities provided by BIREME, under Unix environment.

Ground water-surface water interactions sensor technology, Savannah, Georgia, March 7-9, 2005: workshop proceedings

The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) held a Workshop on Sensor Technology for Assessing Groundwater-Surface Water Interactions in the Coastal Zone on March 7 to 9,2005 in Savannah, GA. The main goal of the workshop was to summarize the general parameters, which have been found to be useful in assessing groundwater-surface water (GW-SW) interactions in the coastal zone. The workshop participants (Appendix I) were specifically charged with identifying the types of sensor systems, if any, that have been used to obtain time-series data and to make known which parameters may be the most amenable to the development/application of sensor technology. The group consisted of researchers, industry representatives, and environmental managers. Four general recommendations were made: 1. Educate coastal managers and agencies on the importance of GW-SW interactions, keeping in mind that regulatory agencies are driven by a different set of rules than researchers: the focus is on understanding the significance of the problem and providing solutions. ACT could facilitate this process in two ways. First, given that the research literature on this subject is fairly diffuse, ACT could provide links from its web site to fact sheets or other literature. Second, ACT could organize a focused meeting for managers and/or agency groups. Encourage development of primary tools for quantifying flow. The most promising technology in this respect is flow meters designed for flux chambers, mainly because they should be simple to use and can be made relatively inexpensively. However, it should be kept in mind that they provide only point measurements and several would need to be deployed as a network in order to obtain reliable flow estimates. For evaluating system wide GW-SW interactions, tools that integrate the signal over large areas would be required. Suggestions include a user-friendly hydrogeologic models, keeping in mind that freshwater flow is not the entire story, or continuous radon monitors. Though the latter would be slightly more difficult to use in terms of background knowledge, such an instrument would be low power and easy to operate and maintain. ACT could facilitate this recommendation by identifying funding opportunities on its web site and/or performing evaluations of existing technologies that could be summarized on the web site. (pdf contains 18 pages)

Disseminação de dados estatísticos georeferenciados através de WEB services e software livre.

Diferentes organizações públicas e privadas coletam e disponibilizam uma massa de dados sobre a realidade sócio-econômica das diferentes nações. Há hoje, da parte do governo brasileiro, um interesse manifesto de divulgar uma gama diferenciada de informações para os mais diversos perfis de usuários. Persiste, contudo, uma série de limitações para uma divulgação mais massiva e democrática, entre elas, a heterogeneidade das fontes de dados, sua dispersão e formato de apresentação pouco amigável. Devido à complexidade inerente à informação geográfica envolvida, que produz incompatibilidade em vários níveis, o intercâmbio de dados em sistemas de informação geográfica não é problema trivial. Para aplicações desenvolvidas para a Web, uma solução são os Web Services que permitem que novas aplicações possam interagir com aquelas que já existem e que sistemas desenvolvidos em plataformas diferentes sejam compatíveis. Neste sentido, o objetivo do trabalho é mostrar as possibilidades de construção de portais usando software livre, a tecnologia dos Web Services e os padrões do Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) para a disseminação de dados espaciais. Visando avaliar e testar as tecnologias selecionadas e comprovar sua efetividade foi desenvolvido um exemplo de portal de dados sócio-econômicos, compreendendo informações de um servidor local e de servidores remotos. As contribuições do trabalho são a disponibilização de mapas dinâmicos, a geração de mapas através da composição de mapas disponibilizados em servidores remotos e local e o uso do padrão OGC WMC. Analisando o protótipo de portal construído, verifica-se, contudo, que a localização e requisição de Web Services não são tarefas fáceis para um usuário típico da Internet. Nesta direção, os trabalhos futuros no domínio dos portais de informação geográfica poderiam adotar a tecnologia Representational State Transfer (REST).

Uso de web services e softwares livres na disseminação de informações georreferenciadas sobre produtos da floresta amazônica.

Georreferenced information has been increasingly required for the planning and decision-making in different sectors of society. New ways of dissemination of data, such as the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services, have contributed to the ease of access to this information. Even with all the technological advances in the area of data distribution, there is still low availability of georreferenced data about the Amazon. The goal of the present work is the development of a spatial data infrastructure (SDI), that is, an environment of sharing and use of georreferenced data based on the technology of web services, metadata and interfaces that allow the user easy access to these data. The present work discussess the OGC patterns, the most relevant georeferrenced data servers, the main web clients, and the revolution in the dissemination of georeferrenced data which geobrowsers and web clients offered to regular users. Data to be released for the case study come from the project Exploitation of Non-wooden Forest Products-PFNM-in progress at the National Institute of Research in the Amazon-INPA-as well as from inventories of NGOs and other government bodies. Besides contributing to the enhancement of PFNM, this project aims at encouraging the use of GIS in the state of Amazonas offering tech support for the deployment of geographic databases and sharing between agencies, optimizing the resources applied in this area through the use of free software and integration of diffuse information currently available.

Aprendizagem do profissional de saúde na web: perfis, percepções e representações sociais

No campo da educação permanente na área da saúde, podem ser citadas diferentes iniciativas que visam formar profissionais com o uso das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TICs). No entanto, pouco se sabe ainda sobre o uso da web por profissionais da saúde como estratégia da aprendizagem formal, menos ainda quando se aborda a aprendizagem informal. Percebe-se que as ações no campo da educação com uso e, sobretudo, para o uso da tecnologia como ferramenta de aprendizagem ainda são feitas de forma muito intuitivas, por acerto e erro, tendo em vista a própria evolução da tecnologia em um curto período temporal. Sendo assim, o objetivo geral da pesquisa é compreender o perfil, as percepções e representações sociais sobre aprendizagem na web de médicos, enfermeiros e cirurgiões-dentistas e uma possível influência desse uso no cotidiano profissional. Para atingir o objetivo delimitado, foi empregada a metodologia quali-quantitativa através da utilização de um questionário on-line, contendo questões fechadas e questões abertas, respondido por 277 alunos do Curso de Especialização em Saúde da Família oferecido pelo núcleo da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) da Universidade Aberta do Sistema Único de Saúde (UNA-SUS). Para análise das questões fechadas, foi utilizada a estatística descritiva e testes bivariados não paramétricos. A análise das questões abertas foi feita à luz da teoria da representações sociais com emprego da técnica da análise do conteúdo e das evocações livres. Os resultados da pesquisa foram apresentados em formato de três trabalhos para apresentação em eventos e quatro artigos submetidos para publicação em revistas de alta qualidade acadêmica. Com base nos resultados, destaca-se como preocupação que o simples consumo de informações esteja justificando e a ele esteja restrito o uso da internet para os sujeitos, em detrimento às possibilidades educacionais da cibercultura. Acredita-se ser necessário o desenvolvimento de ações que subsidiem uma prática mais reflexiva a fim de reverter um possível uso reduzido das potencialidades da TICs.

Developing a technology intelligence strategy at kodak european research: Scan & target

OVERVIEW: Kodak European Research (KER) developed a strategy for technology intelligence based on a theoretical model developed by Kerr et al. (2006). KER scouts designed and implemented a four-step approach to identify relevant technologies and research centers across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The approach provides clear guidance for integrating web searches, scouting trips, networking and interactions with intermediaries. KER's example illustrates how companies can organize themselves to look outside corporate boundaries in search of technologies relevant for their business. The approach may be useful to those in other companies who have been asked to start a technology intelligence activity. © 2010 Industrial Research Institute, Inc.