Designing mobile systems for social navigation in urban public places

This thesis presents social requirements and design considerations from a study evaluating interactive approaches to social navigation and user-generated information sharing in urban environments using mobile devices. It investigates innovative ways to leverage mobile information and communication technology in order to provide a social navigation platform for residents and visitors in and for public urban places. Through a design case study this work presents CityFlocks, a mobile information system that offers an easy way for information-seeking new residents or visitors to access tacit knowledge from local people about their new community. It is intended to enable visitors and new residents in a city to tap into the knowledge and experiences of local residents in order to gather information about their new environment. Its design specifically aims to lower existing barriers of access and facilitate social navigation in urban places. In various user tests it evaluates two general user interaction alternatives – direct and indirect social navigation – and analyses which interaction method works better for people using a mobile device to socially navigate urban environments. The outcomes are relevant for the user interaction design of future mobile information systems that leverage the social navigation approach.

Creating and sharing : teens' information practices in digital communities

Introduction In a connected world youth are participating in digital content creating communities. This paper introduces a description of teens' information practices in digital content creating and sharing communities. Method The research design was a constructivist grounded theory methodology. Seventeen interviews with eleven teens were collected and observation of their digital communities occurred over a two-year period. Analysis The data were analysed iteratively to describe teens' interactions with information through open and then focused coding. Emergent categories were shared with participants to confirm conceptual categories. Focused coding provided connections between conceptual categories resulting in the theory, which was also shared with participants for feedback. Results The paper posits a substantive theory of teens' information practices as they create and share content. It highlights that teens engage in the information actions of accessing, evaluating, and using information. They experienced information in five ways: participation, information, collaboration, process, and artefact. The intersection of enacting information actions and experiences of information resulted in five information practices: learning community, negotiating aesthetic, negotiating control, negotiating capacity, and representing knowledge. Conclusion This study contributes to our understanding of youth information actions, experiences, and practices. Further research into these communities might indicate what information practices are foundational to digital communities.

Should I stay or should I go? The challenges and opportunities of moving between university systems

The scientific job market has evolved to a truly globalized market. This is epitomized not only by the English language being the de facto scientific language but also by the increasing share of native language journals that are being offered in multiple languages or have or will fully converted to English (such as, for example, the BISE journal in 2015). Similarly, a plethora of exchange programs exists that allow students and academic staff to visit other institutions and exchange knowledge, ideas, and learning opportunities. While student migration across scientific institutions is an established phenomenon (Gribble, 2008) with ample structures, policies, and schemes such as ERASMUS1 in place, academic staff migration between countries is still a challenge, even if exchange programs exist (Enders, 1998). One reason may be that different career paths, varying teaching loads and different evaluation schemes for what constitutes scientific excellence are notable. This also influences the decision of where to start and continue an academic career. While the university systems themselves have been examined previously (Galliers and Whitley, 2007; Lyytinen et al., 2007) and while there is knowledge about career requirements in different university systems (Dennis et al., 2006; Dean et al., 2011; Loos et al., 2013; Recker, 2013), we still do not know much about individual and contextual decisions of academics that either consider or execute a migration between university systems.

A formalization of logical imaging for information retrieval using quantum theory

In this paper we introduce a formalization of Logical Imaging applied to IR in terms of Quantum Theory through the use of an analogy between states of a quantum system and terms in text documents. Our formalization relies upon the Schrodinger Picture, creating an analogy between the dynamics of a physical system and the kinematics of probabilities generated by Logical Imaging. By using Quantum Theory, it is possible to model more precisely contextual information in a seamless and principled fashion within the Logical Imaging process. While further work is needed to empirically validate this, the foundations for doing so are provided.

Revisiting logical imaging for information retrieval

Retrieval with Logical Imaging is derived from belief revision and provides a novel mechanism for estimating the relevance of a document through logical implication (i.e. P(q -> d)). In this poster, we perform the first comprehensive evaluation of Logical Imaging (LI) in Information Retrieval (IR) across several TREC test Collections. When compared against standard baseline models, we show that LI fails to improve performance. This failure can be attributed to a nuance within the model that means non-relevant documents are promoted in the ranking, while relevant documents are demoted. This is an important contribution because it not only contextualizes the effectiveness of LI, but crucially ex- plains why it fails. By addressing this nuance, future LI models could be significantly improved.

On the use of complex numbers in quantum models for information retrieval

Quantum-inspired models have recently attracted increasing attention in Information Retrieval. An intriguing characteristic of the mathematical framework of quantum theory is the presence of complex numbers. However, it is unclear what such numbers could or would actually represent or mean in Information Retrieval. The goal of this paper is to discuss the role of complex numbers within the context of Information Retrieval. First, we introduce how complex numbers are used in quantum probability theory. Then, we examine van Rijsbergen’s proposal of evoking complex valued representations of informations objects. We empirically show that such a representation is unlikely to be effective in practice (confuting its usefulness in Information Retrieval). We then explore alternative proposals which may be more successful at realising the power of complex numbers.

Creation of a new evaluation benchmark for information retrieval targeting patient information needs

Searching for health advice on the web is becoming increasingly common. Because of the great importance of this activity for patients and clinicians and the effect that incorrect information may have on health outcomes, it is critical to present relevant and valuable information to a searcher. Previous evaluation campaigns on health information retrieval (IR) have provided benchmarks that have been widely used to improve health IR and record these improvements. However, in general these benchmarks have targeted the specialised information needs of physicians and other healthcare workers. In this paper, we describe the development of a new collection for evaluation of effectiveness in IR seeking to satisfy the health information needs of patients. Our methodology features a novel way to create statements of patients’ information needs using realistic short queries associated with patient discharge summaries, which provide details of patient disorders. We adopt a scenario where the patient then creates a query to seek information relating to these disorders. Thus, discharge summaries provide us with a means to create contextually driven search statements, since they may include details on the stage of the disease, family history etc. The collection will be used for the first time as part of the ShARe/-CLEF 2013 eHealth Evaluation Lab, which focuses on natural language processing and IR for clinical care.

Combining word semantics within complex Hilbert space for information retrieval

Complex numbers are a fundamental aspect of the mathematical formalism of quantum physics. Quantum-like models developed outside physics often overlooked the role of complex numbers. Specifically, previous models in Information Retrieval (IR) ignored complex numbers. We argue that to advance the use of quantum models of IR, one has to lift the constraint of real-valued representations of the information space, and package more information within the representation by means of complex numbers. As a first attempt, we propose a complex-valued representation for IR, which explicitly uses complex valued Hilbert spaces, and thus where terms, documents and queries are represented as complex-valued vectors. The proposal consists of integrating distributional semantics evidence within the real component of a term vector; whereas, ontological information is encoded in the imaginary component. Our proposal has the merit of lifting the role of complex numbers from a computational byproduct of the model to the very mathematical texture that unifies different levels of semantic information. An empirical instantiation of our proposal is tested in the TREC Medical Record task of retrieving cohorts for clinical studies.

ShARe/CLEF eHealth Evaluation Lab 2013, Task 3: Information retrieval to address patients' questions when reading clinical reports

This paper presents the results of task 3 of the ShARe/CLEF eHealth Evaluation Lab 2013. This evaluation lab focuses on improving access to medical information on the web. The task objective was to investigate the effect of using additional information such as the discharge summaries and external resources such as medical ontologies on the IR effectiveness. The participants were allowed to submit up to seven runs, one mandatory run using no additional information or external resources, and three each using or not using discharge summaries.

Quality Information System: Investigating the conception, role, models and suggesting conceptual and hierarchal models

In the current business world which companies’ competition is very compact in the business arena, quality in manufacturing and providing products and services can be considered as a means of seeking excellence and success of companies in this competition arena. Entering the era of e-commerce and emergence of new production systems and new organizational structures, traditional management and quality assurance systems have been challenged. Consequently, quality information system has been gained a special seat as one of the new tools of quality management. In this paper, quality information system has been studied with a review of the literature of the quality information system, and the role and position of quality Information System (QIS) among other information systems of a organization is investigated. The quality Information system models are analyzed and by analyzing and assessing presented models in quality information system a conceptual and hierarchical model of quality information system is suggested and studied. As a case study the hierarchical model of quality information system is developed by evaluating hierarchical models presented in the field of quality information system based on the Shetabkar Co.

Combining recommender and reputation systems to produce better online advice

Although recommender systems and reputation systems have quite different theoretical and technical bases, both types of systems have the purpose of providing advice for decision making in e-commerce and online service environments. The similarity in purpose makes it natural to integrate both types of systems in order to produce better online advice, but their difference in theory and implementation makes the integration challenging. In this paper, we propose to use mappings to subjective opinions from values produced by recommender systems as well as from scores produced by reputation systems, and to combine the resulting opinions within the framework of subjective logic.

Using a public key registry for improved trust and scalability in national E-health systems

An increasing number of countries are faced with an aging population increasingly needing healthcare services. For any e-health information system, the need for increased trust by such clients with potentially little knowledge of any security scheme involved is paramount. In addition notable scalability of any system has become a critical aspect of system design, development and ongoing management. Meanwhile cryptographic systems provide the security provisions needed for confidentiality, authentication, integrity and non-repudiation. Cryptographic key management, however, must be secure, yet efficient and effective in developing an attitude of trust in system users. Digital certificate-based Public Key Infrastructure has long been the technology of choice or availability for information security/assurance; however, there appears to be a notable lack of successful implementations and deployments globally. Moreover, recent issues with associated Certificate Authority security have damaged trust in these schemes. This paper proposes the adoption of a centralised public key registry structure, a non-certificate based scheme, for large scale e-health information systems. The proposed structure removes complex certificate management, revocation and a complex certificate validation structure while maintaining overall system security. Moreover, the registry concept may be easier for both healthcare professionals and patients to understand and trust.

On managing information technology capabilities

Information technology (IT) plays a critical role of enabler of activities that improve the performance of business processes. This enabling role of IT resources means continuous investment in IT is a strategic necessity. It is established that organizations’ IT-related capabilities leverage the enabling potential of IT resources. Today’s turbulent and challenging business environment requires organizations to do more from their existing and newly acquired IT resources. To achieve this, organizations need to discover ways or establish environments to nourish their existing IT-related capabilities, and develop new IT-related capabilities. We suggest one such environment, a dynamic IT-learning environment that could contribute to nourishing existing IT-related capabilities, and developing new IT-related capabilities. This environment is a product of coordination of four organizational factors that relate to the ways in which IT-related knowledge is applied to business processes, the accompanying reward structures, and ways in which the IT-related learning and knowledge is shared within the organization. Using 216 field survey responses, this paper shows that two IT-related capabilities of top management commitment to IT initiatives, and shared organizational knowledge between the IT and business unit managers has a stronger positive influence on business process performance in the presence of this dynamic IT-learning environment. The study also shows that a marginal IT-related capability, technical IT skills, has a positive and significant influence on business process performance in the presence of this environment. These outcomes imply that organizations’ internal environments could contribute to the management of their IT-related capabilities.

On the maturity of open source BPM systems

In this Article, Petia Wohed, Arthur H. M. ter Hofstede, Nick Russell, Birger Andersson, and Wil M. P. van der Aalst present the results of their examination of existing open source BPM systems. Their conclusions are illuminating for both Open Source developers as well as the user community. Read their Article for the details of their study.

Flexible service systems

Service science combines scientific, management, and engineering disciplines to improve the understanding of how service systems cooperate to create business value. Service systems are complex configurations of people, technologies, and resources that coexist in a common environment of service provisioning. While the general concepts of service science are understood and agreed upon, the representation of service systems using models is still in its infancy. In this chapter, we look at business processes and their role in properly representing service systems. We propose flexible process graphs, a high-level process modeling language, and extend it in order to specify service systems and their compositions within shared environments in a flexible way. The discussion in this chapter is the first step towards a formal description of service science environment, including service systems, networks, and whole ecology.