Describes a framework for building "story traces" (compact global views of a narrative) and "story projects" (selections of key elements of a narrative) and their applications in text understanding and classification. The resulting "abstract story traces" provide a compact view of the underlying narrative's key…

Reports the analysis of search logs from a commercial image provider over a one-month period and discusses results in relation to previous findings. Analyzes image searches, image queries composing the search, user search modification strategies, results returned, and user browsing of results. (Author/AEF)

Aspects of Data Fusion (DF) for information retrieval are explored. Based on a geometrical model of DF, it is shown that in the ideal case, performance of DF for a pair of information retrieval schemes may be approximated by a quadratic polynomial. Compares counter-intuitive cases of DF with cases that behave according to the geometric model. (AEF)

Discusses the influence of personality traits and approaches to studying on students' information-seeking behavior, with a specific focus on use of information technology. Three information-seeking patterns emerged from analyses of 305 college students: "Fast Surfers,""Broad Scanners," and "Deep Divers." Findings…

Reports on an exploratory study of the criteria searchers use when judging the relevance of recorded speech from radio programs and the attributes of a recording on which those judgments are based. Criteria used as a basis for selection were found to be similar to those observed in relevance studies with printed materials, but attributes used as a…

Provides an up-to-date survey of the capabilities of the major 16 search engines with respect to the types of information extraction tasks that would be useful in Web data mining and cybermetrics, and analyzes two sets of domain counts for internal consistency between results. (AEF)

Reports the preliminary findings of a research project that investigated users' mental models in the course of an image search. Generalist users searched a database of 1500 earth and space science images using a system that provided for both textual and content-based retrieval modalities. Factors such as ease of use and satisfaction with the…

Reports on patterns and sequences of query reformulation based on query logs from a Web search engine. Results show that while most query reformulation involves content changes, about 15% of reformulation is related to format modifications. Six patterns of query reformulation emerged as a result of sequence analysis: specified, parallel,…

From a log of 1,025,910 Excite users' queries, 116,050 sexually related queries were extracted. Findings indicated that in many aspects, sexual and non-sexually-related queries exhibit significant differences in terms of duration of the session, analysis of the results of each query, and search term usage. (AEF)

Flexibility in query handling can be important if one types a search engine query that is misspelled, contains terms not in the database, or requires knowledge of a controlled vocabulary. Presents results of experiments that suggest the optimal form of similarity functions that are applicable to the task of phrase based retrieval to find either…

Examines the differences between Web image and textual queries, and attempts to develop an analytic model to investigate their implications for Web image retrieval systems. Provides results that give insight into Web image searching behavior and suggests implications for improvement of current Web image search engines. (AEF)

Develops a framework explaining the need to disambiguate user inquiries to improve information systems and services. Categorizes a set of questions according to ambiguity type. Discusses three aspects of retrieval systems and services, based on results of categorization: increasing user input to make initial queries less ambiguous; reducing search…

Tests the use of questions as a technique in the query specification process. Using a within-subjects design, 48 people interacted with a modified Google interface to solve four information problems in four domains. Half the tasks were entered as typical keyword queries, and half as questions or statements. Results suggest the typical search box…

The Open Video Project is an ongoing effort to develop an open source digital video collection that can be used by the information retrieval, digital library, and digital video research communities and ultimately serve a broader audience. Discusses the challenges of compiling and maintaining such a collection. Describes the user interface…

Demonstrates how a Web-based information architecture can support sophisticated thesaurus management, authority control and indexing. Examines what resources are available to assist in normalizing Web terminology; methods and tools that can be used for normalizing terms across languages and disciplines; how terminology can assist in Web searching;…