Artificial Intelligence Lab, Department of MIS, University of Arizona / In information facilities such as libraries, finding documents that are relevant to a user query is difficult because of the indeterminism involved in the process by which documents are indexed, and the latitude users have in choosing terms to express a query on a particular topic. Reference librarians play an important support role in coping with this indeterminism, focusing user queries through an interactive dialog. Based on thirty detailed observations of user/librarian interactions obtained through a field experiment, we have developed a computational model designed to simulate the reference librarian. The consultation includes two phases. The first is handle search, where the userâ s rough problem statement and a user stereotyping imposed by the librarian are used in determining the appropriate tools (handles). The second phase is document search, involving the search for documents within a chosen handle. We are collaborating with the university library for putting our model to use as an intelligent assistant for an online retrieval system.

A usability evaluation was carried out of the recently-launched South London and Maudsley NHS Trust library web site using a variety of standard methodologies: content and design evaluation of selected comparable sites, focus groups, a questionnaire survey of library and web development staff, heuristic evaluation, observation testing, card sorting/cluster analysis, and label intuitiveness/category membership testing. All test participants were staff of or providers of services to the trust. Demographic information was recorded for each participant. Unsuccessful attempts were made to evaluate user feedback, and to compare usability test results with usage statistics. Test participantsâ overall responses to the site were enthusiastic and favourable, indicating the scope and content of the site to be broadly appropriate to the user group. Numerous suggestions for new content areas were made by testers. Usability problems were discovered in two main areas: in the organisation of the site, and in the terminology used to refer to information services and sources. On the basis of test results, proposals for a revised menu structure, improved accessibility, and changes to the terminology used within the site are presented.

This paper describes how scientists utilize specific journal article components, the tables, figures, maps, photographs, and graphs contained in journal articles, to support both their teaching and research. These findings are taken from a comprehensive investigation into scientistsâ satisfaction with and use of a prototype retrieval system that indexes tables and figures culled from scientific journal articles. Rather than focusing on seeking and searching, this paper summarizes four ways in which scientists utilize the information they find in tables and figures obtained from journal articles. While the first type of use described here, creating new fixed documents, confirms the findings of previous research, the other three types of use reveal emerging practices with journal article components: creating documents to support performative activities; making comparisons between a scientistâ s own work and the work of other researchers; and creating other information forms and objects.

This is a presentation at the ASIS&T 2005 Annual Meeting session on Progress in the Design and Evaluation of Digital Libraries: Implications for Research and Education (moderator: Kyung-Sun Kim). The presentation discusses the creation, design, and management of dLIST, an open access archive for the Information Sciences, and the affiliated DL-Harvest, an open access aggregator and federated search engine. As an Eprints-based open access archive, dLIST is a digital repository but it is a cross-institutional and interdisciplinary repository built on the concept of "sustainable information behaviors." Elements such as openness, transparency, information quality and interoperability are critical components along with a focus on connected communities of practice. Sustainable information behaviors can take us beyond the information-seeking-in-context agenda and enable a transformation of scholarly and research commmunity information sharing and communication that is more in tune with the values of a digitally flat (connected) world. Editor's Note: Some of the screenshots of the dlist web pages in the slides appear to have degenerated.

Artificial Intelligence Lab, Department of MIS, University of Arizona / In this era of the Internet and distributed multimedia computing, new and emerging classes of information systems applications have swept into the lives of office workers and everyday people. New applications ranging from digital libraries, multimedia systems, geographic information systems, collaborative computing to electronic commerce, virtual reality, and electronic video arts and games have created tremendous opportunities for information and computer science researchers and practitioners. As the applications become more overwhelming, pressing, and diverse, several well-known information retrieval (IR) problems have become even more urgent in this â networkcentricâ information age. Information overload, a result of the ease of information creation and rendering via the Internet and the World Wide Web, has become more evident in peopleâ s lives. Significant variations of database formats and structures, the richness of information media, and an abundance of multilingual information content also have created severe information interoperability problems-structural interoperability, media interoperability, and multilingual interoperability. The conventional approaches to addressing information overload and information interoperability problems are manual in nature, requiring human experts as information intermediaries to create knowledge structures and/or ontologies. As information content and collections become even larger and more dynamic, we believe a system-aided bottom-up artificial intelligence (AI) approach is needed. By applying scalable techniques developed in various AI subareas such as image segmentation and indexing, voice recognition, natural language processing, neural networks, machine learning, clustering and categorization, and intelligent agents, we can provide an alternative system-aided approach to addressing both information overload and information interoperability.

Sexual revictimization of college women is a relatively new area of study within the field of victimology. Although the link between childhood sexual assault (CSA) and adult revictimization has been examined, many aspects of why college-aged females are revictimized have gained little attention. This Master’s thesis will explore the current literature as well as analyze the possible link between risky behaviors, individual characteristics, and sexual revictimization. Using Jacquelyn W. White and Paige Hall Smith’s (2004) data, A Longitudinal Perspective on Physical and Sexual Intimate Partner Violence Against Women, bivariate analyses were conducted regarding the revictimization of college women. The findings suggest a few differences between single victims and revictims. The findings also suggested that nonvictims and revictims were found to have multiple differences across variables. Suggestions for future research will be discussed.

A model was developed that explores several personal characteristic of individuals as predictors of their motivation to lead. Stable personality traits were hypothesized to interact with an individual's belief in the nature of effective leadership to differentially predict the level of their leadership aspirations. The use of a team laboratory design allowed for an examination of the causal nature of an individual‘s motivation to lead. An appointed team leader led their four-person team in a performance task with high levels of interdependence to examine the leader's impact on teamwork. Team leaders were rated by multiple sources during the task on directive leadership, empowering leadership, and laissez-faire leadership. Several significant relationships between personality and motivation to lead were found that lend support to earlier research on the antecedents to motivation to lead, although no moderating effects were uncovered. Leadership behaviors were differentially related to increases in team processes, and demonstrated strong associations with satisfaction with the leader, and leadership potential. Results indicated that team leaders who do not calculate the personal costs of leadership may be unable to positively influence team action processes. This study has implications for functional leadership theory, the development of the motivation to lead construct, and trait perspectives of leadership.

Cette thèse est organisée en trois chapitres. Chaque chapitre inclut un article sur le thème de l'identification relationnelle. Le premier document propose un modèle conceptuel . Dans ce modèle, les antécédents (motifs d'identification ) et les modérateurs (caractéristiques interpersonnelles et cibles) prédisent conjointement les deux formes d'identification relationnelle : particularisée et généralisée. Les deux formes prévoient deux types de conséquences interpersonnelles. Le deuxième chapitre examine l'existence et les facteurs prédictifs des deux formes d'identification relationnelle. Il utilise une approche multi- méthode et des échantillons de professionnels et de gestionnaires. Le troisième chapitre examine les prédicateurs et les conséquences de l'identification relationnelle avec un autre membre de l'équipe dans un cadre des équipes d'étudiants. En résumé, le premier chapitre présente un modèle complet des deux formes d'identification relationnelle et ses antécédents et les conséquences. Le deuxième chapitre 2 se concentre principalement sur les deux formes et leurs antécédents et les modérateurs tandis que le chapitre 3 teste le modèle complet y compris les antécédents et les conséquences, mais seulement pour le but d'identification relationnelle particularisé. / This dissertation is organized in three chapters. Each chapter contains a paper around the topic of relational identification. The first paper suggests and discusses a conceptual model in which identification motives -as antecedents- and interpersonal and target characteristics -as moderators- jointly predict the two forms of relational identification: particularized and generalized. The two forms then result in different types of interpersonal outcomes. The second paper consists of two studies that examine the existence and predictors of the two forms of relational identification through a multi-method approach. Study 1 is a qualitative study based on interview data collected from a sample of international professionals and study 2 is quantitative based on survey data collected mainly from French professionals and managers. The third paper explores the predictors and outcomes of relational identification with one’s team member in the context of students’ teams through collecting survey data at three different points of time. In sum, paper 1, presents a comprehensive model of the two forms of relational identification and its antecedents and outcomes. Paper 2 mainly focuses on the front end of the model exploring the two forms and their antecedents and moderators whereas paper 3 tests the whole model including the antecedents and outcomes but only for particularized relational identification.

The primary purpose of this case study was to determine if the university under study had adequate health-related programs, services, and supports in place to develop health-literate young adults. A secondary purpose was to identify strengths and gaps in these university health-related programs, services, and supports, which, if addressed, could increase the likelihood that college graduates would be health-literate. This research study served to answer three broad research questions: 1) What are the health-related needs and concerns among selected university undergraduates? 2) What is the level of awareness and utilization of health-related programs, services, and supports by university undergraduate students? 3) What are the strengths and gaps among health-related programs, services, and supports? As more and more young adults come to colleges and universities seeking an education, they bring with them high-risk health behaviors that can impede their academic success. Post-secondary institutions have programs, services, and supports in place specifically designed to ease the transition into college, provide academic assistance services, promote a safe learning and living environment as well as facilities and departments dedicated to raising awareness of and maintaining physical and mental health. The effectiveness with which these health-related programs, services, and supports are meeting their goals and reaching their target audience can be assessed by collecting student feedback regarding their attitudes, perceptions and usage. The first part of the study involved personal interviews with preselected representatives of Student Affairs, the President of the university, the Provost, Captain of Public Safety, and the Senior Athletic Director. Interview questions were designed to determine how, if any, of the programs, services, or supports under study supported the six dimensions of health and wellness, or the IOM skill set for health literacy. After all interviews were conducted, transcripts were reviewed and coding was conducted to determine the connection between the selected programs, services, and supports, and the IOM health literacy skill set and the six dimensions of health and wellness. Additionally, transcript review allowed for the identification of strengths and weakness among each of the programs, services, and supports. The second part of the study engaged students who volunteered to participate in focus groups in an open discussion about what they perceived health to be (as a concept) and to determine what, if any, personal health-related issues or concerns they felt at the present time, how health-related issues or concerns created barriers to their academic success, and their level of awareness about the programs, services, and supports available. In addition to conducting personal interviews and focus groups, I analyzed documents and material (i.e. web-pages, brochures, student handbook, under graduate bulletin) related to each department under study. This document analysis was also coded for connections to the six dimensions of health and wellness or the IOM's health literacy skill set. Web-pages were further analyzed for strengths and gaps related to each program, service, or support. An embedded analysis was conducted and themes were interpreted. Discussion and recommendations were stated at the conclusion of the case study; increasing health-literacy among college students and raising awareness of and attempting to reduce high-risk, health-related behaviors are consistent with goals and characteristics of a graduate from the university under study. Not surprisingly, when asked, most students only identified the physical aspect of "health" and sometimes, as a mental aspect with regards to stress. Feedback from focus group discussions indicated that students could make a connection between all six dimensions of health and how they might impede academic performance. Unfortunately, however, they did not seem to possess the skills or the knowledge on to how correct negative health behaviors themselves, or how to seek out various health-related programs, services, and supports that are available. By in large, students seemed very interested in learning more about many of these programs, services, and supports and indicated that they wished they had been made aware of such opportunities at the beginning of their college careers. Students also communicated lack of knowledge and awareness about the available health-related programs, services, and supports. Focus group discussions indicated that students felt as though the campus under study had not really taken the time to discover which methods of communication were successful; further indicating that current delivery methods were outdated and ineffective.

Carta al editor / Revisión por pares