In multimedia databases, data are images, audio, video, texts, etc. Research interests in these types of databases have increased in the last decade or so, especially with the advent of the Internet and Semantic Web. Fundamental research issues vary from unified data modelling, retrieval of data items and dynamic nature of updates. The thesis builds on findings in Semantic Web and retrieval techniques and explores novel tagging methods for identifying data items. Tagging systems have become popular which enable the users to add tags to Internet resources such as images, video and audio to make them more manageable. Collaborative tagging is concerned with the relationship between people and resources. Most of these resources have metadata in machine processable format and enable users to use free- text keywords (so-called tags) as search techniques. This research references some tagging systems, e.g. Flicker, delicious and myweb2.0. The limitation with such techniques includes polysemy (one word and different meaning), synonymy (different words and one meaning), different lexical forms (singular, plural, and conjugated words) and misspelling errors or alternate spellings. The work presented in this thesis introduces semantic characterization of web resources that describes the structure and organization of tagging, aiming to extend the existing Multimedia Query using similarity measures to cater for collaborative tagging. In addition, we discuss the semantic difficulties of tagging systems, suggesting improvements in their accuracies. The scope of our work is classified as follows: (i) Increase the accuracy and confidence of multimedia tagging systems. (ii) Increase the similarity measures of images by integrating varieties of measures. To address the first shortcoming, we use the WordNet based on a tagging system for social sharing and retrieval of images as a semantic lingual ontology resource. For the second shortcoming we use the similarity measures in different ways to recognise the multimedia tagging system. Fundamental to our work is the novel information model that we have constructed for our computation. This is based on the fact that an image is a rich object that can be characterised and formulated in n-dimensions, each dimension contains valuable information that will help in increasing the accuracy of the search. For example an image of a tree in a forest contains more information than an image of the same tree but in a different environment. In this thesis we characterise a data item (an image) by a primary description, followed by n-secondary descriptions. As n increases, the accuracy of the search improves. We give various techniques to analyse data and its associated query. To increase the accuracy of the tagging system we have performed different experiments on many images using similarity measures and various techniques from VoI (Value of Information). The findings have shown the linkage/integration between similarity measures and that VoI improves searches and helps/guides a tagger in choosing the most adequate of tags.

No description available.

This thesis presents two chapters on credence goods and one on ongoing partnerships in an infinitely repeated game. The chapters on credence goods focus on the welfare and efficiency of equilibria in overcharging models of credence goods, something which has not been explicitly addressed before. The chapter on partnerships presents a theory explaining ongoing partnerships as solving a commitment problem for clients. There is a small literature on partnerships, and this chapter represents a novel but complimentary approach to that literature. At core, chapters 2, 3 and 4 of this thesis ask the following questions respectively: Do competition and information increase welfare in credence goods markets? How do customers in credence goods markets discipline experts from committing fraud? Can these strategies be welfare ranked? Why do ongoing partnerships exist? What problem do they solve?

Η τεράστια ανάπτυξη του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες έχει αναδείξει την αναζήτηση πληροφοριών ως ένα από τα πιο σημαντικά ζητήματα στον τομέα της έρευνας στις Τεχνολογίες της Πληροφορικής. Σήμερα, οι σύγχρονες μηχανές αναζήτησης απαντούν αρκετά ικανοποιητικά στα ερωτήματα των χρηστών, αλλά τα κορυφαία αποτελέσματα που επιστρέφονται δεν είναι πάντα σχετικά με τα δεδομένα που αναζητά ο χρήστης. Ως εκ τούτου, οι μηχανές αναζήτησης καταβάλλουν σημαντικές προσπάθειες για να κατατάξουν τα πιο σχετικά αποτελέσματα του ερωτήματος ως προς τον χρήστη στα κορυφαία αποτελέσματα της λίστας κατάταξης των αποτελεσμάτων. Η διατριβή αυτή ασχολείται κυρίως με το παραπάνω πρόβλημα, δηλαδή την κατάταξη στις υψηλότερες θέσεις των πιο σχετικών αποτελεσμάτων ως προς τον χρήστη (ειδικά για ερωτήματα που οι όροι τους έχουν πολλαπλές σημασίες). Στο πλαίσιο της παρούσας έρευνας κατασκευάστηκαν αλγόριθμοι και τεχνικές που βασίζονται στην τεχνική της σχετικής ανατροφοδότησης (relevance feedback) για την βελτίωση των αποτελεσμάτων που επιστρέφονται από μια μηχανή αναζήτησης. Βασική πηγή της ανατροφοδότησης ήταν τα αποτελέσματα που επιλέγουν οι χρήστες κατά την διαδικασία πλοήγησης. Ο χρήστης επεκτείνει την αρχική πληροφορία αναζήτησης (λέξεις κλειδιά) με νέα πληροφορία που προέρχεται από τα αποτελέσματα που διαλέγει. Έχοντας ένα νέο σύνολο πληροφορίας που αφορά τις προτιμήσεις του χρήστη, συγκρίνεται η σημασιολογική πληροφορία του συνόλου αυτού με τα υπόλοιπα αποτελέσματα (αυτά που επιστράφηκαν πριν επιλέξει το συγκεκριμένο αποτέλεσμα) και μεταβάλλεται η σειρά των αποτελεσμάτων προωθώντας και προτείνοντας τα αποτελέσματα που είναι πιο σχετικά με το νέο σύνολο πληροφορίας. Ένα άλλο πρόβλημα που πρέπει να αντιμετωπιστεί κατά την υποβολή ερωτημάτων από τους χρήστες σε μια μηχανή αναζήτησης είναι ότι τα ερωτήματα που υποβάλλονται στις μηχανές αναζήτησης είναι συνήθως μικρά σε αριθμό λέξεων και αμφίσημα. Συνεπώς, πρέπει να υπάρχουν τρόποι αποσαφήνισης των διαφορετικών εννοιών των όρων αναζήτησης και εύρεσης της έννοιας που ενδιαφέρει τον χρήστη. Η αποσαφήνιση των όρων αναζήτησης είναι μια διαδικασία που έχει μελετηθεί στην βιβλιογραφία με αρκετούς διαφορετικούς τρόπους. Στην διατριβή μου προτείνω νέες στρατηγικές αποσαφήνισης των εννοιών των όρων αναζήτησης των μηχανών αναζήτησης και εξερευνάται η αποδοτικότητά τους στις μηχανές αναζήτησης. Η καινοτομία τους έγκειται στη χρήση του Page-Rank σαν ενδείκτη της σημαντικότητας μιας έννοιας για έναν όρο του ερωτήματος. Επίσης είναι ευρέως γνωστό ότι ο Παγκόσμιος Ιστός περιέχει έγγραφα με την ίδια πληροφορία και έγγραφα με σχεδόν ίδια πληροφορία. Παρά τις προσπάθειες των μηχανών αναζήτησης με αλγόριθμους εύρεσης των κειμένων που περιέχουν επικαλυπτόμενη πληροφορία, ακόμα υπάρχουν περιπτώσεις που τα κείμενα που ανακτώνται από μια μηχανή αναζήτησης περιέχουν επαναλαμβανόμενη πληροφορία. Στην διατριβή αυτή παρουσιάζονται αποδοτικές τεχνικές εύρεσης και περικοπής της επικαλυπτόμενης πληροφορίας από τα αποτελέσματα των μηχανών αναζήτησης χρησιμοποιώντας τις σημασιολογικές πληροφορίες των αποτελεσμάτων των μηχανών αναζήτησης. Συγκεκριμένα αναγνωρίζονται τα αποτελέσματα που περιέχουν την ίδια πληροφορία και απομακρύνονται, ενώ ταυτόχρονα τα αποτελέσματα που περιέχουν επικαλυπτόμενη πληροφορία συγχωνεύονται σε νέα κείμενα(SuperTexts) που περιέχουν την πληροφορία των αρχικών αποτελεσμάτων χωρίς να υπάρχει επαναλαμβανόμενη πληροφορία. Ένας άλλος τρόπος βελτίωσης της αναζήτησης είναι ο σχολιασμός των κειμένων αναζήτησης έτσι ώστε να περιγράφεται καλύτερα η πληροφορία τους. Ο σχολιασμός κειμένων(text annotation) είναι μια τεχνική η οποία αντιστοιχίζει στις λέξεις του κειμένου επιπλέον πληροφορίες όπως η έννοια που αντιστοιχίζεται σε κάθε λέξη με βάση το εννοιολογικό περιεχόμενο του κειμένου. Η προσθήκη επιπλέον σημασιολογικών πληροφοριών σε ένα κείμενο βοηθάει τις μηχανές αναζήτησης να αναζητήσουν καλύτερα τις πληροφορίες που ενδιαφέρουν τους χρήστες και τους χρήστες να βρουν πιο εύκολα τις πληροφορίες που αναζητούν. Στην διατριβή αυτή αναλύονται αποδοτικές τεχνικές αυτόματου σχολιασμού κειμένων από τις οντότητες που περιέχονται στην Wikipedia, μια διαδικασία που αναφέρεται στην βιβλιογραφία ως Wikification. Με τον τρόπο αυτό οι χρήστες μπορούν να εξερευνήσουν επιπλέον πληροφορίες για τις οντότητες που περιέχονται στο κείμενο που τους επιστρέφεται. Ένα άλλο τμήμα της διατριβής αυτής προσπαθεί να εκμεταλλευτεί την σημασιολογία των αποτελεσμάτων των μηχανών αναζήτησης χρησιμοποιώντας εργαλεία του Σημασιολογικού Ιστού. Ο στόχος του Σημασιολογικού Ιστού (Semantic Web) είναι να κάνει τους πόρους του Ιστού κατανοητούς και στους ανθρώπους και στις μηχανές. Ο Σημασιολογικός Ιστός στα πρώτα βήματά του λειτουργούσε σαν μια αναλυτική περιγραφή του σώματος των έγγραφων του Ιστού. Η ανάπτυξη εργαλείων για την αναζήτηση σε Σημασιολογικό Ιστό είναι ακόμα σε πρώιμο στάδιο. Οι σημερινές τεχνικές αναζήτησης δεν έχουν προσαρμοστεί στην δεικτοδότηση και στην ανάκτηση σημασιολογικής πληροφορίας εκτός από μερικές εξαιρέσεις. Στην έρευνά μας έχουν δημιουργηθεί αποδοτικές τεχνικές και εργαλεία χρήσης του Παγκόσμιου Ιστού. Συγκεκριμένα έχει κατασκευαστεί αλγόριθμος μετατροπής ενός κειμένου σε οντολογία ενσωματώνοντας την σημασιολογική και συντακτική του πληροφορία έτσι ώστε να επιστρέφονται στους χρήστες απαντήσεις σε ερωτήσεις φυσικής γλώσσας. Επίσης στην διατριβή αυτή αναλύονται τεχνικές φιλτραρίσματος XML εγγράφων χρησιμοποιώντας σημασιολογικές πληροφορίες. Συγκεκριμένα παρουσιάζεται ένα αποδοτικό κατανεμημένο σύστημα σημασιολογικού φιλτραρίσματος XML εγγράφων που δίνει καλύτερα αποτελέσματα από τις υπάρχουσες προσεγγίσεις. Τέλος, στα πλαίσια αυτής της διδακτορικής διατριβής γίνεται επιπλέον έρευνα για την βελτίωση της απόδοσης των μηχανών αναζήτησης από μια διαφορετική οπτική γωνία. Στην κατεύθυνση αυτή παρουσιάζονται τεχνικές περικοπής ανεστραμμένων λιστών ανεστραμμένων αρχείων. Επίσης επιτυγχάνεται ένας συνδυασμός των προτεινόμενων τεχνικών με υπάρχουσες τεχνικές συμπίεσης ανεστραμμένων αρχείων πράγμα που οδηγεί σε καλύτερα αποτελέσματα συμπίεσης από τα ήδη υπάρχοντα. / The tremendous growth of the Web in the recent decades has made the searching for information as one of the most important issues in research in Computer Technologies. Today, modern search engines respond quite well to the user queries, but the results are not always relative to the data the user is looking for. Therefore, search engines are making significant efforts to rank the most relevant query results to the user in the top results of the ranking list. This work mainly deals with this problem, the ranking of the relevant results to the user in the top of the ranking list even when the queries contain multiple meanings. In the context of this research, algorithms and techniques were constructed based on the technique of relevance feedback which improves the results returned by a search engine. Main source of feedback are the results which the users selects during the navigation process. The user extends the original information (search keywords) with new information derived from the results that chooses. Having a new set of information concerning to the user's preferences, the relevancy of this information is compared with the other results (those returned before choosing this effect) and change the order of the results by promoting and suggesting the results that are more relevant to the new set of information. Another problem that must be addressed when the users submit queries to the search engines is that the queries are usually small in number of words and ambiguous. Therefore, there must be ways to disambiguate the different concepts/senses and ways to find the concept/sense that interests the user. Disambiguation of the search terms is a process that has been studied in the literature in several different ways. This work proposes new strategies to disambiguate the senses/concepts of the search terms and explore their efficiency in search engines. Their innovation is the use of PageRank as an indicator of the importance of a sense/concept for a query term. Another technique that exploits semantics in our work is the use of text annotation. The use of text annotation is a technique that assigns to the words of the text extra information such as the meaning assigned to each word based on the semantic content of the text. Assigning additional semantic information in a text helps users and search engines to seek or describe better the text information. In my thesis, techniques for improving the automatic annotation of small texts with entities from Wikipedia are presented, a process that referred in the literature as Wikification. It is widely known that the Web contain documents with the same information and documents with almost identical information. Despite the efforts of the search engine’s algorithms to find the results that contain repeated information; there are still cases where the results retrieved by a search engine contain repeated information. In this work effective techniques are presented that find and cut the repeated information from the results of the search engines. Specifically, the results that contain the same information are removed, and the results that contain repeated information are merged into new texts (SuperTexts) that contain the information of the initial results without the repeated information. Another part of this work tries to exploit the semantic information of search engine’s results using tools of the Semantic Web. The goal of the Semantic Web is to make the resources of the Web understandable to humans and machines. The Semantic Web in their first steps functioned as a detailed description of the body of the Web documents. The development of tools for querying Semantic Web is still in its infancy. The current search techniques are not adapted to the indexing and retrieval of semantic information with a few exceptions. In our research we have created efficient techniques and tools for using the Semantic Web. Specifically an algorithm was constructed that converts to ontology the search engine’s results integrating semantic and syntactic information in order to answer natural language questions. Also this paper contains XML filtering techniques that use semantic information. Specifically, an efficient distributed system is proposed for the semantic filtering of XML documents that gives better results than the existing approaches. Finally as part of this thesis is additional research that improves the performance of the search engines from a different angle. It is presented a technique for cutting the inverted lists of the inverted files. Specifically a combination of the proposed technique with existing compression techniques is achieved, leading to better compression results than the existing ones.

The main aim of this study was to investigate current search behaviour among Saudi consumers of travel services, to establish their attitudes towards, and adoption of online search and booking processes. It also aimed to explore current experiences within travel agencies of the adoption of online booking systems in the Saudi Arabian market. The study relied on a multi-method research design, with a focus on using both qualitative and quantitative data across three sequentially organised phases of data collection. Phase one centred on in-depth interviews with Saudi travel agents; phase two adopted a combined approach, using observation and semi-structured interviews, with a focus on getting a comprehensive insight into Saudi consumer search behaviour. In phase three, the researcher undertook a survey of internet adoption and search behaviour with a cross-section of Saudi consumers, located in the UK (N=481). Findings from the first phase demonstrated that Saudi Arabian travel firms continue to rely on offline booking methods and have been relatively slow to adopt online systems. Key factors influencing the adoption of online travel booking technology included attitudinal and cultural factors and an absence of customer trust, security and privacy. The second phase results indicated that information search and evaluation emerged as a single highly integrated process, however behavioural elements within the process varied across individuals, according to their search strategy and level of prior experience. In phase three, the key relationships in the conceptual model were examined, notably the relationship between search constructs and purchase intention. Only a few past studies have examined information search and evaluation in relation to purchase in emerging markets. This study offers a more in-depth perspective on search intention and information search and evaluation in the pre-purchase stage for online travel products. Key insights have emerged on the nature of the relationship between search intention, information search and evaluation and purchase intention through the development of a more comprehensive conceptual framework than in prior studies. The qualitative research demonstrated a) how search ability and search strategies were reflective of confident and well-established search behaviour on the part of Saudi consumers and b) gender and regional variations c) that the nature of information search and evaluation is shaped by behavioural differences at an individual consumer level. The study also offers a deeper understanding of the challenging perceptions that exist with regards to the slow adoption of online travel processes among Saudi Arabian travel firms.

This project focuses on a system that answers questions formulated in natural language. Firstly, the report discusses problems associated with question answering systems and some commonly employed approaches. Emphasis is laid on shallow methods, which do not require many linguistic resources. The second part describes our work on a system that answers factoid questions, utilizing Czech Wikipedia as a source of information. Answer extraction is partly based on specific features of Wikipedia and partly on pre-defined patterns. Results show that for answering simple questions, the system provides significant improvements in comparison with a standard search engine.

No description available.

The mobile devices like the tablet and the smartphone, especially this latter, forits portability and easy access to internet, has allowed its use to a massive public,within which are the university students.In this article are shown the results of a quantitative research about how is donethe information search through the educational use of the smartphone by theincoming students of the 2015-I cycle of the education faculty in a MetropolitanLima’s university, who all of them own a smartphone. / Los dispositivos móviles como la tablet y el smartphone, sobre todo este últimopor su portabilidad y fácil acceso a internet, han extendido su uso a un públicomasivo, dentro del cual se encuentran los estudiantes universitarios.En el presente artículo se muestran los resultados de una investigacióncuantitativa acerca de cómo se realiza la búsqueda de información a través del usoeducativo del smartphone por parte de los estudiantes ingresantes del ciclo 2015-Ide la Facultad de Educación de una universidad de Lima Metropolitana, de loscuales todos poseen un smartphone.A fin de obtener la información para el presente estudio, se aplicó una encuestaal grupo señalado. A continuación se presenta la síntesis de los resultados, asícomo las conclusiones respectivas. / Dispositivos móveis como a tablet e o smartphone, especialmente o último porsua portabilidade e fácil acesso à internet, têm alargado sua utilização para umaaudiência de massa, como são os estudantes universitários.Neste artigo são apresentados os resultados de uma pesquisa quantitativa sobrecomo encontrar informações através do uso educacional do smartphone por alunosdo Ciclo 2015-I da Faculdade de Educação de uma universidade em Lima, todosos que têm um smartphone.A fim de obter a informação para este estudo, foi aplicada uma pesquisaao grupo indicado. Após são apresentadas a síntese dos resultados e também asrespectivas conclusões.

Product information search has become one of the most important application areas of the Web. Especially considering pricey technical products, consumers tend to carry out intensive research activities previous to the actual acquisition for creating an all-embracing view on the product of interest. Federated search backed by ontology-based product information representation shows great promise for easing this research process. The topic of this thesis is to develop a comprehensive technique for locating, extracting, and integrating information of arbitrary technical products in a widely unsupervised manner. The resulting homogeneous information sets allow a potential consumer to effectively compare technical products based on an appropriate federated product information system.:1. Introduction 1.1. Online Product Information Research 1.1.1. Current Online Product Information Research 1.1.2. Aspired Online Product Information Research 1.2. Federated Shopping Portals 1.3. Research Questions 1.4. Approach and Theses 1.4.1. Approach 1.4.2. Theses 1.4.3. Requirements 1.5. Goals and Non-Goals 1.5.1. Goals 1.5.2. Non-Goals 1.6. Contributions 1.7. Structure 2. Federated Information Systems 2.1. Information Access 2.1.1. Document Retrieval 2.1.2. Federated Search 2.1.3. Federated Ranking 2.2. Information Extraction 2.2.1. Information Extraction from Structured Sources 2.2.2. Information Extraction from Unstructured Sources 2.2.3. Information Extraction from Semi-structured Sources 2.3. Information Integration 2.3.1. Ontologies 2.3.2. Ontology Matching 2.4. Information Presentation 2.5. Product Information 2.5.1. Product Information Source Characteristics 2.5.2. Product Information Source Types 2.5.3. Product Information Integration Types 2.5.4. Product Information Types 2.6. Conclusions 3. A Federated Product Information System 3.1. Finding Basic Product Information 3.2. Enriching Product Information 3.3. Administrating Product Information 3.4. Displaying Product Information 3.5. Conclusions 4. Product Information Extraction from the Web 4.1. Vendor Product Information Search 4.1.1. Vendor Product Information Ranking 4.1.2. Vendor Product Information Extraction 4.2. Producer Product Information Search 4.2.1. Producer Product Document Retrieval 4.2.2. Producer Product Information Extraction 4.3. Third-Party Product Information Search 4.4. Conclusions 5. Product Information Integration for the Web 5.1. Product Representation 5.1.1. Domain Product Ontology 5.1.2. Application Product Ontology 5.1.3. Product Ontology Management 5.2. Product Categorization 5.3. Product Specifications Matching 5.3.1. General Procedure 5.3.2. Elementary Matchers 5.3.3. Evolutionary Matcher 5.3.4. Naïve Bayes Matcher 5.3.5. Result Selection 5.4. Product Specifications Normalization 5.4.1. Product Specifications Atomization 5.4.2. Product Specifications Value Normalization 5.5. Product Comparison 5.6. Conclusions 6. Evaluation 6.1. Implementation 6.1.1. Offers Service 6.1.2. Products Service 6.1.3. Snippets Service 6.1.4. Fedseeko 6.1.5. Fedseeko Browser Plugin 6.1.6. Fedseeko Mobile 6.1.7. Lessons Learned 6.2. Evaluation 6.2.1. Evaluation Measures 6.2.2. Gold Standard 6.2.3. Product Document Retrieval 6.2.4. Product Specifications Extraction 6.2.5. Product Specifications Matching 6.2.6. Comparison with Competitors 6.3. Conclusions 7. Conclusions and Future Work 7.1. Summary 7.2. Conclusions 7.3. Future Work A. Pseudo Code and Extraction Properties A.1. Pseudo Code A.2. Extraction Algorithm Properties A.2.1. Clustering Properties A.2.2. Purging Properties A.2.3. Dropping Properties B. Fedseeko Screenshots B.1. Offer Search B.2. Product Comparison / Die Produktinformationssuche hat sich zu einem der bedeutendsten Themen im Web entwickelt. Speziell im Bereich kostenintensiver technischer Produkte führen potenzielle Konsumenten vor dem eigentlichen Kauf des Produkts langwierige Recherchen durch um einen umfassenden Überblick für das Produkt von Interesse zu erlangen. Die föderierte Suche in Kombination mit ontologiebasierter Produktinformationsrepräsentation stellt eine mögliche Lösung dieser Problemstellung dar. Diese Dissertation stellt Techniken vor, die das automatische Lokalisieren, Extrahieren und Integrieren von Informationen für beliebige technische Produkte ermöglichen. Die resultierenden homogenen Produktinformationen erlauben einem potenziellen Konsumenten, zugehörige Produkte effektiv über ein föderiertes Produktinformationssystem zu vergleichen.:1. Introduction 1.1. Online Product Information Research 1.1.1. Current Online Product Information Research 1.1.2. Aspired Online Product Information Research 1.2. Federated Shopping Portals 1.3. Research Questions 1.4. Approach and Theses 1.4.1. Approach 1.4.2. Theses 1.4.3. Requirements 1.5. Goals and Non-Goals 1.5.1. Goals 1.5.2. Non-Goals 1.6. Contributions 1.7. Structure 2. Federated Information Systems 2.1. Information Access 2.1.1. Document Retrieval 2.1.2. Federated Search 2.1.3. Federated Ranking 2.2. Information Extraction 2.2.1. Information Extraction from Structured Sources 2.2.2. Information Extraction from Unstructured Sources 2.2.3. Information Extraction from Semi-structured Sources 2.3. Information Integration 2.3.1. Ontologies 2.3.2. Ontology Matching 2.4. Information Presentation 2.5. Product Information 2.5.1. Product Information Source Characteristics 2.5.2. Product Information Source Types 2.5.3. Product Information Integration Types 2.5.4. Product Information Types 2.6. Conclusions 3. A Federated Product Information System 3.1. Finding Basic Product Information 3.2. Enriching Product Information 3.3. Administrating Product Information 3.4. Displaying Product Information 3.5. Conclusions 4. Product Information Extraction from the Web 4.1. Vendor Product Information Search 4.1.1. Vendor Product Information Ranking 4.1.2. Vendor Product Information Extraction 4.2. Producer Product Information Search 4.2.1. Producer Product Document Retrieval 4.2.2. Producer Product Information Extraction 4.3. Third-Party Product Information Search 4.4. Conclusions 5. Product Information Integration for the Web 5.1. Product Representation 5.1.1. Domain Product Ontology 5.1.2. Application Product Ontology 5.1.3. Product Ontology Management 5.2. Product Categorization 5.3. Product Specifications Matching 5.3.1. General Procedure 5.3.2. Elementary Matchers 5.3.3. Evolutionary Matcher 5.3.4. Naïve Bayes Matcher 5.3.5. Result Selection 5.4. Product Specifications Normalization 5.4.1. Product Specifications Atomization 5.4.2. Product Specifications Value Normalization 5.5. Product Comparison 5.6. Conclusions 6. Evaluation 6.1. Implementation 6.1.1. Offers Service 6.1.2. Products Service 6.1.3. Snippets Service 6.1.4. Fedseeko 6.1.5. Fedseeko Browser Plugin 6.1.6. Fedseeko Mobile 6.1.7. Lessons Learned 6.2. Evaluation 6.2.1. Evaluation Measures 6.2.2. Gold Standard 6.2.3. Product Document Retrieval 6.2.4. Product Specifications Extraction 6.2.5. Product Specifications Matching 6.2.6. Comparison with Competitors 6.3. Conclusions 7. Conclusions and Future Work 7.1. Summary 7.2. Conclusions 7.3. Future Work A. Pseudo Code and Extraction Properties A.1. Pseudo Code A.2. Extraction Algorithm Properties A.2.1. Clustering Properties A.2.2. Purging Properties A.2.3. Dropping Properties B. Fedseeko Screenshots B.1. Offer Search B.2. Product Comparison

TABOSA, Hamilton Rodrigues. Modelo integrativo sobre o comportamento do usuário na busca e uso da informação: aplicação na área da Saúde. 2016. 177 f. Tese (Doutorado) - Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação, Paraíba, 2016. / Submitted by Lidya Silva (nagylla.lidya@gmail.com) on 2016-07-15T15:23:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2016_tese_hrtabosa.pdf: 2037939 bytes, checksum: d343dfd86868f06692a8617698c8b448 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Josineide Góis (josineide@ufc.br) on 2016-07-15T18:01:02Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2016_tese_hrtabosa.pdf: 2037939 bytes, checksum: d343dfd86868f06692a8617698c8b448 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-15T18:01:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2016_tese_hrtabosa.pdf: 2037939 bytes, checksum: d343dfd86868f06692a8617698c8b448 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016 / The objective of this thesis is to build an integrative model of search behavior and use of information based on the models of Ellis (1989), Krikelas (1983), Kuhlthau (1991), Taylor (1986) and Wilson (1981, 1996 and 1999) and validate it through the application with the information of users not specialized in healthcare (patients, except for students and professionals). The theoretical foundation came from the study of these models, as well as specialized literature in relation to the identification of information needs, search processes and use of information, in addition to addressing the concepts of Information and Health Science, as well as behavioral studies from theoretical psychology area. Through a phenomenological study, we build an integration of models and consolidate the final proposal for a single integrative model of search behavior and use of information. For validation, interviews were conducted in-depth and technical application of the critical incident with General Hospital patients of the Dr. Carls César de Oliveira, in Fortaleza. The theoretical and practical research presented validates the integrative model of search behavior and use of the proposed information as a tool to identify regularities about the search behavior and use of information unskilled users in healthcare and is also capable of application in the study of other audiences, characterized as a general model of search behavior and use of information. This statement stems from the fact that all aspects, phases and stages of the information behavior of the subjects in this study fall (are represented) in the integrative model built, being able to bring these results: the subjects of this research feel the need for information as soon realize a disease in themselves or a family member; they throw themselves in the search for information immediately, even without knowing formal sources of information in the area, through the Web, performing Google searches through popular terms and description of symptoms; at the beginning of the search, they feel insecure for not knowing the most effective words to use in the search strategies, but rely on Google's capability to provide information they deem relevant; they don´t admit, but prefer informal sources of information, which spread testimonials from others who have experienced the same health problems, and are able to identify drugs; there are users who only seek medical attention when they can not find treatment and healing on their own Web; there are users who seek information to better understand and talk about her condition with the doctor; they have urgency in the search for information because they rush in curing the disease not only because of the physical nuisance they cause, but also for fear of losing their jobs due to the delivery of medical certificates and away from social contact with family and friends; the Web is used as a means of access to information that is used for self-diagnosis and self-medication. Research on the search behavior and use of information made from the application of integrative model will bring wider results and provide scientific inputs that can be used by managers of information units at the planning and implementation of products and services. / O objetivo desta tese é construir um modelo integrativo de comportamento de busca e uso de informação com base nos modelos de Ellis (1989), Krikelas (1983), Kuhlthau (1991), Taylor (1986) e Wilson (1981, 1996 e 1999), e validá-lo por meio da aplicação junto a usuários de informação não especializados na área da Saúde (pacientes, excetuando-se estudantes e profissionais da área). A fundamentação teórica partiu do estudo desses modelos, bem como da literatura especializada no que se refere à identificação de necessidades informacionais, processos de busca e uso da informação, além de abordar os conceitos de Ciência da Informação e Saúde, bem como dos estudos comportamentais a partir de teóricos da área de Psicologia. Por meio de um estudo fenomenológico, construímos uma integração dos modelos supracitados e consolidamos a proposta final de um único modelo integrativo de comportamento de busca e uso de informação. Para sua validação, foram realizadas entrevistas em profundidade e aplicação da técnica do incidente crítico com pacientes do Hospital Geral Dr. César Carls de Oliveira, em Fortaleza. A investigação teórico-prática apresentada valida o modelo integrativo de comportamento de busca e uso da informação proposto, como uma ferramenta capaz de identificar regularidades quanto ao comportamento de busca e uso de informação de usuários não especializados na área da saúde, sendo também passível de aplicação no estudo de outros públicos-alvo, caracterizando-se como um modelo generalista de comportamento de busca e uso de informação. Essa afirmação decorre do fato de que todos os aspectos, fases e etapas do comportamento informacional dos sujeitos desta pesquisa se inserem (estão representados) no modelo integrativo construído, sendo capaz de trazer resultados dentre os quais destacamos: os sujeitos desta pesquisa sentem necessidade de informação tão logo percebem uma doença em si próprio ou em alguém de sua família; eles se lançam na busca por informação imediatamente, mesmo sem conhecer fontes formais de informação na área, por meio da Web, realizando buscas no Google, através de termos populares e descrição dos sintomas; no início das buscas, eles se sentem inseguros por desconhecerem os termos mais eficientes para usar nas estratégias de busca, mas confiam na potencialidade do Google de fornecer informações que possam julgar relevantes; não admitem, mas preferem fontes de informação informais, que veiculem depoimentos de outros indivíduos que passaram pelos mesmos problemas de saúde, e que sejam capazes de indicar medicamentos; há usuários de informação que só procuram assistência médica quando não conseguem encontrar tratamento e cura por conta própria na Web; há usuários que procuram informação para melhor compreender e dialogar sobre seu problema de saúde com o médico; eles têm urgência na busca por informação por terem pressa na cura da doença não só por causa dos incômodos físicos que elas causam, mas também por temerem perder seus empregos devido à entrega de atestados médicos e se afastar do convívio social com a família e amigos; a Web é utilizada como forma de acesso a informações que são utilizadas para o autodiagnóstico e automedicação. Pesquisas sobre o comportamento de busca e uso de informação realizados a partir da aplicação do modelo integrativo trarão resultados mais amplos e fornecerão insumos científicos que poderão ser utilizados por gestores de unidades de informação no momento do planejamento e implementação de produtos e serviços.