Using Document Relationships for Better Answers
In most retrieval systems the answer to a query is a ranked list of documents. There is little information about the ranking and no support for exploring the relationships that may exist between the documents. In this paper we consider the use of clustering answers to better support users satisfying their information needs. We show how clustering reflects the nature of some information needs, and how the clustering can be used to find more relevant documents than would be the case using simple lists. This work contributes to our approach of building answers to information needs, rather than simply providing lists.

title: Myriad: An Architecture for Contextualized Information Retrieval and Delivery
abstract: Users’ information needs are largely driven by the context in which they make their decisions. This context is dynamic. It includes the users’ characteristics, their current domain of application, the tasks they commonly perform and the device they are currently using. This context is also evolving. When one information need is satisfied, another is likely to emerge. An information access system must, therefore, be able to track this dynamic and evolving context, and exploit it to retrieve actionable information from appropriate sources and deliver it in a form suitable for the current situation. This paper presents a generic architecture that supports the construction of information retrieval and delivery systems that make use of context. The architecture, called Myriad, includes an adaptive virtual document planner, and explicit, dynamic representations of the user’s current context.

title: Question-driven classification of retrieved documents
abstract: Many existing information access systems deliver ranked lists of documents in response to users' queries. Some systems also endeavour to represent some of the various types of relationships that can exist between documents. However, few systems provide effective mechanisms to help users discover useful information within the set of retrieved documents. In this paper, we present a question-driven approach to delivering retrieved documents in an attempt to organize them in a way that is closer to the user's mental representation of the expected answer. In our proposed approach, retrieved documents are dynamically classified into categories; an appropriate classification scheme is selected by a user on the basis of his own understanding of the information need. Experimental results show that users are more satisfied with such a directed categorization than with a list of retrieved documents.

title: Generating Personal Travel Guides from Discourse Plans
abstract: This paper describes a system that delivers travel guides tailored to individual needs. It does so by integrating a discourse planner with a system for querying the web and generating synthesised web pages using document prescriptions. We show by way of example how a user model can lead to a personal travel guide, and show what this might look like in different media. We briefly describe the investigations we are undertaking to determine the utility of such approaches.

title: Generating Personal Travel Guides - And Who Wants Them?
abstract: In this paper we describe a system that generates synthesized web pages as a travel guide through integrating a discourse planner with a document retrieval system. We then present our investigation on whether the guide generated by such a system is actually preferred by users over a more general guide.

title: The role of a judge in a user based retrieval experiment (poster session)
abstract: A tuning device for tympani that displays the pitch of each instrument's tympanum. The pitch is determined by measuring the strain in an adjustable tensioning mechanism employed in all tympani to keep proper tension on the tympanum. The pitch or tone of the tympani is determined by the vibration frequency of the tympanum when the tympani is played and the frequency is determined by the tension in the tympanum. A transducer measures the strain in the tensioning mechanism to give an accurate indication of what the tympanum tension, and therefore the pitch, of the tympani would be when played. The transducer includes a resistance-type strain gage mounted on the tympanum tensioning mechanism. The length of the conductor in the strain gage and therefore its resistance, changes with stress changes in the tensioning mechanism used to tune the tympani. A switch means selects a desired one of the strain gages mounted on each of the one or more tympani for inclusion as one section of a four-section resistance bridge circuit configuration. A signal conditioning module provides excitation to the bridge circuit and also conditions the output of the bridge circuit. The output of the bridge circuit varies as the resistance of the strain gage varies. The conditioned output of the bridge circuit is displayed on a voltmeter whose scale has been calibrated to indicate the pitch of the tympani being monitored.

title: Query optimization for selections using bitmaps
abstract: Bitmaps are popular indexes for data warehouse (DW) applications and most database management systems offer them today. This paper proposes query optimization strategies for selections using bitmaps. Both continuous and discrete selection criteria are considered. Query optimization strategies are categorized into static and dynamic. Static optimization strategies discussed are the optimal design of bitmaps, and algorithms based on tree and logical reduction. The dynamic optimization discussed is the approach of inclusion and exclusion for both bit-sliced indexes and encoded bitmap indexes.

title: Watermarking for image authentication
abstract: A data embedding method is proposed for image authentication based on table look-up in frequency domain. A visually meaningful watermark and a set of simple features are embedded invisibly in the marked image, which can be stored in the compressed form. The scheme can detect and localize alterations of the original image, such as the tampering of images exported from a digital camera.

title: Classification-based spatial error concealment for images
abstract: This paper presents a new, classification-based spatial error concealment algorithm for images. The proposed scheme takes advantage of two state-of-the-art concealment schemes and adaptively selects a better suitable concealment scheme for each corrupted block. Using a support vector machine (SVM) classifier, our proposed approach outperforms the prior art in terms of the concealment quality and has moderate computational complexity.

title: Informing the Design of Direct-Touch Tabletops
abstract: Tables provide a large and natural interface for supporting direct manipulation of visual content for human-to-human interactions. Such surfaces also support collaboration, coordination, and parallel problem solving. However, the direct-touch table metaphor also presents considerable challenges, including the need for input methods that transcend traditional mouse- and keyboard-based designs. In this paper, we've designed, implemented, and studied a variety of tabletop user interfaces, interaction techniques, and usage scenarios

title: Do security toolbars actually prevent phishing attacks?
abstract: Security toolbars in a web browser show security-related information about a website to help users detect phishing attacks. Because the toolbars are designed for humans to use, they should be evaluated for usability -- that is, whether these toolbars really prevent users from being tricked into providing personal information. We conducted two user studies of three security toolbars and other browser security indicators and found them all ineffective at preventing phishing attacks. Even though subjects were asked to pay attention to the toolbar, many failed to look at it; others disregarded or explained away the toolbars' warnings if the content of web pages looked legitimate. We found that many subjects do not understand phishing attacks or realize how sophisticated such attacks can be.