Discovering stages in web navigation for problem-oriented navigation support

Users of web sites often do not know exactly which information they are looking for nor what the site has to offer. The purpose of their interaction is not only to fulfill but also to articulate their information needs. In these cases users need to pass through a series of pages before they can use the information that will eventually answer their questions. Current systems that support navigation predict which pages are interesting for the users on the basis of commonalities in the contents or the usage of the pages. They do not take into account the order in which the pages must be visited. In this paper we propose a method to automatically divide the pages of a web site on the basis of user logs into sets of pages that correspond to navigation stages. The method searches for an optimal number of stages and assigns each page to a stage. The stages can be used in combination with the pages’ topics to give better recommendations or to structure or adapt the site. The resulting navigation structures guide the users step by step through the site providing pages that do not only match the topic of the user’s search, but also the current stage of the navigation process.     

Thin film tape heads, analog and digital applications

Analog and digital applications of thin-film tape heads are discussed. Magnetoresistive tape heads are discussed. A thin-film tape head which is used in analog voice documentation recorders is described. A table that lists a number of relevant system and head parameters is given     

Evaluation of DNA extraction methods for Bacillus anthracis spores spiked to food and feed matrices at biosafety level 3 conditions

The DNA extraction efficiency from milk, whey, soy, corn gluten meal, wheat powders and heat-treated corn grain that were spiked with Bacillus anthracis and Bacillus thuringiensis spores was determined. Two steps were critical: lysis of the spores and binding of the free DNA to the DNA binding magnetic beads in the presence of the interfering powders. For the guanidine-thiocyanate based Nuclisens lysis buffer from Biomerieux we found that between 15 and 30% of the spores survived the lysis step. As most lysis buffers in DNA/RNA extraction kits are guanidine based it is likely that other lysis buffers will show a similar partial lysis of the Bacillus spores. Our results show that soybean flour and wheat flour inhibited the DNA extraction process strongest, leading to unreliable DNA extractions when using too much of the matrix. For corn gluten meal, heat-treated corn grain and milk powders, DNA extraction efficiencies in the presence of 100mg and 10mg of powder resulted in 70%-95% reduced DNA recoveries. The inhibition was, however, reliable and intermediate compared to the inhibition by soy and wheat. Whey powder had the lowest inhibitory effect on DNA-extraction efficiency and recoveries of 70-100% could be reached when using 10mg of powder. The results show that reducing the amount of matrix leads to better DNA-extraction efficiencies, particularly for strongly inhibiting powders such as soy and wheat. Based on these results, a standard protocol to directly isolate DNA from micro-organisms present in complex matrixes such as food and feed powders was designed.     

Iron promoted reduction of chromate by dissimilatory iron-reducing bacteria

Chromate is a priority pollutant within the U.S. and many other countries, the hazard of which can be mitigated by reduction to the trivalent form of chromium. Here we elucidate the reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III) via a closely coupled, biotic-abiotic reductive pathway under iron-reducing conditions. Injection of chromate into stirred-flow reactors containing Shewanella alga strain BrY and iron (hydr)oxides of varying stabilities results in complete reduction to Cr(III). The maximum sustainable Cr(VI) reduction rate was 5.5 micrograms CrVI.mg-cell-1.h-1 within ferric (hydr)oxide suspensions (surface area 10 m2). In iron limited systems (having HEPES as a buffer), iron was cycled suggesting it acts in a catalytic-type manner for the bacterial reduction of Cr(VI). BrY also reduced Cr(VI) directly; however, the rate of direct (enzymatic) reduction is considerably slower than by Fe(II)(aq) and is inhibited within 20 h due to chromate toxicity. Thus, dissimilatory iron reduction may provide a primary pathway for the sequestration and detoxification of chromate in anaerobic soils and water.     

Ontology-based photo annotation

While technology enables the storage and distribution of photographic images on an unprecedented scale, finding what you want can be like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. The authors describe their approach and the tool they developed to make annotating photos and searching for specific images more intelligent.     

The effects of transparency on trust in and acceptance of a content-based art recommender

The increasing availability of (digital) cultural heritage artefacts offers great potential for increased access to art content, but also necessitates tools to help users deal with such abundance of information. User-adaptive art recommender systems aim to present their users with art content tailored to their interests. These systems try to adapt to the user based on feedback from the user on which artworks he or she finds interesting. Users need to be able to depend on the system to competently adapt to their feedback and find the artworks that are most interesting to them. This paper investigates the influence of transparency on user trust in and acceptance of content-based recommender systems. A between-subject experiment (N = 60) evaluated interaction with three versions of a content-based art recommender in the cultural heritage domain. This recommender system provides users with artworks that are of interest to them, based on their ratings of other artworks. Version 1 was not transparent, version 2 explained to the user why a recommendation had been made and version 3 showed a rating of how certain the system was that a recommendation would be of interest to the user. Results show that explaining to the user why a recommendation was made increased acceptance of the recommendations. Trust in the system itself was not improved by transparency. Showing how certain the system was of a recommendation did not influence trust and acceptance. A number of guidelines for design of recommender systems in the cultural heritage domain have been derived from the study’s results.

Relating conversational expressiveness to social presence and acceptance of an assistive social robot

Exploring the relationship between social presence, conversational expressiveness, and robot acceptance, we set up an experiment with a robot in an eldercare institution, comparing a more and less social condition. Participants showed more expressiveness with a more social agent and a higher score on expressiveness correlated with higher scores on social presence. Furthermore, scores on social presence correlated with the scores on the intention to use the system in the near future. However, we found no correlation between conversational expressiveness and robot acceptance.     

Reductive dissolution and biomineralization of iron hydroxide under dynamic flow conditions

Iron cycling and the associated changes in solid phase have dramatic implications for trace element mobility and bioavailability. Here we explore the formation of secondary iron phases during microbially mediated reductive dissolution of ferrihydrite-coated sand under dynamic flow conditions. An initial period (10 d) of rapid reduction, indicated by consumption of lactate and production of acetate and Fe-(II) to the pore water in association with a darkening of the column material, is followed by much lower rate of reduction to the termination of the experiment after 48 d. Although some Fe (<25%) is lost to the effluent pore water, the majority remains within the column as ferrihydrite (20-70%) and the secondary mineral phases magnetite (0-70%) and goethite (0-25%). Ferrihydrite converts to goethite in the influent end of the column where dissolved Fe(II) concentrations are low and converts to magnetite toward the effluent end where Fe(III) concentrations are elevated. A decline in the rate of Fe(II) production occurs concurrent with the formation of goethite and magnetite; at the termination of the experiment, the rate of reduction is <5% the initial rate. Despite the dramatic decrease in the rate of reduction, greater than 80% of the residual Fe remains in the ferric state. These results highlight the importance of coupled flow and water chemistry in controlling the rate and solid-phase products of iron (hydr)oxide reduction.