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A conceptual model describes important factors within a system and how they relate to one another. They are important because they help to identify system changes that can yield the greatest improvement. Within information retrieval (IR), most research is directed towards multi-document retrieval and a multi-interaction IR user scenario. There are few, if any, IR conceptual models supporting minimal or single-interaction IR (siIR) user scenarios, however the need for siIR systems is growing rapidly. The purpose of this paper is to take the first step towards constructing a task-oriented conceptual model and experimental framework to support siIR research.

A first principles approach is employed to develop a task-oriented conceptual model, called bridging information retrieval (BIR). This model is contrasted with the concept of relevance, a central factor within IR research.

BIR introduces the central concept of bridging information (BI) as the objective of IR systems. BI is the additional information a user requires to complete a task, beyond their innate knowledge. The relationship between BI and relevance is determined.

The theoretical basis of BIR is derived axiomatically; however the resulting system evaluation model is speculative.

The proposed operational framework offers researchers a systematic approach to designing and evaluating siIR systems.

This work contributes a novel task-oriented IR conceptual model and evaluation framework, both centred around the concept of BI for siIR. It also contributes a novel search task classification method.

The paper aims to provide a semiotic interpretation of the role played by entanglement in quantum-based models aimed to information retrieval and suggests possible improvements. Actual models are capable of retrieving documents relevant to a query composed of a keyword and its acceptation expressed by a given context. The paper also considers some analogies between this technique and quantum-based approaches in other disciplines to discuss the consequence of this quantum turn, as epistemology and philosophy of language are concerned.

We use quantum geometry to design a formal model for textual semiotics. In particular, the authors refer to Greimas’s work on semantics and information theory, to Eco’s writings on semantic memory and to Lotman’s work on a cybernetic notion of culture.

Quantum approaches imply a particular point of view on meaning. Meaning is not a real, positive quality of a given word. It is a net of relations constructed in the text, whose value is progressively determined during the reading process. Furthermore, reading is not a neutral operation: to read is to determine meaning. If it is said that, from a general semiotic point of view, meaning is stored in quantum semantic memories and is read/written by semantic machines, then the operation of “reading/writing” is analogous to the operation of measuring in quantum theory: in other terms, meaning is a value, and this implies an instance (not necessarily human) according to which values are valuable.

The authors are not proposing a complete quantum semantics. At the present, quantum information retrieval can detect the presence of semantic relations. The authors suggest a way to characterize them, leaving open the problem on how to formalize the document as a vector in four-state semantic space.

A quantum turn shows deep semiotic implications on the approach to language, which shows an immanent semantic organization not reducible to syntax and morphology. This organization is probabilistic and indeterministic and explains to what extent text fixes the meaning of its lexical units.

In the authors’ perspective, signification is not the exclusivity of a human subject. Criticizing Turing test, the great semiotic and cybernetic scholar Jurij Lotman wrote that if we identify “intelligent” and “human”, we raise the failings of an actual form of intelligence to the rank of an essential characteristic. On this line, meaning is considered as a feature of social, artificial and biological systems.

The adoption of quantum formalism seems in line with cybernetic framework, involving a probabilistic, non-cartesian point of view on meaning aimed to critically discuss the human–machine relation. Furthermore, Quantum theory (QT) implies a phenomenological point of view on the conditions of possibility of meaning.

Much previous research on improving information retrieval applications has focused on developing entirely new systems with advanced searching features. Unfortunately, most users seldom utilize these advanced features. This research explores the use of a software agent that assists the user during the search process. The agent was developed as a separate, stand‐alone component to be integrated with existing information retrieval systems. The performance of an information retrieval system with the integrated agent was subjected to an evaluation with 30 test subjects. The results indicate that agents developed using both results from previous user studies and rapidly modeling user information needs can result in an improvement in precision. Implications for information retrieval system design and directions for future research are outlined.

DRAUGHTSMEN can make a major contribution to productivity provided they are trained in work study. This fact emerged from a paper presented by Mr. B. A. Dyson, General Manager (Overseas Production) of Hoover Ltd., to a joint work study conference organised by the British Institute of Management.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated semantic information retrieval (IR) solution based on an ontology-improved vector space model for situations where a digital collection is established or curated. It aims to create a retrieval approach which could return the results by meanings rather than by keywords.

In this paper, the authors propose a semantic term frequency algorithm to create a semantic vector space model (SeVSM) based on ontology. To support the calculation, a multi-branches tree model is created to represent the ontology and a set of algorithms is developed to operate it. Then, a semantic ontology-based IR system based on the SeVSM model is designed and developed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model.

The experimental study using 30 queries from 15 different domains confirms the effectiveness of the SeVSM and the usability of the proposed system. The results demonstrate that the proposed model and system can be a significant exploration to enhance IR in specific domains, such as a digital library and e-commerce.

This research not only creates a semantic retrieval model, but also provides the application approach via designing and developing a semantic retrieval system based on the model. Comparing with most of the current related research, the proposed research studies the whole process of realizing a semantic retrieval.

This paper aims to examine peer‐to‐peer online communities for people with chronic diseases in order to present a conceptual framework that identifies the needs of members. This framework aims to improve understanding of the role of these communities in the enhancement of people's self‐management of chronic disease care.

A conceptual framework is drawn from the literature and tested against three illustrative case studies using an ethnographic approach. Taking an objective perspective, the data were examined against the proposed framework. The iterative cycle of qualitative analysis supported reflection through the ongoing observation of the case communities over several months.

The research underpins identification of members' needs as presented in the framework. It finds that the constructs of the shared space provide a context for the identified needs of members which are revised to reflect the findings. Social needs are broadened to include the powerful influences of communication through self‐expression, spiritual support and advocacy. Hedonic needs are found to play a significant role in continued participation.

Improved management of chronic disease care benefits both the patient and a range of stakeholders concerned with delivery of care services. Greater recognition of the identified needs of online community members supports the capability to improve the effectiveness of healthcare delivery.

This research provides a framework for enhancing the ability of online communities to empower patients. It identifies specific needs of members and presents a conceptual framework to facilitate continuing research in this significant area.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of blogs in corporate communication and proposes general policies to help corporations effectively and ethically use blogs. Blogs are among the new communication media that are playing an increasingly important role in the corporate world. Most companies, however, are not yet taking advantage of this opportunity, nor do they manage the associated risks. We have developed a series of best practices to help companies address this issue.

We examine the evolution of the blogging phenomena and create a framework for characterizing the potential impact of blogs on the corporation. Policies are derived from data compiled from the literature, case studies, and existing proactive corporate strategies.

Most companies do not have well developed strategies for corporate blogging. As a communication medium, blogs represent a significant opportunity to further corporate marketing goals, particularly in light of the changing face of information consumption. The prevalence of blogs poses risk to corporations as a relatively uncontrolled medium.

This paper illustrates the need to develop proactive strategies for corporate blogging and provides guidelines for corporate blogging policies. Companies should integrate blogging policies into their overall corporate communication strategy as well as develop an approach for addressing the risks they impose.

This is the first paper to consider both the benefits and risks of blogging from a policy point of view.

With an increase in the amount of multilingual content on the World Wide Web, users are often striving to access information provided in a language of which they are non-native speakers. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive study of user profile representation techniques and investigate their use in personalized cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) systems through the means of personalized query expansion.

The user profiles consist of weighted terms computed by using frequency-based methods such as tf-idf and BM25, as well as various latent semantic models trained on monolingual documents and cross-lingual comparable documents. This paper also proposes an automatic evaluation method for comparing various user profile generation techniques and query expansion methods.

Experimental results suggest that latent semantic-weighted user profile representation techniques are superior to frequency-based methods, and are particularly suitable for users with a sufficient amount of historical data. The study also confirmed that user profiles represented by latent semantic models trained on a cross-lingual level gained better performance than the models trained on a monolingual level.

Previous studies on personalized information retrieval systems have primarily investigated user profiles and personalization strategies on a monolingual level. The effect of utilizing such monolingual profiles for personalized CLIR remains unclear. The current study fills the gap by a comprehensive study of user profile representation for personalized CLIR and a novel personalized CLIR evaluation methodology to ensure repeatable and controlled experiments can be conducted.

The purpose of this paper is to report a study of how the test instrument of a simulated work task situation is used in empirical evaluations of interactive information retrieval (IIR) and reported in the research literature. In particular, the author is interested to learn whether the requirements of how to employ simulated work task situations are followed, and whether these requirements call for further highlighting and refinement.

In order to study how simulated work task situations are used, the research literature in question is identified. This is done partly via citation analysis by use of Web of Science®, and partly by systematic search of online repositories. On this basis, 67 individual publications were identified and they constitute the sample of analysis.

The analysis reveals a need for clarifications of how to use simulated work task situations in IIR evaluations. In particular, with respect to the design and creation of realistic simulated work task situations. There is a lack of tailoring of the simulated work task situations to the test participants. Likewise, the requirement to include the test participants’ personal information needs is neglected. Further, there is a need to add and emphasise a requirement to depict the used simulated work task situations when reporting the IIR studies.

Insight about the use of simulated work task situations has implications for test design of IIR studies and hence the knowledge base generated on the basis of such studies.

Simulated work task situations are widely used in IIR studies, and the present study is the first comprehensive study of the intended and unintended use of this test instrument since its introduction in the late 1990’s. The paper addresses the need to carefully design and tailor simulated work task situations to suit the test participants in order to obtain the intended authentic and realistic IIR under study.