Bridging memory-based collaborative filtering and text retrieval

When speaking of information retrieval, we often mean text retrieval. But there exist many other forms of information retrieval applications. A typical example is collaborative filtering that suggests interesting items to a user by taking into account other users’ preferences or tastes. Due to the uniqueness of the problem, it has been modeled and studied differently in the past, mainly drawing from the preference prediction and machine learning view point. A few attempts have yet been made to bring back collaborative filtering to information (text) retrieval modeling and subsequently new interesting collaborative filtering techniques have been thus derived. In this paper, we show that from the algorithmic view point, there is an even closer relationship between collaborative filtering and text retrieval. Specifically, major collaborative filtering algorithms, such as the memory-based, essentially calculate the dot product between the user vector (as the query vector in text retrieval) and the item rating vector (as the document vector in text retrieval). Thus, if we properly structure user preference data and employ the target user’s ratings as query input, major text retrieval algorithms and systems can be directly used without any modification. In this regard, we propose a unified formulation under a common notational framework for memory-based collaborative filtering, and a technique to use any text retrieval weighting function with collaborative filtering preference data. Besides confirming the rationale of the framework, our preliminary experimental results have also demonstrated the effectiveness of the approach in using text retrieval models and systems to perform item ranking tasks in collaborative filtering.     

Providing Access to E-Audiobooks: Help from the Non-Cataloger

There are a growing number of Web sites that offer free e-audiobooks. Providing access to these e-audiobooks can be a challenge for libraries, particularly with shrinking budgets and staff. The author describes a process created at California State University–San Bernardino to re-record and catalog currently popular public domain e-audiobooks with a goal of making the cataloging simple enough that a non-cataloger can perform the task.     

On Rational Madness: Love and Reason in Socrates and Lacan (Winner of the Taylor & Francis ICA Philosophy of Communication Division Best Paper Award 2008)

Drawing on a close reading of Lacan's Seminar XX: Encore, regarding the idea of love's centrality in every human intersubjective experience, this article explores the artificially constructed division between Eros and Logos that since the Enlightenment pervades most of the cultural renditions of western images of love, and argues that this separation forecloses an overarching unity, put forth by Lacan trough the concept Y a l'Un (there is One).     

New Method for Historic Rammed-earth Wall Characterization: The Almohade Ramparts of Malaga and Seville

ABSTRACT

The goal of this research is to propose a new method of characterizing rammed-earth walls. Based on their historic building materials properties, five broad test groups were established for the characterization: chemical and mineralogical composition, physical properties, mechanical properties, particle size distribution, and dating. These determinations can, in turn, be grouped into two different types: instrumental techniques such as XRF, XRD, and SEM-EDX, as well as adaptations of standard methods (mainly UNE-EN standards) for application to these materials. As case studies where the proposed method is applied, we present our research on the rammed-earth walls in the ramparts of Seville and Malaga (Spain), clearly showing the method’s capacity for comparing and differentiating different rammed-earth walls.     

The Impact of Corporate Media News on Market Valuation

This article explores the influence of Web-based corporate reporting on the investors' valuation of companies in the information and communications technology industry. This study compiled 8,111 news items issued in the “Press Releases” tab of the firms' Web sites between January 2003 and April 2005, and analyzed what type of news items affects stock returns. The results show a positive price reaction to news regarding new customers, completion of acquisitions, strategic long-term decisions, and non-technological alliances. In contrast, the results show a negative price reaction to news regarding the launch of new or upgraded products.     

An annual JCR impact factor calculation based on Bayesian credibility formulas

Our aim deals with appraising the annual impact calculation of journals belonging to the JCR, in terms of the expected citation (with or without selfcitations) by published paper in a range of k-years. A Bayesian approach to the problem, should reflect not only the current prestige of a journal, but also taking into account its recent trajectory. In this wide context, credibility theory becomes an adequate mechanism deciding whether journal's impact factor calculation to be more or less plausible. Under prior belief that journal quality is determined by its impact factor, we model the citation-quality process by choosing a conjugated family of the exponential class in order to obtain a net impact credibility formula. Proposed weighting schema produces the effect of smoothing out any sudden increases or decreases in the year-by-year impact factor.     

Coloniality and Education: Negotiating Discourses of Immigration in Schools and Communities Through Border Thinking

In this article, we examine the discursive construction of knowledge about immigration in two geographic spaces whose “border” many students navigate: a school context meant to support English Language Learners and an out-of-school faith based organization serving immigrant communities. We draw on the concept of “border thinking” (Mignolo, 2000, p. 18) to understand how colonial histories continue to influence contemporary educational contexts. Through examples from students’, community members’, and educators’ interactions with available discourses of immigration, we elaborate on the implications of community knowledge for revising school practices to represent a fuller complexity of immigration experiences.