Library and Information Science Commons^™

Information Seeking Behavior Of Scientists In Venezuela, Simon Luis Aristeguieta Trillos

Doctoral Dissertations

Information is one the essential elements of science. It is an imperative condition that researchers review antecedent works as they advance and create new knowledge. Knowledge creation in science is a process of adding and refining new pieces of data, information, and knowledge to what has already been accomplished by others. Few scientific communities have unlimited access to scientific information sources. Most communities’ access to information is limited by economic, social, cultural, and technological conditions.

This study investigates information seeking behavior and information dissemination practices of the Venezuelan scientific community. A model of scholarly communication in a context of dependency …

Study Of Stemming Algorithms, Savitha Kodimala

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Automated stemming is the process of reducing words to their roots. The stemmed words are typically used to overcome the mismatch problems associated with text searching.

In this thesis, we report on the various methods developed for stemming. In particular, we show the effectiveness of n-gram stemming methods on a collection of documents.

Dynamic Indexing, Viswada Sripathi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis, we report on index constructions for large document collections to facilitate the task of search and retrieval. We first report on classical static index construction methods and their shortcomings. We then report on dynamic index construction techniques and their effectiveness.

Xpath-Based Template Language For Describing The Placement Of Metadata Within A Document, Vijay Kumar Musham

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

In the recent years, there has been a tremendous growth in Internet and online resources that had previously been restricted to paper archives. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tools can be used for digitalizing an existing corpus and making it available online. A number of federal agencies, universities, laboratories, and companies are placing their collections online and making them searchable via metadata fields such as author, title, and publishing organization. Manually creating metadata for a large collection is an extremely time-consuming task, and is difficult to automate, particularly for collections consisting of documents with diverse layout and structure. The Extract project …

Developing Comic Book And Graphic Novel Collections In Libraries, Sara Dianne Ray

Masters Theses

This research study has several objectives. The first is to research graphic novels and comic books, their history and the issues this visual and literary medium has had with censorship, with preconceived notions that the medium is only meant for a juvenile audience, and with the development of rating standards. The second objective is to study current literature that has been written by scholars and librarians on this medium. This exploration of graphic novels and comic books and the scholarship and collection development efforts related to them provides a foundation for considering the issues and challenges which current and future …

The Information Practices Of People Living With Depression: Constructing Credibility And Authority, Tami Oliphant

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Depressive episodes and chronic depression often provide the impetus for both online and offline everyday life information-seeking and sharing and the seeking of support. While allopathic medication, psychiatric, and other biomedical services are the standard treatments for depression, people often use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to supplement or supplant biomedical treatments. Depression is a nebulous disorder with varying causes, illness trajectories, and a wide variety of potentially effective treatments. Often, treating and managing depression forms a project for life (Wikgren, 2001) where the need for information is continuous.

In the present study, I have used a constructionist, discourse analytic …

Cloud Storage And Online Bin Packing, Swathi Venigella

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cloud storage is the service provided by some corporations (such as Mozy and Carbonite) to store and backup computer files. We study the problem of allocating memory of servers in a data center based on online requests for storage. Over-the-net data backup has become increasingly easy and cheap due to cloud storage. Given an online sequence of storage requests and a cost associated with serving the request by allocating space on a certain server one seeks to select the minimum number of servers as to minimize total cost. We use two different algorithms and propose a third algorithm; we show …

Digital Video Communication And Preservation For Educational Purposes, Chelsea Lyon

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the benefits of digital video to communicate and preserve scholarly work. This study asks the question: How can digital video benefit communication and scholarly work? Combining both visuals and audio, digital video has become a unique educational tool between scholars and students alike to communicate, teach, and learn. As technology advances, the creation, preservation, and viewing of digital video continues to increase; however, so do the challenges that arise as a result. Digital video currently faces challenges in defining and effectively managing metadata standards for media files, bridging a gap between traditional …

Archiving Transgender: Affects, Logics, And The Power Of Queer History, Kelly Jacob Rawson

Writing Program – Dissertations

Archiving Transgender:Affects, Logics, and the Power of Queer History examines three archives that collect transgender material in order to analyze archives as rhetorical sites where a complex interplay of language, politics, logic, and affect shape archival research. Current scholarship in rhetorical historiography has (re)turned to archives to consider the rhetorical dimensions of archives themselves and the impact these dimensions have on researchers (Kirsch and Rohan; Morris; Ferreira-Buckley). I extend and complicate this line of inquiry by focusing specifically on transgender archival practices and logics. Transgender archiving is an especially rich site for critical investigation because of the complexities of the …

A Comparative Study On Text Categorization, Aditya Chainulu Karamcheti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Automated text categorization is a supervised learning task, defined as assigning category labels to new documents based on likelihood suggested by a training set of labeled documents. Two examples of methodology for text categorizations are Naive Bayes and K-Nearest Neighbor.

In this thesis, we implement two categorization engines based on Naive Bayes and K-Nearest Neighbor methodology. We then compare the effectiveness of these two engines by calculating standard precision and recall for a collection of documents. We will further report on time efficiency of these two engines.

Interactive Online Forms, Ashley Nelson-Hornstein

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The use of interactive online forms can improve the efficiency of data management processes in any organization, particularly ones that rely on the collection of large amounts of data. The work of my capstone project sought to leverage technologies available in the open source community to improve the work-flow of one such organization, the Honors program at Syracuse University. As a result, I focused on transforming the often used paper civic engagement form into an autonomous electronic process. By appropriately following the stages of the systems development life cycle, a systematic approach that focused on planning and security conscious execution …

Perceptions Of Digital Libraries With Indigenous Knowledge: An Exploratory Study, Debra Lynn Capponi

Masters Theses

Interest in indigenous knowledge (IK) research has grown since the 1980s, and more recently the topic has drawn attention in information sciences research. At the same time, the evolution of electronic information and communication technologies (ICTs), most notably development of the Internet, has profoundly influenced information sciences research. This study explores perceptions of community members involved in the creation, development, and use of digital libraries with indigenous knowledge materials. Research methods used in data collection include a quantitative survey distributed to community members involved in the creation, development, and use of digital libraries with indigenous knowledge materials and qualitative analysis …

Information Privacy: A Quantitative Study Of Citizen Awareness, Concern And Information Seeking Behavior Related To The Use Of The Social Security Number As A Personal Identifier, Rhonda Marisa Clossum

Masters Theses

Information technology has transformed the manner in which personal identifying information is collected, stored and shared in government agencies and private businesses. The social security number has become the de facto identifier for individuals due to its notable qualities: a nine-digit number assigned to one person by the United States government. As individuals are increasingly asked to disclose personal information, the question arises: How does the lack of awareness of social security number laws contribute to the loss of privacy, loss of control of personal information and the threat of identity theft? This study examines awareness levels of social security …

The Subject Representation Of Core Works In Women's Studies: A Critical Analysis Of The Library Of Congress Subject Headings, Susan E. Wood

Masters Theses

The system of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) has been the subject of feminist, critical examinations since the 1970s. Subject headings pertaining both to feminist literature and to women in general have been analyzed to determine how LCSH represents these topics. In this study, I contribute to this body of scholarship by analyzing and reporting on the nature of the LCSH subject representation of 52 core works published from 1986-1998 in the areas of feminist theory and women’s movements. These monographs were selected from the 3rd edition of Women’s Studies: A Recommended Bibliography (Krikos & Ingold, 2004). The analysis …

Genre, Database, And The Anatomy Of The Digital Archive, Elizabeth J. Vincelette

English Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to define shared characteristics of literary digital archives, specifically to explore how conceptual and structural qualities of such archives express generic qualities. In order to describe digital media such as database or digital archives, scholars resort to metaphors, and this study offers the metaphor of anatomy as a generic inscription with historical and methodological implications. The definition of the anatomy genre draws from Northrop Frye's in Anatomy of Criticism, in which Frye describes how anatomies are characterized by proliferating lists, the mixing of prose and non-prose forms, and self-reflexivity--under the guise of knowledge …

Diseño De Un Programa De Formación En El Uso De Recursos Electrónicos De Información Que Poseen Las Seis Bibliotecas Locales De La Red Capital De Bibliotecas Públicas Biblored, César Augusto Bernal Campos

Sistemas de Información, Bibliotecología y Archivística

No abstract provided.

Perceptions Of Web 2.0 Tools As Catalysts For Teacher And Librarian Collaboration: A Case Study, Peggy Milam Creighton

Presidential Alumni Research Dissemination Award

Scheduling collaborative planning sessions with classroom teachers is a substantial challenge for school librarians. Research indicates that lack of time is a major barrier to collaboration. The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of Web 2.0 tools as a potential means of overcoming the time barrier to collaboration. Participants were school librarians and classroom teachers from a large suburban school district. Loertscher's taxonomy and school library 2.0 provided a conceptual framework for the design of this case study. Research questions focused on (a) ways Web 2.0 tools can be used to collaborate and (b) which tools are most …

Health Literacy: A Bibliometric And Citation Analysis, Robert M. Shapiro Ii

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

The concept of health literacy finds its origins in the field of education. In its brief history the definition, structure, and direction of the field has changed dramatically and has emerged as a multidisciplinary endeavor full of discipline specific manifestations, most recently, public health literacy. Using bibliometric and citation analyses, this study investigated the field of health literacy from the first use of the term in 1974 to the present year, 2010. A range of databases from the various fields that have contributed to the field were searched using the keyword string, “health literacy.” Data was organized, cleaned and parsed …

Manufacturing Menopause: An Analysis Of The Portrayal Of Menopause And Information Content On Pharmaceutical Web Sites, Deborah H. Charbonneau

Wayne State University Dissertations

Consumer-targeted prescription drug advertising serves as an interesting lens through which we can examine the portrayal of menopause in online drug advertisements. The aim of this study was to explore the portrayal of menopause on web sites sponsored by pharmaceutical companies for hormone therapies (HT). To unravel this question, a qualitative content analysis of web sites for FDA-approved hormone therapies was employed. A total number of 608 printed pages of web site content from eight web sites (N=8) were analyzed. Key findings elucidated how menopause was portrayed on the pharmaceutical web sites. First, descriptions of menopause articulated a biomedical perspective …

Construcción De Ciudad Región, Desde Las Necesidades De Información De Los Habitantes De La Localidad De Bosa Y Los Municipios De Soacha Y Sibaté, Mariluz Amorocho Paipa, Ingrid Gómez Suárez, Blanca Cecilia Higuera Gómez

Sistemas de Información, Bibliotecología y Archivística

Se realizó una investigación descriptiva de tipo cuantitativo y cualitativo, en el corredor sur Bosa-Soacha-Sibaté, con el fin de determinar la construcción de ciudad-región desde las necesidades de información que tienen los habitantes de esta zona. Para dar cumplimiento al objetivo: identificar y describir las fuentes personales, institucionales o mediáticas a las cuales accede el ciudadano común al momento de requerir información para su vida diaria, así como las necesidades de información para convivir como ciudadano y participar en el desarrollo y construcción de ciudad-región. La investigación está articulada desde lo teórico, partiendo de elementos básicos como es el contexto …

Análisis De Los Trabajos De Grado En El Campo De Bibliotecología Del Programa De Sistemas De Información, Bibliotecología Y Archivística De La Universidad De La Salle Mediante La Técnica De Resúmenes Analíticos, Deyvi Alexander Carreño Piñeros

Sistemas de Información, Bibliotecología y Archivística

No abstract provided.

Defining Workplace Information Fluency Skills For Technical Communication Students, Yuejiao Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Information fluency refers to the ability to recognize information needs and to gather, evaluate, and communicate information appropriately. In this study, I treat "information fluency" as both an overall competency and as a collection of knowledge and skills. The purpose of this study is to explore the specific workplace information fluency skills valued by employers of technical communicators, to find out how instructors perceive and teach these skills, and to suggest how these findings can inform our teaching practices. Within the framework of qualitative methodology, this study employs two data-collection instruments, including a content analysis of online job recruitment postings …

Library Anxiety Of Law Students: A Study Utilizing The Multidimensional Library Anxiety Scale, Stacey L. Bowers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether law students experienced library anxiety and, if so, which components contributed to that anxiety. The Multidimensional Library Anxiety Scale (MLAS) developed by Dr. Doris Van Kampen was used to assess library anxiety levels of law students. The MLAS is a 53 question Likert scale instrument that measures the construct of library anxiety. Participants in the study were law students enrolled in a private Midwestern university during the 2009-2010 academic year who completed the survey instrument.

Law students are a unique graduate school population who undergo an extremely rigorous and competitive …

The Sunk Cost Fallacy And Individual Differences In Health Decisions, Norma P. Fernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Sunk Cost fallacy is a biased committed when individuals base their decisions to stop or continue a course of action solely on past irrecoverable invested costs (i.e., monetary or time-related). Individuals' susceptibility to the Sunk Cost fallacy has been justified as the need to try to avoid appearing wasteful, to avoid appearing inconsistent, to learn a lesson from and to punish self for a poorly made decision. A study by Bornstein and Chapman (1995) evaluated these justifications along with a normative response and found statistical differences among all justifications. However, the study of the Sunk Cost fallacy and these …

Eliciting User Requirements Using Appreciative Inquiry, Carol Kernitzki Gonzales

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Many software development projects fail because they do not meet the needs of users, are over-budget, and abandoned. To address this problem, the user requirements elicitation process was modified based on principles of Appreciative Inquiry. Appreciative Inquiry, commonly used in organizational development, aims to build organizations, processes, or systems based on success stories using a hopeful vision for an ideal future. Spanning five studies, Appreciative Inquiry was evaluated for its effectiveness with eliciting user requirements. In the first two cases, it was compared with traditional approaches with end-users and proxy-users. The third study was a quasi-experiment comparing the use of …

Building Efficient Wireless Infrastructures For Pervasive Computing Environments, Bo Sheng

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Pervasive computing is an emerging concept that thoroughly brings computing devices and the consequent technology into people's daily life and activities. Most of these computing devices are very small, sometimes even "invisible", and often embedded into the objects surrounding people. In addition, these devices usually are not isolated, but networked with each other through wireless channels so that people can easily control and access them. In the architecture of pervasive computing systems, these small and networked computing devices form a wireless infrastructure layer to support various functionalities in the upper application layer.;In practical applications, the wireless infrastructure often plays a …

The Schenectady Virtual Community : Exploring The Ecology Of Political Discourse In A Local Context, Andrea B. Baker

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

From Facebook to Twitter, ordinary citizens' use of social media to discuss, organize, and participate in the political process continues to grow in popularity (Davis, 2005; Rainie, 2005; Kohut, 2008). Researchers interested in this area have explored the demographics, patterns of behavior and motives of participants in online communities (Stromer-Galley, 2002, 2003), the dynamics of the online discussions (Dahlberg, 2001; Davis, 2005; Wilhelm, 2000), the effect of online participation on other forms of political activity (Brunsting, 2002; Kavanaugh & Patterson, 2001), and more recently the relationship between social media and the conventional press (Hiler, 2002; Park, 2004; Cornfield, 2006; Lenhart …

Toward A Theory-Based Natural Language Capability In Robots And Other Embodied Agents : Evaluating Hausser's Slim Theory And Database Semantics, Robin Kowalchuk Burk

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Computational natural language understanding and generation have been a goal of artificial intelligence since McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester and Shannon first proposed to spend the summer of 1956 studying this and related problems. Although statistical approaches dominate current natural language applications, two current research trends bring renewed focus on this goal. The nascent field of artificial general intelligence (AGI) seeks to evolve intelligent agents whose multi-subagent architectures are motivated by neuroscience insights into the modular functional structure of the brain and by cognitive science insights into human learning processes. Rapid advances in cognitive robotics also entail multi-agent software architectures that attempt …

Mobile Technologies & Socio-Economic Opportunities For Disadvantaged Women : A Study Of Information Behavior In A Developing Nation Context, Devendra Dilip Potnis

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been championed by the United Nations and others as one of the key media to open up socio-economic opportunities for disadvantaged populations. Studies lead us to believe that after being introduced to ICTs, users' information behavior changes, enabling them to benefit from socio-economic opportunities. Using Wilson's (1997) Revised General Model of Information Behavior (Model), the dissertation explored the role of cell phones - the fastest spreading information and communication technology (ICT) - in shaping the information behavior of disadvantaged population, with its implications on socio-economic opportunities.

Polymorphic Attacks And Network Topology : Application Of Concepts From Natural Systems, Prahalad Rangan

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The growing complexity of interactions between computers and networks makes the subject of network security a very interesting one. As our dependence on the services provided by computing networks grows, so does our investment in such technology. In this situation, there is a greater risk of occurrence of targeted malicious attacks on computers and networks, which could result in system failure. At the user level, the goal of network security is to prevent any malicious attack by a virus or a worm. However, at the network level, total prevention of such malicious attacks is an impossible and impractical objective to …