Exercise 8 How do search engines work?

    Search engines are basically computer algorithms which help users find the specific information they’re looking for. With literally trillions of pages of information online, without effective search engines, finding anything on the Internet would be almost impossible. Different search engines work in different specific ways, but they all utilize the same basic principles.
The first thing search engines have to do in order to function is to make a local database of, basically, the Internet. Early search engines just indexed keywords and titles of pages, but contemporary search engines index all of the text on every page, as well as a great deal of other data about that page’s relation to other pages, and in some cases all or a portion of the media available on the page as well. Search engines need to index all of this information so that they can run searches on it efficiently, rather than having to run around the Internet every time a search query is sent.

1. Bing

Bing is Microsoft's attempt at unseating Google. Bing used to be MSN search until it was updated in summer of 2009. Touted as a 'decision engine', Bing tries to support your researching by offering suggestions in the leftmost column, while also giving you various search options across the top of the screen. Things like 'wiki' suggestions, 'visual search', and 'related searches' might be very useful to you. Bing is not dethroning Google in the near future, no. But Bing is definitely worth trying.

2. Mahalo

 

Mahalo is the one 'human-powered' search site in this list, employing a committee of editors to manually sift and vet thousands of pieces of content. This means that you'll get fewer Mahalo hit results than you will get at Bing or Google. But it also means that most Mahalo results have a higher quality of content and relevance (as best as human editors can judge).
Mahalo also offers regular web searching in addition to asking questions. Depending on which of the two search boxes you use at Mahalo, you will either get direct content topic hits or suggested answers to your question.
Try Mahalo. You might like it enough to even become a editor there.

3. Dogpile

Years ago, Dogpile was the fast and efficient choice before Google. Things changed, Dogpile faded into obscurity, and Google became king. But today, Dogpile is coming back, with a growing index and a clean and quick presentation that is testimony to its halcyon days. If you want to try a search tool with pleasant presentation and helpful crosslink results, definitely try Dogpile

4. Webopedia

Webopedia is one of the most useful websites on the World Wide Web. Webopedia is an encyclopedic resource dedicated to searching techno terminology and computer definitions. Teach yourself what 'domain name system' is, or teach yourself what 'DDRAM' means on your computer. Webopedia is absolutely a perfect resource for non-technical people to make more sense of the computers around them.

 

5. Google

 

Google is the undisputed king of 'spartan searching'. While it doesn't offer all the shopping center features of Yahoo!, Google is fast, relevant, and the largest single catalogue of Web pages available today. Make sure you try the Google 'images', 'maps' and 'news' features... they are outstanding services for locating photos, geographic directions, and news headlines.

Chaper 7 Suggest the ideas to help and support the flooding

   In tough times, the traditional Aussie values of mateship and lending a helping hand will always come to the fore. When people are suffering from natural disasters such as the 2011 Queensland Floods  the majority of Australians are very keen to help out wherever they can. The problem though is  working out the best way to help flood victims – without causing more problems, or getting in the way of the relief effort.
A natural first reaction for most people, is to think about the types of things that flood victims might need, then consider what things they themselves have (and could do without), and then wonder how they should go about getting their stuff to the places they are really needed.
Undoubtedly many of these donated items would be useful, but unfortunately, even though it may initially seem to be a great idea, the donation of  items or goods, is rarely a practical solution.  Unless you are located in or very near to the flood affected areas, the costs associated with receiving, storing, transporting and distributed donated items are very high, and typically it could end up costing significantly more to pass on donated items than it would to provide new items  purchased in the local community.

When to make Financial Donations

Unless you live in or near affected communities, the best way you can help is very likely going to be to make a financial donation to the Disaster Relief Appeal.  This fund is managed by the Red Cross and used to help fund the most appropriate support in the areas where it is needed most.

When to Offer Items / Services

Floods have an impact on entire communities, however , many people (living or working on higher ground) may not be directly affected, and would LOVE to be able to help, but are not sure how.
HelpOut is an online service aimed directly at people living or working in or near to flood affected  areas who are wanting to help, and also those needing help.  If you are part of a local community, and are living or working in or very near a flood affected area, then with HelpOut, the donation of items, goods or services could become a viable options.
HelpOut allows people to list the types of items or services that they can help out with, in the specific area or community that they are able to assist.
If you need help, or could do with a helping hand, you can also create a Help Wanted listing – which specific what you need, and where you are located.
Note: HelpOut is not able to coordinate or be involved directly with individual offers or requests for Help or assistance, the service simply allows people offering help to get in touch with those needing help  – and let them sort out the details between them.

What types of things could I offer?

There are many many thing that could be assistance to the Qld flood victims – many communities have been devastated and some have lost everything, so pretty much anything which might help them get started on the road back to a normal life could be of benefit.  It’s not only goods and items that are of help though.  offers of a helping hand, a bit of a break, or even a shoulder to cry on can help a lot.  Often very simple things can make a big difference as it reminds the flood victims that they are not alone, people really do care, and that their lives will return to normal even if it takes time.
Outline below are a few suggestions for simple, but practical, hands on thing that you may not have considered, but if you have any other ideas, please feel free to leave a comment below.

• looking after a pet or caring for livestock
• offering a home cooked meal
• washing and drying a load of laundry
• inviting them around for a DVD and popcorn (a taste of normality)
• and many more..

Help by Spreading the Word

Even if you live elsewhere in Australia, you can help spread the word about HelpOut – particularly if you know someone or have contacts in those parts of Queensland that are being affected by flood.   If you let people within these local communities know about the HelpOut service they may be able to create their own listings.
Also, clearly people who have been affected by the floods are likely to have little or no access to the internet.  If you have friends or family who are suffering form the flood, and have some specific needs, you could consider creating a listing on their behalf – outlining what they need a hand with (make sure that you specify their location though – not your own).

Example of Report:

http://tsmun.club.officelive.com/Documents/Report%20Writing.pdf


Example of Citation:

http://www2.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citmla.htm

Chaper 5 : book database

What Do We Have for the Witnesses, Johnnie?

http://www.iblist.com/book53636.htm

Chaper 3

Library of Congress Classification

The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. It is used by most research and academic libraries in the U.S. and several other countries, for example, Australia^[1][2] and Taiwan, R.O.C.^[3]. It is not to be confused with the Library of Congress Subject Headings or Library of Congress Control Number. Most public libraries and small academic libraries continue to use the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). ^{[4][citation needed]}
The classification was originally developed by Herbert Putnam in 1897, just before he assumed the librarianship of Congress. With advice from Charles Ammi Cutter, it was influenced by Cutter Expansive Classification, and the DDC, and was specially designed for the special purposes of the Library of Congress. The new system replaced a fixed location system developed by Thomas Jefferson. By the time of Putnam's departure from his post in 1939, all the classes except K (Law) and parts of B (Philosophy and Religion) were well developed. It has been criticized as lacking a sound theoretical basis; many of the classification decisions were driven by the particular practical needs of that library, rather than epistemological considerations.
Although it divides subjects into broad categories, it is essentially enumerative in nature. It provides a guide to the books actually in the library, not a classification of the world.
The National Library of Medicine classification system (NLM) uses the classification scheme's unused letters W and QS–QZ. Some libraries use NLM in conjunction with LCC, eschewing LCC's R (Medicine). Others prefer to use the LCC scheme's QP-QR schedules and include Medicine R.

Dewey Decimal Classification

The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC, also called the Dewey Decimal System) is a proprietary system of library classification developed by Melvil Dewey in 1876.It has been greatly modified and expanded through 23 major revisions, the most recent in 2011. This system organizes books on library shelves in a specific and repeatable order that makes it easy to find any book and return it to its proper place. The system is used in 200,000 libraries in at least 135 countries.A designation        such as Dewey 16 refers to the 16th edition of the DDC.

http://en.wikipedia.org

Links
The Library of congress website : www.loc.gov
British Library : www.bl.uk
Thai National Library : www.nlt.go.th/
Sripatum University Library : http://library.spu.ac.th/
ASEAN Community Website : http://www.asean.org/

Subjective and Objective

     There seems to be a great deal of confusion today as to what the terms 'subjective' and 'objective' actually mean. Many people seem to think that 'objective' means 'something which everyone agrees on' whereas 'subjective' means 'something people disagree on'.
They're wrong: given almost any statement you can find some people who agree, and some who do not, that doesn't make nearly everything subjective (delighted as the relativist would be by this conclusion). There are people who think that the earth is flat, there are some who think it is roughly spherical. The topological nature of the earth does not therefore become a subjective matter! The disagreement is not a sign that the answer is merely a matter of opinion, instead it is a sign that some people are wrong. Similarly if everyone on earth agreed that strawberries tasted nicer than raspberries (a scenario that can easily be obtained by killing everyone with a differing view) this would not become an objective matter, it is merely a subjective matter on which there is a consensus.
What then do these terms actually mean? The clue is in the name. Here a brief diversion into the structure of language is required.
In sentence a verb usually takes a subject (the thing doing the action) and an object (the thing the action is being done to). So for example in the sentence "I like the colour blue" I am the subject, the colour red is the object (like is a verb). Now let's carry this knowledge back to our question.
If some property is objective then it is a property of the object only. For example if I say 'this pen is 7 inches long' then this is a statement about the object only. If a property is subjective then it is determined not by the object alone, but also by the subject. So if I say 'Strawberries taste better than raspberries' I am actually making a statement not just about strawberries and raspberries but also about myself. You see 'Strawberries taste better than raspberries' is just a shorthand for 'I prefer the taste of strawberries to the taste of raspberries' - it is not just about soft fruit, it is also about me.
We are now in a position to define these terms formally:
A proposition is objective if its truth depends purely on the object under study. A proposition is subjective if its truth depends not merely on the object alone, but also on the observer and the relationship between the two.
There are a few immeadiate consequences to our proper understanding of these terms which it is worth drawing out:

1. For every subjective proposition there is a naturally equivalent objective one: we simply extend the object under study to include the observer and the relationship between the observer and the original object. So for example although the statement 'Strawberries taste better than raspberries' is subjective, the statement 'Neil prefers the taste of strawberries to that of raspberries' is objective.
2. Being subjective does not neccessarily make the propsition in question an uninteresting one. For example whether a given meal prepared in a restaurant tastes good or not is a subjective matter - it isn't a question which makes sense without introducing a subject - the eater - it is still well worth a chef paying attention to his customers (albeit subjective) views on the taste of his dishes, and adapting his cooking accordingly.
   I have come across several people who feel the need to defend their work by saying 'this isn't subjective' (for example ' 'asthetics aren't subjective' or 'good user interface isn't subjective'). They are wrong of course, they are clear cut examples of subjective matters, but also matters on which there is a strong consensus, and so a useful study can be made of them.

Source:   http://pinkstuff.publication.org.uk/~neil/RelPhil/SubObj.html

1. objective Facts
    EX.PHARAOH


The most powerful person in ancient Egypt was the pharaoh. The pharaoh was the political and religious leader of the Egyptian people, holding the titles: 'Lord of the Two Lands' and 'High Priest of Every Temple'.
As 'Lord of the Two Lands' the pharaoh was the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt. He owned all of the land, made laws, collected taxes, and defended Egypt against foreigners.
As 'High Priest of Every Temple', the pharaoh represented the gods on Earth. He performed rituals and built temples to honour the gods.

Many pharaohs went to war when their land was threatened or when they wanted to control foreign lands. If the pharaoh won the battle, the conquered people had to recognise the Egyptian pharaoh as their ruler and offer him the finest and most valuable goods from their land.

Source : http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/pharaoh/home.html

Subjective Opinions
EX:An exchange on musicians and music critics

     Are musicians and sabhas thin-skinned, intolerant of criticism? Are The Hindu's music critics doing a good job?

I was extremely intrigued by the comments of Mr. N. Ram published on the 28th of February in The Hindu regarding critics and musicians during a recent function in Chennai. While he has been quite scathing in his criticism of musicians, saying that we are thin-skinned and want only favourable reviews, it is quite sad to note that there has been absolutely no self-introspection in his speech about the quality of critics in The Hindu. Barring a few critics, I can say as a student of this art form that the knowledge of the critics today is abysmal. It is not about understanding very complex technicalities, even at a very necessary level it is lacking. I can back this with numerous reviews published in The Hindu itself.

The situation during the music season is even funnier. Suddenly a dozen people who don't write through the year appear and start writing reviews. Often the reviews are only reports and any semblance of criticism is very mediocre. Let me even say that many reviews of even mine, which have been lavish in praise, have been extremely poor in content and quality.

Therefore it is not about only negative reviews; even positive reviews are bad. Some critics find it necessary to display their knowledge of music by trying to quote some technical aspects like derivatives of the raga etc while the real lack of musical acumen is very evident. Therefore while there are musicians who have not accepted harsh criticism there is also that the fact that The Hindu can no longer believe that its reviewers are of a quality to be respected. Comparing this with the detail and knowledge expressed in a review in, say, The New York Times is totally wrong.

Let me add that Mr. S.V.K. [S.V. Krishnamurthy, The Hindu's chief music critic], for whom this function was held, is a very rare breed. I have myself received both positive and negative reviews from him but never has this affected our relationship. There are people who have completely disagreed with him but we all know that his opinions are based on his personal perspective backed by knowledge of music.

While I will be the first to accept that we musicians are not an easy lot and do find it difficult to accept criticism I think there is also an urgent need for The Hindu to introspect on what the qualities of a critic should be and how they select the same.

No amount of guidelines will help unless the right people are found. I completely agree that robust criticism is very necessary but it can be robust only when people are chosen very carefully and at the same time I do agree that musicians need to understand the role of critics. But one is not going to happen without the other.

T.M. Krishna, Carnatic classical musician

N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, comments:

T.M. Krishna is a very fine musician with a deep knowledge of Carnatic music. We have had interesting and useful interactions with him on various subjects. But evaluating music criticism is not his strong suit — judging from the condescending tone of this polemical response and his sweeping dismissal of the competence of our music critics. He enters some caveats in his polemic but his attitude is like that of a successful Test cricketer dismissing reportage and critical assessments by cricket writers by asking: ‘What does he know about playing in the middle? Has he played first division, let alone first class cricket, not to mention Test cricket?'

We and tens of thousands of our readers, knowledgeable as well as lay (like me), think highly of our critics, most of whom are well schooled in Carnatic music or are experts. The majority of them, in fact, are not staff journalists.

Mr. Krishna's forthcomingness is useful because it illustrates the very point I made at the felicitation function mentioned above and have been making generally over the music season — because it is a long-observed problem that needs to be faced squarely and resolved. If his sweeping and dismissive opinion of our music critics as a group can be said to be representative of the opinion and attitude of professional musicians (and sabhas) to music critics as a fraternity, it is certainly a problem of being either condescending or thin-skinned or both.

My critical observation, which “extremely intrigued” Mr. Krishna, drew explicitly from “What The Hindu expects from its music critics: Some guidelines” — guidelines we adopted some years ago in consultation with our music critics, which have been continually revised. The document can be read at www.thehindu.com.

Para 10 of the Guidelines reads: “Finally, the critic is an individual expert rasika, and writer on music. We know that many musicians and sabhas are extremely thin-skinned. They are not used to the robust and, at times, fierce criticism musicians in western countries get all the time (whether they like it or not). Our musicians and sabhas want only favourable reviews but that is decidedly not The Hindu's expectation. We choose our critics and respect their musical knowledge, their integrity, their independence of judgment, and their writing style. It is your review and we know a subjective element forms part of this. It does not matter if you are alone in your musical judgment — as long as you make clear to readers the basis of this judgment, write insightfully, fairly, and interestingly, and comply with our deadline and word length requirements.”

While thanking Mr. Krishna for taking the trouble to respond to this criticism, we leave the matter for readers to judge.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article1507049.ece

Chaper 1

What is mind map

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizinginformation, solving problems, making decisions, and writing.

The elements of a given mind map are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information. Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories

The mind map can be contrasted with the similar idea of concept mapping. The former is based on radial hierarchies and tree structures denoting relationships with a central governing concept, whereas concept maps are based on connections between concepts in more diverse patterns.
By presenting ideas in a radial, graphical, non-linear manner, mind maps encourage a brainstorming approach to planning and organizational tasks. Though the branches of a mindmap represent hierarchical tree structures, their radial arrangement disrupts the prioritizing of concepts typically associated with hierarchies presented with more linear visual cues This orientation towards brainstorming encourages users to enumerate and connect concepts without a tendency to begin within a particular conceptual framework

User of Information


Access to computer systems and networks owned or operated by Virginia Tech imposes certain responsibilities and obligations and is granted subject to university policies, and local, state, and federal laws. Acceptable use always is ethical, reflects academic honesty, and shows restraint in the consumption of shared resources. It demonstrates respect for intellectual property, ownership of data, system security mechanisms, and individuals' rights to privacy and to freedom from intimidation and harassment.


Good And poor Information


There is a tremendous amount of useful, factual information available online. Unfortunately, it's also very easy to find incorrect or misleading information when searching online.
It can be quite difficult to determine whether the information you find on the internet is good or bad. Lots of incoherent information is posted every day by people simply looking to jump ahead in the search engine rankings.
Have you ever read through an entire article or website, only to realize that you have more questions than you did when you started? You've probably stumbled upon some poor information in your time using the internet. There are different kinds of incorrect information available online; read on to find a description of these different types.
Intentionally Misleading Information - If you've browsed Wikipedia for a fair amount of time you've probably came across a page that was locked. This happens often when celebrities are are involved in scandals or when they pass away. Some of the comments you may encounter are totally inaccurate, while others might be controversial and subject to argument on both sides of the issue.
Wikipedia's administrators lock pages when there are too many edits coming in that present false information. This is especially common for the pages of celebrities with poor reputations, which often have derogatory information posted on them. Visit the page of a controversial celebrity and look at the edit history; you'll almost definitely see some of these edits. This is one of the negatives that come with user contributed sites, and these things must be screened carefully when the open source frameworks permit such easy access by the general public.
Unintentionally False Information - Everywhere you look online, you'll find someone claiming to be an expert and sharing his or her secrets. While they may not be trying to intentionally mislead you, they're often not 100% correct.
Always question the claims of any self-proclaimed experts online. You can double-check the facts behind their statements to be sure that what they're saying is truthful. Most of these people are simply trying to make money, and even though they may not have any malicious intent, the end result still has you believing false information.
Despite all of this, don't be scared to find information online. There's still a huge amount of useful information that can be found on the internet; you just have to do a little extra research sometimes and try to stick to reputable sources. Stick with these sources and more likely than not, you won't be mislead.


Sources of information


Secondary data is data which has been collected by individuals or agencies for purposes other than those of our particular research study. For example, if a government department has conducted a survey of, say, family food expenditures, then a food manufacturer might use this data in the organisation's evaluations of the total potential market for a new product. Similarly, statistics prepared by a ministry on agricultural production will prove useful to a whole host of people and organisations, including those marketing agricultural supplies.
No marketing research study should be undertaken without a prior search of secondary sources (also termed desk research). There are several grounds for making such a bold statement.

· Secondary data may be available which is entirely appropriate and wholly adequate to draw conclusions and answer the question or solve the problem. Sometimes primary data collection simply is not necessary. · It is far cheaper to collect secondary data than to obtain primary data. For the same level of research budget a thorough examination of secondary sources can yield a great deal more information than can be had through a primary data collection exercise.
· The time involved in searching secondary sources is much less than that needed to complete primary data collection.
· Secondary sources of information can yield more accurate data than that obtained through primary research. This is not always true but where a government or international agency has undertaken a large scale survey, or even a census, this is likely to yield far more accurate results than custom designed and executed surveys when these are based on relatively small sample sizes.
· It should not be forgotten that secondary data can play a substantial role in the exploratory phase of the research when the task at hand is to define the research problem and to generate hypotheses. The assembly and analysis of secondary data almost invariably improves the researcher's understanding of the marketing problem, the various lines of inquiry that could or should be followed and the alternative courses of action which might be pursued.
· Secondary sources help define the population. Secondary data can be extremely useful both in defining the population and in structuring the sample to be taken. For instance, government statistics on a country's agriculture will help decide how to stratify a sample and, once sample estimates have been calculated, these can be used to project those estimates to the population.

Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom

      There is probably no segment of activity in the world attracting as much attention at present as that

of knowledge management. Yet as I entered this arena of activity I quickly found there didn't seem

to be a wealth of sources that seemed to make sense in terms of defining what knowledge actually

was, and how was it differentiated from data, information, and wisdom. What follows is the current

level of understanding I have been able to piece together regarding data, information, knowledge,

and wisdom. I figured to understand one of them I had to understand all of them.

According to Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, the content

of the human mind can be classified into five categories:

Ackoff indicates that the first four categories relate to the past; they deal with what has been or what

is known. Only the fifth category, wisdom, deals with the future because it incorporates vision and

design. With wisdom, people can create the future rather than just grasp the present and past. But

achieving wisdom isn't easy; people must move successively through the other categories.

A further elaboration of Ackoff's definitions follows:

Data: symbolsInformation: data that are processed to be useful; provides answers to "who", "what",Knowledge: application of data and information; answers "how" questionsUnderstanding: appreciation of "why"Wisdom: evaluated understanding.

Data

can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In computer parlance, a

spreadsheet generally starts out by holding data.

... data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It

Information

This "meaning" can be useful, but does not have to be. In computer parlance, a relational database

makes information from the data stored within it.

... information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection.

Knowledge

useful. Knowledge is a deterministic process. When someone "memorizes" information (as lessaspiring

test-bound students often do), then they have amassed knowledge. This knowledge has

useful meaning to them, but it does not provide for, in and of itself, an integration such as would

infer further knowledge. For example, elementary school children memorize, or amass knowledge

of, the "times table". They can tell you that "2 x 2 = 4" because they have amassed that knowledge

(it being included in the times table). But when asked what is "1267 x 300", they can not respond

correctly because that entry is not in their times table. To correctly answer such a question requires

a true cognitive and analytical ability that is only encompassed in the next level... understanding. In

computer parlance, most of the applications we use (modeling, simulation, etc.) exercise some type

of stored knowledge.... knowledge is the appropriate collection of information, such that it's intent is to be


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_information
http://ezinearticles.com/?Poor-and-Good-Information-Available-Online&id=4303157
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_source
http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm