Search

In 2020, Libraries and Cultural Resources (LCR) at the University of Calgary used Qualtrics XM to design and pilot a point-of-use survey to collect user feedback on the usability of our implementation of Primo, Ex Libris's web-scale discovery service. Over a two-week period, users were presented with the pop-up survey while searching and asked to provide feedback. This article summarizes how we designed and implemented this point-of-use survey and the lessons learned from this project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: By defining search strategies and related database exports as code/scripts and data, librarians and information professionals can expand the mandate of research data management (RDM) infrastructure to include this work. This new initiative aimed to create a space in McGill University's institutional data repository for our librarians to deposit and share their search strategies for knowledge syntheses (KS). Case Presentation: The authors, a health sciences librarian and an RDM specialist, created a repository collection of librarian-authored knowledge synthesis (KS) searches in McGill University's Borealis Dataverse collection. We developed and hosted a half-day "Dataverse-a-thon" where we worked with a team of health sciences librarians to develop a standardized KS data management plan (DMP), search reporting documentation, Dataverse software training, and howto guidance for the repository. Conclusion: In addition to better documentation and tracking of KS searches at our institution, the KS Dataverse collection enables sharing of searches among colleagues with discoverable metadata fields for searching within deposited searches. While the initial creation of the DMP and documentation took about six hours, the subsequent deposit of search strategies into the institutional data repository requires minimal effort (e.g., 5-10 minutes on average per deposit). The Dataverse collection also empowers librarians to retain intellectual ownership over search strategies as valuable stand-alone research outputs and raise the visibility of their labor. Overall, institutional data repositories provide specific benefits in facilitating compliance both with PRISMA-S guidance and with RDM best practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: There is a need for additional comprehensive and validated filters to find relevant references more efficiently in the growing body of research on immigrant populations. Our goal was to create reliable search filters that direct librarians and researchers to pertinent studies indexed in PubMed about health topics specific to immigrant populations. Methods: We applied a systematic and multi-step process that combined information from expert input, authoritative sources, automation, and manual review of sources. We established a focused scope and eligibility criteria, which we used to create the development and validation sets. We formed a term ranking system that resulted in the creation of two filters: an immigrant-specific and an immigrant-sensitive search filter. Results: When tested against the validation set, the specific filter sensitivity was 88.09%, specificity 97.26%, precision 97.88%, and the NNR 1.02. The sensitive filter sensitivity was 97.76%when tested against the development set. The sensitive filter had a sensitivity of 97.14%, specificity of 82.05%, precision of 88.59%, accuracy of 90.94%, and NNR [See Table 1] of 1.13 when tested against the validation set. Conclusion: We accomplished our goal of developing PubMed search filters to help researchers retrieve studies about immigrants. The specific and sensitive PubMed search filters give information professionals and researchers options to maximize the specificity and precision or increase the sensitivity of their search for relevant studies in PubMed. Both search filters generated strong performance measurements and can be used as-is, to capture a subset of immigrantrelated literature, or adapted and revised to fit the unique research needs of specific project teams (e.g. remove UScentric language, add location-specific terminology, or expand the search strategy to include terms for the topic/s being investigated in the immigrant population identified by the filter). There is also a potential for teams to employ the search filter development process described here for their own topics and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private Information Retrieval (PIR) protocols, which allow the client to obtain data from servers without revealing its request, have many applications such as anonymous communication, media streaming, blockchain security, advertisement, etc. Multi-server PIR protocols, where the database is replicated among the non-colluding servers, provide high efficiency in the information-theoretic setting. Beimel et al. in CCC 12' (further referred to as BIKO) put forward a paradigm for constructing multi-server PIR, capturing several previous constructions for k ≥ 3 servers, as well as improving the best-known share complexity for 3-server PIR. A key component there is a share conversion scheme from corresponding linear three-party secret sharing schemes with respect to a certain type of "modified universal" relation. In a useful particular instantiation of the paradigm, they used a share conversion from (2 , 3) -CNF over Z m to three-additive sharing over Z p β for primes p 1 , p 2 , p where p 1 ≠ p 2 and m = p 1 · p 2 , and the relation is modified universal relation C S m . They reduced the question of the existence of the share conversion for a triple (p 1 , p 2 , p) to the (in)solvability of a certain linear system over Z p , and provided an efficient (in m , log p ) construction of such a sharing scheme. Unfortunately, the size of the system is Θ (m 2) which entails the infeasibility of a direct solution for big m's in practice. Paskin-Cherniavsky and Schmerler in 2019 proved the existence of the conversion for the case of odd p 1 , p 2 when p = p 1 , obtaining in this way infinitely many parameters for which the conversion exists, but also for infinitely many of them it remained open. In this work, using some algebraic techniques from the work of Paskin-Cherniavsky and Schmerler, we prove the existence of the conversion for even m's in case p = 2 (we computed β in this case) and the absence of the conversion for even m's in case p > 2 . This does not improve the concrete efficiency of 3-server PIR; however, our result is promising in a broader context of constructing PIR through composition techniques with k ≥ 3 servers, using the relation C S m where m has more than two prime divisors. Another our suggestion about 3-server PIR is that it's possible to achieve a shorter server's response using the relation C S m ′ for extended S m ′ ⊃ S m . By computer search, in BIKO framework we found several such sets for small m's which result in share conversion from (2 , 3) -CNF over Z m to 3-additive secret sharing over Z p β ′ , where β ′ > 0 is several times less than β , which implies several times shorter server's response. We also suggest that such extended sets S m ′ can result in better PIR due to the potential existence of matching vector families with the higher Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repeatability is the cornerstone of science, and it is particularly important for systematic reviews. However, little is known on how researchers' choice of database, and search platform influence the repeatability of systematic reviews. Here, we aim to unveil how the computer environment and the location where the search was initiated from influence hit results.We present a comparative analysis of time‐synchronized searches at different institutional locations in the world and evaluate the consistency of hits obtained within each of the search terms using different search platforms.We revealed a large variation among search platforms and showed that PubMed and Scopus returned consistent results to identical search strings from different locations. Google Scholar and Web of Science's Core Collection varied substantially both in the number of returned hits and in the list of individual articles depending on the search location and computing environment. Inconsistency in Web of Science results has most likely emerged from the different licensing packages at different institutions.To maintain scientific integrity and consistency, especially in systematic reviews, action is needed from both the scientific community and scientific search platforms to increase search consistency. Researchers are encouraged to report the search location and the databases used for systematic reviews, and database providers should make search algorithms transparent and revise access rules to titles behind paywalls. Additional options for increasing the repeatability and transparency of systematic reviews are storing both search metadata and hit results in open repositories and using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to retrieve standardized, machine‐readable search metadata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's design — manufacturing context, designers often modify existing 3D shapes (or design models) instead of creating a new design from scratch. This requires the ability to search an existing database of designs/3D models to identify and extract similar designs. Shape Retrieval Tools (SRTs) have been developed to provide an essential role in saving time and effort to retrieve and generate new designs. The capabilities of commercially available SRTs vary based on the form of the input design model, the search technique or algorithm used, the search/retrieval time, ease of use, and the quality of results. The focus of this paper is to study of their capabilities, performances, and differences and develop criteria to compare the effectiveness and performance of such Shape Retrieval Tools. Current search evaluation methods, such as precision and recall, are based on human interpretation of the results. This paper presents a holistic set of metrics for comparing the performance and effectiveness of SRTs, including data input options (to search), effectiveness of the search process, the associated retrieval time, overall ease of use, and additional data retrieval details. An algorithm is proposed to objectively analyze the search results based on the proposed Model Match Ratio (MMR), computed by the variance between the input and retrieved geometries. The search results are usually presented in a rank order list. A Precision Sequence Metric (PSM) is developed to evaluate the retrieved list by ranking the retrieved results based on the MMR for evaluating the quality of the search. The proposed evaluation algorithm was tested on several design models (and their subsequent retrieval results) involving three SRTs (Vizseek, Geolus, and CADENAS); the results of the comparison of the performance of these SRTs are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Locating systematic reviews is essential for clinicians and researchers when creating or updating reviews and for decision-making in health care. This study aimed to develop a search filter for retrieving systematic reviews that improves upon the performance of the PubMed systematic review search filter. Methods: Search terms were identified from abstracts of reviews published in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the titles of articles indexed as systematic reviews in PubMed. Both the precision of the candidate terms and the number of systematic reviews retrieved from PubMed were evaluated after excluding the subset of articles retrieved by the PubMed systematic review filter. Terms that achieved a precision greater than 70% and relevant publication types indexed with MeSH terms were included in the filter search strategy. Results: The search strategy used in our filter added specific terms not included in PubMed's systematic review filter and achieved a 61.3% increase in the number of retrieved articles that are potential systematic reviews. Moreover, it achieved an average precision that is likely greater than 80%. Conclusions: The developed search filter will enable users to identify more systematic reviews from PubMed than the PubMed systematic review filter with high precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]