A study of changing information needs of contemporary public library users in China

Public libraries should be vigilant and responsive to the ever changing information needs of their clientele functioning in a society undergoing through rapid change due to technological innovations. China is currently experiencing a social and technological transformation of great magnitude in terms of metamorphosing itself from a traditional society to one that is driven by information technologies. Our research study, taking this proposition into account, did a questionnaire survey on 954 library information users at five major public libraries. This research study has discovered that the information needs of public library users today reflect some of the peculiar characteristics of their society in changing times which is driven largely by the rapid development and application of new information technologies. It shows that there is a newly added demand emphasis on certain categories of library resources and services by the Chinese reading public. Our research findings have identified such needs basically in the following five functional areas of public libraries, namely, 1) Increased demands for economic resources, 2) rising expectations for more effective and efficient library services, 3) a convenient location and an amicable environment congenial to learning, 4) a suitable place for engaging in intellectual dialogues and in socialization, and 5) a few other technological amenities and information technology-based digital resources and facilities in addition to a rich repository of library materials in print format. Finally, our paper concludes its discussion with a few observation remarks about the changing trend of public libraries' visions, missions and operations vis-à-vis a contextual background of the ever heightened public expectations for getting quality information services in a timely manner in order for them to function effectively in an information-oriented society such as that of ours today.

Measurement of Incompatible Probability in Information Retrieval:A Case Study with User Clicks

The incompatible probability represents an important non-classical phenomenon, and it describes conflicting observed marginal probabilities, which cannot be satisfied with a joint probability. First, the incompatibility of random variables was defined and discussed via the non-positive semi-definiteness of their covariance matrixes. Then, a method was proposed to verify the existence of incompatible probability for variables. A hypothesis testing was also applied to reexamine the likelihood of the observed marginal probabilities being integrated into a joint probability space, thus showing the statistical significance of incompatible probability cases. A case study with user click-through data provided the initial evidence of the incompatible probability in information retrieval (IR), particularly in user interaction. The experiments indicate that both incompatible and compatible cases can be found in IR data, and informational queries are more likely to be compatible than navigational queries. The results inspire new theoretical perspectives of modeling the complex interactions and phenomena in IR.

Research on Influencing Factors of Information Dissemination Based on User Preference

The rapid development of the Intemet makes the social network of information dissemination has undergone tremendous changes. Based on the introduction of social network information dissemination mode, this paper analyzes the influencing factors of information dissemination, establishes the user preference model through CP-nets tool, and combines the AHP principle to mine the user＇s preference order, and obtain the user＇s optimal preference feature Portfolio, and finally collect the user in the microblogging platform in the historical behavior data. the use of NetLogo different users of information dissemination decision to predict.

Multi-action-based approach for constructing knowledge map

To alleviate the information overload in the product design process,this work proposes a multiaction-based method for constructing knowledge map. Since the relationships of knowledge are implicit in the collected user activities,the method calculates the similarity according to the collected user activities.Three concepts,including knowledge,action and user,are explained first. Based on this,the similarity calculation method is illustrated in detail. The dependencies of actions and relations of the user are considered in the calculation method. Further,the approach of applying the constructed knowledge map to alleviate information overload is proposed. At last,the proposed method is validated by a knowledge search and result comparison experiment.

Translational Science for Climate Services: Mapping and Understanding Users' Climate Service Needs in CSSP China

The Climate Science for Service Partnership China(CSSP China) is a joint program between China and the United Kingdom to build the basis for climate services to support the weather and climate resilient economic development and welfare in China. Work Package 5(WP5) provides the translational science on identification of: different users and providers, and their mandates;factors contributing to communication gaps and capacities between various users and providers;and mechanisms to work through such issues to develop and/or evolve a range of climate services.Key findings to emerge include that users from different sectors have varying capacities, requirements, and needs for information in their decision contexts, with a current strong preference for weather information. Separating climate and weather services when engaging users is often not constructive. Furthermore, there is a need to move to a service delivery model that is more user-driven and science informed;having sound climate science is not enough to develop services that are credible, salient, reliable, or timely for diverse user groups. Greater investment in building the capacity of the research community supporting and providing climate services to conduct translational sciences and develop regular user engagement processes is much needed. Such a move would help support the China Meteorological Administration's(CMA) ongoing efforts to improve climate services. It would also assist in potentially linking a broader group of "super" users who currently act as providers and purveyors of climate services because they find the existing offerings are not relevant to their needs or cannot access CMA's services.

An Achievable Rate Region for the Asynchronous Multiple Access Channel with Feedback

An achievable rate region for the asynchronous multiple access channel with feedback is established through the use of superposition coding, list decoding and time sharing. The calculation results demonstrate that lack of synchronization does not affect the achievable rate region when the code block length tends to infinity, and that if the length of the code word is finite, especially not sufficiently larger than a fixed maximal delay, the asynchronization will cause a loss of the rate region. The amount of such a loss with its explanation for the reason is given, and the difference between the losses for the asynchronous multiple access channel with and without feedback is also discussed in this paper.