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Despite being criticized as unrepresentative and misleading, retention and graduation rates are an important part of college-search web sites and accountability systems, and they frequently have been used as indicators of institutional quality and effectiveness in educational research. Retention and graduation rates are often compared over time and across institutions. However, such comparisons can be confounded by differences in entering student cohorts and differences among the institutions being compared. This research examined the effects of institutional and cohort characteristics on one-year retention rates using random-effect and fixed-effect regression models for panel data. The use of a fixed-effect model allowed the researchers to account for omitted variables (unobserved heterogeneity) in the analyses. Results indicated that unobserved heterogeneity was a significant issue in the study, and that traditional regression methods may overstate the effects of institutional characteristics on retention rates. Results also indicated that the effects of institutional and cohort characteristics were essentially stable over time and across cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research problem: Most of the previous research into corporate websites has focused on the users' point of view and their perception of usability and interactivity as the two predominant website characteristics, and has shown that interactivity plays an important role in consumers' perceptions of, and responses to, these sites. This study explores corporate websites from a different view—that of the company—and investigates the organizational motivation to adopt new interactive features on corporate websites. Research question: What are the critical factors influencing the firm's adoption of online innovations related to interactivity on their websites? Literature review: Many dominant theories in information technology (IT) that guide most research on IT adoption at the firm level include the diffusion of innovations theory (which seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures) and the technology, organization, and environment framework (which identifies three aspects of an enterprise's context that influence the process by which it adopts and implements a technological innovation). But other research streams can contribute to the Theory of Technology Adoption at the firm level, including Institutional Theory (which is a widely accepted theoretical posture that emphasizes rational myths, isomorphism, and legitimacy) and the model of Iacovou et al.(which analyzes interorganizational systems' characteristics that influence firms to adopt IT innovations). Methodology: A conceptual model with supporting propositions was tested using an online questionnaire. Data were collected from 138 firms in Switzerland and Germany and analyzed with multiple regression analysis. Results and conclusions: Complexity, perceived benefits, top management support, and information intensity are the drivers that play important roles in the diffusion of innovation related to interactivity on corporate websites, and support our conceptual model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Specificity-determining sites (SDS) are the key positions of a protein family that show a specific conservation of amino acids, related to the subfamily members of that family. SDS play crucial role in developing functional variation within the protein family during the course of evolution. Thus, it is important to identify SDS to understand the evolutionary process of diversification of biological functions within a protein family. A wide range of computational tools have been designed to detect such SDS. In this review, we intend to examine the concept of SDS in more details along with the advancements and drawbacks of different computational approaches designed towards successful prediction of SDS. Further, we discussed the algorithms behind the computational approaches developed till date and provide an exhaustive comparison of performance of each method. We also introduce a new ensemble approach, SubSite as another tool to predict SDS through a user-friendly webserver available at www.hpppi.iicb.res.in/subsite. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The evolution of social media is transforming proximity cyber media, especially the impact these models have on local communities. The evolution of the new media ecosystem over the past ten years has involved the proliferation of proximity cyber media, both born-digital and digitised media. Only time will tell whether these proximity cyber media are sustainable and whether they will manage to adapt themselves to the ongoing transformations of network society. The purpose of this article is to identify the new ways in which proximity cyber media establish bonds with their communities, while highlighting the difference between born-digital and digitised media. The analysis focuses on the channels used by proximity cyber media to enable citizen participation in the product, the strategies they implement in social media, their volume of followers, as well as the socio-cultural initiatives they undertake with community associations and institutions. The study will be based on the analysis of four born-digital news media that stand out as new forms of proximity cyber media: The Spanish websites somosmalasaña.com, granadaimedia.com and elporvenirclm.com; and the Portuguese setubalnarede.com. In addition, the study offers an overview of the local news media owned by Adriano Lucas, one of the most important media groups in Portugal and the most influential in terms of coverage of proximity cyberjournalism. This study shows that only very few media initiatives make the most out of the potentialities of the context of web 2.0 to increase their digital communities and encourage and manage users' feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The increase of Internet's popularity in recent years has dramatically changed the ways in which people carry out health information searches. This is not limited to the searches made by adults but also have a repercussion on young adults and teenagers. Objectives. The research had two main objectives: to know the quality, selection and accreditation criteria of the health information which is communicated in the web pages and verify how young people search for health information on Internet. Method. The study responds to a qualitative and quantitative paradigm, as complementary ways of perceiving the same reality, based on a holistic study from its entirety and its context. Thus, we have carried out an analysis of the contents of the digital resources with health information; in-depth interviews with the heads of web pages; focus group with teenagers from advanced secondary education and university students; concluding with an ethnographic study and quantitative study based on the execution of closed questionnaires to the analysed population segment. Results. The heads of the web pages with health information for the younger population are aware of the importance of their labour and the responsibility which corresponds to them. They are aware that information should not be focused from a paternalistic perspective but with objectivity. The young adults and teenagers consider that the ideal web page with health information must be very practical and visual, with accessible and reliable information, which permits interactivity with the users and where user opinions and professional health care advice are clearly distinguished. Discussion and Conclusion. The need to acquire healthy habits has emerged as a topic which generates major interest among young people and it has a cultural component: it is primarily learned in the home, reinforced at school and in the relations with peer groups. The mass media also play a major role in the way in which young people interpret health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of tourism-specific consumer innovativeness (i.e., domain-specific innovativeness) on their information search, purchasing, and communication behaviors on tourism websites. The methodology employed is based on a combination of data from website log files and questionnaires (n = 207). The results show that tourism innovativeness is positively related to the frequency and density of site visits, downloading of information brochures, use of the online purchasing mode, and the volume of online purchases. Tourism innovativeness is also positively associated with consumer chatting and e-mailing. The study reveals that consumers high on tourism innovativeness maintain active and cooperative communications with the firm. In summary, the behaviors of innovative consumers that have been documented in traditional offline settings are also exhibited in the online environment. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The people who have physical or mental disabilities which limit their movements, senses, activities or both of them are one of the groups in society. Those people have various problems in social life directly or indirectly in turkey. Nowadays, they face many problems in accessibility on many fields such as education, healthcare, justice, social security, etc. Those individuals are willing to draw attention and resolve their problems. The level of development of countries is directly related with the solution of the aforementined problems. In this study we focused on the common terms about the people who have limited movements, senses, activities or both; and focused on the awereness of disabled people and we investigated the the accessibility of the web sites about the justice by disabled people. Making accessible of web pages will allow the disabled people to have the equal rights with the others and will also provide diversity about information and communication sources [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the explosive growth of online news, adaptive news recommendation models based on social connections have developed as a result of the growth of online news websites. Several models have relayed better outcomes for users. Most of these models establish users' social connections according to their binary news rating scores. In various real systems, mainly based on a non-binary pattern, the rating score is often multigrade. In this paper, we introduce a new continuous ratings model for news recommendations. This model uses exponential distance to measure the similarities of users to increase its robustness to noise. Simulation results show that the proposed model has significantly improved the performance of personalized news recommendation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study is the first investigation into the types of contents in young adult (YA) web pages in public library websites in Japan. The study reveals that YA web pages, in general, place more emphasis on providing guidance on YA services, on helping young adults with regular learning, on the use of information resources for reference services, and on improving the communication abilities for young adults, rather than on providing research assistance to adults on YA services. Furthermore, an IRIS (Information Reference Instructional Sharing) Contents Model is proposed for YA web pages, whereas an IRIR (Information Reference Instructional Research) Contents Model is presented for children’s web pages, based on the differences between the contents of YA web pages and those of children’s web pages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using data from an exclusive file-sharing Web site that allows users to share music files using the BitTorrent protocol, I exploit exogenous variation in the availability of sound recordings in file-sharing networks to isolate the causal effect of file sharing of an album on its sales. Using within-album variation in illegal downloads and sales, I find that the effect is essentially zero: The elasticity of sales with respect to illegal downloads is one-tenth of one percentage point. However, the finding that file sharing is not harmful to individual artists is not inconsistent with the well-documented fact that file sharing is harmful to the music industry (the fallacy of composition). More important, I find that file sharing benefits more established and popular artists who are signed to major labels, which is consistent with recent industry trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a structuration model to explore the interaction between technology and organizations. Based on a case study of three environmental organizations in Norway and opposing visions of a single predetermined effect of web technology, it argues that the implications of web technologies within organizations are diverse and can strengthen existing organizational characteristics. With diverging organizational structures, norms and culture, different interpretations, meanings and practices tied to the same technologies develop. Technology is situated and used in concrete social contexts, being shaped by and in turn shaping social and organizational structures. In established and institutionalized organizations new communication technology can reinforce existing ways of conduct, while in less institutionalized groups, features of new web technology may have greater implications for the further development and shaping of these groups. Although this study is context- and time-specific, the observed patterns of web technology usage, their meanings and implications might also point to functions of web technologies in other comparable contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction. Digital information environments such as Websites and search engines have the potential to support serendipity: to spark and nurture positive, unexpected interactions with information and ideas with valuable outcomes. But we have few tools to measure how well they support serendipity and thus no data-driven way to guide their development. Method. Grounded in prior research, facets of a serendipitous digital environment were identified together with a pool of items that could be used in the creation of a self-report scale. To assess the content validity of the preliminary scale or the extent to which a measurement reflects the content domain it is intended to capture, we conducted two successive studies: an expert review by eight experts; and an analysis of variance approach involving a Web-based study of 107 university students. Analysis. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to analyse the data. Results. The items of the serendipitous digital environment scale were revised and the scale's content validity confirmed. Conclusion. Five facets of a serendipitous digital environment were identified and defined and a 37-item scale was developed in preparation for future studies that will reduce and refine the scale and test its construct validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After observing and developing online reference websites for 20 plus years, it's clear the biggest hurdle to reliability still hasn't been overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study aimed to analyse the quantitative similarities between traditional citations coverage (Web of Science and Scopus) and citations taken from the Web (Google Scholar), specifically targeting articles from 23 Open Access ISI-indexed journals within the field of General and Internal Medical Science published in 2007. This method enables us to comprehend the number of citations that exist on the Web and their efficiency as an important source for Medical Science research evaluation. More specifically, the correlation tests are used as an indirect approach to assess the extent of the relationship between traditional and Web-based citation coverage. It also investigates the percentage of overlap between conventional and Web citations databases in the selected journals. The findings show that the Web incorporates more citation data targeting general and internal medical journal articles that cannot be traced by traditional citation databases. The significant association between both conventional citations databases and Google Scholar found in this study, suggest that both the traditional and Web-based citation database are possible tools for measuring identical aspects, however, Web-based citations have the capability to be used for effective and accurate evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study makes an attempt to explore and analyze the growth and decay rate of URL citations cited in one of the eminent information web magazine ARIADNE. All the web citations cited in the featured article section of ARIADNE web magazine spanning a period of three years (2010-2012) were identified and downloaded. All the URLs provided in the web citations were checked by W3C link checker (http://validator.w3.org/checklink) to test whether they were accessible or not. Web resources are used more than the printed ones. Though the number of references in web based format is more in use but a significant number of web references lose their identity with the passage of time. The results indicate that early published papers have collectively a larger number of missing web citation compared to the recent ones. It was found that majority of errors were due to the missing content (http 404-file not found) representing 52.68% of all http error codes followed by "http 500" (24.73%) and "http 403" (19.35%). The ".com/.co" domain was also found to be the most stable and persistent domain with 95 per cent accessibility. The greatest number of web resources cited in the articles, were found to be of "html" and "htmls" formats and "ppt" files were found to be most stable with 100% accessibility. Finally, the study confirms that continued availability of web resources is not guaranteed because of the dying phenomenon of web based references, but there can be certain solutions (WebCite, LOCKSS etc) that can prevent the decay or disappearance of web citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reporting of business information on websites, hereafter referred to as electronic business reporting (e-BR), continues to gain widespread acceptance as the Internet provides an inexpensive channel for delivering timely financial and nonfinancial information to investors. The online environment facilitates both the delivery of traditional text-based reporting content and the use of enhanced multimedia for displaying nonfinancial content, including elements such as images, presentations, video, and social media features. Signaling theory and research on trust was applied to develop a signaling research model and investigate how the reporting of nonfinancial content in e-BR can serve as a signal, specifically with nonprofessional investors. An experimental study was conducted in which the quality of e-BR and company performance was varied to investigate how e-BR influences perceptions of investment quality and intentions. The findings suggest that the nonfinancial content in e-BR influences perceptions of trustworthiness and perceived investment quality. When financial performance is low, high-quality e-BR enhances investors' perceptions of investment quality, which in return influences investment intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of Big Data is both promising and challenging for social research. This article suggests that realising this promise has been restricted by the methods applied in social science research, which undermine our potential to apprehend the qualities that make Big Data so appealing, not least in relation to the sociology of networks and flows. With specific reference to the micro-blogging website Twitter, the article outlines a set of methodological principles for approaching these data that stand in contrast to previous research; and introduces a new tool for harvesting and analysing Twitter built on these principles. We work our argument through an analysis of Twitter data linked to political protest over UK university fees. Our approach transcends earlier methodological limitations to offer original insights into the flow of information and the actors and networks that emerge in this flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop a research model that examines the effect of information overload and information disorganisation upon customers' perceived risk and purchase intention online in a single integrative model. In addition the paper investigates whether internet experience moderates these relationships. Design/methodology/approach - To achieve the paper's objectives an experiment that involved visiting the ten most visited e-commerce web sites in Spain was conducted. Hypotheses were tested by using structural equation modelling on a data set of 1,396 online shopping customers. Findings - The results suggest a positive relationship between information overload and customer purchase intention and that internet experience reinforces this positive effect. Moreover the results confirm that the relationship between information disorganisation and customer purchase intention is not significant and that internet experience does not moderate the relationship. The findings also indicate that perceived risk mediates the relationship between information overload and information disorganisation on customer purchase intention. Originality/value - This work contributes to the literature by exploring the phenomenon of information overload and information disorganisation upon customers' perceived risk and purchase intention in the e-commerce environment as well as the moderating effect of internet experience on these relationships in a single integrative model. The main conclusions of this investigation can be valuable to organisations that implement or intend to implement e-commerce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we development a hybrid algorithm of machine learning for the automatic locking of web pages that incite to violence through content snuff. We describe of the current situation of the problem to be solved, and we give to know the selection process of the techniques for the development of the hybrid algorithm. Also, we show the mathematical model and results analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on an earlier study that views CEO communication as an important strategic tool, this study analyzes the content of CEO messages on Web sites of major corporations in Greater China to reveal their extratextual and intratextual characteristics. The study suggests that the language style employed in these messages, including the linguistic characteristics, regional themes, and interlingual themes, is associated with a corporate communication strategy that is underpinned by CEOs’ beliefs and rooted in cultural values. The findings enhance our understanding of how CEOs view their stakeholders and the content that they include in their messages to stakeholders in order to compete in this digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of the present article is to discuss the semantic loan ciasteczko ('cookie') used in Polish. The new meaning of the word, modelled on English, is connected with computers and the Internet. The new legal regulations in Poland require all Polish websites to inform the Internet users about the fact that a given website uses cookies. Quotations from various Polish websites are analyzed; it is clear that the form in question is far from fully assimilated into Polish, as there is a great deal of confusion seen among the authors of texts published on the Internet. Four main solutions are in operation: (1) the use of the English lexical borrowing only, (2) the use of the English semantic borrowing only, (3) the use of both the English semantic and lexical borrowing and (4) the use of the English lexical borrowing followed by a definition of the term in Polish. In addition, new collocations of the word are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Blogs provide opportunities for bloggers to create. This creativity can attract audiences and generate commercial success for blog service providers (BSPs). Thus to obtain competitive advantage, such providers should stimulate their bloggers to produce creative content. The purpose of this paper is to adopt social embeddedness and creativity theory to explore factors influencing blogger creativity. Design/methodology/approach – An online questionnaire and an online embeddedness system are used to collect data from 353 bloggers, including data on their motivation, integration ability, structural and relational embeddedness and creativity. Hierarchical regression is applied for statistical analysis. Findings – Analytical results show that structural embeddedness and relational embeddedness affect blogger creativity. Additionally motivation negatively moderates the relationship between structural embeddedness and creativity, and integration ability negatively moderates the relationship between relational embeddedness and creativity. Research limitations/implications – This study applies social embeddedness to elucidate the relationships among quantity and quality of professional knowledge and creativity. This study also discusses the moderating effect of motivation and integration ability on the relationship between social embeddedness and creativity. Practical implications – Creative articles by bloggers can popularise a blog platform, as they can retain bloggers and attract new bloggers. Therefore, for BSPs enhancing the creative performance of bloggers is one way to obtain competitive advantage. Originality/value – The study contributes to knowledge of social embeddedness and creativity on blog web sites, and importantly, this study develops a model that explains how antecedents influence blogger creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the impact of the use of an interactive video website, comprising videos promoting a company’s core values, on organizational learning. More specifically, we studied how the use of a video website affected the awareness of a company’s core values and whether or not this would also influence the behaviour of the employees. Two web surveys were designed for the study. The first survey was conducted prior to introducing the video website. The second survey was a follow-up survey in order to assess cognitive and behavioural effects. As a complement, we also conducted focus groups. We identified a slightly negative effect on cognition and behaviour. A number of factors that might explain the negative effect were identified. Employees that perceived themselves as active participants were more likely to prefer video, were more satisfied and perceived greater positive effect on cognition and behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article analyses the creativity in a particular category of interactive products—personal portfolio websites. Most of the designers embraced the advantages of a digital portfolio which include the ability to make an unlimited number of copies at a very low price, availability through email and presence on the global job market. In trying to impress possible employers, designers often got more concerned with following advices offered by web design agencies on the web today rather than focusing on the quality of user experience. The question is can the rules of good web portfolio design be defined and/or can they be perceived as a process of creating new choices out of a prevailing set of options? The goal of this article is to provide an overview of work in this area and analyses it to speculate on what makes web portfolio creative as a narrative interactive product. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The research on students with disabilities has focused primarily on transition programs and the accessibility of information in the classroom environment. There is a dearth of studies that examine the accessibility of disability services information on community college websites for prospective students with disabilities. A researcher-developed content analysis instrument was used to collect data on 40 community college websites throughout the United States. The community college websites were analyzed on three dimensions including: (1) the accessibility of disability services information on community college websites, (2) the distance of information regarding disability services from the homepage, and (3) the accessibility and availability of disability services information that might be provided to students with disabilities via the website. The findings of this quantitative content-focused synthesis study suggest variations in the accessibility of disability services information on community colleges websites. The authors conclude the article by addressing implications for practice, policy and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), people with disabilities are guaranteed access to all postsecondary programs and services. The purpose of this study, conducted by the Center for Excellence in Disabilities, was to evaluate the current status of a major university's web accessibility. The results indicated that in 2011 only 51% of 509 web pages (sample) at a large public university in the northeastern United States passed automated web accessibility tests with Cynthia Says for Section 508 compliance (WCAG 1.0). Only 35% passed using the WAVE Accessibility Tool for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0 Level A) Priority 1 compliance, which is a more rigorous evaluation level. The stricter the level of testing, the more university web pages failed. Stricter web accessibility requirements may be legally imposed instead of Section 508 in the future. Universities will succeed in meeting an important mandate of the ADA by making institutional websites accessible to current and future students and employees with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased prevalence of discourse concerning the expected end of the world was observed in various countries and manifested in various genres especially in the years 2000 and 2012. Some of the discourse was conducted in a serious manner, whereas other instances included humorous motifs and were used for commercial purposes. The aim of this paper is to take a closer look at the typical motifs prevailing in the discourse concerning the end of the world, with special emphasis on the humorous aspect - both universal and culture-specific. Texts found on Polish, German, English and Russian websites were analyzed. In the studied material, the end of the world was understood literally and broadly - in terms of extermination of the human race, eschatology - or narrowly, in terms of statistical data concerning the death of a given number of people, or even individually, referring to the imminent ending of each person's particular world. T he metaphorical meaning of the end of the world was also used in the sense of 'a commotion', 'the pressure of business', 'a mess, confusion', and 'accumulation of problems', referring mostly to the functioning of particular institutions or lack of access to the Internet, or reviving common stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The content of a web page must be relevant for its type and area of subject. If a web page has more subjects treated as important on a single page then the web page's importance for a specific subject will be diluted. So the first thing when starting editing a new web page is to wisely choose a specific subject to write about. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World Wide Web is one of the most interactive and popular medium to spread the information. The increasing popularity and size growth of WWW has overwhelmed with an immense amount of widely dispersed interconnected and dynamic information. Web pages typically contain a large amount of information that is not part of the main content of the pages, e.g. banner ads, navigation bars, copyright notices, etc. Such noise on web pages usually leads to poor results in Web Mining which mainly depends upon the web page content. Therefore, it becomes very essential to extract information from the bulks of data and structure them into useful knowledge that will be helpful for some type of understanding. This leads to the birth of data mining. Web usage mining is the subject field of Web mining which deals with the discovery and analysis of usage patterns from web data specifically web logs in order to improve the web based applications. The Web usage mining process consists of three phases: Data Preprocessing, Pattern Discovery and Pattern Analysis. In this paper an improvised algorithm will be proposed that gives a clean file consisting of only relevant data from the Web usage mining perspective as output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether cultural backgrounds of nations are expressed through the web design of their companies. Actually, it investigates whether, in countries characterized by the same cultural matrix and language but by different national backgrounds, the cultural specificities of a country are a critical success factor for web design and enablers of business excellence. Design/methodology/approach – Starting from a deep literature review, four research hypotheses on the relationship between cultural background and web design are formulated. By employing both the content analysis and the cross-tabulation methodology, these hypotheses are tested. Findings – Brazilian, Portuguese, Angolan and Macanese web sites show that companies operating in these countries are aware that cultural background is a necessary success factor to consider for improving cross-cultural management of computer-mediated communication. Indeed, the findings confirm that the internet is not a culturally neutral communication medium. By providing evidences of web site cultural adaptation, this study supports the use of a targeted approach to web site design and provides managerial guidelines for improving business excellence of companies’ online environment. Originality/value – The paper offers insights into the topic of a culturally adapted computer-mediated communication for improving consumer experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, authenticated access to web sites becomes more and more important. Usernames and passwords are one of the easiest ways to accomplish it. But a more secure approach is to use biometrics. This article presents a very simple modality to use fingerprints to control the access to a web site. The client component of the proposed architecture is an ActiveX control that communicates with the fingerprint reader and sends data back to the web server. The server component is an ISAPI Server that processes the requests of the client regarding authentication and does or does not grant access to the web site. The ActiveX is integrated in the web page with the help of Java Script. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This study aims to map the information landscape as it unfolds to users when they search for health topics on general search engines. Website sponsorship, platform type and linking patterns were analysed in order to advance the understanding of the provision of health information online. Design/methodology/approach – The landscape was sampled by ten very different search queries and crawled with VOSON software. Drawing on Roger's framework of information politics on the web, the landscape is described on two levels. The front-end is examined qualitatively by assessing website sponsorship and platform type. On the back-end, linking patterns are analysed using hyperlink network analysis. Findings – A vast majority of the websites have commercial and organisational sponsorship. The analysis of the platform type shows that health information is provided mainly on static homepages, informational portals and general news sites. A comparison of ten different health domains revealed substantial differences in their landscapes, related to domain-specific characteristics. Research limitations/implications – The size and properties of the web crawl were shaped by using third party software, and the generalisability of the results is limited by the selected search queries. Further research exploring how specific characteristics of different health domains shape provision of information online is suggested. Practical implications – The demonstrated method can be used by organisations to discern the characteristics of the online information landscape in which they operate and to inform their business strategies. Originality/value – The study examines health information landscapes on a large scale and makes an original contribution by comparing them across ten different health domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the behavioral characteristics of user groups in a website largely reflect the development situations of the website, this paper first proposed the concept of space in Internet for investigating the website development from the perspective of user behavior and defined Internet space and website growth space, both of which were used to represent network and measure the growth status and growth trend of websites respectively. For showing the distributions of spatial positions and the size of the growth space of websites in Internet space, it applied user scale, user dependency and user loyalty of a website to build the website development space model for the website. Futhermore, it proposed the computing methods for the three model parameters based on the characteristics of user behavior metrics. In view of the rapid development of mobile Internet, the development process of websites in mobile Internet could be more reflected. So that it conducted experiments on the data sets collected from a large-scale mobile network. Hence, it analysed the growth status of real websites in detail and predict the growth trend of websites accurately, which illustrates the effectiveness of the development space model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much cultural commentary focuses on the problem that private or potentially embarrassing information on the Internet seems to live forever. But recently a new anxiety has developed, based on the fact that parts of the Internet simply die off. Ultimately all digital cultural creation that is not hosted by an established institution, and even much institutional material, will stagnate or be lost if possession of such work is not passed on to an enthusiastic new owner. Ventures like Internet Archive attempt to preserve the remains of the Internet gone by, but there is no entity that seeks to breathe new life into websites that would otherwise disappear, by helping to transition their ownership. A legal and technological mechanism is needed to maneuver around the intellectual property rights regime that hinders the free flow and evolution of artwork. This Paper proposes a new idea to bolster the Creative Commons and increase the dissemination of cultural creation: a commons exchange that facilitates contacts between those who are looking to hand off a project and those who are willing to take one up, so artists and website owners can protect and carry on the legacies of established works. In essence, the Internet needs an adoption agency for digital cultural creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet is increasingly being used in the tourism industry. Many tourist destinations pay attention to the Internet marketing so as to attract more tourists. In order to explore the regional tourism flow responding to the Internet information, this study proposes the concept of extraversion online tourism information flow, which means that the tourism information provided by the online tourism websites and relates to the specific destinations or areas is transmitted and exchanged between one website and other websites or among the information receivers. Taking 15 American and Canadian tourism websites as research samples, this study measured the index of extraversion online tourism information of Chinese cities using text mining method. Besides, we also measured the preferred value of inbound tourism flow from America and Canada by using the data from the Year Book of China Tourism Statistics. Finally, we analyzed the coupling relationship about the extraversion online tourism information and the inbound tourist Flow. We came to the following conclusions. (l) The cities with more comprehensive information on American and Canadian tourism websites were mainly those which enjoyed high popularity in the world, and had better natural endowment on the tourist resources, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Qingdao, Tianjin or Xiamen in the eastern region and Guilin, Guiyang, and Xi' an in western region. (2) The inbound tourists from America and Canada mainly concentrated on the eastern region of China. The number of tourist arrivals of Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen accounts for more than half of the whole number. The reason may be that the eastern region of China not only has a strong economic base,but also has a close trade relationship with the America and Canada. (3) It was found that there are four forms of the coupling relationship about the extraversion online tourism information and the inbound tourist flow shows: high - coupled (Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan), middle - coupled (Guangzhou, Taiyuan, Shenzhen, Lanzhou, Lhasa, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Urumqi), low - coupled (Dalian, Zhengzhou, Guiyang, Harbin, Yinchuan, Datong, Xining, Huangshan, and Kunming) and the in-consistent type (Chongqing, Qingdao, Xiamen, Chengdu, Guilin, Tianjin, Xi' an and Nanjing). (4) According to the study of the urban spatial distribution of different coupling types, we found that: high -coupled region include Beijing (the capital city of China), Wuhan that is located in the central China as well as Shanghai, the economic center of China; middle - coupled region consists of both economically developed and economically developing regions; the distribution of low - coupled region is scattered relatively; the in - consistent type region contains Chongqing and Chengdu in the southwest China, Xi' an in the northwest China, Nanjing in the east China, Tianjin, Qingdao in the northern China and Xiamen, Guilin in the southern China. In a word, the relationship between the extraversion online tourism information and the inbound tourist flow is not simply one to one correspondence due to the difference of the economic development, the level of opening and so on. Therefore, each city should pay attention to the international propaganda so as to take some share in the international tourism market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the concept of labor in co-creation, arguing that its definition needs to be expanded to include a process of intensity. Intensity foregrounds the different degrees in which participants involve themselves in a craft, and also the elements of time, effort, and affectivity. Using game modification as a case study, the article analyzes how automated, computerized systems of evaluations, embedded into webpages, can create grounds for a self-understanding of productive abilities. Maneuvering through the three registers of industry, websites, and game modders, it examines the discourses of evaluative systems and details how participants use these technologies to self-manage and calibrate their labor. Interviews showed that the increasingly competitive drive for optimal standards of production comes at a cost to the well-being of participants. Studies of labor therefore need to consider the “intense” aspect of participatory production, and the impact it may have on its participants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the past decade, the websites of Thai tourist agencies have expanded their offerings to include medical tourism, and medical tourism online has experienced dramatic changes in packaging and marketing. These shifts suggest a move from Thai-style surgical offerings that were defined as primarily cosmetic to tourist-package style sex/gender-related surgeries under the category of sexual reassignment surgery (SRS). The existence of these websites and the changes in the promotion of sex/gender-related medical tourism over time reveal nuanced interplay of discontinuous sex/gender regimes. By examining the changes on a single website during an eighteen-month period, I indicate larger trends in the Thai medical tourism industry online that I have collected in a three-year period. “Trans” theory—translation, transnational, transsexual, transactional, and transitive—is the framework from which I describe these dynamic, discontinuous, dialogic transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To fully use the tokamak facility, it is necessary to allow researchers to remotely participate in the tokamak experiments via the Internet. Being able to control the operation of the tokamak is a key point. In this paper, the design and implementation of the remote operation system for the Joint Texas Experimental Tokamak (J-TEXT) are presented. To make this system flexible, the service-oriented design is applied. Instead of just providing software or website that controls devices and instruments on the tokamak, a series of Application Programming Interfaces are exposed as web services. All the operations of the J-TEXT tokamak are wrapped in these services. The representational state transfer design practice has been adopted to ensure that these services are accessible by various clients. A remote operation website based on these services has been developed. However, users can build their own websites or remote control rooms, which consume these services to operate the J-TEXT tokamak. An authorization and authentication system is included to prevent the users from consuming unauthorized services. The proposed remote operation system is compatible with Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System and has been integrated within the J-TEXT control, data access, and communication system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholarly treatments of white supremacy have tended to focus on groups over individuals, examining belief systems, framing mechanisms, and operational dynamics. White supremacist discourse and dialogue often include descriptions of the processes through which one “awakens” to support these ideologies. This article considers how individuals report discovering their affinity for white supremacist belief systems. Data are culled from personal accounts available on Web pages, postings to electronic discussion forums, literature published by white supremacist groups, and biographical/autobiographical works. The authors discuss the common themes emerging from accounts of personal “awakenings” to better understand how adherence to white supremacist ideologies emerges within the individual. Implications for broader understandings of white supremacy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper studies the trends in acquisition of e-resources vis-a-vis their print counterparts, identifies the e-resources being subscribed by Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) libraries at Kharagpur, Bombay, Madras, Delhi, Kanpur, Guwahati and Roorkee either individually or through a consortium, and analyzes the usage of these resources during 2004-11. The study also compiles a union list of all e-resources accessible at IIT Libraries. Data were collected by personal visits, interviews, and using a questionnaire. Web sites and annual reports of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, IITs and INDEST-AICTE Consortium were also scanned to supplement the above information. COUNTER compliant data as provided by the publishers were used to study the usage. Data analysis revealed that IIT libraries spend a significantly large proportion of their budgets to acquire e-resources. There is a clear shift in the collection development policies of these libraries where e-resources have become a vital part of their core collections. E-resources in all IITs are being heavily used as the number of downloads have increased from 32,33,818 to 76,17,691 articles reflecting a growth of 135% over a period of 8 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tag recommendation is focused on recommending useful tags to a user who is annotating a Web resource. A relevant research issue is the recommendation of additional tags to partially annotated resources, which may be based on either personalized or collective knowledge. However, since the annotation process is usually not driven by any controlled vocabulary, the collections of user-specific and collective annotations are often very sparse. Indeed, the discovery of the most significant associations among tags becomes a challenging task. This article presents a novel personalized tag recommendation system that discovers and exploits generalized association rules, that is, tag correlations holding at different abstraction levels, to identify additional pertinent tags to suggest. The use of generalized rules relevantly improves the effectiveness of traditional rule-based systems in coping with sparse tag collections, because: (i) correlations hidden at the level of individual tags may be anyhow figured out at higher abstraction levels and (ii) low-level tag associations discovered from collective data may be exploited to specialize high-level associations discovered in the user-specific context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]