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https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2629489

Wikidata: a free collaborative knowledgebase

We classify data quality problems that are addressed by data cleaning and provide an overview of the main solution approaches. Data cleaning is especially required when integrating heterogeneous data sources and should be addressed together with schema-related data transformations. In data warehouses, data cleaning is a major part of the so-called ETL process. We also discuss current tool support for data cleaning.

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Data Cleaning: Problems and Current Approaches.

The Long Tail: How Technology is turning mass markets into millions of niches. (p. 15). This passage from The Long Tail, pretty much sums it all up. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson is a good and worthwhile read for information scientists, computer scientists, ecommerce researchers, and others interested in all areas of Web research. The central premise of the book is that the combination of (1) the Pareto or Zipf distribution (i.e., power law probability distribution) that is characteristic of Web traffic and (2) the direct access to consumers via Web technology has opened up new business opportunities in the ''long tail''. Producers and advertisers no longer have to target ''the big hits'' at the head of the distribution. Instead, they can target the small, niche communities or even individuals in the tail of the distribution. The long tail is has been studied by Web researchers and has been noted in term usage on search engines, access times to servers, and popularity of Web sites. Andersen points out that the long tail also applies to products sold on the Web. He recounts that a sizeable percentage of Amazon sales come from books that only sell a few copies, a large number of songs from Rhapsody get downloaded only once in a month, and a significant number of movies from Netflix only get ordered occasionally. However, since the storage is in digital form for the songs and music (and Amazon out sources the storage of books) there is little additional inventory cost of these items. This phenomenon across all Web companies has led to a broadening of participation by both producers and consumers that would not have happened without the Web. The idea of the long tail is well known, of course. What Anderson has done is present it in an interesting manner and in a Web ecommerce setting. He applies it to Web businesses and then relates the multitude of other factors ongoing that permit the actual implementation of the long tail effect. Anderson also expands on prior work on the long tail by introducing an element of time, given the distribution a three dimensional effect. All in all, it is a nifty idea. The book is comprised of 14 chapters, plus an Introduction. Chapter 1 presents an overview of what the long tail is. Chapter 2 discusses the ''head'', which is the top of the tail where the …

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More

It has often been thought that word sense ambiguity is a cause of poor performance in Information Retrieval (IR) systems. The belief is that if ambiguous words can be correctly disambiguated, IR performance will increase. However, recent research into the application of a word sense disambiguator to an IR system failed to show any performance increase. From these results it has become clear that more basic research is needed to investigate the relationship between sense ambiguity, disambiguation, and IR.

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Word sense disambiguation and information retrieval

This text sets out a series of approaches to the analysis and synthesis of the World Wide Web, and other web-like information structures. A comprehensive set of research questions is outlined, together with a sub-disciplinary breakdown, emphasising the multi-faceted nature of the Web, and the multi-disciplinary nature of its study and development. These questions and approaches together set out an agenda for Web Science, the science of decentralised information systems. Web Science is required both as a way to understand the Web, and as a way to focus its development on key communicational and representational requirements. The text surveys central engineering issues, such as the development of the Semantic Web, Web services and P2P. Analytic approaches to discover the Web's topology, or its graph-like structures, are examined. Finally, the Web as a technology is essentially socially embedded; therefore various issues and requirements for Web use and governance are also reviewed.

/pdf/a-framework-for-web-science-vvhb5brh5a.pdf

A Framework for Web Science

This paper explores the concept of a work in WorldCat, the OCLC Online Union Catalog, using the hierarchy of bibliographic entities defined in the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) report. A methodology is described for constructing a sample of works by applying the FRBR model to randomly selected WorldCat records. This sample is used to estimate the number of works in WorldCat, and describe some of their key characteristics. Results suggest that the majority of benefits associated with applying FRBR to WorldCat could be obtained by concentrating on a relatively small number of complex works.

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The Concept of a Work in WorldCat: An Application of FRBR

/pdf/experiments-with-the-ifla-functional-requirements-for-45hgbxra0q.pdf

Experiments with the IFLA Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)

Trends in the Evolution of the Public Web: 1998 - 2002

The report from the IFLA Study Group on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) recommended a new approach to cataloging based on an entity-relationship model. This study examined a single work, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker , to determine benefits and drawbacks associated with creating such an entity-relationship model. Humphry Clinker was selected for several reasons—it has been previously studied, it is widely held, and it is a work of mid-level complexity. In addition to analyzing the bibliographic records, many books were examined to ensure the accuracy of the resulting FRBR model. While it was possible to identify works and manifestations, identifying expressions was problematic. Reliable identification of expressions frequently necessitated the examination of the books themselves. Enhanced manifestation records where the roles of editors, illustrators, translators, and other contributors are explicitly identified may be a viable alternative to expressions. For Humphry Clinker , the enhanced record approach avoids the problem of identifying expressions while providing similar functionality. With the enhanced manifestation record, the three remaining entity-relationship structures—works, manifestations, and items—the FRBR model provides a powerful means to improve bibliographic organization and navigation.

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FRBR: Functional requirements for bibliographic records: Application of the entity-relationship model to Humphry Clinker

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, the Library of Congress, and OCLC Online Computer Library Center are jointly developing a virtual international authority file (VIAF) for personal names which links authority records from the world's national bibliographic agencies and will be made freely available on the Web. The goals of the project are to prove the viability of automatically linking authority records from different national authority files and to demonstrate its benefits. The authority and bibliographic files from the Library of Congress and the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek were used to create the initial VIAF which contains over six million names with over a half million links. A key aspect of the project was the development of automated name matching algorithms which use information from both authority records and the corresponding bibliographic records. The practicality of algorithmically linking the personal names between national authority files was demonstrated; seventy percent of the authority records for personal names common to both files were automatically linked with an error rate of less than one percent. The long-term goal of the VIAF project is to combine the authoritative names from many national libraries and other significant sources into a shared global authority service.

Edward T. O'Neill

Papers

The Concept of a Work in WorldCat: An Application of FRBR

Experiments with the IFLA Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)

Trends in the Evolution of the Public Web: 1998 - 2002

FRBR: Functional requirements for bibliographic records: Application of the entity-relationship model to Humphry Clinker

VIAF (virtual international authority file) : Linking the deutsche nationalbibliothek and library of congress name authority files