A recommender system aims to provide users with personalized online product or service recommendations to handle the increasing online information overload problem and improve customer relationship management. Various recommender system techniques have been proposed since the mid-1990s, and many sorts of recommender system software have been developed recently for a variety of applications. Researchers and managers recognize that recommender systems offer great opportunities and challenges for business, government, education, and other domains, with more recent successful developments of recommender systems for real-world applications becoming apparent. It is thus vital that a high quality, instructive review of current trends should be conducted, not only of the theoretical research results but more importantly of the practical developments in recommender systems. This paper therefore reviews up-to-date application developments of recommender systems, clusters their applications into eight main categories: e-government, e-business, e-commerce/e-shopping, e-library, e-learning, e-tourism, e-resource services and e-group activities, and summarizes the related recommendation techniques used in each category. It systematically examines the reported recommender systems through four dimensions: recommendation methods (such as CF), recommender systems software (such as BizSeeker), real-world application domains (such as e-business) and application platforms (such as mobile-based platforms). Some significant new topics are identified and listed as new directions. By providing a state-of-the-art knowledge, this survey will directly support researchers and practical professionals in their understanding of developments in recommender system applications. Research papers on various recommender system applications are summarized.The recommender systems are examined systematically through four dimensions.The recommender system applications are classified into eight categories.Related recommendation techniques in each category are identified.Several new recommendation techniques and application areas are uncovered.

Recommender system application developments

Digital libraries (DLs) are complex information systems and therefore demand formal foundations lest development efforts diverge and interoperability suffers. In this article, we propose the fundamental abstractions of Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios, and Societies (5S), which allow us to define digital libraries rigorously and usefully. Streams are sequences of arbitrary items used to describe both static and dynamic (e.g., video) content. Structures can be viewed as labeled directed graphs, which impose organization. Spaces are sets with operations on those sets that obey certain constraints. Scenarios consist of sequences of events or actions that modify states of a computation in order to accomplish a functional requirement. Societies are sets of entities and activities and the relationships among them. Together these abstractions provide a formal foundation to define, relate, and unify concepts---among others, of digital objects, metadata, collections, and services---required to formalize and elucidate "digital libraries". The applicability, versatility, and unifying power of the 5S model are demonstrated through its use in three distinct applications: building and interpretation of a DL taxonomy, informal and formal analysis of case studies of digital libraries (NDLTD and OAI), and utilization as a formal basis for a DL description language.

Streams, structures, spaces, scenarios, societies (5s): A formal model for digital libraries

Advances in data storage and image acquisition technologie s have enabled the creation of large image datasets. In this scenario, it is necess ary to develop appropriate information systems to efficiently manage these collect ions. The commonest approaches use the so-called Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) systems . Basically, these systems try to retrieve images similar to a user-define d sp cification or pattern (e.g., shape sketch, image example). Their goal is to suppor t image retrieval based on contentproperties (e.g., shape, color, texture), usually encoded into feature vectors . One of the main advantages of the CBIR approach is the possibi lity of an automatic retrieval process, instead of the traditional keyword-bas ed approach, which usually requires very laborious and time-consuming previous annot ation of database images. The CBIR technology has been used in several applications su ch as fingerprint identification, biodiversity information systems, digital librar ies, crime prevention, medicine, historical research, among others. This paper aims to introduce the problems and challenges con cerned with the creation of CBIR systems, to describe the existing solutions and appl ications, and to present the state of the art of the existing research in this area.

Content-Based Image Retrieval: Theory and Applications.

As in the Web, the growing of information is the main problem of the academic digital libraries. Thus, similar tools could be applied in university digital libraries to facilitate the information access by the students and teachers. In [46] we presented a fuzzy linguistic recommender system to advice research resources in university digital libraries. The problem of this system is that the user profiles are provided directly by the own users and the process for acquiring user preferences is quite difficult because it requires too much user effort. In this paper we present a new fuzzy linguistic recommender system that facilitates the acquisition of the user preferences to characterize the user profiles. We allow users to provide their preferences by means of incomplete fuzzy linguistic preference relation. We include tools to manage incomplete information when the users express their preferences, and, in such a way, we show that the acquisition of the user profiles is improved.

/pdf/dealing-with-incomplete-information-in-a-fuzzy-linguistic-1l8mqqynfk.pdf

Dealing with incomplete information in a fuzzy linguistic recommender system to disseminate information in university digital libraries

Evaluation of digital libraries

National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: A Scalable andSustainable Approach to Unlock University Resources

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: An International Effort Unlocking University Resources

DIGITAL LIBRARIES are one of the most effective vehicles for change in higher education. They facilitate collaboration involving universities in an international cooperative venture, unlocking scholarly resources, and carrying out functions previously limited to publishers. They allow faculty and students to improve learning by drawing on rapidly growing collections of valuable content—heretofore largely hidden behind the doors of the library—that include an increasing proportion of multimedia elements or interactive software. The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), launched in 1996 and building upon work started in 1987, is a federated effort involving well over 120 universities scattered around the globe. Rapidly growing as a result of local, state, regional, national, and international efforts, it aims to enhance the skills of all graduate students preparing theses or dissertations, so they are empowered to create an electronic thesis or dissertation (ETD) and to effectively use digital libraries. As universities move to require submission of ETDs, they build the local infrastructure to support their own students in this regard and to dramatically enhance access to this important genre of scholarly publication. NDLTD supports these changes and helps ensure that the move to ETDs remains a sustainable initiative that will continue to enhance university libraries and publishing.

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: Changes in the University Community.

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is more than an online collection of Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). It is a scalable project that has impact on thousands of graduate students in many countries as well as diverse researchers worldwide. By May 1999 it had 59 official members representing 13 countries and integrated some of the world’s newest research works, including ETD collections at Virginia Tech and West Virginia University, where ETD submission is now required. The number of accesses to the Virginia Tech collection has grown by more than half in the last year. NDLTD is committed to authors, aiming to improve graduate education for the over 100,000 students that prepare a thesis or dissertation each year. It encourages them to be more expressive by facilitating incorporation of multimedia components into their theses. NDLTD activities include: applying automation methods to simplify submission of ETDs over the WWW; specifying the application of the Dublin Core to guarantee that metadata can satisfy needs of searching and browsing; selecting open standards and procedures to facilitate interoperability and preservation; and demonstrating a variety of interfaces, both 2D and 3D, along with exploring their usability.

Neill A. Kipp

Papers

Streams, structures, spaces, scenarios, societies (5s): A formal model for digital libraries

National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: A Scalable andSustainable Approach to Unlock University Resources

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: An International Effort Unlocking University Resources

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations: Changes in the University Community.

A digital library for authors: recent progress of the networked digital library of theses and dissertations