Yahoo!

About: Yahoo! is a company organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Web search query. The organization has 26749 authors who have published 29915 publications receiving 732583 citations. The organization is also known as: Yahoo! Inc. & Maudwen-Yahoo! Inc.

Mobile language interpreter with text to speech

Abstract: Embodiments are directed towards a language learning environment accessible from within virtually any website that enables a user to practice a language using tools such as translators, and text to speech capabilities. In one embodiment, the user may access a webpage in one language, and employ the language widget to select portions of content on the webpage, perform translation of the content, or perform a text to audio (speech) conversion of the selected portions. The text to speech conversion may be performed independent of translation, thereby allowing the user to hear a pronunciation of text within the website in a language associated with the website. The user may download an audio file of the converted text for use in later replay for mobile learning.

Self populating address book

Abstract: System, methods and computer program products for creating and maintaining an address book are described. The address book may collect or update its existing contact information from sent or received communications. Contact information associated with the existing contacts also may be collected (or updated based on information received) from outside sources (e.g., external to an application hosting or accessing the address book). The address book may intelligently combine profile data from various sources to enrich the existing records associated with the contacts.

Multitasking during web search sessions

Abstract: A user's single session with a Web search engine or information retrieval (IR) system may consist of seeking information on single or multiple topics, and switch between tasks or multitasking information behavior. Most Web search sessions consist of two queries of approximately two words. However, some Web search sessions consist of three or more queries. We present findings from two studies. First, a study of two-query search sessions on the Alta Vista Web search engine, and second, a study of three or more query search sessions on the Alta Vista Web search engine. We examine the degree of multitasking search and information task switching during these two sets of Alta Vista Web search sessions. A sample of two-query and three or more query sessions were filtered from Alta Vista transaction logs from 2002 and qualitatively analyzed. Sessions ranged in duration from less than a minute to a few hours. Findings include: (1) 81% of two-query sessions included multiple topics, (2) 91.3% of three or more query sessions included multiple topics, (3) there are a broad variety of topics in multitasking search sessions, and (4) three or more query sessions sometimes contained frequent topic changes. Multitasking is found to be a growing element in Web searching. This paper proposes an approach to interactive information retrieval (IR) contextually within a multitasking framework. The implications of our findings for Web design and further research are discussed.

Nonnegative Matrix Factorization with Earth Mover's Distance Metric for Image Analysis

Abstract: Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) approximates a given data matrix as a product of two low-rank nonnegative matrices, usually by minimizing the L2 or the KL distance between the data matrix and the matrix product. This factorization was shown to be useful for several important computer vision applications. We propose here two new NMF algorithms that minimize the Earth mover's distance (EMD) error between the data and the matrix product. The algorithms (EMD NMF and bilateral EMD NMF) are iterative and based on linear programming methods. We prove their convergence, discuss their numerical difficulties, and propose efficient approximations. Naturally, the matrices obtained with EMD NMF are different from those obtained with L2-NMF. We discuss these differences in the context of two challenging computer vision tasks, texture classification and face recognition, perform actual NMF-based image segmentation for the first time, and demonstrate the advantages of the new methods with common benchmarks.

Epidemiology of brucellosis in domestic animals caused by Brucella melitensis, Brucella suis and Brucella abortus.

Abstract: Brucellosis is a disease that causes severe economic losses for livestock farms worldwide. Brucella melitensis, B. abortus and B. suis, which are transmitted between animals both vertically and horizontally, cause abortion and infertility in their primary natural hosts - goats and sheep (B. melitensis), cows (B. abortus) and sows (B. suis). Brucella spp. infect not only their preferred hosts but also other domestic and wild animal species, which in turn can act as reservoirs of the disease for other animal species and humans. Brucellosis is therefore considered to be a major zoonosis transmitted by direct contact with animals and/or their secretions, or by consuming milk and dairy products.