In this paper, we present a test collection for mathematical information retrieval composed of real-life, researchlevel mathematical information needs. Topics and relevance judgements have been procured from the on-line collaboration website MathOverflow by delegating domain-specific decisions to experts on-line. With our test collection, we construct a baseline using Lucene’s vectorspace model...

Scientists often need to analyse heterogeneous and distributed datasets for secondary purposes, for example to verify prior assumptions or to detect correlations between datasets. In most cases the time-consuming effort for converting the desired data into formats for statistical tools is not justified by the information need itself. With the emerging paradigm of Linked Open Data, existing info...

As the importance of real-life use cases in the music information retrieval (MIR) field is increasing, so does the importance of understanding user needs. The development of innovative real-life applications that draw on MIR technology requires a user-centered design and development approach that assesses user needs and aligns them with technological and academic ambitions in the MIR domain. In...

Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization are important areas of Artificial Intelligence. However, in many real-life applications, more functions should be optimized at the same time; the user needs to be provided a set of solutions and a posteriori choose the most preferable. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for solving Multi-Criteria Optimization problems in this setting. The algorithm i...

We analyzed transaction logs containing 51,473 queries posed by 18,113 users of Excite, a major Internet search service. We provide data on: (i) sessions changes in queries during a session, number of pages viewed, and use of relevance feedback, (ii) queries the number of search terms, and the use of logic and modifiers, and (iii) terms their rank/frequency distribution and the most highly used...

Our limited understanding of real-life queries is an obstacle in developing music information retrieval (MIR) systems that meet the needs of real users. This study aims, by an empirical investigation of real-life queries, to contribute to developing a theorized understanding of how users seek music information. This is crucial for informing the design of future MIR systems, especially the selec...

The main objective of Information Retrieval (IR) systems is to satisfy searchers’ needs. A great deal of research has been conducted in the past to attempt to achieve a better insight into searchers’ needs and the factors that can potentially influence the success of an Information Retrieval and Seeking (IR&S) process. One of the factors which has been considered is searchers’ emotion. It has b...

To date, children come more and more often into contact with information systems. Unfortunately, these systems are usually designed for adults and the increasing group of young users has been widely neglected. In order to create and support children’s information seeking appropriately, we have to consider their specific state of development resulting into different needs and capabilities. In th...