text:
Digital Libraries/Online info seeking behavior and search strategy

 * Older versions of the draft developed by UNC/VT Project Team (02-08-2007 PDF WORD)

Module name
Online Information Seeking Behaviors & Search Strategies

Scope
This module covers the theories, models, and practices related to online information seeking behaviors in different settings of digital libraries.

Learning objectives:
By the end of this module, the student will be able to:
 * a. Identify the fundamental concepts, definitions, and search strategies in online information seeking, as they apply to digital libraries.
 * b. Apply the models of online information seeking behaviors in explaining the user behaviors that have been identified in empirical studies of digital libraries.
 * c. Utilize practical methods (e.g., transaction log analysis, interviews, think-aloud protocols) for characterizing information seeking behaviors in digital libraries

5S characteristics of the module:

 * a. Stream, Structure, Space, & Society: N/A
 * b. Scenarios: People look for information in digital libraries with their own histories or scenarios of information seeking.

Level of effort required:

 * a. Class time: 3 hours
 * i. Session 1 (1 1/2 hrs): Introduction to information seeking behavior models
 * Lecture on theories of online information seeking behaviors
 * In-class activity (See, 12. Exercises/Learning Activities, a. In class Exercise, below)
 * ii. Session 2 (1 1/2 hrs) : Empirical studies of the development of search strategies in the context of digital libraries
 * b. Course preparation for students: 2 hours / session
 * i. Mostly associated with readings (See the reading list for students in 11. Resources, below)
 * c. Course assignment completion: 2 hours
 * i. Conduct either a user data collection practice or a think-aloud protocol practice (See 12. Exercises/Learning Activities, b. Homework Assignment, below)

Relationships with other modules:

 * a. 6-a: Info needs, relevance
 * 6-a covers the inner state of people's minds and information needs when they are about to start information seeking, and how that state evolves during their browsing and searching for information. 6-b is different from this module in that it deals with the behavioral patterns and the characteristics of users when searching for information in digital libraries.
 * b. 6-d: Interaction Design, Info Summarization and Visualization, Usability Assessment
 * 6-d identifies theoretical and practical knowledge related to the design and development of the system interfaces of digital libraries in a general context, while 6-a provides strategies and directions for how to search for information in digital libraries.

Prerequisite knowledge required:

 * a. No prerequisite courses are required.
 * b. Taking a research method course prior to this course may help students to deal with the interviews in their homework assignments, but the instructor will provide basic guideline for the interviews for the students who don't have experiences with the method.
 * c. No technical programming or any other skills are necessary.

Introductory remedial instruction:

 * a. None

1. Basic Concepts & Definitions (Case, 2002)

 * a. Information need:
 * i. A motivational state in people's minds that causes thoughts and actions through which they obtain something they desire.
 * ii. A state in which a person recognizes that his/her knowledge is inadequate to satisfy a goal that he/she has.
 * b. Information seeking / Information seeking behaviors
 * i. Actions that people do in response to their information needs
 * ii. Intentional activities to satisfy information needs
 * iii. What people do in response to information needs/tasks/problems
 * "The purposive seeking for information as a consequence of a need to satisfy some goal" (Wilson, 2000)
 * iv. A process of discovering patterns or filling in gaps in patterns
 * "A process in which humans purposefully engage in order to change their state of knowledge" (Marchionini, 1995)
 * c. Information Browsing, Searching & Seeking
 * i. Terms used interchangeably in literature
 * ii. Need to understand the appropriate meaning in the context of literature
 * iii. General meanings
 * Browsing: Informal and opportunistic behaviors moving across documents, examining them closely to see whether they satisfy the information needs or not
 * Searching: The actions taken when trying to find something
 * The scope of meaning, sometimes, can be narrowed as being tied to specific searching techniques (e.g. Keyword-searching which enables people to retrieve information by inputting keywords in search engines)
 * Seeking: While browsing and searching are somewhat focused on behaviors or actions of people, information seeking covers more general categories and the broad nature of cognitive, perceptual, behavioral, and the environmental perspectives of people who are seeking information.

2.	Online Information Seeking Behavior Models

 * a. Information Seeking in Online Environments
 * i. Allen's Information Tasks (1996)
 * Scanning: Scanning tasks, resources, systems and acquiring general information
 * Reviewing and Evaluating: Filtering information based on personal criteria (e.g. relevance judgments)
 * Learning: Solving problems based on collected information and creating new knowledge
 * Planning: Constructing search plans, evolving and developing them until the searches end
 * ii. Marchionini's Browsing Strategies (1999)
 * Scanning: Linear and/or selective scanning
 * Observation: Capturing scenes, and making sense of what people see
 * Navigation: Having specific goals or objectives when browsing, and developing decision-making progress while organizing and structuring new knowledge
 * Monitoring: Casual scanning of environments in order to sense what's in the user's area of interest
 * iii. Choo, Detlor & Turnbull's Information Seeking on the Web (2000)
 * Starting: Identifying sources of information and initiating the search
 * Changing: Modifying and re-directing the search process in order to locate information
 * Browsing: Scanning resources to understand the contents
 * Differentiating: Evaluating and selecting appropriate resources
 * Monitoring: Reviewing core sources to be acknowledged by news or changing conditions
 * Extracting: Working on a selected source to identify whether it is the most appropriate source and to find connections to other related sources

 * Allen (1996)
 * 1. Describing the overall process of information seeking from information seeking to knowledge development
 * 2. Addressing the continuous nature of information seeking
 * Marchionini (1999)
 * 1. Specifying processes of what people see and capture in their minds
 * Choo, et al (2000)
 * 1. Focusing on how people deal with, manage and evaluate resources

 * iv. Common points
 * Models illustrate linear sequences of information seeking, although there are loops and repetitive actions.
 * It is assumed that people develop their search from broader topics to narrower topics.
 * Information needs evolve during the search.
 * People continually evaluate information based on the judgments they make during their search.
 * People's knowledge structures evolve during the search.
 * Although it is hard to identify the definitive end of a search which indicates that the search is completed, people have strategies when closing their current search session.

 * b. Search Strategy Development in Online Environments
 * i. Chowdhury & Chowdhury's the Four-Phase Framework for Information Search in digital libraries (2003)
 * 1. Phase 1: Formulation:
 * Triggered by an information need
 * Early decision-making stages regarding what to search for and the search variants
 * 2. Phase 2: Action
 * Executing information searching with queries
 * Associated with search queries and strategies development
 * 3. Phase 3: Review of Results
 * Utilizing various tools to display the search results (e.g. sorting, highlighting)
 * 4. Phase 4: Refinement
 * Modifying and reformulating search queries, conducting new searches
 * ii. Marchinionini's Analytical Search Strategies (1999)
 * 1. Building blocks
 * Starting searching with basic concepts and then expanding the scope of the search results by combining additional concepts from the search results obtained during the searches
 * 2. Successive fractions
 * Using a large subset of the entire database and breaking it down into pieces of concepts relevant to a problem while conducting the searches
 * 3. Pearl growing
 * Selecting a base document (a pearl) and using its characteristics such as index terms, title, text, citations, to extract and formulate search terms in order to locate documents relevant to the original information needs
 * 4. Interactive scanning
 * Beginning the search with a large set of documents generally relevant to the problem and scanning them to extract their key common features and using them to formulate queries

3. Case Studies of the Search Strategy Development in Digital Libraries

 * a. Case Study 1: Information seeking behaviors in databases in digital libraries
 * Park, S. (2000) Usability, User Preferences, Effectiveness, and User Behaviors When Searching Individual and Integrated Full-Text Databases: Implications for Digital Libraries. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 51(5), 456-68.
 * i. Research Purpose
 * To compare the user characteristics in information seeking, such as usability, user preference, effectiveness and searching behaviors, towards the use of different types (integrated levels) of interfaces of a digital library with multiple databases, focusing on how people interact with multiple heterogeneous information resources.
 * ii. Research Questions
 * User preferences: Which system did you like better, find more useful, easier to use, and easier to learn to use?
 * Usability & User satisfaction: How easy is it to do the search on the topic? How satisfied are you with your search results? Did you have enough time to do an effective search?
 * Effectiveness: Is there a statistically significant difference in performance (aspectual recall) between systems?
 * Search behaviors: Is there a statistically significant difference in individual's searching behavior (e.g. the usage of frequency of various system features) between systems?
 * iii. Methods
 * Text Retrieval Conference (TREC) resource use for searches
 * (Topics of resources & search tasks: Federal Register, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, & Congressional Record)
 * Experimental system interfaces
 * HERA: An integrated interface with multiple databases
 * HERMIS: Common interface, individual interface access to multiple databases
 * Participants: 28 graduate students
 * Conducting searching experiments
 * (Each participant conduct 3 searches with given tasks on each system)
 * Post system and post search questionnaire completion
 * Interviews
 * iv. Findings
 * Searcher responses to each system regarding advantages and disadvantages to use
 * User preference to interacting with different databases through a common interface than interacting with databases through an integrated interface.
 * User desires to control database selection, system features, relevance feedback

 * b. Case Study 2: Scholars and professionals' information use in digital libraries I
 * Jones, S., Cunningham, S. J., McNab, R, & Boddie, S. (2000). A Transaction Log Analysis of a Digital Library. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 3, 152-169.
 * i. Research Purpose
 * To investigate "the information on user behavior" in the Computer Science Technical Reports collection of the New Zealand Digital library, from analyzing the user log data "both automatically (through calculation of summary statistics) and manually (by examining query strings for semantic clues on search motivations and search strategies)"
 * ii. Methods
 * 1. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of transaction logs
 * 2. Target digital library: The New Zealand Digital Library (NZDL)
 * 3. Target collection: The Computer Science Technical Reports collection (CSTR)
 * 46,000 publicly available computing-related technical reports from 300 research institutes around the world.
 * 3. Data Collection
 * User log data with 30,000 queries in NZDL, automatically collected during 61 weeks from April 1996-July 1997.
 * iii. Findings
 * 1. Quantitative statistics about query use.
 * Usage in default query settings
 * Query complexity
 * Query terms
 * Term specificity
 * "Failed" and "erroneous" queries
 * User sessions
 * Query refinement
 * Result viewing
 * 2. Qualitative analysis about the search strategies
 * Spelling issues
 * Sub-collection choice
 * Additional search strategies
 * "Graffiti" queries
 * Boolean queries

Reading List for Students
1. Session 1: Required
 * i. Allen, B. L. (1996). Chapter 7, Information Tasks: Interacting with Information Systems, In Information Tasks: Toward a User-Centered Approach to Information Systems (pp.188-200). San Diego: Academic Press
 * ii. Choo, W. C., Deltor, B., & Turnbull, D. (2000). Information Seeking on the Web: An Integrated Model of Browsing and Searching. First Monday, 5 (2).
 * iii. Chowdhury, G. G. & Chowdhury, S. (2003). Chapter 8, Information Access and User Interfaces and Chapter 9, Information Retrieval in Digital Libraries. In Introduction to Digital Libraries (pp.152-213), London: Facet Publishing.
 * iv. Marchionini, G. (1999). Chapter 6, Browsing Strategies. In Information Seeking in Electronic Environments (pp.100-138). NY: Cambridge University Press.

2. Recommended
 * i. Borgman, C. L. (2000). Chapter 5, Why are Digital Libraries Hard to Use. In From Gutenberg to the global information infrastructure (pp. 117-141). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Buttenfield
 * ii. Case, D. O. (2002). Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior. New York: Academic Press.
 * iii. Chang, S-J & Rice, R. E. (1993). Browsing: A Multidimensional Framework. In M.E. Williams (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (pp. 231-271), 28. Medford, NJ: Learned Information.

3. Session 2: Required (Case Studies)
 * i. Park, S. (2000) Usability, User Preferences, Effectiveness, and User Behaviors When Searching Individual and Integrated Full-Text Databases: Implications for Digital Libraries. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 51(5), 456-68.
 * ii. Jones, S., Cunningham, S. J., McNab, R, & Boddie, S. (2000). A Transaction Log Analysis of a Digital Library. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 3, 152-169.

Readings for Instructors
1. General Theories and Models of Information Seeking Behaviors in Online Environments
 * i. Allen, B. L. (1996). Chapter 7, Information Tasks: Interacting with Information Systems. In Information Tasks: Toward a User-Centered Approach to Information Systems (pp.188-200). San Diego: Academic Press
 * ii. Case, D. O. (2006). Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs, and Behavior. New York: Academic Press.
 * iii. Case, D. O. (2007). Information Behavior. In B. Cronin (Ed), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (pp. 293-327).
 * iv. Chang, S-J & Rice, R. E. (1993). Browsing: A Multidimensional Framework. In M.E. Williams (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (pp. 231-271), 28. Medford, NJ: Learned Information.
 * v. Choo, W. C., Deltor, B., & Turnbull, D. (2000). Information Seeking on the Web: An Integrated Model of Browsing and Searching. First Monday, 5 (2).
 * vi. Marchionini, G. (1995) Chapter 1, Information and Information Seeking. In Information Seeking in Electronic Environment (pp. 1-9). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
 * vii. Marchionini, G. (1999). Chapter 6, Browsing Strategies. In Information Seeking in Electronic Environments (pp.100-138). NY: Cambridge University Press.
 * viii. Wilson, T. D. (2000). Human Information Behavior. Informing Science, 3(2), 49-56. Retrieved September 6, 2007 from: http://inform.nu/Articles/Vol3/v3n2p49-56.pdf

2. Research Methods for Information Seeking Behavior Studies
 * i. Wang, P. (1999). Methodologies and Methods for User Behavioral Research. In M.E. Williams (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (pp. 53-99), 34, Medford, NJ: Information Today
 * ii. Berg, B. L. (2004). Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. (5th ed). Boston: Pearson.
 * iii. Burgess, R. G. (Ed.) (1986). Chapter 11, Elements of Sampling in Field Research. In Field Research: A Sourcebook and Field Manual (pp. 75-78). UK: Routledge.
 * iv. Crutcher, R. (1994). Telling what we know: The use of verbal report methodologies in psychological research. Psychological Science. 5(5), 241-244.
 * v. Honigmann, J. J. (1986). Chapter 12, Sampling in Ethnographic Fieldwork. In Burgess, R. G. (Ed.), Field Research: A Sourcebook and Field Manual (pp. 79-90). UK: Routledge.
 * vi. Jansen, B. J. (2006) Search log analysis: What is it; what's been done; how to do it, Library and Information Science Research, 28(3), 407-432.
 * vii. Jones, S., Cunningham, S. J., McNab, R., & Boddie, S. (2000). A Transaction Log Analysis of a Digital Library. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 3, 152-169.
 * viii. Wang, P. (1999). Methodologies and methods for user behavior research. In Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (pp. 53-99).
 * ix. Van Someren, M. W., Barnard, Y., and Sandberg, J. (1994). The think aloud method - a practical approach to modeling cognitive processes, London: Academic Press.

3. Search Strategy Development in Online Environments
 * i. Aula, A., N. Jhaveri, and M. Käki. (2005) Information Search and Reaccess Strategies of Experienced Web Users. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the World Wide Web (pp. 583-592), ACM Press.
 * ii. Debowski, S. (2002) Wrong Way: Go Back! An Exploration of Novice Search Behaviours While Conducting an Information Search. The Electronic Library, 19(6), 371-82.
 * iii. Holscher, C. & Strube, G. (2000). Web Search behavior of Internet Experts and Newbies. Computer Networks, 33(1-6), 337-346
 * iv. Kuhlthau, C. C. (1993). Chapter 3, The Information Search Process and Chapter 4, Verification of the Model of the Information Search Process. In Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services (pp.33-63). Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Company.
 * v. Hsieh-Yee, I. (1993). Effects of Search Experience and Subject Knowledge on the Search Tactics of Novice and Experienced Searchers. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 44(3), 161-174.
 * vi. Marchionini, G., Dwiggins, S., Katz, A, and Lin, X. (1993). Information Seeking in Full-Text End-User-Oriented Search Systems: The Roles of Domain and Search Expertise. Library & Information Science Research, 15(1), 35-69.

4. Developing Searching and Browsing Strategies in the Context of Digital Libraries
 * i. Bates, M. J. (2002). The Cascade of Interactions in the Digital Library Interface. Information Processing & Management 38(3), 381-400.
 * ii. Bates, M. J. (1998). Indexing and Access for Digital Libraries and the Internet: Human, Database, and Domain Factors. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 49(13), 1185-205.
 * iii. Bishop, A. P. & Star, S. L. (1996). Social informatics of digital library use and intrastrucutre. In M. Williams (Eds.), Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 31 (pp.301-401). Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc.
 * iv. Bishop, A. P, Neumann, L. J., Star, S. L., Merkel, C., Ignacio, E. & Sandusky, R. J. (2000). Digital Libraries: Situating Use in Changing Information Infrastructure. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 51(4), 394-413
 * v. Borgman, C. L. (2000). Chapter 5, Why are Digital Libraries Hard to Use In From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure (pp. 117-141). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Buttenfield.
 * vi. Chowdhury, G. G. & Chowdhury, S. (2003). Chapter 8, Information Access and User Interfaces and Chapter 9, Information Retrieval in Digital Libraries. In Introduction to Digital Libraries (pp.152-213), London: Facet Publishing.
 * vii. Das Neves, F.A. & Fox, E. (2000). A Study of User Behavior in an Immersive Virtual Environment for Digital Libraries. In Proceedings of the Fifth ACM Conference on Digital Libraries, 103-111.
 * viii. Park, S. (2000) Usability, User Preferences, Effectiveness, and User Behaviors When Searching Individual and Integrated Full-Text Databases: Implications for Digital Libraries. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 51(5), 456-68.
 * ix. Paepcke, A. et al. (2000). Search Middleware and the Simple Digital Library Interoperability Protocol. D-Lib Magazine, 6 (10).
 * x. Schatz, B. R. (1997). Information Retrieval in Digital Libraries: Bringing Search to the Net, Science, 275(5298), 327-334.
 * xi. Smith, A. G. (2000) Search Features of Digital Libraries. Information Research, 5(3).
 * xii. Spink, A., Wilson, T., Ellis, D., and Ford, N. (1998). Modeling Users' Successive Searches in Digital Environments: A National Science Foundation/British Library Funded Study. D-Lib Magazine, April.
 * xiii. Borgman, C. L., et. al. (2005). Comparing Faculty Information Seeking in Teaching and Research: Implications for the Design of Digital Libraries. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 56(6), 636-657.
 * xiv. Payette, S. & Rieger, O. (1998). Supporting Scholarly Inquiry: Incorporating Users in the Design of the Digital Library. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 4(2), 121-129.
 * xv. Nicholas D, Huntington P, and Watkinson A. (2005). Scholarly Journal Usage: The Results of a Deep Log Analysis. Journal of Documentation. 61(2), 248 -280

Concept map

 * None

Exercises / Learning activities

 * A total of three exercises are introduced here. Instructors can choose either one or two of them and use them for the class according to the time allocated for the exercises.
 * a. In-class Exercise I: A Small Group Activity of the Transaction Log Analysis (See, Appendix A: Transaction Log Data Analysis Practice, as an exercise example)
 * i. The purpose of this exercise is to provide opportunities in which students look at a set of transaction log data from an information searching system and practice how to interpret and analyze the raw data and make them meaningful in understanding the user behaviors in searching.
 * ii. The students will be assigned to groups of 3 or 4. The instructor will assign a sample transaction log data set to each group. The sample data is collected at the Davis Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on December 14th, 2002. 65 subjects participated in the study and log data from one subject is included here (Subject ID: x68). (Wildemuth, B. M, & Oh, S. (2006) Congruence between Information Known and Information Used in Conducting Known-Item Searches, Presentation at the Annual Research Forum of Librarian's Association of UNC-CH (LAUNC-CH), May 23.)
 * iv. All groups will have the same data set for the class discussion later. The instructor provides the background information about the original information system, at least about the types of information systems, how and when the transaction log was captured, and if necessary, how the interfaces of the information system look. No user information needs to be released by the instructor, since the students would go through an inference process of analyzing the user characteristics from the exercise.
 * v. Each group will have 20 minutes to discuss the data. While reviewing the logs, the students will be asked to list the entries that they could identify, to extract any information they analyzed, and any descriptions about user behaviors in using the information system in as much detail as they can.
 * vi. When the group discussion ends, the class will have a 10 to 20 minute session for a class discussion with the findings from the groups (See the Appendix A for the exercise example), and about the benefits and limitations in using the method.
 * vi. Here are examples of items that the student can capture from the transaction log data (Jones, 2000):
 * User demographic information, if users are asked to provide their demographic information before starting searches
 * Use of operators
 * Search options of the queries
 * Patterns in query construction and refinement
 * Common mistakes in searching, like using incorrect spellings of the queries
 * Distribution of query terms (e.g., popular terms, newly appearing terms, terms no longer in use, etc.)
 * Frequency of query terms (e.g., ranking of the terms, the terms that the recent frequencies increase or decrease, etc.)

 * b. Homework Assignment: User Data Collection Practice
 * i. This exercise gives the students the opportunity of being able to meet users and investigate their information seeking behaviors while using a digital library.
 * ii. This is a group exercise. The students will be grouped into 3 or 4. First, each group will pick a real or hypothetical digital library in any context. Since they need to find practice users (at least 1 per each group members) who may be interested in using the digital library, it would be easier if they chose an existing digital library and have interviews with people who have experiences using it. On the other hand, they could imagine that they plan to build a digital library for a specific target group (e.g., children, students, health professionals, film makers, movie goers, etc) and interview the target group's information seeking behavior patterns.
 * iii. Interviews will be conducted with at least 1 people per each group members on how they search or would search in the selected digital libraries. The interview questionnaires will be designed by the students, but they will include lists of questions that collect data about the measurement criteria that was discussed in class.
 * iv. After the interviews, the students will analyze the interview results and evaluate whether the results would explain how people search for information.
 * v. The students will bring the interview results to the group in the next class session, discuss the issues that they found among group, share the results in the class discussion, and discuss about the benefits and limitations in using the method.

 * c. Homework Assignment II: Think-Aloud Protocol Practice
 * i. Students would have a chance to practice the method of think aloud protocols in investigating the use of a digital library.
 * ii. Two students will be grouped as exercise partners for each other: one as a user and one as a protocol facilitator. The instructor selects three or four types of digital libraries and prepares two information searching tasks for each digital library. For the assignment, the instructor lets each group choose one digital library and provides the prepared questions related to the chosen digital library to each group.
 * iii. Each group will find a quiet place with a computer, where they can launch the protocol exercise, and prepare a voice recorder (The recorder can be borrowed from the university media center or libraries) The protocol facilitator will ask the user to conduct the search tasks and think aloud describing what they are doing and thinking while they perform the tasks. During the searches, if the user stops talking, the facilitator will prompt the subject to continue. The conversation between the facilitator and the user during the protocol exercise needs to be recorded (The protocol needs to be conducted for less than 15 minutes)
 * iv. After the exercise, both students transcribe the records together, and analyze what they found about the digital library. They need to write a report including their experience with the method, benefits and drawbacks, difficulties, and limitations of the method as well as findings about digital library use.

Evaluation of learning outcomes

 * a. Do students know well the fundamental concepts, definitions and theoretical models of online information seeking behaviors?
 * b. Did students build their own knowledge of the search strategies and the challenges of information seeking in digital libraries?
 * c. Did students successfully conduct the user interviews through the homework exercise and collect appropriate user data?
 * d. Do students describe well how the theoretical models of information seeking behaviors are applicable in digital library settings based on the analysis of the user data they collected?

Glossary

 * No glossary terms needed.

Additional useful links

 * None

Contributors

 * a. Developers:
 * i. Sanghee Oh
 * b. Evaluators:
 * i. Jeff Pomerantz (UNC)
 * ii. Barbara Wildemuth (UNC)
 * iii. Ashwini Athavale (Indiana University)
 * iv. Stephanie Hass (UNC-CH)
 * v. Maureen Henninger (UTS, Australia)
 * vi. Lindley Shedd (Indiana University)


text:
User:Emg6321.f09.blanco

Homework two: Problem 3
Problem statement : Show that Eq. 3 is exact in page 9-2

Equation 3 given in class page 9-2

$$ 1/2*x^2*y'+(x^4*y+10)=0$$

Problem Solution:

Starting with the formula given in class named Eq. 2 page 9-1 which is used to test for the exactness of None linear first order ODEs with varying coefficients we can get:

$$b(x)y' +(a(x)y+k)=0$$

$$ y' +a(x)y/b(x)+k/b(x)=0$$

Likewise we can use the same analogy with equation 3:

$$y'+(2(x^4*y+10))/x^2=0$$

Now we can let:

$$N(x,y)=1$$

$$M(x,y)=(2(x^4*y+10))/x^2$$

Then we can use:

$$1/N(x,y)*(N_x(x,y)-M_y(x,y))=-f(x)$$

Since N(x,y)=1 then $$N_x=0$$ and $$f(x)=M_y(x,y)$$. This means that, h(x)=exp(ʃf(x)dx) h(x)=exp(ʃ$$M_y$$dx)

$$h(x)=exp(2/3*x^3)$$

Now we can multiply Eq. 3 by h(x),

$$ exp(2/3*x^3)y'+2x^2* exp(2/3*x^3)* y+ 20*exp(2/3*x^3)/x^2=0$$

Now:

$$\bar{N}(x,y)=h(x)*N(x,y)= exp(2/3*x^3)$$

$$\bar{M}(x,y)=h(x)*M(x,y)= 2x^2* exp(2/3*x^3)* y+ 20*exp(2/3*x^3)/x^2$$

In order for an ODE to be exact $$\bar{N_x}=\bar{M_y}$$

'''$$2x^2* exp(2/3*x^3)= 2x^2* exp(2/3*x^3)+0$$ TRUE! '''

Homework two: Problem 7
Problem statement : Derive Eq.(5) p.10-2 by differentiating Eq.(3) p.10-1 with respect to p=y'

Equation (5) given in class page 10-2

$$f_{xp}+pf_{yp}+2f_{y}=g_{pp}$$

Equation (3) given in class page 10-2

$$g(x,y,p)=\phi_{x}+\phi_{y}p$$

Problem Solution:

$$g=\phi_{x}+\phi_{y}p$$

$$g_{pp}=\phi_{xpp}+(\phi_{yp}p)_{p}+\phi_{yp}$$

$$g_{pp}=\phi_{xpp}+\phi_{ypp}p+2\phi_{yp}$$

Note: We know that:

$$f(x,y,p)=\phi_{p}(x,y,p)$$

$$\phi_{pp}=f_{p}$$

$$\phi_{ppy}=f_{py}$$

$$\phi_{ppx}=f_{px}$$

Since $$\phi_{xy}=\phi_{yx}$$

$$\phi_{xpp}=f_{xp}$$

The final solution gives us:

$$g_{pp}=f_{xp}+f_{py}p+2f_{y}$$

Homework two: Problem in 8
Problem statement : Use $$\phi_{xy}=\phi_{yx}$$ to obtained Eq.(4) p.10-2. [Use Eq.(3) & Eq.(4) from p.11-4 & p.12-1] Equation (3) given in class page 11-4

$$\phi_{x}=g-p(g_{p}-f_{x})+p^{2}f_{y} $$

Equation (4) given in class page 12-1

$$ \phi_{y}=g_{p}-f_{yp}-f_{y} $$

Equation (4) given in class page 10-2

$$ f_{xx}+2pf_{xy}+p^{2}f_{yy}=g_{xp}+pg_{yp}-g_{y} $$

Problem Solution:

$$\phi_{y}=g_{p}-f_{y}p-f_{x}$$

$$\phi_{x}=g-p(g_{p}-f_{x})+p^{2}f_{y}$$

$$\phi_{yx}=g_{px}-f_{yx}p-f_{xx}$$

$$\phi_{xy}=g_{y}-p(g_{py}-f_{xy})+p^{2}f_{yy}$$

$$\phi_{yx}=\phi_{xy}$$

$$g_{xp}+pg_{yp}-g_{y}=f_{xx}+2pf_{xy}+p^{2}f_{yy}$$

Homework Three: Problem 11
Problem Statement and Given:

From (| p.17-4) obtain equation 2 from p.17-3

$$Z(x)=\frac{c}{u_{1}^2}\exp\left(-\int^x a_1(s)ds\right)$$

using the integrator factor method.

Problem solution :

Starting from equation 1 from p.17-3.

$$u_{1}(x) Z'+\left[a_{1}u_{1}(x)+2u_{1}' (x) \right]Z=0 $$

$$\mu(x)\left[Z'+\left[a_{1}+\frac{2u_{1}' (x)}{u_{1}(x)} \right]Z=0 \right]$$

$$\mu(x)Z'+\mu(x)\left[a_{1}+\frac{2u_{1}' (x)}{u_{1}(x)} \right]Z=0 $$

$$\frac{d}{dx}\left[\mu(x)Z(x) \right]=\mu(x)Z'(x)+\mu'(x)Z$$

Let $$\mu'(x)= \mu(x)\left[a_{1}+\frac{2u_{1}' (x)}{u_{1}(x)} \right]$$

$$\frac{\mu'(x)}{\mu(x)}= \left[a_{1}+\frac{2u_{1}' (x)}{u_{1}(x)} \right]$$

Integrating this will give:

$$\mu(x)=B exp \left[\int_{}^{x}a_{1}(s)ds+ln\left|u_{1} \right|^{2} \right]$$

$$\mu(x)Z'+\mu'(x)Z=0$$

$$\int_{}^{}\mu(x)*Z(x)=\int_{}^{}0$$

$$\mu(x)Z(x)=K$$

$$ B exp \left[\int_{}^{x}a_{1}(s)ds+ln\left|u_{1} \right|^{2} \right]Z(x)=K $$

$$Z(x)= C exp \left[-\int_{}^{x}a_{1}(s)ds-ln\left|u_{1} \right|^{2} \right]$$

$$Z(x)= \frac{C}{u_{1}^{2}} exp \left[-\int_{}^{x}a_{1}(s)ds \right]$$

Homework Three: Problem 12
Problem Statement and Given:

From (| p.18-1), develop reduction of order method using the following algebraic options

$$y(x)=U(x)\pm u_1 (x)$$

$$y(x)=\frac{U(x)}{u_1 (x)}$$

$$y(x)=\frac{u_1 (x)}{U(x)}$$

Problem solution :

Part a :

$$y(x)=U(x)\pm u_1 (x)$$

$$y' (x)=U' (x)\pm u_1 ' (x)$$

$$y (x)=U (x)\pm u_1 '' (x)$$

$$ (U (x)\pm u_1  (x))+a_1(U' (x)\pm u_1 ' (x))+a_0(U(x)\pm u_1 (x))=0$$

$$ (U (x)+a_1 U'(x) + a_0 U(x))\pm ((u_1(x)+a_1 u_1'(x)+a_0 u_1(x))=0$$

The reduction of order method can not be implemented since U is not missing.

Part b :

$$y(x)=\frac{U(x)}{u_1 (x)}$$

$$y' (x)= -\frac{U(x)}{u_{1}^{2}(x)}u_{1}'(x)+\frac{U'(x)}{u_{1}(x)}$$

$$y (x)= U(x)\left[-\frac{u_{1}(x)}{u_{1}(x)^{2}}+2\frac{u_{1}'(x)^{2}}{u_{1}(x)^{3}} \right]-2\frac{U'(x)u_{1}'(x)}{u_{1}(x)^{2}}+\frac{U''(x)}{u_{1}(x)}$$

$$\left[U(x)\left[-\frac{u_{1}(x)}{u_{1}(x)^{2}}+2\frac{u_{1}'(x)^{2}}{u_{1}(x)^{3}} \right]-2\frac{U'(x)u_{1}'(x)}{u_{1}(x)^{2}}+\frac{U(x)}{u_{1}(x)} \right]+a_{1}\left[-\frac{U(x)}{u_{1}^{2}(x)}u_{1}'(x)+\frac{U'(x)}{u_{1}(x)}\right]+a_{0}\left[\frac{U(x)}{u_{1}(x)} \right]=0$$

The reduction of order method can not be implemented since U is not missing.

Part c :

$$y(x)= \frac{ u_1 (x)}{ U (x) } $$

$$y' (x)= -\frac{u_1(x)}{U(x)^{2}}U'(x)+\frac{u_1'(x)}{U(x)}$$

$$y (x)= u_1(x)\left[-\frac{U(x)}{U(x)^{2}}+2\frac{U'(x)^{2}}{U(x)^{3}} \right]-2\frac{u_1'(x)U'(x)}{U(x)^{2}}+\frac{u_1''(x)}{U(x)}$$

$$\left[u_1(x)\left[-\frac{U(x)}{U(x)^{2}}+2\frac{U'(x)^{2}}{U(x)^{3}} \right]-2\frac{u_1'(x)U'(x)}{U(x)^{2}}+\frac{u_1(x)}{U(x)} \right]+a_{1}\left[-\frac{u_1(x)}{U(x)^{2}}U'(x)+\frac{u_1'(x)}{U(x)}\right]+a_{0}\left[\frac{ u_1 (x)}{ U (x) } \right]=0$$

The reduction of order method can not be implemented since U is not missing.

Homework Three: Problem 13
Problem Statement and Given:

From (| p.18-1), Find $$u_{1}(x)$$ and $$ u_{2}(x)$$ of equation 1 on p.18-1 using 2 trial solutions:

$$ y=ax^b$$

$$ y=e^{rx}$$

Compare the two solutions using boundary conditions $$y(0)=1$$ and $$ y(1)=2$$ and compare to the solution by reduction of order method 2. Plot the solutions in Matlab.

Problem solution :

Part 1 :

Starting with the equation:

$$(1-x^{2})y''-2xy'+2y=0 $$

Using the trial solution given:

$$ y=ax^{b}$$

$$ y'=abx^{b-1}$$

$$ y''=a(b-1)x^{b-2}$$

The equation becomes:

$$ (1-x^{2})b(b-1)ax^{b-2}-2xbax^{b-1}+2ax^{b}=0$$

Now divide by: $$ ax^{b}$$

$$ (b^{2}-b)(x^{-2}-1)-2(b-1)=0$$

It is obvious that at x=0 the equation would be undefined unless b^2-b=0 which would make b=1 and at x=1 it is obvious too that b=1.

$$ y(x)=ax$$

The Boundary Conditions for this problem are y(0)=1 and y(1)=2 which only prove that $$ y=ax^{b}$$ cannot be a solution to this problem.

Part 2 :

Starting with the equation:

$$(1-x^{2})y''-2xy'+2y=0 $$

Using the trial solution given:

$$ y= exp(rx)$$

$$ y'=r exp(rx)$$

$$ y''=r^{2}exp(rx) $$

The equation becomes:

$$ (1-x^{2}) r^{2}exp(rx)-2x r exp(rx)+2 exp(rx)=0$$

Now divide by: $$ exp(rx)$$

$$ (1-x^{2}) r^{2} -2(x r -2) =0$$

It is obvious that at x=0 the value of $$r=\pm \sqrt[]{-2} $$ and at x=1 the value of r= 1.

The Boundary Conditions for this problem are y(0)=1 and y(1)=2 which only prove that $$ y= exp(rx)$$ cannot be a solution to this problem since the values for r are different for every x value.

HW4: Problem 2
Problem Statement and Given:

Solve problem 1.1b page 28 from King book

Show that the function $$ u_{1}$$ is a solution of the differential equation given below. Use the reduction of order method to find the second independent solution, $$ u_{2}$$.

$$ xy''+2y'+xy=0$$

$$ u_{1}=x^{-1}sin(x)$$

Solution:

Find the first and second derivative of $$ u_{1}$$ and plug them into the equation to check if the equation is equal to zero.

$$ u_{1}'=x^{-1}cos(x)-x^{-2}sin(x)$$

$$ u_{1}''=-x^{-1}sin(x)-x^{-2}cos(x)-x^{-2}cos(x)+2x^{-3}sin(x)$$

$$ xu_{1}''+2u_{1}'+xu_{1}=0$$

$$ 2x^{-2}sin(x)-sin(x)-2x^{-1}cos(x)+2x^{-1}-2x^{-2}sin(x)+sin(x)=0$$

$$0=0$$

The function $$ u_{1}$$ is a solution of the differential equation given.

Now, we use the reduction of order method to find the second independent solution, $$ u_{2}$$.

Put the equation in the form:

$$ y''+a_{1}(x)y'+a_{0}y=0$$

$$ y''+\frac{2}{x}y'+y=0$$

From the notes in class, slides 17-1 to 17-4, we get the formula:

$$ u_{2}=u_{1}\int_{}^{x} \frac{1}{(u_{1}(t))^{2}}exp(-a_{1}(t))dt$$ Where: $$ -a_{1}(t)=-\int_{}^{t} a(s)ds $$

$$ -a_{1}(t)=-\int_{}^{t} \frac{2}{s}ds = -2 ln (t)=ln(t)^{-2}$$

$$ u_{2}=x^{-1}sin(x)\int_{}^{x} \frac{1}{(t^{-1}sin(t))^{2}}exp(ln t^{-2})dt$$

$$ u_{2}=x^{-1}sin(x)\int_{}^{x} \frac{1}{t^{-2}sin^{2}(t)}t^{-2}dt$$

$$ u_{2}=x^{-1}sin(x)\int_{}^{x} \frac{1}{ sin^{2}(t)} dt$$

$$ u_{2}=x^{-1}sin(x)(-cot(x)) $$

$$ u_{2}=-x^{-1}cos(x) $$

HW4: Problem 4
Problem Statement:

Describe in words, step by step, the method of attack given only the homogeneous or non-homogeneous L2. ODE. VC.

Solution:

Answer: Try reduction of method order 0, then order 1, and later integral factor method. If they do not work, use trial solution method. If both of the roots cannot be determine we can use the undetermined factor method to find u2 knowing u1. For the non-homogenous case solve the homogeneous solution and then solve the particular solution using variations of parameters.

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Homework Six: Problem 12
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license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Emg6321.f09.blanco


text:
Digital Libraries/Interaction design, usability assessment

 * Older versions of the draft developed by UNC/VT Project Team (2009-10-07 PDF WORD)

Module name
Interaction Design & Usability Assessment

Scope
This module covers the basic concepts and processes related to interaction design for digital libraries. Methods of user analysis, tasks analysis, prototype development, and usability testing will be discussed.

Learning objectives:
By the end of this module, the student will be able to:
 * a. Explain the basic concepts and processes related to designing interfaces for digital libraries.
 * b. Develop user persona and benchmark tasks for usability testing of DL interfaces.
 * c. Conduct a heuristic evaluation of usability of a digital library

5S characteristics of the module:

 * a. Society: DL interfaces are designed based on the needs of the user community of digital libraries.
 * b. Scenarios: Scenarios related to user activities in digital libraries can be reformatted as user tasks and used for testing the usability of the digital libraries.
 * c. Spaces: DL systems and their users interact with one another through the user interface, which is a space between the system and users.
 * d. Structures: usability evaluation methods have structures. For example, the cognitive walk-through is structured in a way that the analysts ask questions step-by-step to examine the DL system. Good structure in designing the user interface might ensure the increased usability of the system.
 * e. Stream: N/A

Level of effort required:

 * a. Class time: 3 hours
 * b. Course preparation for students: 2 hours / session
 * i. Mostly associated with readings (See the reading list for students in 11. Resources, below)
 * c. Course assignment completion: 3 hours

Relationships with other modules:

 * a. 5-b: Application software
 * 5-b covers various features and technologies of DL application software, and these application software packages provide various templates of the interfaces easily applicable to build digital libraries as well as the architectural infrastructure to manage the sources.
 * b. 6-a: Info needs, relevance, 6-b: Online info seeking behavior and search strategy
 * In order to design effective information systems for digital libraries, it is important to learn how users understand systems and perform tasks before developing the user interfaces. Thus, the user characteristics and cognition involved with using digital libraries will be covered by 6-a, and 6-b. It is recommended to teach 6-a and 6-b prior to the current module, 6-d: Interaction Design module.
 * c. 6-e: Information Visualization
 * 6-e discusses advanced features and technologies of interface design mostly relevant to emphasizing on the visual impact and use of DL sources, while the current module, 6-d, covers the basic process and skills relevant to design and evaluate interfaces.
 * d. 9-c: DL evaluation, user studies
 * 9-c covers methods for evaluating the overall aspect of a digital library, such as its outcomes, impacts and benefits. The current module 6-d could be the subset of the user studies discussed in 9-c, focusing on the user information interaction.

Prerequisite knowledge required:

 * a. No prerequisite courses are required.
 * b. No technical programming or any other skills are necessary.

Introductory remedial instruction:

 * a. None

Session 1: Interaction Design & Usability Test

 * 1. Interaction Design in Digital Libraries
 * a. Visualizing what appears on the screen of a digital library
 * b. Identifying how users manipulate, search, browse and use objects in a digital library
 * c. Enhancing the effective interaction among components of digital libraries
 * d. Interacting design elements of digital libraries
 * Figure 1: The Cascade of Interactions in the Digital Library Interface (Bates, 2002)

 * 2.	The Process of Interaction Design
 * Lifecycle of Interface Design
 * Key Principles for User-Centered System Design (Available at: http://www.it.uu.se/research/hci/acsd/KeyPrinciplesPoster-v.1.2en.pdf)
 * a. Analyze requirements and user needs
 * b. Design for usability by prototyping
 * c. Evaluate use in context
 * d. Feedback plan the next iteration

 * 3.	Identifying users' needs and establishing corresponding requirements
 * a. User Analysis
 * i. Scope/definition of user group
 * ii. User characteristics
 * Demographic information
 * e.g., age, sex, perceptual abilities and handicaps, motor skills and physical disabilities, etc.
 * Knowledge and experience
 * e.g., level of education, reading level, native language, knowledge of particular (domain-specific) terminology, etc.
 * Computer/IT experience or knowledge
 * e.g., computer literacy (naive, novice, skilled, expert), level of experience with similar systems, level of experience with other systems
 * Level of experience with the task
 * Psychological characteristics
 * e.g., attitudes, motivation to use the system

 * b. Developing user personas
 * i. Understanding information needs and information seeking behaviors of users
 * (See, module 6-a and 6-b for detailed information)
 * ii. Building personas
 * Interviews with real users
 * Pointers for Developing Useful Persona (p.17) (Head, 2003)
 * Categorizing user types
 * e.g., Primary, Secondary, and Others
 * Annotating user characteristics according to the categories

 * c. Specifying User Tasks
 * i. Understanding typical DL tasks
 * The frequency or timing of the task
 * The complexity and difficulty of the task
 * The relationship of the task to other user tasks
 * The physical environment of task performance
 * The social, organizational and cultural environment of the task
 * ii. Challenges in developing effective tasks for usability test of digital libraries (Notess, Kouper, and Swan, 2005)
 * It is necessary to develop and refine tasks iteratively through testing different versions.
 * Real user needs are complex, so it is hard to create representative tasks focusing on testing a particular feature.
 * Unrealistic user tasks can make users hesitant and reluctant to carry them out.

 * 4. Designing an interface
 * a. Applying the empirical evidence obtained from user analysis to the design

 * b. Making design decisions in every step of the process (Hutchins, Hollan, & Norman, 1986)
 * i. Planning phase
 * Designing interfaces in order to achieve user goals
 * ii. Translation phase
 * Transforming user behavioral intentions to specific actions
 * iii. Physical actions
 * Representing the planned sequence of actions to interfaces
 * iv. Assessment
 * Evaluating whether users sense and interpret the interfaces as they are meant to be.
 * Evaluating whether the outcomes achieve the user goal

 * c. Constructing a prototype of the interface
 * i. Prototype: "A limited representation of a design that allows users to interact with it and to explore suitability" ((Rogers, & Preece, 2007, p.241)
 * ii. Making design decisions concrete by building them into the prototype

 * d. Considering universal accessibility
 * i. Physical disability
 * ii. Internalization/Cultural difference
 * iii. Language barriers
 * iv. Computer/Network Illiteracy

 * 5. Evaluating the design
 * a. Usability criteria applied to DL design
 * i. Jakob Nielsen's five usability attributes (Nielsen, 1993)
 * Learnability (easy to use)
 * Efficiency (efficient to use)
 * Memorability (easy to remember)
 * Errors (a low error rate)
 * Satisfaction (pleasant to use)
 * ii. Kling and Elliott's usability for digital libraries (Kling & Elliott, 1994)
 * 1. Interface usability (4 attributes from Nielsen (1993))
 * Learnability
 * Efficiency
 * Memorability
 * Errors
 * 2. Organizational usability
 * Accessibility
 * Compatibility
 * Integrability into work practices
 * Social-organizational expertise
 * iii. User acceptance of digital libraries (Thong, Hong, & Tam, 2002)
 * 1. Interface characteristics
 * Terminology clarity
 * Screen design
 * Navigation
 * 2. Organizational context
 * Relevance of the information systems to users' information needs
 * System accessibility
 * System visibility
 * 3. Individual differences
 * Computer's self-efficacy
 * Computer experience
 * Domain knowledge

 * b. Usability Evaluation by Analysts: Intended for formative evaluation
 * i .Heuristic Evaluation (Blandford, et al., 2004)
 * Quick, cheap, easy, and the most popular evaluation method
 * Working through every page or screen of a system
 * 3-5 analysts are recommended to examine the system (Nielsen, 1994)
 * Revising prototypes based on problems identified and prioritized during the evaluation
 * (For more detailed information about how to conduct a heuristic evaluation, please go to useit.com at http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/.)
 * ii. Cognitive Walk-through (Wharton, et al., 1994)
 * User-centered perspective in design A team of analysts walk through tasks according to the following questions:
 * 1.	Who will be the users?
 * 2.	What tasks are to be analyzed?
 * 3.	What is the correct action sequence for each task?
 * 4.	How is the interface defined?
 * Each analyst evaluates the interface, considering the following questions:
 * 1. Will the user try to achieve the right goal? Does the interface raise the confusion in the goal?
 * 2. Will the user notice that the correct action is available?
 * 3. Will the user associate the action with their goal?
 * 4. If the correct action is performed, with the user see that progress is being made towards the goal?
 * The notes from each analyst are compared and analyzed.
 * Revising prototypes based on problems identified and prioritized during the evaluation
 * iii. Claims Analysis (CA)
 * Claims are "statements about the positive and negative effects of a design on the user within a particular context of use (a 'scenario')" (Blandford, et al., 2004, p. 31)
 * Less structured than Cognitive Walk-through, but more structured than Heuristic Evaluation
 * Creating scenarios first.
 * Analysts walk through the major features of the design while generating positive and negative claims about the design.
 * Analyzing the claims and identifying the methods to improve the claims.

 * c. Usability Evaluation through Usability Testing: intended formative or summative evaluation
 * i. Subset of user studies of DL evaluation
 * (For more detailed information about user studies, go to module 9-c: DL Evaluation, User studies)
 * ii. Usability Testing (Nielson, 1993)
 * Test goals, plans and budget
 * Getting test users (novice vs. experts)
 * Selecting test experimenters (facilitators)
 * Stages of a Test: Preparation, Introduction, Running a Test, Debriefing
 * Think Aloud Protocols (i.e., construct interaction, retrospective testing)
 * Lab Setting
 * Figure 20. Floor plan for a hypothetical, but typical, usability laboratory (Nielson, 1993, p201)
 * Videotaping a user test
 * Screen capturing
 * iii. Use of the results
 * Interpreting and analyzing collected data
 * Making recommendations based on data analysis
 * Prioritizing the problems to change
 * Revising prototypes (interfaces)

Reading for Students

 * i. Bates, M. J. (2002). The Cascade of Interactions in the Digital Library Interface. Information Processing and Management, 38, 381-400.
 * ii. Borgman, C. L. (2003). Designing digital libraries for usability. In Bishop, A.P.; Van House, N.: & Buttenfield, B.P. (Eds.), Digital Library Use: Social Practice in Design and Evaluation (pp. 85-118). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Recommened Readings
1. Interaction Design
 * i. Arms, W. (2000). Chapter 8. User interface and usability. In Digital Libraries (pp.   ). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
 * ii. Carroll, J. M. & Rosson, M. B. Getting around the taskartifact cycle: how to make claims and design by scenario. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 10.2, 1992, 181- 21.
 * iii. Head, A. (2003). Personas: setting the stage for building usable information sites. Online, 27(4), 14-21.
 * iv. Notess, M., Kouper, I., & Swan, M. B. (2005). Designing effective tasks for digital library user tasks: lessons learned. OCLC Systems & Services. 21(4), 300-310.
 * v. Rogers, Y., & Preece, J. (2007). Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
 * vi. Shneiderman, B. & Plaisant, C. (2004). Designing the user interface: strategies for effective human-computer interaction (4th ed.) Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley.
 * vii. Hutchins, E. L., Hollan, J. D., & Norman, D. A. (1986). Direct manipulation interfaces. In Norman, D. A., & Draper, S. W. (eds.), User Centered System Design. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 87-124.

2. Usability Testing
 * i. Blandford, A., Keith, S., Connell, I., & Edwards, H. (2004). Analytical usability evaluation for digital libraries: a case study. Proceedings of the Joint ACM/IEEE Conference on Digital Libraries (pp. 27-36).
 * ii. Buttenfield, B. (1999) Usability evaluation of digital libraries. Science and Technology Libraries, 17(3-4), 39-59.
 * iii. Keith, S., Blandford, A., Fields, R. & Theng, Y. (2002). An investigation into the application of Claims Analysis to evaluate usability of a digital library interface. In A. Blandford & G. Buchanan (Eds.) Proc. Workshop on Usability of Digital Libraries at JCDL.
 * iv. Kling, R., & Elliott, M. (1994). Digital library design for usability. Proceedings of the First Annual Conference on the Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, 146-155
 * v. Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability engineering. Boston, MA: Academic Press.
 * vi. Nielsen, J. (2008a). Accessibility Is Not Enough. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from USEIT Website: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/accessibility.html
 * vii. Nielsen, J. (2008b). How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from USEIT Website: http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_evaluation.html
 * viii. Norlin, E. (2002). Usability Testing for Library Web Sites: A Hands On Guide. ALA: Washington, D.C.
 * ix. Shneiderman, B. (1998). Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human Computer Interaction (3rd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
 * x. Thong, J., Hong, W., & Tam, K. (2002). Understanding user acceptance of digital libraries: What are the roles of interface characteristics, organizational context, and individual differences? International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 57(3), 215-242.
 * xi. Wanrton, C., Rieman, J., Lewis, C., & Polson, P. (1994). The cognitive walkthrough method: a practitioner's guild. In Usability Inspection Methods. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

3. Think-Aloud Protocols
 * i. Boren, M. T., & Ramey, J. (2000). Thinking aloud: Reconciling theory and practice. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 43(3), 261-278.
 * ii. Van Someren, M. W., Barnard, Y., and Sandberg, J. (1994). The think aloud method - a practical approach to modeling cognitive processes, London: Academic Press.

Concept map

 * None

Exercises / Learning activities

 * 1. In-class Exercise I: Developing User Personas
 * a. This is a group activity. Students can be grouped by 3 or 4. Select a digital library that the group wants to use and evaluate for the exercise. Identify who are the primary users of a DL (and secondary users, if appropriate). Develop two personas per type of users (a novice user and an advanced user).
 * b. The Persona can be designed variously depending on what kinds of digital libraries are evaluated and how the tasks of the evaluation are designed. Here is an outline of what each person should include. (The list of items was originally developed from Cooper (1999). It was modified by Head (2003).) If appropriate, students can add or delete items from the following list, when they develop their own personas for this exercise.
 * i. A name
 * ii. Age
 * iii. A Photo
 * iv. Personal information, including family and home life
 * v. Work environment
 * vi. Computer proficiency and comfort level with using the Web
 * vii. Pet peeves and technical frustrations
 * viii. Attitudes
 * ix. Motivation or "trigger" for using a high-tech product
 * x. Information-seeking habits and favorite resources
 * xi. Personal and professional goals
 * xii. Candid quotes

 * c. After the group activity, each group will have presentations of which digital library they are targeting to develop the persona and who are the users in persona. The processes and challenges of developing a persona will be discussed in the class.

 * d. References
 * i. Cooper, A. (1999). The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity, Indianapolis: Sams.
 * ii. Head, A. J. (2003). Personas: setting the stage for building usable information sites. Online, 27(4), 14-21.

 * 2. In-class Exercise II: Developing user tasks
 * a. This is a group activity. Form a group with the same students from the persona exercise. Use the same digital library that the group used for developing the user personas. Since the group did an exercise to create the user personas, it is expected that the group has abstract ideas about what users do in the digital library. In this exercise, the group has a chance to articulate the expected user activities and create user tasks pertinent to the digital library.
 * b. Two tasks should be designed. After creating the tasks, analyze the tasks based on the following guideline. Write the purpose of the study, the instruction of what to do in the context of a digital library, and example tasks.
 * c. To illustrate the finished product, here are the tasks used for a study of the Open Video repository:
 * i. Imagine that you are an emergency response officer in California and that you are developing an online tutorial on how to respond to an earthquake. You would like to illustrate the tutorial with several videos showing the damage that can be caused by an earthquake.
 * ii. Imagine that you are a geography professor and are developing a presentation for your introductory class on the differing roles of rivers. You'd like to show clips from recent videos (since 1990) of several different rivers.
 * iii. Imagine that you are a video enthusiast, having studied video production techniques since you were in your teens. You are interested in creating a montage of a selection of the really early films from the Open Video collection that are most popular with users of the site.
 * iv. Imagine that you are a history professor, teaching a course on the history of technology in the U.S. You want to find some videos that illustrate America's growing obsession with cars/automobiles between 1930 and 1950.

 * d. After creating the tasks, groups will be paired up and each group will perform the tasks from the other group. After this experience with writing tasks and completing assigned tasks, the class should discuss the processes and challenges in developing, performing and analyzing DL search tasks.

 * 3. Homework Assignment: Heuristic Evaluation
 * a. The instructor will introduce a digital library to the class. The selected digital library should be in the process of being built, e.g., it is available only in prototype, or has only recently been released. Students will be formed into groups of 2-3 people and each group will carry out the heuristic evaluation of the digital library.
 * b. Each group should conduct an evaluation of the selected digital library, identifying the ways in which its design violates one or more of the usability heuristics proposed by Jakob Nielsen:
 * i. Visibility of system status
 * ii. Match between system and the real world
 * iii. User control and freedom
 * iv. Consistency and standards
 * v. Error prevention
 * vi. Recognition rather than recall
 * vii. Flexibility and efficiency of use
 * viii. Aesthetic and minimalist design
 * ix. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
 * x. Help and documentation
 * (For more detailed information about how to conduct a heuristic evaluation, please go to useit.com at http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/.)

 * c. Each violation of a heuristic that is identified should be briefly described, along with notes about the ways in which the heuristic is violated.
 * d. After the evaluation, each group will write the evaluation results on blackboard in the classroom to share the results with the rest of the classmates. Compare the results and discuss the similar/different findings among groups. Prioritize the recommendations in order to improve the DL, and make suggestions for how the design's usability could be improved.

Glossary

 * No glossary terms needed.

Additional useful links

 * None

Contributors

 * a. Developers:
 * i. Sanghee Oh


text:
Philosophy of evolution

Evolution of Human Societies
DMR Sekhar

The basic properties of DNA molecules viz self repairing and replication are analogous to the primary instincts self preservation and procreation of living organism also that these properties are possibly expressed as behavioral traits selfishness and altruism. While selfishness is for the survival of the individual, altruism is for the survival of the group and thus selfishness and altruism are two faces of the same coin. No person can neither be cent per cent selfish nor be cent per cent altuistic. Further selfishness is entropic while altruism is genopsychic. Apparently at the level of the society selfishness is competition and altruism is cooperation. The fact that the living organisms show the tendency to live in groups [see for example colonies of bacteria, flocks of birds, herds of cattle and human societies] suggests that the tilt is towards altruism/ cooperation. Altruism understandably is the direction of evolution of human societies. While self programmability is the driving force of the evolution of the species the same operates as “self development” at the level of the human society. The environment itself is evolving allowing the concurrent evolution of the species. Thus a perturbation of the environment due to human activity is a perturbation of the evolution of the species including the human societies. It is important to note that the human traits, selfishness and altruism are independent of the economic, social or the political systems a human society follows. Capitalist, socialist, cooperative/ network economies or their hybrids are the variant economic types the human society has produced and the fittest among them will survive. It is also important to note that each society may follow a different types and paths of economy, not predetermined [may be pertubed by human intervention] but in the direction of altruism.

The abundant “free will” of the human beings empowers them to intervene into natural processes of the evolution of the society either to enhance the process or to reverse the directionality by increasing the selfishness. Increased selfishness perturbs the directionality of evolution. Uncontrolled energy hunger of the humans and unbridled exploitation of non renewable natural resources do perturb not only the natural processes of the evolution of human societies but also the environment and ecology. A democratic society allows engineering the socio political consciousness required to over come the effects of the perturbation of the natural processes by human beings.

94.249.1.132 11:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

May see this link: http://transciencetransaction.wetpaint.com/page/Evolution+of+Human+Societies

DMR Sekhar

Thermodynamic Philosophy of Evolution
Libb Thims

A semblance of a foundation towards the development of a philosophy based on a thermodynamic understanding of evolution is presented. Central to this presentation are firstly the acknowledgement that everything in the biosphere is a dynamic system of atoms, molecules, or structures of molecules attached to a substrate known as the surface of the earth; second that chemical thermodynamics is the branch of science that determines the direction of natural processes according to what are called the two laws of thermodynamics; third that in the case of the synthesis of the person over the last 13.7-billion years of the development of the known universe, the new view has emerged that the human being is 26-element molecule; fourth that, on the three previous points, any modern legitimate philosophy would need to be well-grounded in the molecular perspective or system of molecules point-of-view, a perspective in which behaviors, reactions, and evolutions of molecules or systems of molecules are dictated by the laws of energy and entropy.

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5210

DMR Sekhar 17:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Consciousness – a Buddhist view
Sreenivasa Rao, S

There is a renewed interest now among scientists in the subject of consciousness. Yet a single definition of consciousness could not be arrived at by the scientific community so far. Each scientist has his own definition. The earliest Buddhist texts viewed consciousness as an important factor in determining the course of human happiness, suffering, liberation and bondage. Yet Buddhism did not define consciousness perhaps because it is nebulous and is there fore difficult to pin point. But in principle Buddhism asserts that it is possible to recognize experientially what consciousness is and identify it. Buddhists pointed out that the central reality of all existence is change.

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5410

DMR Sekhar 17:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The Central Enigma of Consciousness
Chris King

The nature and physical basis of consciousness remains the central enigma of the scientific description of reality in the third millennium. This paper seeks to examine the phenomenal nature of subjective consciousness and elucidate a possible biophysical basis for its existence, in terms of a form of quantum anticipation based on entangled states driven by chaotic sensitivity of global brain dynamics during decision-making processes. Evidence is presented for the evolutionary emergence of chaotic excitation as a universal sense organ in the founding eucaryotes, which then became used in a context-sensitive manner by complex central nervous systems, leading to the dynamical brain.

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5235

DMR Sekhar 17:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

PANPSYCHISM and THERMODYNAMICS, EXPLORED
Ted Erikson

Roger Penrose’s “Road to Reality” has a last line, “….perhaps, something that we all have missed?”. This is motivation for revisiting panpsychism, an ancient theory that suggests all things have awareness and/or consciousness. With a recent paper reporting increased attention to this subject, can a physicalist approach be fruitful? . Given that light requires mass to validate its existence and mass requires time to prove likewise, might these requirements suggest a basic “need” for all creatures? With life defined as a simple “awareness”, that is, between self and otherness, observed and observer, etc. it seems to imply the concept(s) of the Heisenberg principle. Extending this idea, “mass” or “energy” at any level may be “aware” of it’s surroundings, so that any action(s) can result in reaction(s) that may be counted and measured using dimensional analysis as a guide or harmonized to the rhythms of life. In short, this article explores concepts between light, mass and gravity….

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5378

DMR Sekhar 17:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Cranio-caudal shift of locomotor mechanisms during evolution
Arunachalam Kumar

Evolution is characterized by two attributes: one is to find sustenance for life and the other, the need to multiply. Any or all changes in shape, size, cerebration and adaptations are engendered by need to meet these primary requirements and the need to acquire higher efficiency in finding mate or manna. Towards achieving these ends, locomotion as an adjunct aid has evolved as a powerful tool. One of more peculiar observations I have made in the process of evolution vis a vis propulsive mechanisms is the progressive and gradual caudal shift of appendages that engineer locomotion. The more primitive the form of life, the more cranial is the appendage that initiates movement. Invertebrates kick-start mobility using their mouth parts as anchoring mechanisms that help drag themselves forwards. Classically, the earthworm and leech are examples where moth plays a very crucial role in movement. Fish use branchial apparatuses like gills or fins – early reptiles use rudimentary pectoral accruements. Observe the metamorphosis of the aquatic tadpole into a quadruped amphibian to confirm this hypothesis. The cranio-caudal displacement of primary mechanisms that help mobility during the various stages of tadpole to frog development will show that when an early tadpole the amphibian uses its mouth to anchor itself to a blade or stalk to anchor itself against a flowing current (a paradoxical propulsion) – it graduates to using pectoral fin like appendages – thence to forelimbs, then it develops hind limbs as additions. The adult frog primarily depends on catapulting itself onwards relying mainly on the strength and power of its hind limbs. Aves depend heavily on the fore limb power to move fly), the hind limbs are merely adjuncts that aid the forelimb (modified into wings) to augment and refine aerial movement. Almost all mammals use all four limbs so frequently and effectively that most are classed as quadrupeds. Among the mammalians, man alone, has developed into dependence on highly evolved hind limbs (legs) for movement. Even in man, the most extreme end of his foot, the great toe is the primary generator of bipedal gait. What is seen from the examples cited is that from the lowest forms of life, as one goes up the evolutionary tree – the apparatuses and appendages that help it move – show a distinct tendency to shift from head to tail end, a cranio-caudal displacement of primary and principal locomotor mechanisms. It is a scientific curio worth dwelling further on. That one can even place a life form into its slot in the evolutionary scale tree merely by noting the position of its propulsive mechanical apparatuses: The more head-ward propulsive appendages are, the more primitive the life form is, and vice versa.

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5395

DMR Sekhar 17:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

What Makes Us Human? A Neuroscience Prolegomenon for the Philosophy of Evolution and Consciousness
EL Rossi & KL Rossi

A prolegomenon to the philosophy of evolution and consciousness must include the perspectives of all peoples from the mythological and ethical doctrines of ancient cultures to our modern sciences around the globe. This chapter presents a neuroscience integration of ancient perspectives and practices with modern research on facilitating the co-evolution of human consciousness and the brain. We review selective aspects of the theory, research, and experience of consciousness as a novelty and activity-dependent process that drives the co-evolutionary spiral of mind and brain. We seek to answer questions such as these. · What makes us human? What is the major distinction between humans and other primates? · What are the modern scientific techniques of DNA microarrays and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that now can measure what makes us human? · Do ancient and modern self-directed activities of consciousness contribute to the co-creation of the mind and brain over a lifetime as well as their Darwinian co-evolution over millions of years? · What is the scientific evidence that consciousness, dreaming, meditation, and therapeutic hypnosis can contribute to the daily and hourly re-construction of our mind and physical brain for positive adaption? · What are the salient psychological and spiritual functions of consciousness that evoke activity-dependent gene expression and brain plasticity for building a better brain in daily life? · Could a non-dualistic approach to the philosophy of meditation and creative psychotherapy facilitate activity-dependent gene expression and brain plasticity to optimize adaptive consciousness, behavior, health and well being?

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5202

DMR Sekhar 17:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Complex Systems and Consciousness
Ruggero Rapparini

The declared aim of this paper is to understand how the physical neural processes going on in the brain give rise to the sum of feelings that we call Mind. This in the framework of an evolutive process begun with inorganic chemical compounds and proceeding in steps of ever increasing complexity leading to the emergence of organic compounds, life, thought, consciousness….. Consciousness will be explained as the end result of a chain wherein computational skills form the basis of some sort of ‘unconscious computation’ where they apply the rules of the game (the syntax=the programme) without knowing what they are doing (semantics). What of the brain? The brain is itself a complex physical system and as such can perform ‘computations’ with two important differences: the brain is aware of being computing and somehow knows the meaning of what it is doing thanks to its representational skills or qualia. This paper will give an innovative definition of qualia and their function in the emergence of consciousness: we will need to complete the picture by including the psychological dimension best represented in the western tradition by Jung and by Buddhist practices in the East, where the brain is considered a sensory organ on a par with the other five ones. The mind is the brain’s quale in the act of knowing.

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5420

DMR Sekhar 17:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Unified Evolution Theory
John H. Patrick

The origin and evolution of life is necessitated by natural law. Energy throughput is maximized and entropy increases overall in nature, which inevitably results in life forms that increase in complexity and intelligence over time. The origin of life is not a random occurrence in the universe. It is not an “accident of nature” as many suggest. On the contrary, the origin and evolution of life is mandated by the same natural laws that account for the evolutionary development of the universe itself. In order to satisfy the second law of thermodynamics to an even greater measure, highly ordered products of nature (“exceptions” to the second law…) become favored because their end products are living systems which accelerate the rate of occurrence of the second law overall. Examples include the endergonic coupled-pair reactions that convert energy to the useable chemical form in order to produce the molecules needed for the cell structure of organisms, which ultimately lead to living systems such as animals and humans, who release entropic bi-products into the universe at a higher rate than non-living substances. The transition from “highly ordered” to “self ordered” and further to “self programming” is a continuation of the same process; driven by the second law (in the net—overall construct); but also driven by another concept; one that predicts that complex systems will behave in such a fashion as to facilitate an ever-increasing throughput of energy. Nature utilizes the “coupling” of these two processes; 1) Increased net—overall entropy AND 2) Increased net—overall energy throughput. The self-programming (negentropic) properties produce a net—overall increase in entropy; which “couples” with the property of increased net—overall energy throughput, resulting in self-programming living systems, which accelerate the two coupled processes even further. The findings of particle physics tend to support the notion of increasing energy—throughput as a property of nature. Authors such as Richard Feynman, Brian Greene, and Lisa Randall, who are leading theoretical physicists, have written extensive books (in layman’s language) on numerous topics of modern physics, including several on particle physics. The principles and examples explained in these manuscripts are interpreted by the author of this writing, to support these conclusions.

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5398

Evolution: An alternate view
Shajan Mathew

Evolution of Life is a unique problem for science. The distinction between observer and observed blurs into a minefield of ambiguities as life studies its own past. Evolution has created minds that are capable of looking at themselves. Natural history of minds and ‘knowing’ should be an integral part of evolution studies. Fossil records, genetic variation and natural selection are important, but a closer look at the mechanism of knowing is even more important. The right way to study objective knowledge is to look at our own evolutionary history. Life existed on earth for 3.5 billion years without the division of observer from observed. Emergence of self-aware humans challenged this primitive unity. Knowledge became objective or independent of knower. A new way of comprehending reality came into existence. The success of objective knowledge has created an illusion that it is the only valid way of comprehension. This is a grave mistake. A truly scientific worldview based on evolution must recognize pre-rational modes of comprehension. A series of ‘tools of comprehension’ must have evolved in nature; rational minds being the latest addition to this collection. Nature is inherently creative and biological evolution is driven by nature’s creativity. Creativity (or universal Mind) manifests as individual rational mind in human beings. Universe is comprehensible to man because creativity is its building block and the knower is measuring up the universe with his own creativity in the act of objective knowing. Relationship between rational mind and its substrate is the key to understand human condition..

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5219

Pineal body as multipotent system
OP jangir et al

The pineal gland was called the “third eye” by ancient people. It was thought to have mystical powers. During the course of phylogenetic development, the function of pineal complex under goes a transition from that of a photoreceptive organ to an endocrine organ. It is now considered as unique multipotent organ. It has the capability of transformation into different organs like retina, lens and muscle fibers in culture medium .In our previous study (jangir et al, 2005) complete “median third eye” was found to develop from pineal gland of external gill stage tadpoles of toad, Bufo melanostictus. There have been several reports of muscle differentiation of cells derived from pineal body .Oculopotency of pineal cells may be relevant to the fact that the pineal body is an eye like organ in lower vertebrates before its conversion to an endocrine organ in higher vertebrates like mammals. In the present experiment we have studied the multipotentiality of pineal cells in culture medium under the influence of Vitamin A and Ascorbic acid .The results showed that Vitamin A accelerates the ‘oculopotency’ (transdifferentiation of pineal cells of late state tadpoles into lens –lentogenic ability) whereas, Ascorbic acid was found to increase the percentage of muscle fiber formation and nerve cells in culture medium .Thus the pineal gland of young tadpoles is considered to be a typical multipotent system.

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5227

Human migration and formation of social groups of India
Kaushalendra Tripathi

Introduction

The basic question that comes in our brain is where do we come from and how did we get where we are today? Geneticists and researcher have now discovered the human lineages of the world descended from 10 sons of a genetic Adam and 18 daughters of Eve. DNA studies point out that all modern humans share a common female ancestor who resided in Africa about 140,000 years ago, and all men share a common male ancestor who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago. The mtDNA based studies suggest that all modern era humans descend from a group of African ancestors who near about 60,000 to 65,000 years ago initiated their astonishing journey (1). Cavalli-Sforza group by analysis of chromosome 21 markers and Y- chromosome also support the African dispersal theory (2), and in particular, other nuclear and mtDNA markers indicate eastern Africa as the origin of both African and Eurasian expansions (3).

Indian Social Groups

The story of ancestry of Indians is fascinating. The caste system in India is very old and its emergence is generally correlated with the appearance of the Aryans. Rigveda the Aryan religious book mentions of four varnas, viz Brahman, Rajanya, Vaisya and Sudra. This division was based on individual’s profession and duties, Brahmins, the priests or spiritual class, Rajanya (later mentioned as Kshatriya), the ruling class, Vaishya, the merchants and farmers; and Shudras, the servants. India, the mother of a billion people consists of 4693 communities with numerous of endogamous groups, 325 functioning languages among that fifteen are present on its paper bill and 25 scripts. We know it very well that India has served as a major corridor for the dispersal of human beings that started from Africa (4). In India the first systematic survey of human variation was conducted by professor DN Majumdar of Lucknow University in united province present day Uttar Pradesh and later in Bengal (5). Santachiara and his team from Italy by using RFLP of mtDNA showed that people of Punjab are more closer to caucasoid than south or Andhra Pradesh people (6). Recently Bamshad’s group used five different set of data i.e. mtDNA HVR1 (hyper variable region 1) sequence, mtDNA RSPs, Y-chromosome STRs (Short-Tandem Repeats), Y-chromosome biallelic polymorphisms, and autosomal Alu polymorphisms to support that how Indian castes are related to European populations as one moves from lower to middle to upper caste populations. They showed that Y-chromosome STR data do not exhibit a closer affinity to Asians for each caste group. Upper castes are pretty close to Europeans than to Asians, middle castes are evenly far from the European and Asian while lower castes are closer to Asians. Y-chromosome biallelic polymorphism data suggest that upper castes are more close to European than lower caste (7). Bamshad’s group concluded that contemporary Hindu Indians are of proto-Asian origin with West Eurasian admixture. The main limitation of Bamshad’s study is that the study area was restricted to one geographical region namely Vizag in Andhra Pradesh. More recently Reich and Lalji group have examined 560,132 autosomal SNPs in 132 Indian samples from 25 groups. These groups reside in fourteen states and one union territory (Andaman and Nicobar) of India from Kashmir to Kerala. Among 25 groups five belong to upper caste, six groups belong to lower castes, one group belongs to middle caste, ten groups belong to tribal and remaining two belong to hunter gatherer. Most of the groups fall to Indo-European or Dravidian language family. The research shows that most Indian populations are genetic admixtures of two ancient but genetically divergent groups, which each contributing around 39-71% of the DNA to most present day Indians (8). By principal component analysis (PCA) David and his team showed that siddi are an outlying group which is closely related with west Africans (YRI). Nyshi and Ao Naga who generally speak a tibeto-burman language are closely related to East Asians while Andamani did not show any closeness with Asian or Europeans. With the help of f3 and f4 ancestry estimation they developed a model which correlates the history of Indian and non Indian groups. In this model pathan, vaishya, meghawal and bhil are modeled as mixture of hypothetical Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI). They also showed that ANI form a clade with Europeans (CEU) while Onge form a calde with ASI. Lalji singh group has already shown that Onge tribe doesn’t show any ancestry with population outside India within last 50,000 year but it shares some ancestry with Indian tribal population. They also suggested that founder effects are responsible for an even burden of recessive diseases in Indian population than consanguinity. That’s why recessive hereditary disease like The Madras pattern of Motor Neuron Disease (MMND), which is prevalent in the Chittor-Tirupati area and MYBPC3 mutation is only present in Indian population (9). In concise way we can say that modern day India is mixture of two group whom Reich et al term as “Ancestral North Indian” (ANI) population that is genetically close to Central Asians, Europeans, and Middle Easterners, and an “Ancestral South Indian” (ASI) population that is not close to any large contemporary group outside the Indian subcontinent.

Closing Remarks

The present day genetic diversity of India is maintained by caste system that follows endogamy (marriage within the group) which is common among Indians. Perhaps endogamy is one of the reason why recessive diseases are prevalent in Indian social group. Autosomal recessive disease means that the both the recessive gene is located on one of the autosomes. This means that males and females have equal probability to affect from this disease. Recessive hereditary diseases are seen among Indians who have descended from a small group of founder individuals. Promotion of inter caste marriages could helps us to abolish these diseases. The future study may also require more data set from a much wider array of populations, including a large sampling of tribal populations and Tibeto-Burman speakers to understand their specific contributions who are more closer to Han Chinese group (CHB) of China. We can also predict, there will be a lot of recessive diseases in India that will be different in each social group further future research also require to identify these diseases and its genetic mapping.

References

1. Doron M. Behar, Saharon Rosset, Jason Blue-Smith, Oleg Balanovsky, Shay Tzur, David Comas, R. John Mitchell, Lluis Quintana-Murci, Chris Tyler-Smith, R. Spencer Wells (2007) The Genographic Project public participation mitochondrial DNA database.PLoS Genet 3:e104

2. Jin L., Underhill P.A., Doctor V., Davis R.W., Shen P., Cavalli-Sforza L.L. and. Oefner P.J (1999) Distribution of haplotypes from a chromosome 21 region distinguishes multiple prehistoric human migrations, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96 pp. 3796–3800.

3. Watson E., Forster P., Richards M. and Bandelt H.-J., (1997) Mitochondrial footprints of human expansions in Africa, American Journal of Human Genetics 61 pp. 691–704

4. Cann RL (2001) Genetic clues to dispersal in human populations: retracing the past from the present. Science 291:1742–1748.

5. Majumdar, D. N. & Rao, C. R. (1960) Race Elements in Bengal: a Quantitative Study (Asia Publishing House).

6. Passarino G, Semino O, Bernini LF, Santachiara Benerecetti AS Pre-Caucasoid and (1996) Caucasoid genetic features of the Indian population, revealed by mtDNA polymorphisms. Am J Hum Genet 59:927–934

7. Bamshad M., Kivisild T., Watkins W.S., Dixon M.E., Ricker C.E., Rao B.B., Naidu J.M., Prasad B.V.R., Reddy P.G., Rasanayagam A., Papiha S.S., Villems R., Redd AJ, Hammer M.F., Nguyen S.V., Carroll M.L., Batzer M.A. and Jorde L.B., (2001) Genetic evidence on the origins of indian caste populations, Genome Res 11 pp. 994–1004.

8. Reich D., Thangaraj K., Patterson N., Price A. L. and Singh L. (2009)Reconstructing Indian population history Nature p489-494

9. Dhandapany, P. S., Sadayappan, S., Xue, Y., Powell, G. T., Rani, D. S., Nallari, P., Rai, T. S., Khullar, M., Soares, P., Bahl, A., Tharkan, J. M., Vaideeswar, P., Rathinavel, A., Narasimhan, C., Ayapati, D. R., Ayub, Q., Mehdi, S. Q., Oppenheimer, S., Richards, M. B., Price, A. L., Patterson, N., Reich, D., Singh, L., Tyler-Smith, C., and Thangaraj, K. (2009) A common Cardiac Myosin Binding Protein C variant associated with cardiomyopathies in South Asia. Nature Genet. 41, 187–191

http://network.nature.com/groups/transcience/forum/topics/5642

title: Philosophy of evolution