It is a time-consuming and difficult task for an individual, a group, or an organization to systematically express and organize their expertise so it can be captured and reused. Yet the expertise of individuals within an organization is perhaps its most valuable resource. Q&A attempts to address this tension by providing an environment in which textual representations of expertise are captured ...

In loving memory of my father, Dr. Suresh Kumar Kwatra, who has been my greatest inspiration in life ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to my advisor, Aaron Bobick, and co-advisor, Irfan Essa, for their exceptional support and guidance. They gave me the freedom to explore research ideas at will, but were always there to educate and guide me. I would also like to thank the rest of my committee membe...

Introduction: Travel agencies may be consulted by intending travelers seeking pre-travel health advice. Travel agents should be equipped to deal with such queries and have access to a source of high quality travel health advice. This study aimed to establish the level of knowledge of travel health risks among Irish travel agencies. Methods: A web-based su...

Research-oriented tasks continue to become more complex, requiring more collaboration between experts. Historically, research has focused on either finding a single expert for a specific task (expertise finding, or EF), or trying to form a group that satisfies various conditions (group formation, or GF). EF is typically group context agnostic, while GF requires complex models that are difficult...

These patterns are for two closely related audiences, the authors and the shepherds. Why have one set of patterns for two audiences? The obvious reason is that authors and shepherds are often the same people, and much of the advice is the same. But more importantly, an author can gain great insights by understanding what a reader – in this case, the shepherd – is looking for. So I modified the ...

This work present the main features of the ADVICE (IST 1999-11305) project, a research project whose main aim is to develop a virtual assistant for e-shops that imitates the behaviour of a human vendor.