The current state of web search is most successful at directing users to appropriate web sites. Once at the site, the user has a choice of following hyperlinks or using site search, but the latter is notoriously problematic. One solution is to develop specialized search interfaces that explicitly support the types of tasks users perform using the information specific to the site. A new way to support task-based site search is to dynamically present appropriate metadata that organizes the search results and suggests what to look at next, as a personalized intermixing of search and hypertext.

We have developed an in6 vative searchin terface that allowsnAOz5z ert users to move through large in97z86 tion spacesin a flexible manle without feelin lost. The design goal was to o#er users a "browsin the shelves" experien5 seamlessly in tegrated with focused search. Key to achievin our goal is the explicit exposure of hierarchical faceted metadatain a manz6 that is in tuitive an in vitin to users. After several iteration of design an testinA the usability results are strikinA] positive. We believe our approach marks a major step forward in search userin terfacesan can serve as a model for web-based collection of up to 100,000 items.

One of the most pressing usability issues in the design of web sites is that of how to improve navigation and search. We are conducting a series of usability studies to address this problem, focusing on web sites that consist of large collections of loosely organized information. This article describes our method and presents preliminary results which suggest that use of faceted metadata can be useful both for the initial stages of highly constrained search and for the intermediate stages of less constrained browsing tasks. We also find that users state an interest in using different search interface types to support different search strategies.

XML is fast becoming the intergalactic data speak alphabet for data and information exchange that hides the heterogeneity among the components of Loosely-coupled, distributed systems and provides the glue that allows the individual components to take part in the loosely integrated system. Since much of this data is currently stored in relational database systems, simplifying the transformation of this data from and to XML in general and from and to the agreed upon exchange schema specifically is an important feature that should improve the productivity of the programmer and the efficiency of this process. This article provides an overview over the features that are needed to provide access via HTTP and XML and presents the approach taken in Microsoft SQL Server. Keywords: Loosely-coupled, distributed system architectures, XML, relational database systems 1

The analysis of the hyperlink structure of the web has led to significant improvements in web information retrieval. This survey describes two successful link analysis algorithms and the state-of-the art of the field. 1 Introduction The goal of information retrieval is to find all documents relevant for a user query in a collection of documents. Decades of research in information retrieval were successful in developing and refining techniques that are solely word-based (see e.g., [2]). With the advent of the web new sources of information became available, one of them being the hyperlinks between documents and records of user behavior. To be precise, hypertexts (i.e., collections of documents connected by hyperlinks) have existed and have been studied for a long time. What was new was the large number of hyperlinks created by independent individuals. Hyperlinks provide a valuable source of information for web information retrieval as we will show in this article. This area of informa...