Section A · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, February 23, 1998
New search engine untangles World Wide Web
Assistant professor creates ProFusion to explore Internet
Aaron Knopf
aknopf@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Susan Gauch, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, used her programming ingenuity and a $5,000 grant from the School of Engineering to build ProFusion, an Internet metasearch engine.
ProFusion retrieves information from the World Wide Web by simultaneously querying multiple commercial search engines such as Yahoo and Infoseek and compiling the results.
"I thought to myself, 'It would be really nice if I could type in the information just once and get results back from all the search engines,'" Gauch said.
There are metasearch engines, but Gauch said that ProFusion was unique for the quality of results it provided.
Instead of providing users with a long list of results compiled from other search
ProFusion
engines, ProFusion can determine which of three search engines are the most appropriate for a particular query. Gauch said.
"By monitoring what the users are selecting to read and knowing what search engine provided the information, it is continually updating which search engines are the best for which queries." Gauch said.
He said another powerful Pro-
Fusion feature was its ability to
save a query and its results. A user can run the query again at a later date, and new results are added to the top of the list. Users also can delete irrelevant results.
Others in the computer industry have recognized ProFusion's power. In its Dec. 2, 1997 issue, PC Magazine said that ProFusion offered the best metasearching around.
Gauch said that the site averaged 10,000 searches a day. She said that MetaCrawler, a commercial metasearch engine, averaged 300,000 searches a day.
ProFusion exists on University hardware at www.design-
lab.ukans.edu/profusion.
Gauch and a business partner have formed a partnership, Profusion LLC, and have licensed the rights to the product. Gauch said that there were no plans to develop a commercial search site supported by advertising or subscription.
Gauch's business partner, Greg Merriman, said that he did not like the intrusion of advertising on Web search sites because the ads slowed down the retrieval of the search results.
Merriman sees a different use for Profusion's underlying technology.
"I think there's going to be a fairly large need to create tools to simultaneously get information from a lot of different databases within a company," Merriman said.
Gauch and Merriman worked on a project in summer 1997 that showed the flexibility of ProFusion. They used it to build a common search tool for the different online catalogs used at 162 public libraries in the Brandenburg city-state of Berlin, Germany.
New technology ideas win awards for teachers
Bv Aaron Knopf
By Aaron Knopf
aknopf@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Five University of Kansas professors received recognition Friday for finding innovative ways to use computer technology to enhance the learning experiences of students in their classes.
The professors were the winners of the sixth annual Quest for the Best competition to design new uses of technology in course instruction. The competition is sponsored by the University's Academic Systems for the Training and Use of Technology in Education (ASTUTE) Center.
Each of the professors received $4,000 to buy hardware and software for their departments. The professors will use the equipment to bring their plans to fruition. The ASTUTE center also will provide the professors with student employees to help with the implementation of their plans.
The five winners were Lisa Bitel, associate professor of history/women's studies; Lawrence Davidow, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy practice; Tae Lim, assistant professor of aerospace engineering; Glenn Prescott, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and Herbert Tuttle, assistant professor of engineering management.
Bitel said she intended to develop an online library of medieval art produced by and for Christian women. She said she would use the library in her course instruction and as a portion of a larger collaboratively-developed Web site about Christian women in Europe between 500 AD and 1500 AD.
Bitel said ASTUTE's money would help her to find the images, load them on the Web, design the Web page and connect the visual library to the
other component of the Web site.
Davidow and Tuttle plan to develop online simulations of situations that their respective students would experience professionally.
Davidow said that he would develop online multimedia case studies that pharmacy students could use to experiment in a risk-free environment before working with real patients.
"A lot of times they don't have self confidence," Davidow said. "The idea of the computer application is to let them gain some confidence in themselves, let them see some consequences of their actions and yet not be so afraid to make a decision."
Tuttle said that he would create an online course that would put students through all the rigors of managing engineering projects.
Lim said that his goal was to use computer technology to present three-dimensional graphics during lectures to his Aerospace Computer Graphics class, rather than continuing to rely on printed transparencies.
"Many students find it very difficult to visualize a three-dimension image of an object when it is presented on a two-dimensional plane," Lim said.
Prescott said he intended to develop an online course in Digital Signal Processing that would incorporate animation to illustrate underlying mathematical concepts.
"The mathematics, which predominate the course, will be brought into reality so that students can learn the materials more effectively and be able to relate the math to what is going on with images." Prescott said.
More information about the Quest for the Best winners and the ASTU Center is available online at http://www.ukans.edu/cwis/units/atute/index.html.
U.S. builds up presence in Gulf
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — As the Pentagon began the process of calling up reserves, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Sunday that the United States will act alone against Iraq if any U.N.-brokered agreement with Saddam Hussein jeopardizes U.S. interests.
Administration officials said they would be pleased if U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan returns from talks in Iraq with a promise that U.N. weapons inspectors can resume their work free from Iraqi limits or harassment.
"It is possible that he will come with something that we don't like, in which case we will pursue our national interests," Albright said on ABC's "This Week with Sam
She said Saddam's ability to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction must be diminished, by mili tary means if necessary.
and Cokie."
A f t e r A b l r e ght and other senior American officials made similar statements on Sunday's television news shows, Annan's spokesman in Baghdad, Fred Eckhard, said Annan and Saddam had reached an agreement to open presidential palaces to
Albright: said military action would halt Hussein.
inspection, the last main condition for avoiding a U. S. military attack.
White House spokesman Mike McCurry said preliminary accounts had been received from Baghdad, but he declined to assess them.
Annan is expected to return to New York Tuesday.
To emphasize U.S. readiness to act if the national interest is threatened, Secretary of Defense William Cohen announced on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he was making the first request for reservists to provide combat support for the 32,000 troops stationed in the Persian Gulf.
"We are hoping for a peaceful solution, but we are prepared to exercise a military option if necessary," he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Annan reaches agreement with Hussein
The Associated Press
ons inspectors, said U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.N. chief Kofi Annan and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein settled the last major obstacle Sunday to opening presidential palaces to U.N. arms inspectors, the main condition for avoiding a U.S. attack, Annan's spokesman said.
"We expect the text will be acceptable to all 15 members of the Security Council, including the United States." Eckhard said.
The agreement came during a three-hour meeting between Annan and Saddam at the Republican Palace, one of eight presidential sites that Iraq had declared off-limits to U.N. weap-
One Iraqi official, who also insisted his named not be used, was asked whether there was a deal. He replied, "Yes."
Annan and Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, met late Sunday to agree on the precise wording of an agreement the secretary-general will take back
to the Security Council.
The crisis over weapons inspections has brought the Persian Gulf to the brink of war.
Pro-Iraq protests have erupted across the Arab world — Jordan had to send out tanks in one desert city to contain them. The protests also sent Israel's scurrying for gas masks and diplomats there preparing to leave.
Any deal must be endorsed by Washington, which has said it would refuse an agreement that it believes undermines the inspectors' authority.
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