This study has taken a first step in implementing 
a probabilistic method exploiting search logs and 
validating it empirically. Further studies along this 
line, such as performance variance on different tasks, 
will add dimension to the present study and promote 
successful information retrieval on the Web. With 
the increasing importance of improving search 
engine performance, it is imperative that researchers 
interested in system design as well as user studies 
take seriously the recommendations discussed above 
and provide opportunities to improve end-user 
searching, and search engine effectiveness. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
Many thanks to Dr. Karen Spärck Jones for helping 
to shape my original conceptual design of unified 
probabilistic retrieval. I am grateful to Professor 
Junghoo Cho and Dr. Alexandros Ntoulas for 
providing their help and the resources for the 
experiment. Thanks also to professors Jonathan 
Furner, Gregory H. Leazer, Christine Borgman, 
Mark H. Hansen, and Kathleen Burnett for their 
valuable feedback. This research was supported by 
Dissertation Fellowship, University of California, 
Los Angeles, and First Year Assistant Professor 
Award (FYAP), Florida State University. 
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