Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore one broad question: what do information, information processes, information services, as well as information systems and technology have to do with the spiritual? Design/methodology/approach – The task is accomplished by conducting a...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to specify user‐defined relevance criteria by which people select hyperlinks and pages in web searching. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative and qualitative analysis was undertaken of talking aloud data from nine web searches conducted about...

We resolve several long-standing open questions regarding the power of various types of finite-state automata to recognize "picture languages," i.e. sets of two-dimensional arrays of symbols. We show that the languages recognized by 4-way alternating finite-state automata (AFAs) are incomparable...

We consider sets of rectangles and squares recognized by deterministic and non-deterministic two-dimensional finite-state automata. We show that NFAs are strictly more powerful than DFAs, even for pictures over a one-symbol alphabet. In the process, we show that the pitcure languages recognized...