\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTable 1. Results of statistical significance analysis. The p-value shows us that there is a strong relationship between the number of each message and interest level.
\\n\\n
Dr. Pletser’s experience includes 30 years of working with the European Space Agency as a Senior Physicist/Engineer and coordinating their parabolic flight campaigns, and he is the Guinness World Record holder for the most number of aircraft flown (12) in parabolas, personally logging more than 7,300 parabolas.
\\n\\nSeeing the 5,000th book published makes us at the same time proud, happy, humble, and grateful. This is a great opportunity to stop and celebrate what we have done so far, but is also an opportunity to engage even more, grow, and succeed. It wouldn't be possible to get here without the synergy of team members’ hard work and authors and editors who devote time and their expertise into Open Access book publishing with us.
\\n\\nOver these years, we have gone from pioneering the scientific Open Access book publishing field to being the world’s largest Open Access book publisher. Nonetheless, our vision has remained the same: to meet the challenges of making relevant knowledge available to the worldwide community under the Open Access model.
\\n\\nWe are excited about the present, and we look forward to sharing many more successes in the future.
\\n\\nThank you all for being part of the journey. 5,000 times thank you!
\\n\\nNow with 5,000 titles available Open Access, which one will you read next?
\\n\\nRead, share and download for free: https://www.intechopen.com/books
\\n\\n\\n\\n
\\n"}]',published:!0,mainMedia:null},components:[{type:"htmlEditorComponent",content:'
Preparation of Space Experiments edited by international leading expert Dr. Vladimir Pletser, Director of Space Training Operations at Blue Abyss is the 5,000th Open Access book published by IntechOpen and our milestone publication!
\n\n"This book presents some of the current trends in space microgravity research. The eleven chapters introduce various facets of space research in physical sciences, human physiology and technology developed using the microgravity environment not only to improve our fundamental understanding in these domains but also to adapt this new knowledge for application on earth." says the editor. Listen what else Dr. Pletser has to say...
\n\n\n\nDr. Pletser’s experience includes 30 years of working with the European Space Agency as a Senior Physicist/Engineer and coordinating their parabolic flight campaigns, and he is the Guinness World Record holder for the most number of aircraft flown (12) in parabolas, personally logging more than 7,300 parabolas.
\n\nSeeing the 5,000th book published makes us at the same time proud, happy, humble, and grateful. This is a great opportunity to stop and celebrate what we have done so far, but is also an opportunity to engage even more, grow, and succeed. It wouldn't be possible to get here without the synergy of team members’ hard work and authors and editors who devote time and their expertise into Open Access book publishing with us.
\n\nOver these years, we have gone from pioneering the scientific Open Access book publishing field to being the world’s largest Open Access book publisher. Nonetheless, our vision has remained the same: to meet the challenges of making relevant knowledge available to the worldwide community under the Open Access model.
\n\nWe are excited about the present, and we look forward to sharing many more successes in the future.
\n\nThank you all for being part of the journey. 5,000 times thank you!
\n\nNow with 5,000 titles available Open Access, which one will you read next?
\n\nRead, share and download for free: https://www.intechopen.com/books
\n\n\n\n
\n'}],latestNews:[{slug:"stanford-university-identifies-top-2-scientists-over-1-000-are-intechopen-authors-and-editors-20210122",title:"Stanford University Identifies Top 2% Scientists, Over 1,000 are IntechOpen Authors and Editors"},{slug:"intechopen-authors-included-in-the-highly-cited-researchers-list-for-2020-20210121",title:"IntechOpen Authors Included in the Highly Cited Researchers List for 2020"},{slug:"intechopen-maintains-position-as-the-world-s-largest-oa-book-publisher-20201218",title:"IntechOpen Maintains Position as the World’s Largest OA Book Publisher"},{slug:"all-intechopen-books-available-on-perlego-20201215",title:"All IntechOpen Books Available on Perlego"},{slug:"oiv-awards-recognizes-intechopen-s-editors-20201127",title:"OIV Awards Recognizes IntechOpen's Editors"},{slug:"intechopen-joins-crossref-s-initiative-for-open-abstracts-i4oa-to-boost-the-discovery-of-research-20201005",title:"IntechOpen joins Crossref's Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA) to Boost the Discovery of Research"},{slug:"intechopen-hits-milestone-5-000-open-access-books-published-20200908",title:"IntechOpen hits milestone: 5,000 Open Access books published!"},{slug:"intechopen-books-hosted-on-the-mathworks-book-program-20200819",title:"IntechOpen Books Hosted on the MathWorks Book Program"}]},book:{item:{type:"book",id:"9102",leadTitle:null,fullTitle:"Asbestos-related Diseases",title:"Asbestos-related Diseases",subtitle:null,reviewType:"peer-reviewed",abstract:"The issue of asbestos exposure and the resulting health problems is now a global problem. The World Health Organization (WHO) has made recommendations on the eradication of asbestos-related diseases. However, malignant mesothelioma, mainly due to asbestos exposure, is a refractory malignant tumor, and technological innovation in diagnosis and treatment is required. In this context, this book describes the immunological effects of asbestos exposure, blood biomarkers, the pathology of malignant mesothelioma, and the status of immune checkpoint drugs in the treatment of malignant mesothelioma, along with the status of MMP mesothelioma. Concerns about health hazards associated with asbestos exposure may persist for many years to come. We hope this book will help researchers in this area.",isbn:"978-1-83880-833-4",printIsbn:"978-1-83880-832-7",pdfIsbn:"978-1-83880-834-1",doi:"10.5772/intechopen.83098",price:100,priceEur:109,priceUsd:129,slug:"asbestos-related-diseases",numberOfPages:80,isOpenForSubmission:!1,isInWos:1,hash:"05268073ee2a653571449e4519749085",bookSignature:"Takemi Otsuki",publishedDate:"April 1st 2020",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/9102.jpg",numberOfDownloads:1537,numberOfWosCitations:2,numberOfCrossrefCitations:2,numberOfDimensionsCitations:2,hasAltmetrics:0,numberOfTotalCitations:6,isAvailableForWebshopOrdering:!0,dateEndFirstStepPublish:"May 22nd 2019",dateEndSecondStepPublish:"September 24th 2019",dateEndThirdStepPublish:"November 23rd 2019",dateEndFourthStepPublish:"February 11th 2020",dateEndFifthStepPublish:"April 11th 2020",currentStepOfPublishingProcess:5,indexedIn:"1,2,3,4,5,6",editedByType:"Edited by",kuFlag:!1,editors:[{id:"34101",title:"Prof.",name:"Takemi",middleName:null,surname:"Otsuki",slug:"takemi-otsuki",fullName:"Takemi Otsuki",profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/34101/images/system/34101.jfif",biography:"Dr. Takemi Otsuki is the former President of The Japanese Society for Hygiene, he had served as a Chair of the Allergy and Immunotoxicology Scientific Committee, The International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) and Secretary and Board Member of The Japanese Society of Immunotoxicology. His vast experience in the field includes working at Department of Hygiene, Kawasaki Medical School, Kurashiki, Japan, National Cancer Institute, National Insitutes of Health, USA, School Of Medicine at the Minnesota University, USA and The Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Otsuki has numerous papers published in international journals in the field.",institutionString:"Kawasaki Medical School",position:null,outsideEditionCount:0,totalCites:0,totalAuthoredChapters:"9",totalChapterViews:"0",totalEditedBooks:"1",institution:{name:"Kawasaki Medical School",institutionURL:null,country:{name:"Japan"}}}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,coeditorOne:null,coeditorTwo:null,coeditorThree:null,coeditorFour:null,coeditorFive:null,topics:[{id:"1093",title:"Thoracic Oncology",slug:"thoracic-oncology"}],chapters:[{id:"70769",title:"Suppressed Immune System Caused by Exposure to Asbestos and Malignant Mesothelioma",doi:"10.5772/intechopen.90763",slug:"suppressed-immune-system-caused-by-exposure-to-asbestos-and-malignant-mesothelioma",totalDownloads:247,totalCrossrefCites:1,totalDimensionsCites:1,signatures:"Yasumitsu Nishimura, Naoko Kumagai-Takei, Suni Lee, Kei Yoshitome and Takemi Otsuki",downloadPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-download/70769",previewPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-preview/70769",authors:[{id:"34101",title:"Prof.",name:"Takemi",surname:"Otsuki",slug:"takemi-otsuki",fullName:"Takemi Otsuki"},{id:"48627",title:"Dr.",name:"Naoko",surname:"Kumagai-Takei",slug:"naoko-kumagai-takei",fullName:"Naoko Kumagai-Takei"},{id:"48631",title:"Dr.",name:"Yasumitsu",surname:"Nishimura",slug:"yasumitsu-nishimura",fullName:"Yasumitsu Nishimura"},{id:"104893",title:"Dr.",name:"Suni",surname:"Lee",slug:"suni-lee",fullName:"Suni Lee"},{id:"219725",title:"Dr.",name:"Kei",surname:"Yoshitome",slug:"kei-yoshitome",fullName:"Kei Yoshitome"}],corrections:null},{id:"69365",title:"Asbestos-Related Diseases and Blood Biomarkers",doi:"10.5772/intechopen.89438",slug:"asbestos-related-diseases-and-blood-biomarkers",totalDownloads:402,totalCrossrefCites:0,totalDimensionsCites:0,signatures:"Alenka Franko, Vita Dolzan, Katja Goricar and Metoda Dodic Fikfak",downloadPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-download/69365",previewPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-preview/69365",authors:[{id:"60449",title:"Prof.",name:"Vita",surname:"Dolžan",slug:"vita-dolzan",fullName:"Vita Dolžan"},{id:"172777",title:"Dr.",name:"Katja",surname:"Goričar",slug:"katja-goricar",fullName:"Katja Goričar"},{id:"195632",title:"Prof.",name:"Alenka",surname:"Franko",slug:"alenka-franko",fullName:"Alenka Franko"},{id:"309329",title:"Prof.",name:"Metoda",surname:"Dodic Fikfak",slug:"metoda-dodic-fikfak",fullName:"Metoda Dodic Fikfak"}],corrections:null},{id:"69060",title:"Asbestos Exposure Results in Asbestosis and Usual Interstitial Pneumonia Similar to Other Causes of Pneumoconiosis",doi:"10.5772/intechopen.89247",slug:"asbestos-exposure-results-in-asbestosis-and-usual-interstitial-pneumonia-similar-to-other-causes-of-",totalDownloads:358,totalCrossrefCites:0,totalDimensionsCites:0,signatures:"Yoshinori Kawabata",downloadPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-download/69060",previewPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-preview/69060",authors:[{id:"307325",title:"Dr.",name:"Yoshinori",surname:"Kawabata",slug:"yoshinori-kawabata",fullName:"Yoshinori Kawabata"}],corrections:null},{id:"68917",title:"Immunocheckpoint Blockade in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma",doi:"10.5772/intechopen.89116",slug:"immunocheckpoint-blockade-in-malignant-pleural-mesothelioma",totalDownloads:261,totalCrossrefCites:1,totalDimensionsCites:1,signatures:"Nobukazu Fujimoto",downloadPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-download/68917",previewPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-preview/68917",authors:[{id:"307730",title:"Dr.",name:"Nobukazu",surname:"Fujimoto",slug:"nobukazu-fujimoto",fullName:"Nobukazu Fujimoto"}],corrections:null},{id:"68636",title:"Potential Roles of Matrix Metalloproteinases in Malignant Mesothelioma",doi:"10.5772/intechopen.88783",slug:"potential-roles-of-matrix-metalloproteinases-in-malignant-mesothelioma",totalDownloads:270,totalCrossrefCites:0,totalDimensionsCites:0,signatures:"Shibo Ying, Yanbin Wang and Lyuyang Lyu",downloadPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-download/68636",previewPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-preview/68636",authors:[{id:"306153",title:"Ph.D.",name:"Shibo",surname:"Ying",slug:"shibo-ying",fullName:"Shibo Ying"},{id:"306352",title:"Ms.",name:"Yanbin",surname:"Wang",slug:"yanbin-wang",fullName:"Yanbin Wang"},{id:"309729",title:"Mr.",name:"Lyuyang",surname:"Lyu",slug:"lyuyang-lyu",fullName:"Lyuyang Lyu"}],corrections:null}],productType:{id:"1",title:"Edited Volume",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},relatedBooks:[{type:"book",id:"1168",title:"Malignant Mesothelioma",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"9d0120821f2ff7e1885baf8c71540b11",slug:"malignant-mesothelioma",bookSignature:"Carmen Belli and Santosh Anand",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/1168.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"101488",title:"Dr.",name:"Carmen",surname:"Belli",slug:"carmen-belli",fullName:"Carmen Belli"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"5278",title:"Thyroid Cancer",subtitle:"Advances in Diagnosis and Therapy",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"f845f2f12f985ef83aad2dde3bfc5161",slug:"thyroid-cancer-advances-in-diagnosis-and-therapy",bookSignature:"Hojjat Ahmadzadehfar",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/5278.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"80495",title:"Prof.",name:"Hojjat",surname:"Ahmadzadehfar; Md, MSc",slug:"hojjat-ahmadzadehfar-md-msc",fullName:"Hojjat Ahmadzadehfar; Md, MSc"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"687",title:"Esophageal Cancer",subtitle:"Cell and Molecular Biology, Biomarkers, Nutrition and Treatment",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"032d68a8b53825af052d4b8783d27aaa",slug:"esophageal-cancer-cell-and-molecular-biology-biomarkers-nutrition-and-treatment",bookSignature:"Ferdous Rastgar Jazii",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/687.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"82029",title:"Dr.",name:"Ferdous",surname:"Rastgar Jazii",slug:"ferdous-rastgar-jazii",fullName:"Ferdous Rastgar Jazii"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"974",title:"Mesotheliomas",subtitle:"Synonyms and Definition, Epidemiology, Etiology, Pathogenesis, Cyto-Histopathological Features, Clinic, Diagnosis, Treatment, Prognosis",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"75d66c9a37715a7b43ddaf0ea3e46a63",slug:"mesotheliomas-synonyms-and-definition-epidemiology-etiology-pathogenesis-cyto-histopathological-features-clinic-diagnosis-treatment-prognosis",bookSignature:"Alexander Zubritsky",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/974.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"84298",title:"Dr",name:"Alexander",surname:"Zubritsky",slug:"alexander-zubritsky",fullName:"Alexander Zubritsky"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"7091",title:"Esophageal Cancer and Beyond",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"4ecda741df661e21f77858de31105346",slug:"esophageal-cancer-and-beyond",bookSignature:"Jianyuan Chai",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/7091.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"28281",title:"Dr.",name:"Jianyuan",surname:"Chai",slug:"jianyuan-chai",fullName:"Jianyuan Chai"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"6676",title:"Lung Cancer",subtitle:"Strategies for Diagnosis and Treatment",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"b42744d3e884f96093849d9af11933f2",slug:"lung-cancer-strategies-for-diagnosis-and-treatment",bookSignature:"Alba Fabiola Costa Torres",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/6676.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"162855",title:"Dr.",name:"Alba Fabiola",surname:"Costa Torres",slug:"alba-fabiola-costa-torres",fullName:"Alba Fabiola Costa Torres"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"10130",title:"Mesothelioma",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"6a0b7726fd9f57a0bf9583a81dfed0e3",slug:"mesothelioma",bookSignature:"Sonia Maciá",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/10130.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"281982",title:"Dr.",name:"Sonia",surname:"Maciá",slug:"sonia-macia",fullName:"Sonia Maciá"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"1591",title:"Infrared Spectroscopy",subtitle:"Materials Science, Engineering and Technology",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"99b4b7b71a8caeb693ed762b40b017f4",slug:"infrared-spectroscopy-materials-science-engineering-and-technology",bookSignature:"Theophile Theophanides",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/1591.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"37194",title:"Dr.",name:"Theophanides",surname:"Theophile",slug:"theophanides-theophile",fullName:"Theophanides Theophile"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"3092",title:"Anopheles mosquitoes",subtitle:"New insights into malaria vectors",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"c9e622485316d5e296288bf24d2b0d64",slug:"anopheles-mosquitoes-new-insights-into-malaria-vectors",bookSignature:"Sylvie Manguin",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/3092.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"50017",title:"Prof.",name:"Sylvie",surname:"Manguin",slug:"sylvie-manguin",fullName:"Sylvie Manguin"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"3161",title:"Frontiers in Guided Wave Optics and Optoelectronics",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"deb44e9c99f82bbce1083abea743146c",slug:"frontiers-in-guided-wave-optics-and-optoelectronics",bookSignature:"Bishnu Pal",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/3161.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"4782",title:"Prof.",name:"Bishnu",surname:"Pal",slug:"bishnu-pal",fullName:"Bishnu Pal"}],equalEditorOne:null,equalEditorTwo:null,equalEditorThree:null,productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}}],ofsBooks:[]},correction:{item:{id:"68579",slug:"corrigendum-to-industrial-heat-exchanger-operation-and-maintenance-to-minimize-fouling-and-corrosion",title:"Corrigendum to: Industrial Heat Exchanger: Operation and Maintenance to Minimize Fouling and Corrosion",doi:null,correctionPDFUrl:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/68579.pdf",downloadPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-download/68579",previewPdfUrl:"/chapter/pdf-preview/68579",totalDownloads:null,totalCrossrefCites:null,bibtexUrl:"/chapter/bibtex/68579",risUrl:"/chapter/ris/68579",chapter:{id:"52929",slug:"industrial-heat-exchanger-operation-and-maintenance-to-minimize-fouling-and-corrosion",signatures:"Teng Kah Hou, Salim Newaz Kazi, Abu Bakar Mahat, Chew Bee Teng,\nAhmed Al-Shamma’a and Andy Shaw",dateSubmitted:"March 23rd 2016",dateReviewed:"October 10th 2016",datePrePublished:null,datePublished:"April 26th 2017",book:{id:"6080",title:"Heat Exchangers",subtitle:"Advanced Features and Applications",fullTitle:"Heat Exchangers - Advanced Features and Applications",slug:"heat-exchangers-advanced-features-and-applications",publishedDate:"April 26th 2017",bookSignature:"S M Sohel Murshed and Manuel Matos Lopes",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/6080.jpg",licenceType:"CC BY 3.0",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"24904",title:"Prof.",name:"S. M. Sohel",middleName:null,surname:"Murshed",slug:"s.-m.-sohel-murshed",fullName:"S. M. Sohel Murshed"}],productType:{id:"1",title:"Edited Volume",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},authors:[{id:"93483",title:"Dr.",name:"Salim Newaz",middleName:null,surname:"Kazi",fullName:"Salim Newaz Kazi",slug:"salim-newaz-kazi",email:"salimnewaz@um.edu.my",position:null,institution:{name:"University of Malaya",institutionURL:null,country:{name:"Malaysia"}}},{id:"187135",title:"Ph.D.",name:"Kah Hou",middleName:null,surname:"Teng",fullName:"Kah Hou Teng",slug:"kah-hou-teng",email:"alex_teng1989@hotmail.com",position:null,institution:{name:"Liverpool John Moores University",institutionURL:null,country:{name:"United Kingdom"}}},{id:"194347",title:"Prof.",name:"Abu Bakar",middleName:null,surname:"Mahat",fullName:"Abu Bakar Mahat",slug:"abu-bakar-mahat",email:"ir_abakar@um.edu.my",position:null,institution:null},{id:"194348",title:"Dr.",name:"Bee Teng",middleName:null,surname:"Chew",fullName:"Bee Teng Chew",slug:"bee-teng-chew",email:"chewbeeteng@um.edu.my",position:null,institution:null},{id:"194349",title:"Prof.",name:"Ahmed",middleName:null,surname:"Al-Shamma'A",fullName:"Ahmed Al-Shamma'A",slug:"ahmed-al-shamma'a",email:"A.Al-Shamma'a@ljmu.ac.uk",position:null,institution:null},{id:"194350",title:"Prof.",name:"Andy",middleName:null,surname:"Shaw",fullName:"Andy Shaw",slug:"andy-shaw",email:"A.Shaw@ljmu.ac.uk",position:null,institution:null}]}},chapter:{id:"52929",slug:"industrial-heat-exchanger-operation-and-maintenance-to-minimize-fouling-and-corrosion",signatures:"Teng Kah Hou, Salim Newaz Kazi, Abu Bakar Mahat, Chew Bee Teng,\nAhmed Al-Shamma’a and Andy Shaw",dateSubmitted:"March 23rd 2016",dateReviewed:"October 10th 2016",datePrePublished:null,datePublished:"April 26th 2017",book:{id:"6080",title:"Heat Exchangers",subtitle:"Advanced Features and Applications",fullTitle:"Heat Exchangers - Advanced Features and Applications",slug:"heat-exchangers-advanced-features-and-applications",publishedDate:"April 26th 2017",bookSignature:"S M Sohel Murshed and Manuel Matos Lopes",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/6080.jpg",licenceType:"CC BY 3.0",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"24904",title:"Prof.",name:"S. M. Sohel",middleName:null,surname:"Murshed",slug:"s.-m.-sohel-murshed",fullName:"S. M. Sohel Murshed"}],productType:{id:"1",title:"Edited Volume",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},authors:[{id:"93483",title:"Dr.",name:"Salim Newaz",middleName:null,surname:"Kazi",fullName:"Salim Newaz Kazi",slug:"salim-newaz-kazi",email:"salimnewaz@um.edu.my",position:null,institution:{name:"University of Malaya",institutionURL:null,country:{name:"Malaysia"}}},{id:"187135",title:"Ph.D.",name:"Kah Hou",middleName:null,surname:"Teng",fullName:"Kah Hou Teng",slug:"kah-hou-teng",email:"alex_teng1989@hotmail.com",position:null,institution:{name:"Liverpool John Moores University",institutionURL:null,country:{name:"United Kingdom"}}},{id:"194347",title:"Prof.",name:"Abu Bakar",middleName:null,surname:"Mahat",fullName:"Abu Bakar Mahat",slug:"abu-bakar-mahat",email:"ir_abakar@um.edu.my",position:null,institution:null},{id:"194348",title:"Dr.",name:"Bee Teng",middleName:null,surname:"Chew",fullName:"Bee Teng Chew",slug:"bee-teng-chew",email:"chewbeeteng@um.edu.my",position:null,institution:null},{id:"194349",title:"Prof.",name:"Ahmed",middleName:null,surname:"Al-Shamma'A",fullName:"Ahmed Al-Shamma'A",slug:"ahmed-al-shamma'a",email:"A.Al-Shamma'a@ljmu.ac.uk",position:null,institution:null},{id:"194350",title:"Prof.",name:"Andy",middleName:null,surname:"Shaw",fullName:"Andy Shaw",slug:"andy-shaw",email:"A.Shaw@ljmu.ac.uk",position:null,institution:null}]},book:{id:"6080",title:"Heat Exchangers",subtitle:"Advanced Features and Applications",fullTitle:"Heat Exchangers - Advanced Features and Applications",slug:"heat-exchangers-advanced-features-and-applications",publishedDate:"April 26th 2017",bookSignature:"S M Sohel Murshed and Manuel Matos Lopes",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/6080.jpg",licenceType:"CC BY 3.0",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"24904",title:"Prof.",name:"S. M. Sohel",middleName:null,surname:"Murshed",slug:"s.-m.-sohel-murshed",fullName:"S. M. Sohel Murshed"}],productType:{id:"1",title:"Edited Volume",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}}},ofsBook:{item:{type:"book",id:"6128",leadTitle:null,title:"Resonance",subtitle:null,reviewType:"peer-reviewed",abstract:"Resonance is a common phenomenon, which is observed both in nature and in numerous devices and structures. It occurs in literally all types of vibrations. To mention just a few examples, acoustic, mechanical, or electromagnetic resonance can be distinguished. In the present book, 12 chapters dealing with different aspects of resonance phenomena have been presented.",isbn:"978-953-51-3634-7",printIsbn:"978-953-51-3633-0",pdfIsbn:"978-953-51-4598-1",doi:"10.5772/intechopen.68248",price:119,priceEur:129,priceUsd:155,slug:"resonance",numberOfPages:254,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"da5cccb1323ad52317e2001caf4e92f9",bookSignature:"Jan Awrejcewicz",publishedDate:"November 29th 2017",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/6128.jpg",keywords:null,numberOfDownloads:10976,numberOfWosCitations:10,numberOfCrossrefCitations:5,numberOfDimensionsCitations:12,numberOfTotalCitations:27,isAvailableForWebshopOrdering:!0,dateEndFirstStepPublish:"March 21st 2017",dateEndSecondStepPublish:"April 11th 2017",dateEndThirdStepPublish:"July 8th 2017",dateEndFourthStepPublish:"October 6th 2017",dateEndFifthStepPublish:"December 5th 2017",remainingDaysToSecondStep:"4 years",secondStepPassed:!0,currentStepOfPublishingProcess:5,editedByType:"Edited by",kuFlag:!1,biosketch:null,coeditorOneBiosketch:null,coeditorTwoBiosketch:null,coeditorThreeBiosketch:null,coeditorFourBiosketch:null,coeditorFiveBiosketch:null,editors:[{id:"68338",title:"Prof.",name:"Jan",middleName:null,surname:"Awrejcewicz",slug:"jan-awrejcewicz",fullName:"Jan Awrejcewicz",profilePictureURL:"https://mts.intechopen.com/storage/users/68338/images/system/68338.jpeg",biography:"Full Professor, Head of the Department of Automation, Biomechanics and Mechatronics of Lodz University of Technology (Poland). Multiple doctor honoris causa, recipient of the Humboldt Award, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Author/co-author of over 780 journal and conference papers and 50 monographs. Editor of 28 books and 36 journal special issues. Principal investigator of numerous research grants. Member of Editorial Boards of 88 Journals (17 with IF). Organizer and Head of 14 International Conferences 'Dynamical Systems – Theory and Applications” (Lodz, 1992-2017) and 3 International Conferences 'Mechatronics: Ideas for Industrial Applications' (Warsaw, 2012; Lodz, 2014; Gdansk, 2015). His scientific interests cover mathematics, mechanics, biomechanics, automation, physics, and computer-oriented sciences, with the main focus on nonlinear processes.",institutionString:"Lodz University of Technology",position:null,outsideEditionCount:0,totalCites:0,totalAuthoredChapters:"4",totalChapterViews:"0",totalEditedBooks:"6",institution:{name:"Lodz University of Technology",institutionURL:null,country:{name:"Poland"}}}],coeditorOne:null,coeditorTwo:null,coeditorThree:null,coeditorFour:null,coeditorFive:null,topics:[{id:"970",title:"Mathematical Physics",slug:"mathematical-physics"}],chapters:[{id:"56765",title:"Magnetic Resonance",slug:"magnetic-resonance",totalDownloads:730,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[{id:"199110",title:"Dr.",name:"Betül",surname:"Çalişkan",slug:"betul-caliskan",fullName:"Betül Çalişkan"},{id:"208732",title:"Dr.",name:"Ali Cengiz",surname:"Çalişkan",slug:"ali-cengiz-caliskan",fullName:"Ali Cengiz Çalişkan"}]},{id:"57687",title:"Magneto-Elastic Resonance: Principles, Modeling and Applications",slug:"magneto-elastic-resonance-principles-modeling-and-applications",totalDownloads:1080,totalCrossrefCites:1,authors:[{id:"207634",title:"Dr.",name:"Yannick",surname:"Le Bras",slug:"yannick-le-bras",fullName:"Yannick Le Bras"},{id:"216492",title:"Dr.",name:"Jean-Marc",surname:"Greneche",slug:"jean-marc-greneche",fullName:"Jean-Marc Greneche"}]},{id:"56538",title:"Stochastic Resonance and Related Topics",slug:"stochastic-resonance-and-related-topics",totalDownloads:1168,totalCrossrefCites:1,authors:[{id:"207472",title:"Dr.",name:"Jiri",surname:"Naprstek",slug:"jiri-naprstek",fullName:"Jiri Naprstek"},{id:"213311",title:"Dr.",name:"Cyril",surname:"Fischer",slug:"cyril-fischer",fullName:"Cyril Fischer"}]},{id:"56969",title:"Chaotic, Stochastic Resonance, and Anti-Resonance Phenomena in Optics",slug:"chaotic-stochastic-resonance-and-anti-resonance-phenomena-in-optics",totalDownloads:841,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[{id:"176576",title:"Dr.",name:"Vladimir",surname:"Kalashnikov",slug:"vladimir-kalashnikov",fullName:"Vladimir Kalashnikov"}]},{id:"57119",title:"Optimization of Double-Well Bistable Stochastic Resonance Systems and Its Applications in Cognitive Radio Networks",slug:"optimization-of-double-well-bistable-stochastic-resonance-systems-and-its-applications-in-cognitive-",totalDownloads:788,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[{id:"208426",title:"Associate Prof.",name:"Di",surname:"He",slug:"di-he",fullName:"Di He"}]},{id:"56980",title:"Resonances in Left-Handed Waves Developed in Nonlinear Electrical Lattices",slug:"resonances-in-left-handed-waves-developed-in-nonlinear-electrical-lattices",totalDownloads:729,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[{id:"187638",title:"Prof.",name:"Koichi",surname:"Narahara",slug:"koichi-narahara",fullName:"Koichi Narahara"}]},{id:"56914",title:"Introduction to Parametric and Autoparametric Resonance",slug:"introduction-to-parametric-and-autoparametric-resonance",totalDownloads:1173,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[{id:"208970",title:"M.Sc.",name:"Lukas",surname:"Kurmann",slug:"lukas-kurmann",fullName:"Lukas Kurmann"}]},{id:"56641",title:"Resonance Effect of Nanofibrous Membrane for Sound Absorption Applications",slug:"resonance-effect-of-nanofibrous-membrane-for-sound-absorption-applications",totalDownloads:1047,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[{id:"207462",title:"Dr.",name:"Klara",surname:"Kalinova",slug:"klara-kalinova",fullName:"Klara Kalinova"}]},{id:"56881",title:"Modal Analysis of Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensor Coupled to Periodic Array of Core-Shell Metallic Nanoparticles",slug:"modal-analysis-of-surface-plasmon-resonance-sensor-coupled-to-periodic-array-of-core-shell-metallic-",totalDownloads:805,totalCrossrefCites:1,authors:[{id:"25711",title:"Dr.",name:"Karlo",surname:"Costa",slug:"karlo-costa",fullName:"Karlo Costa"},{id:"209124",title:"MSc.",name:"Nadson",surname:"Souza",slug:"nadson-souza",fullName:"Nadson Souza"},{id:"209125",title:"MSc.",name:"Jefferson",surname:"Costa",slug:"jefferson-costa",fullName:"Jefferson Costa"},{id:"209126",title:"Mr.",name:"Rafael",surname:"Santos",slug:"rafael-santos",fullName:"Rafael Santos"},{id:"209127",title:"Mr.",name:"Andre",surname:"Cruz",slug:"andre-cruz",fullName:"Andre Cruz"}]},{id:"56855",title:"Fano Resonance in High-Permittivity Objects",slug:"fano-resonance-in-high-permittivity-objects",totalDownloads:985,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[{id:"3782",title:"Dr.",name:"Gaobiao",surname:"Xiao",slug:"gaobiao-xiao",fullName:"Gaobiao Xiao"},{id:"207824",title:"Dr.",name:"Xianghong",surname:"Kong",slug:"xianghong-kong",fullName:"Xianghong Kong"},{id:"207861",title:"Dr.",name:"Lina",surname:"Qiu",slug:"lina-qiu",fullName:"Lina Qiu"}]},{id:"56871",title:"Laser-Induced Fano Resonance in Condensed Matter Physics",slug:"laser-induced-fano-resonance-in-condensed-matter-physics",totalDownloads:968,totalCrossrefCites:0,authors:[{id:"208910",title:"Prof.",name:"Ken-Ichi",surname:"Hino",slug:"ken-ichi-hino",fullName:"Ken-Ichi Hino"}]},{id:"56874",title:"Resonances and Exceptional Broadcasting Conditions",slug:"resonances-and-exceptional-broadcasting-conditions",totalDownloads:663,totalCrossrefCites:2,authors:[{id:"114776",title:"Dr.",name:"Juan Manuel",surname:"Velazquez Arcos",slug:"juan-manuel-velazquez-arcos",fullName:"Juan Manuel Velazquez Arcos"},{id:"208927",title:"MSc.",name:"Jaime",surname:"Granados-Samaniego",slug:"jaime-granados-samaniego",fullName:"Jaime Granados-Samaniego"},{id:"208928",title:"Dr.",name:"Alejandro",surname:"Pérez-Ricárdez",slug:"alejandro-perez-ricardez",fullName:"Alejandro Pérez-Ricárdez"},{id:"214935",title:"Dr.",name:"Ricardo Teodoro",surname:"Páez Hernández",slug:"ricardo-teodoro-paez-hernandez",fullName:"Ricardo Teodoro Páez Hernández"}]}],productType:{id:"1",title:"Edited Volume",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"},personalPublishingAssistant:{id:"208643",firstName:"Ana",lastName:"Vais",middleName:null,title:"Dr.",imageUrl:"//cdnintech.com/web/frontend/www/assets/author.svg",email:"vais@intechopen.com",biography:"As a Publishing Process Manager, my responsibilities include monitoring and facilitating all publishing activities for authors and editors. From chapter submission and review, to approval and revision, copyediting and design, until final publication, I work closely with authors and editors to ensure a simple and easy publishing process. I maintain constant and effective communication with authors, editors and reviewers, which allows for a level of personal support that enables contributors to fully commit and concentrate on the chapters they are writing, editing, or reviewing. I assist authors in the preparation of their chapter proposals and full chapter submissions and track important deadlines and ensure they are met. I help to coordinate internal processes such as linguistic review, and monitor the technical aspects of the process. As a PPM I am also involved in the acquisition of editors. Whether that be identifying an exceptional author and proposing an editorship collaboration, or contacting researchers who would like the opportunity to work with InTech, I establish and help manage author and editor acquisition and contact."}},relatedBooks:[{type:"book",id:"1362",title:"Numerical Simulations of Physical and Engineering Processes",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"5cd4c772ac313082f094190ade16e150",slug:"numerical-simulations-of-physical-and-engineering-processes",bookSignature:"Jan Awrejcewicz",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/1362.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"68338",title:"Prof.",name:"Jan",surname:"Awrejcewicz",slug:"jan-awrejcewicz",fullName:"Jan Awrejcewicz"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"1363",title:"Numerical Analysis",subtitle:"Theory and Application",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"509ce23e2dae5d72c14be89bd9b75004",slug:"numerical-analysis-theory-and-application",bookSignature:"Jan Awrejcewicz",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/1363.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"68338",title:"Prof.",name:"Jan",surname:"Awrejcewicz",slug:"jan-awrejcewicz",fullName:"Jan Awrejcewicz"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"2508",title:"Nonlinearity, Bifurcation and Chaos",subtitle:"Theory and Applications",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"cce4e2af0e23321e7072373518985b63",slug:"nonlinearity-bifurcation-and-chaos-theory-and-applications",bookSignature:"Jan Awrejcewicz and Peter Hagedorn",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/2508.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"68338",title:"Prof.",name:"Jan",surname:"Awrejcewicz",slug:"jan-awrejcewicz",fullName:"Jan Awrejcewicz"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"3832",title:"Computational and Numerical Simulations",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"44c51ee67bb45c4a080ece19bd0f6a08",slug:"computational-and-numerical-simulations",bookSignature:"Jan Awrejcewicz",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/3832.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"68338",title:"Prof.",name:"Jan",surname:"Awrejcewicz",slug:"jan-awrejcewicz",fullName:"Jan Awrejcewicz"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"9324",title:"Dynamical Systems Theory",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"413cbcf9c048bb251eca1b5e32bbc640",slug:"dynamical-systems-theory",bookSignature:"Jan Awrejcewicz and Dariusz Grzelczyk",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/9324.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"68338",title:"Prof.",name:"Jan",surname:"Awrejcewicz",slug:"jan-awrejcewicz",fullName:"Jan Awrejcewicz"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"1966",title:"Molecular Dynamics",subtitle:"Theoretical Developments and Applications in Nanotechnology and Energy",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"c1e56574dff3c36a222df9d90ccebf9c",slug:"molecular-dynamics-theoretical-developments-and-applications-in-nanotechnology-and-energy",bookSignature:"Lichang Wang",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/1966.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"107906",title:"Prof.",name:"Lichang",surname:"Wang",slug:"lichang-wang",fullName:"Lichang Wang"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"5192",title:"Nonlinear Systems",subtitle:"Design, Analysis, Estimation and Control",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"f0fcb297b36945433902e923bf668b8b",slug:"nonlinear-systems-design-analysis-estimation-and-control",bookSignature:"Dongbin Lee, Tim Burg and Christos Volos",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/5192.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"147032",title:"Prof.",name:"Dongbin",surname:"Lee",slug:"dongbin-lee",fullName:"Dongbin Lee"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"8345",title:"Boundary Layer Flows",subtitle:"Theory, Applications and Numerical Methods",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"14d9725e87983a03938f073f6c5ee815",slug:"boundary-layer-flows-theory-applications-and-numerical-methods",bookSignature:"Vallampati Ramachandra Prasad",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/8345.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"146601",title:"Dr.",name:"Vallampati",surname:"Ramachandra Prasad",slug:"vallampati-ramachandra-prasad",fullName:"Vallampati Ramachandra Prasad"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"6716",title:"Perturbation Methods with Applications in Science and Engineering",subtitle:null,isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"4eb95b646172fe61a2068c4a98ac13e4",slug:"perturbation-methods-with-applications-in-science-and-engineering",bookSignature:"İlkay Bakırtaş",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/6716.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"186388",title:"Prof.",name:"İlkay",surname:"Bakırtaş",slug:"ilkay-bakirtas",fullName:"İlkay Bakırtaş"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}},{type:"book",id:"1591",title:"Infrared Spectroscopy",subtitle:"Materials Science, Engineering and Technology",isOpenForSubmission:!1,hash:"99b4b7b71a8caeb693ed762b40b017f4",slug:"infrared-spectroscopy-materials-science-engineering-and-technology",bookSignature:"Theophile Theophanides",coverURL:"https://cdn.intechopen.com/books/images_new/1591.jpg",editedByType:"Edited by",editors:[{id:"37194",title:"Dr.",name:"Theophanides",surname:"Theophile",slug:"theophanides-theophile",fullName:"Theophanides Theophile"}],productType:{id:"1",chapterContentType:"chapter",authoredCaption:"Edited by"}}]},chapter:{item:{type:"chapter",id:"8975",title:"Web Users' Implicit Feedback Inference Based on Amount of Simple Interaction Logs at Browser Side",doi:"10.5772/7727",slug:"web-users-implicit-feedback-inference-based-on-amount-of-simple-interaction-logs-at-browser-side",body:'\n\t\t
In order to provide personalized service to web users, the first thing to do is to find the web pages that contain interesting and useful contents among all visited web pages. So far, many researchers have attempted to do the task using various usage logs – viewing time, scrolling, bookmarking, saving, printing and so on - that can be collected without notice to users while they visit web pages. Consequently, it has been important things for many researchers to find useful logs that indicate users’ interest level efficiently. However, it is still challengeable to find useful logs that can be considered as good implicit interest indicators. In other words, we need an efficient and effective method to elicit users’ interest implicitly under current web environments. In addition, although a lot of researchers have focused on implicit elicitation of users’ interest level for contents of web pages, many other influential factors that may make users interact with web pages have been also investigated [Kelly, 2004; Fogg et al., 2003; Wathen & Burkell, 2002; Chi et al., 2001; Kim & Allen, 2002; Kellar et al., 2007; Rieh, 2002]. For examples, users may show more interactions on web pages that contain difficult or even on web pages that have more complex layout structures irrespective of interest level. Therefore, various other influential factors also should be investigated carefully. As we can see in figure 1, it is necessary to analyze the factors and usage logs to understand web usage patterns. We are going to find various influential factors that can be identified by computer system while users browse the web.
\n\t\t\tTo find the factors correctly, it is also important to develop a tool to assess users’ feedbacks about a web page. Such tools may run on the browser-side or on the server-side, but we are more interested in browser-side tools because they do not restrict information sources to a specific website and also because they can derive timely information from dynamic web sites whose contents may change frequently. One of the important requirements of a good browser-side
\n\t\t\tThe concept of influential factor analysis based on interaction logs
tool is that it should preserve the web browsing environment as much as possible, which in turn means that it should not depend too much on the implementation details of diverse web browsers. We supposed that one of such tools for monitoring users’ interests may be built simply based on the amount of processed Windows GUI messages while users are reading a web page.
\n\t\t\tIn these perspectives, we designed several experiments to see whether influences of the factors can be inferred based on the Windows GUI messages efficiently at browser side. We also built a software module, called the Browser Monitoring Module (BMM), which runs behind the Internet Explorer and counts Windows GUI messages. Our experimental results showed that the amount of message traffic, though it may sound simplistic, is indeed an effective indicator of users’ interests about a web page and some influential factors. Therefore, we concluded that we can use the BMM for our future designs of various user-adaptive services, for example, personalized web browsers, personalized search engines, recommendation systems web usage mining, and so on.
\n\t\tMany studies have implicitly measured web users’ interest. Server-side analyses have shown good performance and have been successfully applied to consumer analyses of commercial web sites. The users’ interest at the server-side can be analyzed more easily because relevant information can be found in log files maintained by the server. For example, from the log file, the users’ login/logout time, the web pages that users have visited, users’ IP addresses, and so on can be obtained. However, the server-side analysis has critical limitations – only users on a specific site can be analyzed and the contents of a server are not sufficient to construct a general user model. On the other hand, through a browser-side analysis, the users’ interest can be analyzed from various sites and a user model can be constructed using a wealth of information. Therefore, many researchers have focused on browser-side analyses. However, this form of analysis also brings forth certain challenges, largely because there are no standardized methods to determine what users’ activities are relevant to users’ interests. Finding relevant activities is important in that an explicit user feedback method (e.g.: think aloud protocol, post interview) cannot be applied in natural web browsing environments.
\n\t\t\tIn order to predict users’ interest implicitly at the browser side, a modified web browser was built [Claypool et al., 2001]. This browser monitors the number of mouse clicks, mouse movement, the scrolling amount, and the elapse time on a page. From this method, it was found that a user’s interest for contents of a web page is correlated not with a unit activity but a combination of several activities. However, with regard to measuring the amount of scrolling, the authors counted only the number of mouse clicks on the scrollbars and measured the duration of scrollbar usage. However, users may also use up/down keys or a mouse wheel to scroll the windows. In [Goecks & Shavlik, 2000], the authors measured the number of command-state changes to detect scroll activity and assessed status-bar-text changes for mouse activity. Changes may occur according to the activities but they may also arise by performing a different activity. In [Hijikata, 2004], the authors collected the results of several activities for analyzing user behaviors but the methods of detecting the activities were not described in detail. In [Reeder et al., 2000], the authors built Weblogger, a tool to detect several activities on Internet Explorer. However, the detection of all events from a browser is not an easy task. In [Kelly & Belkin, 2004], the method of using the length of time a user views a document in his/her web browser as implicit feedback was investigated and their conclusion was that there is no significant relationship between display time and document preference. However, they only addressed display time. In [Seo & Zhang, 2000], the authors used bookmarking as a relevant activity, but this approach is inadequate for dynamic websites whose contents may change frequently.
\n\t\t\tIn numerous studies, the activities during task-oriented web browsing, such as using search engines, information seeking, and problem solving, exert been analyzed. For example, in [Badi et al., 2006], the authors analyzed various user activities and document properties, but their focus was limited to organize some links for class material as high school teacher. Users browse the web not only for searching important information but also for entertainment or distraction. In other words, one of the purposes of web browsing is merely to seek enjoyment.
\n\t\t\tMoreover, other factors that may have influences on users’ activities have been studied. The factors may belong to one of three categories – contents attributes, user characteristics, and context. As one of the factors in contents attributes, in [Kelly, 2004], the familiarity of topics has been discussed and in [Fogg et al., 2003; Wathen & Burkell, 2002], information credibility has been considered and important factors of credibility were suggested. Information scent [Chi et al., 2001] has been understood as an influential factor on user activities and cognitive authority and information quality were also suggested [Rieh, 2002]. Structural complexity and reading pattern are still on debate. For user characteristics, cognitive style and problem solving style were studied [Kim & Allen, 2002]. Context factor that has been mostly discussed was user’s task at hand [Kellar et al., 2007]. And finally, in [Kelly & Belkin, 2004], the relationships between display time and various factors – task, topic, usefulness, endurance, frequency, stage, persistence, familiarity, and retention were investigated. However, in spite of the fact that there are many factors that may have influences on users’ activities, the previous researches have mostly focused on interest.
\n\t\tWe analyzed several methods that have been proposed thus far in order to identify some requirements. First, web user analyses should be conducted at the browser side and in a real time manner. In addition, it is necessary to find simple but effective methods for detecting user activities that can be used as a measure of interest and influences of other factors with minimal unnatural change to the web-browsing environment. The last aspect is that evaluation of the proposed method should be conducted with natural tasks such that users read web pages without any specific goals in mind. To meet these requirements, BMM detects Windows GUI messages while users are reading web pages and thus it is possible to measure user activities in real time without any interruption to the users. We also evaluated the proposed method under a natural web browsing environment in which users could read web pages of various topics in a desired manner.
\n\t\t\tIn order to analyze users’ implicit interest at the browser side, we have to monitor several usage logs, for example, the viewing time, scroll movement, sequences of visited URLs, keyboard typing, and so on. In our research, we have chosen several usage logs to record while users view different Web pages. The viewing time that has mainly been investigated in the related researches so far is the time during which users remain on a particular web page. The mouse wheel counts the number of WM-MOUSEWHEEL messages. For mouse and scrollbar movement, we measured the distance between two consecutive positions of the mouse cursor and scroll bar at regular intervals and summed the distances. We also counted the number of processed WM-PAINT messages, as WM-PAINT messages are processed when users change the size of their browser window, scroll within the window, move their mouse cursor, and so on. The number of mouse clicks and keyboard typing were also considered. We believe that these activities are good indicators of user interest regarding the contents of Web pages. We have chosen these logs because they can be measured without much effort. However, for scroll movement, we were unable to obtain the position of the scrollbar on some of the Web pages, and the WM-PAINT messages can be affected by the dynamic content of certain Web pages. This means that we have to be careful when using these data as logs for measuring user activities. We did not record some of the behaviors that have been considered by other researches – bookmarking, saving, printing, and coping and pasting – because users do not always show those behaviors on every valuable Web page, and hence their records do not suit our purpose. We collected some physical data of Web pages - the scroll height and file size - of each visited Web page.
\n\t\t\tThere are several factors that make users interact with web pages. For example, a user may stay for relatively long time at a specific web page because there are interesting contents or the user feels that the contents are more difficult than others. Sometimes the user may roll the mouse wheel more frequently on one Web page than on others because it may not easy for him/her to find necessary information from the pages. Therefore, we selected some factors that may exert an influence on user interactions with web pages – interest, credibility, complexity, and difficulty. Because these factors are inherently subjective and cannot be measured with only usage logs, we collected various types of feedback regarding the current context directly from users.
\n\t\t\tThe structure of BMM
In some of the previous researches, custom-built browsers have been used [Kellar et al., 2007], as have some specialized logging software that works “in stealth mode” [Kelly & Belkin, 2004]. Although there are several merits in using custom-built browsers, because various data can be collected easily, we developed a browser-monitoring module (BMM) that runs behind Internet Explorer without any modification to the browser, as we wanted to preserve the natural state of the Web browsing environment as much as possible.
\n\t\t\t\tBMM is a type of monitoring software that was developed to detect Windows GUI messages while users read Web pages, and thus it is possible to measure user activities in real-time without any interruption to the users. BMM uses a global hooker library, written in C++, which runs in the background and hooks all Windows operating system events. In addition, using Windows Shell API, BMM can collect all instances of currently running Internet Explorers through the COM object. In addition, necessary properties of Web pages can be obtained from the COM object. BMM is written in C#, running under a Windows platform with.NET Framework 2.0.
\n\t\t\t\tBMM consists of four components - hooker, data recorder, data aggregator, and feedback window. The data to hook are the number of keys pressed, events of program focus changes, number of WM_PAINT events, mouse click and mouse wheel messages, and so on. Basically, the hooker catches every message passed within the operating system, so we should filter out irrelevant messages to record only necessary data for our studies. For instance, because a WM_PAINT message is invoked whenever the O/S needs to re-draw some parts of a window, we have to be able to ignore the messages from unfocused windows and count the number of messages that are invoked for only the currently focused browser window. The aggregator can acquire several properties of web pages by using a Document Object Model (DOM). Acquired properties are the viewing size of a document (in pixels), file size (in bytes), current location of the scrollbar, and character set of the page. The location of scroll bar is periodically updated so that the total displacement of the scrollbar can be estimated. However, a critical issue arises at several \'fancy\' Web pages that have different structures from standard Web documents, eventually yielding no data while accessing the DOM property. The data aggregator also aggregates all data from these multiple components, and the data recorder stores the aggregated data in a human-readable XML format for future analysis. After Web searching, using the feedback window, users can review the visited Web pages and choose radio buttons that ask about several types of assessments about the contents of each Web page. If the users do not want to answer questions regarding some of the Web pages, they can even remove the records easily. In figure 2, the structure of the BMM is shown.
\n\t\t\tIn the first experiment, we analyzed viewing time and 3 GUI messages - WM_PAINT, WM_MOUSEWHEEL, and WM_MOUSEMOVE - and formulated the following hypotheses.
\n\t\t\t\t1. The number of processed GUI messages is relatively higher on web pages that contain interesting contents.
\n\t\t\t\t2. The amount of information in a web page affects the number of processed GUI messages.
\n\t\t\t\tUnder the above assumptions, we conducted experiments to verify the positive relationship between the amount of processed GUI messages and users’ interest for the content. First, we collected 120 text-based web pages offering information on various topics – Politics, Economics, Education, Engineering, Entertainment, Science, Health, and Sports – with varying content size. 25 subjects read each page in their own desired manner. To obtain appropriate data, the subjects were not told that some activities would be measured while they read the web pages. During the experiments, user activities while reading a web page and some measurable data were recorded in a log file for future analysis. In addition, whenever a subject finished reading a web page, a small window appeared wherein the
\n\t\t\t\tAn example log record produced by the Browser Monitoring Module
Message | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tp-value | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
WM_MOSEMOVE message | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.0006 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
WM_MOUSEWHEEL message | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.000036 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
WM-PAINT message | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.000013 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Viewing time | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.00000032 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTable 1. Results of statistical significance analysis. The p-value shows us that there is a strong relationship between the number of each message and interest level.
subject recorded his/her interest and preference level for the contents of the page. There are 5 levels of interest, and subjects recorded their interest for the contents of a web page accordingly. Due to some malfunctions of the BMM in the users’ browsing environment and failures to properly obtain user feedback, 5 users’ log files were excluded. Therefore, we analyzed 20 users’ log files.
\n\t\t\t\tIn figure 3, an example of a log record is shown. BMM records several data – the visited URL, the number of typed keys, the number of GUI messages, file size of the web page, viewing time, and feedback levels as obtained from the user’s feedback. Each element represents log data of a web page that user visited. Among these data, the number of GUI messages, the file size of the web page, viewing time, and user feedback were analyzed in this experiment.
\n\t\t\tThe main objective of the experiment was to determine whether there is a positive relationship between the number of processed GUI messages, which is normalized by the information size, and the users’ interest level. We measured the amount of users’ interaction on a web page as follows.
,In Eq. (1), \n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
Analysis of experimental result: (a) U-value for WM_MOUSEMOVE vs. Interest level, (b) U-value for WM_MOUSEWHEEL vs. Interest level, (c) U-value for WM_PAINT vs. Interest level, (d) Viewing time average vs. Interest level
In this experiment, we used the number of processed GUI messages to predict users’ interest, as the messages are processed whenever users perform certain activities while reading web pages. It was found that the proposed method is simple and easy to develop while still being adequately effective. The results of our experiments showed that if a user engages in more activities that make the system process more GUI messages while reading a web page, even in the event that the page offers relatively little information, it can be inferred that the page contains interesting or preferable content. This provides an important guideline to follow, because finding preferable web pages is the first step of user modeling procedures and personalization services.
\n\t\t\t\tIn this work, we considered only text-based web pages for ease of defining the amount of information on a web page. However, web pages contain an abundance of multimedia objects such as pictures and videos. Subsequent experiments should consider the use of a well-defined measure for the amount of information in such web pages. Also, because users’ interaction is believed to be influenced by the layout of a web page, this aspect will also be taken into consideration in later works.
\n\t\t\tThe correlation between the amount of all usage logs and feedback levels
In the second experiment, we collected 160 web pages offering information on various topics – Politics, Economics, Education, Engineering, Entertainment, Science, Health, and Sports – with various content sizes in which text, images, tables and videos are all presented naturally with various layouts. 20 graduate students read each page in their own desired manner. We just gave the list of numbers to click without showing any information about the contents of web pages in advance because we want to exclude any effect of information scent [Chi et al., 2001]. To obtain appropriate data, the subjects were not told that some of activities would be recorded while they are viewing the web pages. The subjects’ activities and some necessary data were recorded in a log file for future analysis. After browsing all the web pages, the subjects were instructed to review the visited web pages and answer some questions about their feedback level - interest, difficulty, complexity and credibility – in 5 point scales through the feedback window.
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t | Viewing time | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMouse move | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMouse click | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMouse wheel | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWM-PAINT | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Interest | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.771 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.545 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.686 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.559 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.507 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Difficulty | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.476 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.340 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.532 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.418 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.057 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Complexity | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.309 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.178 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.148 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.196 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.599 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
Credibility | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.507 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.203 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.411 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.289 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0.241 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTable 2. The correlation coefficients between the amount of usage logs and feedback levels – the results of the second experiment
This experiment was an extension of the previous experiments and conducted under more natural environment that subjects can do their web searching task on their own phases. The usage logs and feedbacks to record were same with the first experiment. We gave the subjects two tasks to perform. The first task is a kind of information gathering that requires accuracy, trust, efficiency, and responsibility about the search results. The subjects had to find some laboratories in universities or companies that research similar topics with the subjects’ own research topics and read carefully each page to judge the relevance of the information. We encouraged the subjects to perform this task as normally as possible. The second task is a kind of information gathering and browsing that can perform without any burden or responsibility about the search results. For examples, the subjects can search some
\n\t\t\t\tThe correlation between the amount of all usage logs and credibility levels
information about their hobbies, favorite products to buy, famous tourist spots, favorite sports or movie star and so on. We also encouraged the subjects to perform these tasks as normally as possible. Differently with the first and second experiments that controlled the subjects’ activities in that the subjects could only visit the collected Web pages without any pre-information clues, in this experiment, the subjects could visit any Web page that they wanted and use any search engine or portal site they wanted to use. Therefore, we observed a lot of re-visitation patterns. Thus, during the feedback phase, we let the subjects delete the logs of Web pages that they just used to find other Web pages to visit. In this way, we excluded the navigational Web pages [Fu et al., 2001].
\n\t\t\tActually, we thought that there are supposed to be some differences between the result patterns of the first experiment and that of the second experiment because the types of web pages are quite different. However, there were no big differences between the results. The figure 5 and table 2 shows us that there were also positive correlations between the amount of all usage logs and interest levels similarly with the results of the first experiment. In addition, we also found significant differences of the amount of usage logs among the interest levels. This means that the type of web pages is not important factor. Differently from the result of interest levels, difficulty and complexity levels showed negative correlation with the amount of usage logs. The credibility levels showed no big correlation with the amount of usage logs. From the results, we concluded that interest level has the most significant influence on the amount of usage logs and users are inclined to leave quickly web pages that have difficult contents or complex structures without much interaction.
\n\t\t\tIn figure 6 and table 3, we can see that the viewing time and the amount of mouse movement have positive correlations with the interest levels and the differences among the interest levels also statistically significant. The amount of mouse wheel, mouse clicks and processed WM_PAINT messages also showed positive correlations with interest level but the differences were not statistically significant. The amount of usage logs increased according to complexity levels but dropped steeply at level 5. The difficulty levels showed no big correlation with the amount of usage logs. The most interesting pattern that we found in the results of the third experiment was that the amount of usage logs showed positive correlation with the credibility levels and the difference of the amount of usage logs among the credibility levels were statistically significant. This result was not found in the results of the second experiment in which users browsed pre-collected web pages without proximal cues. Therefore, we concluded that the usage logs are under influences of credibility levels as well as interest levels in ordinary web browsing environments.
\n\t\t\tBecause we found that there are positive relationships between interest levels and the amount of usage logs from the results of our experiments, we used the usage logs for the training of decision trees and Bayesian networks to infer the interest levels. For construction
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t | Viewing time | \n\t\t\t\t\t\tMouse move | \n\t\t\t\t\t\tMouse click | \n\t\t\t\t\t\tMouse wheel | \n\t\t\t\t\t\tWM-PAINT | \n\t\t\t\t\t
Interest | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.396 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.301 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.119 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.245 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.229 | \n\t\t\t\t\t
Difficulty | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.307 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.073 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.124 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.182 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.330 | \n\t\t\t\t\t
Complexity | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.315 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.129 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.533 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t-0.162 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.040 | \n\t\t\t\t\t
Credibility | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.609 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.414 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.288 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.412 | \n\t\t\t\t\t\t0.389 | \n\t\t\t\t\t
The correlation coefficients between the amount of usage logs and feedback levels – the results of the third experiment
and testing of the machine learning models, the logs were normalized to each subject’s scale in order to ignore the variances that can be included due to differences in viewing style and we applied a 10-fold cross validation. Actually, it was not easy to infer 5 interest levels exactly – the classification accuracy was below 50%. Therefore, we merged levels 1 and 2 into a low-interest group and merged levels 4 and 5 into a high-interest group to see the accuracy of binary classification. The overall classification accuracy was 82% using Bayesian networks that are constructed by Simulated annealing algorithm and 84% using Decision trees.
\n\t\tThus far, numerous researchers have attempted to obtain users’ preferences or interests implicitly for the contents of web pages by observing their interactions on a browser. This information could then later be used for information filtering, recommendation applications, and adaptive user interfaces. However, due to the limitations of interaction channels between users and computers – i.e., only a mouse and keyboard - predicting users’ interests is not an easy task.
\n\t\t\tIn this chapter, we mainly used the number of processed GUI messages to predict users’ interest, as the messages are processed whenever users perform certain activities while reading web pages. It was found that the proposed method is simple and easy to develop while still being adequately effective. The results of our experiments showed that if a user engages in more activities that make the system process more GUI messages while reading a web page, even in the event that the page offers relatively little information, it can be inferred that the page contains interesting or preferable content. This provides an important guideline to follow, because finding preferable web pages is the first step of user modeling procedures and personalization services.
\n\t\t\tIn our first experiment in which we considered only text-based web pages, we found that if a user engages in more activities that make the system process more GUI messages while reading a web page, it can be inferred that the page contains interesting contents. In later experiments, based on new results of our extended experiments using natural web pages that contain images, frames, videos, and so on, we further confirmed that users have tendency to interact more on the interested web pages. This result looks natural and simple but it is very important fact that we can infer users’ interest for web contents based on the amount of simple interaction logs that can be measured easily. The amount of log data can be measured without any modification to current browsing environments so that our method can be applied very easily.
\n\t\t\tMany previous researches [Fogg et al., 2003; Wathen & Burkell, 2002] already have focused on credibility on the web and it is currently considered as important factor to improve web environment by usability researchers, media researchers, web designers, psychologists, HCI practitioners, and so on. However, influence of the information credibility on users’ interactions on web pages has not been clearly investigated. From our experimental results, we showed that users interact more on web pages that contain credible contents and the pattern may be clear in natural browsing environments. We think the results may come from the fact that users select their links using various information scents, therefore, the interest or usefulness of the contents may be partially determined in advance so that users may interact more on web pages that contain credible contents. Because current web environments give users multiple methods to find interesting contents – search engines, portal sites, commercial sites, and so on – credibility as well as interest plays an important role to make users interact with web pages. From this result, it is apparent to us that we are supposed to consider what makes the contents of web pages more credible as well as interesting in order to attract users’ attention to our web sites.
\n\t\t\tMany web personalization systems make use of a user’s activity logs at the web browser in order to build a user model. A user model here is simply a structured summary of web pages where a user exhibited high activity. A web personalization system then uses a user model to determine whether a new page is recommendable or not by computing content similarity between the new page and a user model. It is important to realize at this point that the high-activity web pages do not only reflect a user’s topics of interest but also a user’s way of assessing the credibility of a web page. If a personalization system intends to recommend a page that is both interesting and credible to a user, it should not only depend on content similarity but also utilize a user’s way of assessing credibility of a web page, which can be inferred from the same web pages that provide keywords for a user model. A better user model should not only contain topic keywords but also contain page attributes that a user thinks important for a web page to be credible. In some previous researches [Fogg et al., 2003; Wathen & Burkell, 2002], several important factors for web credibility have been discovered, and we recognize easily that many of the factors cannot be explained by content similarity only. A new method to integrate the credibility factors into a recommendation model is highly desired. Currently, from this point of view, we are also carrying out some extended experiments based on long-term monitoring of over 10 subjects to verify whether we can find some relationships among activity logs, credibility levels, and some credibility factors for the purpose of developing an initial user model in which the credibility factors are also integrated.
\n\t\tSchistosomiasis is among the most widespread human parasitic diseases with more than 200 million people infected worldwide, with the majority of these infections occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. The human schistosomiasis species present in Senegal are Schistosoma haematobium and S. mansoni which are transmitted by contact with freshwater snails as an intermediate host and caused urinary or intestinal schistosomiasis, respectively. The intermediate host for S. mansoni belongs to the genus Biomphalaria pfeifferi, while genus Bulinus harbors S. haematobium [1, 2, 3]. Biomphalaria pfeifferi is the only species involved in the transmission of S. mansoni in Senegal [4]. It was in the late 1980s that the first cases of intestinal schistosomiasis were diagnosed in the town of Richard-Toll, north-east of the lower Senegal River valley [5]. The transformation of the environment by human agricultural activities favors the creation of breeding sites for the development of snails that spread to other sites [6, 7]. This situation has been aggravated by hydraulic developments, the construction of numerous small and large dams, as well as the multiplication of irrigation canals [8]. The modification of the practices of the populations bordering these developments is also concretized by intensification of human contact with infected water [9]. These factors contribute to the evolution of the incidence of these schistosome infections and their pathologies in the region [10].
In the present study, the importance of the physicochemical parameters of surface waters (pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, phosphates, salinity, nitrates, temperature, and flow velocity of water) on the spatial distribution of snail intermediate hosts of schistosomes in human beings has been studied.
The choice of prospecting sites was guided by their human and animal associations and the presence of human schistosomiasis transmission. The selected villages are bordered by creeks and tributaries of the river in which local people carry out domestic or work activities related to water (Figure 1).
Map of the study sites.
In this study, the three villages that have been selected were co-exposed to S. haematobium and S. mansoni infection. The village of Menguègne Boye (ME) (16°017,315 N, −16°356,659 O) has four (04) water points (ME1, ME2, ME3, ME4), the village of Ndellé Boye (NE) (16°168,725 N, −16°289,124 O) has two (02) water points (NE1, NE2), and the village of Thilla (TA) (16°054,994 N, −16°331,894 O) also has two (02) water points (TA1 and TA2). NE1 and NE2 are separated by a dam and communicate with each other through transverse pipes.
The study covers the period from 03 July to 02 August 2017 (beginning of the rainy season), due to a survey every 15 days from 9 am to 12 am. Three surveys at the different water points constituting zones of human-water contact, zones of transmission of the disease, were carried out. In parallel with the malacological investigations, in situ measurements of the physicochemical factors were conducted.
The evaluation of the physicochemical parameters was carried out to a depth not exceeding 0.5 meters. Conductivity (μS/cm), salinity (psu), dissolved oxygen (mg/l) and its saturation (%), and nitrate concentration (mg/l) were measured with the YSI 600 multiparameter digital probe recorder (HANNA instruments). The plunging probes were covered by a scraper. Phosphate measurement (mg/l) was performed by using the Phosphate High Range (PHR) model HI 96717 C (HANNA instruments). Briefly, 10 ml of water was first mixed in a tube with the reagent Phosphate HR Reagent B (HANNA instruments). Then the tube was placed in the device for 3 minutes to obtain the value. Hydric potential (pH) was obtained using an ESEE pH-meter (HANNA instruments) by immersion of a probe. The flow velocity (m/s) and the water temperature (°C) were measured by a flowatch (JDC electronic) equipped with a submerged propeller at a depth of 0.5 meters.
The presence of snails was looked for at each water point using a wire wick (2.5 mm) by diversifying the areas surveyed. The areas of prospect were the Typha area, floating vegetation, and mud. Depth was measured before each scoop with the dip net. The number of scoops was a function of the surface of the water point and varied between 10 and 15. After washing the vegetation in the basin, the water was filtered using a metal screen (2.5 mm) only passing water and fine debris. The snails were harvested with tongs. All snails from the same waterhole were grouped in one or more pots if necessary and brought to the laboratory for identification.
The identification is based on the Mandahl-Barth key based on the morphology of the shell. Snails not identifiable to the eye were observed with a binocular magnifying glass. The latter method was mainly of interest to snails of the genus Bulinus because the species of the genus Biomphalaria pfeifferi is easily recognizable by the discoid shape of its shell. The density (d) of snails was expressed in (average) numbers of snails per scoop [11].
The R Studio, Excel software, and XLSTAT extension were used for the analysis of the results. Results are presented +/− SD averages. In order to establish a relationship between the different physical (conductivity, flow rate, water temperature) and chemical (dissolved oxygen, saturation, water salinity, pH, nitrate contents, and phosphates) parameters and the density of snails, a statistical principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to all variables. With XLSAT, the realization of principal component analysis allowed to analyze a table of observations/quantitative variables or a correlation or covariance matrix.
The averages of the eight [8] abiotic factors measured in our eight water points are shown inFigure 2. The highest water temperature was observed at Mbenguègne Boye (ME3) with 29.9°C. Thilla with its first site (TA1) recorded 29.8°C, while Ndellé Boye had the lowest temperature from its second NE2 water point with 28.5°C. Only the water points NE2 and TA2 recorded a speed greater than 0 (zero) with, respectively, 1 m/s and 3 m/s. The maximum conductivity was obtained at Ndellé Boye: 200.26 μS/cm for NE1 and 195.16 μS/cm for NE2. The lowest conductivity content was found at the first Menguègne Boye point (ME1, 132.06 μS/cm). Dissolved oxygen (mg/l) showed +/− significant variations from 38.3 mg/l to ME3 to 5.7 mg/l to TA2. At Menguègne Boye the maximum dissolved O2 content was observed at ME1 36.83 mg/l and ME3 (38.7 mg/l). Thilla had the lowest dissolved O2 content at point 2 (5.7 mg/l at TA2). The salt content obtained is very weak (1 ppt = 1–9 mg/l). We found in Ndellé (NE1) the largest salt measure (0.503 psu), followed by ME2 with 0.4 ppt. The lowest levels were found at ME1 (0.063 psu) and ME3 (0.066 psu). The pH showed its maximum values in Menguègne Boye—7.4 to ME1, 7.02 to ME2, and 6.92 at ME4—while Thilla recorded the lowest value at its first point (6.59). At Ndellé, we had the maximum nitrate content (0.95 mg/l) and the average phosphate levels: 0.46 mg/l at point 1 (NE1) and 0.56 mg/l at NE2. TA2 had the highest phosphate content (1.06 mg/l), and TA1 showed only 0.03 mg/l, while we found 0 mg/l at the third point of Menguégne Boye.
Physicochemical data (average) of the water points.
The malacofauna intermediate host of human schistosomiasis consisted of Biomphalaria pfeifferi, Bulinus forskalii, B. globosus, B. senegalensis, and B. truncatus. The total population of snails recovered in the three villages (eight water points) was 2068 snails. The analysis of the malacological data showed that B. truncatus colonized all study sites (Table 1). Its dominance within this stand was observed in all water points. However, ME1 had the highest density of B. truncatus, while B. globosus (0.5 individuals/scoop) is absent at Ndellé (NE1, NE2) and TA1. B. forskalii was mainly present in Menguègne Boye with d = 1.04 at ME1 and d = 1.1 at ME2. B. senegalensis was found only at Mbenguègne Boye (ME1 and ME2) and at the second point of Ndellé (NE2, d = 0.38). Biomphalaria pfeifferi was the second most represented species (d = 2.16 at ME1 and d = 2.38 at TA1) afterB. truncatus.
Site | Water point | Biom. | B. fors. | B. glob. | B. sene. | B. trun. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Menguègne Boye | ME1 | 2.16 (± 0.64) | 1.04 (± 0.31) | 0.5 (± 0.15) | 0.11 (± 0.03) | 27.54 (± 8.26) |
ME2 | 0.3 (± 0.09) | 1.1 (± 0.33) | 0.46 (± 0.13) | 0.93 (± 0.27) | 4.43 (± 1.32) | |
ME3 | 0 | 0 | 0,13 (± 0,04) | 0 | 2,86 (± 0,85) | |
ME4 | 0.06 (± 0.01) | 0.2 (± 0.06) | 0.13 (± 0.041) | 0 | 1.26 (± 0.37) | |
Ndellé Boye | NE1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0,69 (± 0,20) |
NE2 | 0 | 0.47 (± 0.14) | 0 | 0.38 (± 0.11) | 5.32 (± 1.59) | |
Thilla | TA1 | 2.38 (± 0.71) | 0.05 (± 0.01) | 0.076 (± 0.02) | 0 | 1.38 (± 0.41) |
TA2 | 0 | 0.06 (± 0.01) | 0 | 0 | 0.06 (± 0.01) |
Density of intermediate host snail of human schistosomes (number of molluscs/scoop).
Biom. = Biomphalaria, B. = Bulinus, fors. = forskalii, glob. = globosus, sene. = senegalensis, trun. = truncatus.
ME= Mbenguègne Boye, NE= Ndellé Boye, TA= Thilla
Figure 3 shows that the presence of intermediate snail hosts was positively correlated with temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen, and its saturation. Salts (phosphate, salinity, and nitrates), conductivity, and velocity did not have any direct effect on the presence of snails. The PCA indicates that the pH, the dissolved O2, and its saturation (%) were strongly linked to the presence of the species B. globosus, B. truncatus, and B. forskalii, whereas they were moderately related to that of Biomphalaria as shown in the correlation matrix. Projections on PCA of salinity, nitrate, and phosphate levels of water are orthogonal to those of snails in general, indicating that there were no significant direct influences of these parameters on snail populations. The temperature is positively correlated with Biomphalaria. Conductivity, velocity, and salinity are more or less opposed to those of B. globosus, B. truncatus, and B. forskalii.
Relationship between the density of intermediate host snails and the physicochemical parameters of water.
The temperatures measured ranged from a minimum of 28.5°C to Ndellé Boye to a maximum of 29.9°C to ME3. The lowest temperatures recorded at Ndellé could be explained by the fact that the freshwater ecosystem found in this environment is less exposed to light because of its highly developed eutrophication. It has been shown [11] that during the month of July, water temperatures on the other side of the Senegal River (Right River) vary between 26.1°C and 28.9°C. pH values vary almost by one unit (between 6.59 and 7.4). Its slight basicity accompanies the words of N’Diaye et al. [12] who said that the pH values measured in the waters of the Senegal River place the latter in the excellent to good level of surface water (6.5 < pH < 8.5). Phosphate and nitrate contents would not only come from agricultural land (leaching of fertilizers by rainwater) but also from household activities for which women use different detergents and antiseptics. Halstead et al. [13] shows the potential impact of agrochemicals on the transmission of schistosomiasis and therefore on snails. In a recent study in the same region, Diallo et al. [14] argue that washing clothes directly in the river alone probably justifies the presence of phosphates. They also argue that rains can be an important vector for the transport of domestic waste, urine, and excrement of animals to the river by the phenomenon of leaching. The strong eutrophication noted on the biotope particularly to Ndellé Boye would come from the important contents of nitrates and phosphates in the water. In addition, the presence of the Diama Dam and the association of dikes reduce the oxidation and flow velocity of the valley water [15]. These facts, combined with waste dumps around the villages and cities and agrochemicals from irrigated fields, accelerated eutrophication of water in the Senegal River Valley. The very low salt levels indicate that the watercourses of our study sites are freshwater ecosystems. The electrical conductivity which is a measure of the ability of an aqueous solution to conduct electrical current shows significant variations (132.06 and 200.26 μS/cm). The high levels obtained to Ndellé (200, 26 μS/cm at NE1 and 195.16 μS/cm to NE2) are due to the strong contributions of organic matter in the water, resulting in their greater mineralization. By comparing the values of the conductivity measured at the WHO reference water level, which is 300 μs/cm [16], we deduce that the water from these effluents of the Senegal River is of good quality. However, a study by Tfeila et al. [17] on the Senegal River indicates a much smaller variation (47.4 and 67.1 μS/cm) than that observed in our study sites.
The simultaneous presence of both intermediate host snail species is indicative of the existence of both schistosomiases in the study area. Diaw et al. [18] note the presence of Biomphalaria pfeifferi, Bulinus globosus, B. truncatus, B. senegalensis, and B. forskalii at Mbodiène bordered by Lampsar, which was a major focus of schistosomiasis. It also shows the existence of these organisms in the delta with an increase in populations of Biomphalaria and a wider distribution. Five [5] species of snail intermediate hosts of human schistosomes in Senegal were found in our study sites. B. senegalensis, an intermediate host of S. haematobium, is very common and abundant in the regions of Saint-Louis, Tambacounda, Kaolack, and Fatick [19, 20]. We thus find its presence in Menguègne Boye (d = 0.11 for ME1 and 0.93 for ME2). B. globosus and B. truncatus, intermediate hosts of S. haematobium, are very commonly found in the Senegal River delta. Biomphalaria pfeifferi, the main intermediate host of S. mansoni, was not found in Ndellé Boye although its presence has been previously mentioned [21] in Lampsar. These authors indicate that in the delta, this species was the most abundant in the early 1990s. However, the presence of this snail in Thilla and Menguègne Boye with respective densities of 2.38 and 2.16 was quite poor, which has been confirmed by the work of Ndir [20] who supports a reduced presence in the delta but with a range tending to extend toward the southern region (Louga region) since the impoundment of the dams. The dominance of B. truncatus in our study sites is very remarkable. This could be explained by the fact that the sites Menguègne Boye, Ndellé Boye, and Thilla are permanent watercourses. Gbocho et al. [16] confirm that they are favorable to the proliferation of this species.
The presence of biotopes favorable or not to the life of the snails is due to ecological transformations of the environments. Among these transformations, we can note the presence of vegetation that could determine the presence or absence of snails [22]. The physicochemical conditions that accompanied ecological changes could influence the distribution of snails. A high rate of water conduction has been noted at TA2; the rarity of snails observed at this point of water could be due to speed. Speed is a physical factor that opposes the residence of snails if it exceeds 0.3 m/s [19]. The values obtained for oxygen and pH are favorable for the habitat of gastropods. The study shows a positive correlation between temperature and Biomphalaria, whereas temperatures of 29.9°C have no influence on the Bulinus. In a study done in the lake of the Taabo Dam in Côte d’Ivoire, Gbocho et al. [16] show a positive correlation of temperature with Biomphalaria at a maximum T° of 31.5°, whereas this temperature acts negatively on the populations of Bulinus. The measured salinity has no significant influence on snails (except Biomphalaria and B. truncatus species). This could be due to its very low content. Diaw et al. [19] give the example of the effects of this parameter on the development of snails in the delta of the Senegal River where these gastropods have proliferated after the start of operation of the Diama anti-salt dam. Significant values of conductivity obtained at Ndellé (200, 26 μS/cm at NE1 and 195.16 μS/cm to NE2) generally have a negative effect on the density of snails. Which could confirm the remarks of Gbocho et al. [16] who argue that conductivity levels (74 and 77.4 μS/cm) that they observed do not correlate significantly with intermediate host populations because of its low values. Our study demonstrates that physicochemical parameters such as conductivity, dissolved oxygen and its saturation, pH, and water flow velocity have an important role on the spatial distribution of snail intermediate hosts of human schistosomiasis.
The study of the influence of physicochemical parameters on the spatial distribution of intermediate snail hosts in human schistosomes in the Senegal River delta provided insights on the diversity of snail and their density and, secondly, the role of these parameters in the distribution of snails. The presence of snail intermediate hosts of human schistosomes would be conditioned by the temperature, oxygen, and pH with which they are positively correlated. An increase in salt (phosphates, nitrates, and salinity), conductivity, and velocity would lead to a lower density of snails.
Open Access publishing helps remove barriers and allows everyone to access valuable information, but article and book processing charges also exclude talented authors and editors who can’t afford to pay. The goal of our Women in Science program is to charge zero APCs, so none of our authors or editors have to pay for publication.
",metaTitle:"What Does It Cost?",metaDescription:"Open Access publishing helps remove barriers and allows everyone to access valuable information, but article and book processing charges also exclude talented authors and editors who can’t afford to pay. The goal of our Women in Science program is to charge zero APCs, so none of our authors or editors have to pay for publication.",metaKeywords:null,canonicalURL:null,contentRaw:'[{"type":"htmlEditorComponent","content":"We are currently in the process of collecting sponsorship. If you have any ideas or would like to help sponsor this ambitious program, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at info@intechopen.com.
\\n\\nAll of our IntechOpen sponsors are in good company! The research in past IntechOpen books and chapters have been funded by:
\\n\\nWe are currently in the process of collecting sponsorship. If you have any ideas or would like to help sponsor this ambitious program, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at info@intechopen.com.
\n\nAll of our IntechOpen sponsors are in good company! The research in past IntechOpen books and chapters have been funded by:
\n\n