{ Informatics Overload }

Needle in a hay stack: Advanced Search Techniques to Use on Your Information Quests

I initially made this as an advance search cheat sheet  guide for someones internal search engine, but soon after my sister asked me for something like this as well. I went ahead and changed my original substantially so I could share it with everyone.

The first section covers some  Boolean Algebra (graphically)  to help you understand what you are really asking the search engine to look for.

The second section covers some short hand and bit-wise operators that will make your life easier when navigating your information sets.

Boolean Algebra

Illustrated examples of searches using search terms universe: { A, B, C} Example universe result set

Key = Colored parts of graphics are returned Items

Boolean algebra using order of Operations:

 

 


Please note the order of operations in boolean algebra is similar to those of regular algebra. But instead
of numbers you are calculating a Cartesian product.
Often the bitwise equivalent is allowable in searches as well
EX: ‘AND’ = ‘&’ or ‘&&’, ‘OR’ = ‘|’ or ‘||’, ‘NOT’ = ‘!’

Shorthand/Wild Card Characters

* and ? wild cards

*

(*)  -will allow any character or combination of characters to replace it

Example : – valid results for the query term : ‘*stand*’

{ stand,standardization,standard,standard731, standardize, standing, understanding, misunderstanding,…}

?

(?)  -will allow any one character to replace it

Example:   valid results for the query term : ‘ ?ffect’

{affect, effect,…}

Shorthand

~

(~)  -takes the word immediately following it and searches both for that specific word and for the word’s synonyms. It also searches for the term with alternative endings. The tilde operator works best when applied to general terms and terms with many synonyms.

Example : valid results for the query term : ‘clinical ~rules’

{‘ clinical guidelines’, ‘clinical regulations’, ‘clinical rules’, ‘clinical law’, …}

-

(-)  used to find documents without a particular term, put a ‘–‘ sign operator in front of the word in the query

Example: If you want reports about “drug_x” but you don’t want any stability information your query would look like this: ‘drug_x –stability’

+

(+)  – used to force search engine to search for a particular term. This is usually used to include stop words that would otherwise be ignored.

Example:

search for : ‘the king’  would usually yield different kings and monarchs of Europe

search for: ‘+the king’ would yield Elvis Presley.

 

***************   PLEASE NOTE************************************************************** *
* Different refinement and short hand notations are available for use/ allowed.            *
*  These are just some of the more commonly used ones.                                     *
* For further information please visit a better written tutorial located at the following:  *
*             http://www.googleguide.com                                                    *
**********************************************************************************************

 

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Hello world!

Hello all,

I will be posting on many topics in the coming months; topics surrounding informatics, programming/web programming, Information design, and other Nerdy delicacies. In honor of this goal I have decided to post a hello world script in a couple of the languages I’ve picked up over the years:

Programming:

JAVA:

 /*************************************************************************   * 
 * Comments:Test of basic understanding. Prints "Hello world!" to CMD prompt 
 * © Andrew Meyerhoff 
 ***************************************************************************/
public class testClass {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
    }

}

C:

/**  Test script. Prints string defined in string.h containing "Hello World!"   to IO stream written by Andrew Meyerhoff **/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main( int argc, char **argv )
{
    printf("Hello World!");
    return(0);
}

VB:

 ' Written By Andrew Meyerhoff. Hello world app
Module myTestMod
    Sub Main()
        MsgBox("Hello World!")
    End Sub
End Module

C#:

// written by Andrew Meyerhoff
 // Test script: prints "Hello World!" to console
public class myTestClass
{
   public static void Main()
   {
      System.Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
   }
}

C++:

//Written by Andrew Meyerhoff. Prints "Hello World!" to IO stream.
#include <iostream.h>

main()
{
    cout << "Hello World!";
    return 0;
}

Processing:

(arguably a scripting language or rather a library of java)

//Written By Andrew Meyerhoff Hello World app
void setup() {
     size(600, 400);
     fill(0);
     textFont(createFont("Serif",12));
     noLoop();
}
void draw() {
     text("Hello World!", 100, 100);
}

 

ActionScript:

(arguably a scripting language or rather a library of java)

// create text field myText, set text to "Hello World!", add to stage
       var myText:TextField = new TextField();
       myText.text="Hello World!";
       stage.addChild(myText);

Scripting:

Python:

#Print hello world by Andrew Meyerhoff
print("hello world")

Perl:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#Written By Andrew Meyerhoff print "hello world" to screen
print "Hello World!";



PHP:


<?php
# hello world example
# Written By Andrew Meyerhoff
echo "<h1> Hello World! </h1> ";
?>


JavaScript:


// multiple Hello World examples
//Written by Andrew Meyerhoff
//alert!
alert("Hello World!");
//add header
document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].innerHTML+="<div id='helloWorld'><h1>Hello World!</h1></div>";


				


        
				
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