This research investigated issues related to normalizing punctuation marks from a text retrieval perspective. A punctuated-centric approach was undertaken by exploring changes in meanings, whitespaces, words retrievability, and other issues related to normalizing punctuation marks. To investigate punctuation normalization issues, various frequency counts of punctuation marks and punctuation patterns were conducted using the text drawn from the Gutenberg Project archive and the Usenet Newsgroup archive. A number of useful punctuation mark types that could aid in analyzing punctuation marks were discovered. This study identified two types of punctuation normalization procedures: (1) lexical independent (LI) punctuation normalization and (2) lexical oriented (LO) punctuation normalization. Using these two types of punctuation normalization procedures, this study discovered various effects of punctuation normalization in terms of different search query types. By analyzing the punctuation normalization problem in this manner, a wide range of issues were discovered such as: the need to define different types of searching, to disambiguate the role of punctuation marks, to normalize whitespaces, and indexing of punctuated terms. This study concluded that to achieve the most positive effect in a text retrieval environment, normalizing punctuation marks should be based on an extensive systematic analysis of punctuation marks and punctuation patterns and …

The 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which killed an estimated 316,000 people, offered many lessons in mass-fatality management (MFM). The dissertation defined MFM in seeking information and in recovery, preservation, identification, and disposition of human remains. Specifically, it examined how mass fatalities were managed in Haiti, how affected individuals sought information about fatalities, and what needs motivated them. Data from 28 in-depth, partially structured interviews, conducted during two field visits ending 21 weeks after the earthquake, were included in a case study. The data analysis revealed the MFM was severely inadequate. One interviewee, a senior UN official, stated, "There was no fatality management." The analysis also indicated a need to learn whereabouts of the deceased motivated individuals to visit spots the deceased were last seen at. It sought to illumine information-seeking practices, as discussed in the works of J. David Johnson and others, by developing a new model of information flow in MFM. In addition, it reaffirmed Donald Case and Thomas Wilson's theoretical proposition – that need guides any seeking of information – in the case of Haiti. Finally, it produced recommendations regarding future directions in MFM for emergency managers and information scientists, including possible use of unidentified body parts in …