Open Access Health & Medical Informatics Renganathan et al., J Health Med Informat 2013, 4:3 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2157-7420.1000131 Volume 4 • ssue 3 • 1000131 J Health Med Inform ISSN: 2157-7420 JHMI, an open access journal Keywords: Information iltering system; Filtering agent; User proiles; Methods of gathering user information; Filtering models; Information iltering types Introduction Vast amounts of information are now widely accessible on the web. Customarily, when a user wants to ind interesting documents or date sources, the user has to actively search the World Wide Web. Searchers required efective means to eiciently ind the information that they really need, and avoid the irrelevant information that does not match their interests. Information retrieval [1,2], and information iltering are two major information access techniques: Information retrieval is concerned with retrieving the relevant documents from a large collection of material eiciently. It is concerned with the collection, representation, storage, organization, access, manipulation and display of information. he immense volume of source information, however, oten leads to query results which are too long and unwieldy for human users to manage efectively. he need, therefore, arises for more “intelligent” aids for information access tasks. Information iltering is an example of such an information access process. Unlike information retrieval, information iltering generally focuses on users’ long-term information needs, oten being stable preferences. It operates on dynamically changing information streams (e.g. email and news). Based on a user’s proile, which is initially derived from his or her interests, a iltering system processes a new item and takes appropriate actions that either ignore it or bring it to the user’s notice. Information Filtering and Information Retrieval Information iltering and information retrieval both have similar aims, [3]. Each wants to retrieve information according to the user request; they try to minimize as much as possible the amount of irrelevant information. But, there are key diferences between information retrieval and information iltering, [4], as noted in Table 1. Need for information iltering techniques in the biomedical ield Information iltering is a critical resource for biomedical researchers as the Internet contains vast volumes of heterogeneous data and analytical tools. • Information iltering tools can reduce the time spent by a biomedical researcher in getting relevant information, which can in turn, enhance the timeliness and quality of research. • It will help the researcher in transforming the information to knowledge in a shorter time period. Need for information iltering felt in diferent biomedical sub ields  Medicine  Public health  Bioinformatics  Medical informatics A well-known example is PubMed. here are diferent sources of information available for medical professionals, such as Pubmed, which necessitates the information iltering role in getting the relevant information which suites to the proile of interest of the medical professionals. *Corresponding author: Vinaitheerthan Renganathan, Head of Institutional Research, Skyline University College, P.O. Box 1797, University City, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Tel: 971-6-5441155; Fax: 971-6-5441166; E-mail: vinairesearch@yahoo.com Received May 13, 2013; Accepted September 03, 2013; Published September 09, 2013 Citation: Renganathan V, Babu AN, Sarbadhikari SN (2013) A Tutorial on Information Filtering Concepts and Methods for Bio-medical Searching. J Health Med Informat 4: 131. doi:10.4172/2157-7420.1000131 Copyright: © 2013 Renganathan V, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Objective: This tutorial presents an overview of information iltering and its application in bio-medical searching. It is intended for bio-medical investigators and students who have a basic understanding of the information retrieval concept, and would like to understand the workings of information iltering systems in various contexts to improve the eficiency and productivity of searches. This paper throws light on different information illeting models, types of information iltering, and the difference between information retrieval and information iltering. A Tutorial on Information Filtering Concepts and Methods for Bio-medical Searching 1 2 Center for Advancement of Global Health, Kochi, Kerala, India 3 National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, Center for Health Informatics New Delhi, New Delhi, India Information retrieval Information iltering Information need Dynamic Static Information source Static Dynamic User proile Not necessary Essential Scope Generalized Speciic Information seeking Behavior Short term Long term User Query Brief Description or explanation of the information User interaction with the system Single information seeking episodes Series of information seeking episodes Table 1: Information retrieval vs iltering system. Review Article Vinaitheerthan Renganathan 1 *, Ajit N Babu 2 and Suptendra Nath Sarbadhikari 3 Skyline University College, University City, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates