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Financial market prediction on the basis of online sentiment tracking has drawn a lot of attention recently. However, most results in this emerging domain rely on a unique, particular combination of data sets and sentiment tracking tools.…
If popular online platforms systematically expose their users to partisan and unreliable news, they could potentially contribute to societal issues like rising political polarization. This concern is central to the echo chamber and filter…
Search engines play a crucial role in shaping public discourse by influencing how information is accessed and framed. While prior research has extensively examined various dimensions of search bias -- such as content prioritization,…
The coronavirus pandemic is impacting our lives at unprecedented speed and scale - including how we eat and work, what we worry about, how much we move, and our ability to earn. Google Trends can be used as a proxy for what people are…
Public information search data from sources such as Google Trends affords researchers a perspective on what society does not know, or what society wants to find out prompted by, or in response to, developments in societal communication and…
Seasonal influenza is a sometimes surprisingly impactful disease, causing thousands of deaths per year along with much additional morbidity. Timely knowledge of the outbreak state is valuable for managing an effective response. The current…
Using non-linear machine learning methods and a proper backtest procedure, we critically examine the claim that Google Trends can predict future price returns. We first review the many potential biases that may influence backtests with this…
Users rely on search engines for information in critical contexts, such as public health emergencies. Understanding how users evaluate the trustworthiness of search results is therefore essential. Research has identified rank and the…
Big data generated from the Internet offer great potential for predictive analysis. Here we focus on using online users' Internet search data to forecast unemployment initial claims weeks into the future, which provides timely insights into…
People use search engines to find answers to questions related to their health, finances, or other socially relevant issues. However, most users are unaware that search results are considerably influenced by search engine marketing (SEM).…
Search engine results depend not only on the algorithms but also on how users interact with them. However, factors affecting the selection of a search query remain understudied. Using a representative survey of Swiss citizens before a round…
Fertility choices are linked to the different preferences and constraints of individuals and couples, and vary importantly by socio-economic status, as well by cultural and institutional context. The meaning of childbearing and…
Accurately forecasting Climate Policy Uncertainty (CPU) is essential for designing climate strategies that balance economic growth with environmental objectives. Elevated CPU levels can delay regulatory implementation, hinder investment in…
So far, Google Trend data have been used for influenza surveillance in many European and American countries; however, there are few attempts to apply the low-cost surveillance method in Asian developing countries. To investigate the…
Influenza, an infectious disease, causes many deaths worldwide. Predicting influenza victims during epidemics is an important task for clinical, hospital, and community outbreak preparation. On-line user-generated contents (UGC), primarily…
The goal of this paper is to evaluate the informational content of sentiment extracted from news articles about the state of the economy. We propose a fine-grained aspect-based sentiment analysis that has two main characteristics: 1) we…
We provide a brief technical description of an online platform for disease monitoring, titled as the Flu Detector (fludetector.cs.ucl.ac.uk). Flu Detector, in its current version (v.0.5), uses either Twitter or Google search data in…
Information availability affects people's behavior and perception of the world. Notably, people rely on search engines to satisfy their need for information. Search engines deliver results relevant to user requests usually without being or…
Early prediction of the prevalence of influenza reduces its impact. Various studies have been conducted to predict the number of influenza-infected people. However, these studies are not highly accurate especially in the distant future such…
In the literature about web survey methodology, significant efforts have been made to understand the role of time-invariant factors (e.g. gender, education and marital status) in (non-)response mechanisms. Time-invariant factors alone,…