Mirkwood: An Online Parallel Crawler

Sierra, Juan Felipe García; Carriegos, Miguel V.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-20005-3_5

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Although our software is designed for parallel architectures, it can also work (albeit slowly) in a single machine: in this case, the forest would produce a single nest with n spiders in it, and all of them would run in that machine. For further architectural and technical details of our tool, please see [56]. For an example of use of our crawler, you can read our previous study on antibiotics [57].…”

Section: Search Enginementioning

confidence: 99%

“…By using private browsing, not allowing cookies and forcing the use of Google's country-independent version, the search engine site had worked well to a point [56][57][58], but it is no longer effective as of 2022. For this research, we had to introduce new technological features, namely VPN usage, multi-country searches and information fusion.…”

Section: Search Enginementioning

confidence: 99%

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Herbs as an Active Ingredient in Sport: Availability and Information on the Internet

et al. 2022

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The use of supplements containing herbal active ingredients in sport has increased in recent years. Their consumption is explained by the benefits they may provide and because their natural origin do not involve health complications, from the point of view of the consumers. The aim of this study is to analyze the availability of four supplements (caffeine, turmeric, ginseng, cannabidiol) on the internet and understand the nature of these websites. A descriptive, observational, and cross-sectional study design was used. A detailed search was carried out with specifically developed software. The searches and data evaluation took 10 days. The websites consulted correspond to those that sell supplements, or some sport websites in the case of the Spanish ones, whereas those in English belong to pharmacies, parapharmacies, or herbalists. It is concluded that the websites do not provide adequate information to ensure proper consumption and lack advice on the choices of supplements and their administration guidelines.

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Section: Search Enginementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Search Enginementioning

confidence: 99%

Herbs as an Active Ingredient in Sport: Availability and Information on the Internet

et al. 2022

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“…. and confirming the sites that in fact contain the terms we were looking for) was made, using the improved technology we developed in (24). Then, using an improved functionality that we developed for our current study, it further studied each validated website one by one, looking for specific words in each of them, whether we had explicitly searched for them (e.g., "buy antibiotics") or not (e.g., antibiotic names and families).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…After all the improvements of our core technology (24), we neither have to download the websites to study nor rely on thirdparty software (Heritrix) since we can now access and study each site "on the fly" as the spider visits them (online, without downloading them), which is faster, more reliable, and gets us fresh and updated information. Once the crawler was developed, tested, and ready to use, we ran it following the aforementioned steps: we made it look for, mark, and validate websites matching the search "buy antibiotics online."…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This software simplified the finding, extraction, and analysis of a high amount of relevant information available in online websites, no matter how deep the links within the sites were. Web harvesting, scratching, or harvesting alludes to information extraction from websites (24); it can be done either manually or using a specific software bot, usually called a web crawler. This type of software can visit the whole website while optionally downloading each of its pages to a local drive for later analysis (this type of analysis is referred to as offline analysis).…”

Section: Search Enginementioning

confidence: 99%

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Availability of Antibiotics for Veterinary Use on the Internet: A Cross-Sectional Study

et al. 2022

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The misuse or overuse of antibiotics can favor the emergence of antimicrobial resistance, with a direct impact on human and animal health as well as on ecosystems. In this work, we have analyzed the web pages in which antibiotics for veterinary use can be purchased online. By using a specifically developed software, we carried out a detailed search to know if each individual antibiotic and the families included in the OIE list of antimicrobial agents of veterinary importance (in English and in Spanish) were sold, reviewing the offers according to the administration route and the species for which the antibiotics were intended. The greatest offer of antibiotics was for those compounds considered critically important by OIE. In the search in English, penicillins were available on 55.8% of the sites, tetracyclines on 55.0%, and fluoroquinolones on 52.7%. In Spanish, the families with the greatest presence were fluoroquinolones (67.9% of the sites), tetracyclines (67.9% of the sites), and penicillins (65.4% of the sites). Regarding individual antibiotics, the most offered in both searches were amoxicillin (49.6% of the sites in English and 57.7% in Spanish) and doxycycline (46.5% of the sites in English and 53.8% in Spanish). Most offers were for oral and parenteral administration and intended for cats and dogs and for bovines.

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Online information and availability of three doping substances (anabolic agents) in sports: role of pharmacies

Garcia,

Seco-Calvo,

Arribalzaga

et al. 2023

Front. Pharmacol.

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Background: The Internet has become an important source for easy access to doping substances, where people and athletes may acquire, outside pharmacies and without a (medical) prescription. These online websites do not always offer quality-assured products, and are outside the regular distribution channels of medicines. The aim of this study was to estimate the availability and accessible information on the Internet about the sale of three doping substances (oxandrolone, DHEA, androstenedione).Methods: Cross-sectional exploratory study, being an observation at a point in time of the online availability of these three doping substances (WADA S1 category: anabolic agents), purchased from Spain, Puerto Rico, Canada, United States, Ukraine and Russia. The characteristics of the websites, the countries the webs sold to, the pharmaceutical forms offered and the recommendations for its use were analyzed by using a computer tool designed ad hoc.Results: There were significant differences between countries in the number of webpages that sold the products (Chi-square test, p < 0.05). Oxandrolone was available for purchase mainly when buying from Spain (27.12%) and Ukraine (26.58%), in websites dedicated to sports (77.26%). For DHEA, most of the pages offered it if the search was done from Canada (23.34%) and Russia (21.44%). Products containing androstenedione or DHEA are claimed to enhance sports performance or for sports use without providing details. Compared to the total number of websites checked, the proportion of pharmacies offering these products was low, ranging from 4.86% for DHEA to 15.79% for androstenedione.Conclusion: The three substances selected are easily available without control through the Internet. Only a small number of websites offering them were online pharmacies, and requested a prescription. Most of the doping substances are purchased from the country where they are requested. Product information described benefits for sports performance, but did not do the same with their side effects. It would be advisable for these products to be sold through pharmacies, to guarantee their quality and provide evidence-based information on their safe use, benefits and risks, and only with a prescription. Athletes should be encouraged to consult health professionals about those supplements suitable for their type of training and sports objectives.

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Mirkwood: An Online Parallel Crawler

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Herbs as an Active Ingredient in Sport: Availability and Information on the Internet

Herbs as an Active Ingredient in Sport: Availability and Information on the Internet

Availability of Antibiotics for Veterinary Use on the Internet: A Cross-Sectional Study

Online information and availability of three doping substances (anabolic agents) in sports: role of pharmacies

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