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IRList Digest Volume 1 Number 06
IRList Digest Tuesday, 3 Sep 1985 Volume 1 : Issue 6
Today's Topics:
Research Interests - Integrating Linguistic Techniques with IR
Discussion - What Distinguishes DB Search vs. Expert Systems?
- (Reply) Source of Queries?
Discussion - Bibliography for Network Group Discussions?
- (Reply) Existing Bibliography, Problems
- (Reply) Maintenance and Update Problems
Politics - Responsibility for Material Presented
Announcement - Hardware-based Search Engine
Call for Papers - Knowledge Representation, Proc. IEEE
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Date: 19 August 1985, 16:06:40 GMT
From: AFS at IRLEARN
To: FOX at VPICS1
[Note - the above are BITNET addresses. - Ed]
Dear Ed,
Thanks for your letter - I'm receiving your communications
loud and clear and I'm getting the IRList digest also. Thanks
for adding me to the list. As for providing other addresses, we
here in UCD have only recently become connected to BITNET so we're
only finding our way around. You already have Keith van Rijsbergen,
David Harper and Bruce Croft on your mailing list ...
I'm working on integrating linguistic techniques (in particular,
parsing of text) with information retrieval, both in filing and
retrieval. My work is being done as part of an ESPRIT (European
Strategic Programme for Research into Information Technology)
Project (EEC backing) on Office Information Systems, which also involves
Keith, Bruce and David, as well as some partners in Denmark. Our
project has been running for two years (one of them a pilot study)
and has two more years left, at which point I should be finishing my
PhD.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 85 10:07 P
From: Henry Nussbacher <vshank%weizmann.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>
Subject: Expert System definition vs Database Systems
[Copied from AIList Digest Volume 3 : Issue 110 - Ed]
I have been reading over the definitions of what an expert system is and
isn't and I have seen in many of the comments that an expert system needs
to be able to learn as it continues. Somehow, I have always felt Expert
Systems to be glorified database systems. A database system gains more
information as you add data to it. Th common example of Expert Systems
(in my opinion) is the DOCTOR program:
1) Does the patient have a fever? Y
2) Has the patient vomitted in the past 24 hours? Y
3) Are the pupils dilated? N
4) etc...
The AI program asks questions and based on the answers, determines what
future questions to ask. In the end it narrows it down and comes up with
a diagnoses based on the results of the questions.
But I know of many database packages where a question in the form of:
FIND FEVER > 100 & VOMIT = YES & DILATED = NO
DISPLAY ALL
My question is: What distinguishes the database search and display interface
from an AI Expert System?
Hank
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 85 00:35:00 edt
From: BostonU SysMgr <root%bostonu.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Re: Expert System definition vs Database Systems
[Copied from AIList V3 #112. - Ed]
From: Henry Nussbacher <vshank%weizmann.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>
...Somehow, I have always felt Expert
Systems to be glorified database systems....
1) Does the patient have a fever? Y
2) Has the patient vomitted in the past 24 hours? Y
3) Are the pupils dilated? N
4) etc...
But I know of many database packages where a question in the form of:
FIND FEVER > 100 & VOMIT = YES & DILATED = NO
DISPLAY ALL
In the first place, differential diagnosis is both a good and a bad
example. Bad because it is meant to provide a lot of structure that can
be likened to a data-base query with boolean logic and good because it
has been worked on a lot in AI and as you get into more details it
starts to become more clear why the database approach isn't always
powerful enough.
Consider: In the first place, there are many, many diseases. A doctor
doesn't attempt to know all of them. In fact, the questioning (in a
doctor's mind) I believe starts with something more like:
is this person in front of me about to drop dead?
a lot of info has to be processed real fast and inaccurately (from a
data base/strict machine point of view) to answer that and act on it.
Ok, let's try it again:
IF s/he has a fever AND s/he has been vomiting
THEN (will s/he drop dead in a moment?)
or FIND DISEASE WHERE FEVER & VOMIT & DEATH
hmmm, doesn't work. Maybe that's all the patient is saying though. I
guess we better find out if s/he's severely dehydrated, measure the
fever, or maybe they just have a little food poisoning.
Ok, try again:
IF he has a fever AND he has been vomiting
THEN he has malaria...
wait a minute! there's no malaria around here...try again (darn, if s/he
hadn't just fallen over I might have asked if s/he have been traveling in
the tropics lately or eaten any jalisco cheese, now what do I do...)
I think my point is, yes, it's kind of like a database query BUT WHO IS
GENERATING THE QUESTIONS. I think your example weakens a lot once the
first query is made, who decides what the second query is to be? The
expert system of course. You are assuming some magic actor generating
all these nice queries and inferences, get rid of that actor and try it
again.
-Barry Shein, Boston University
[Let's have some comments on DB and expert systems, and IR! - Ed]
------------------------------
Date: Tue 13 Aug 85 09:28:58-PDT
From: Mike Dante <DANTE@EDWARDS-2060.ARPA>
Subject: Master Bibliography
[Copied from AIList Digest Volume 3: #110 - Ed.]
I suspect that I am not the only one reading this BB who finds some
of the submissions less than completely understandable due to lacunae in my
own background. Hence a suggestion: Would it make sense to establish and
maintain a bibliography (hopefully annotated), whose existence and address
would be mentioned in the header of the AIList Digest? Then when someone
like myself wanted to understand more, he or she could FTP a copy of the
bibliography and with a little study, at least understand the terminology.
[Note - for those who cannot directly access copies, a query handling
process would be necessary. - Ed]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 85 12:46:07 pdt
From: aurora!eugene@RIACS.ARPA (Eugene miya)
Subject: Re: Master bibliography
[Copied from AIList Digest Volume 3 : Issue 112 - Ed]
Excellent suggestion. The net's biggest problem is a lack of
memory. ;-)
I am trying something like this right now for parallel and distributed
computing. Mine is ftp-able, and has over 5000 entries. It also has
some copyright restrictions because I used several preexisting
bibliographies [i.e., stand on the shoulders of giants...]. There is only
one bibliography in the field larger than mine, but it's hardcopy,
hard to use, but it has many more European papers. Mine's dynamic,
useable with text formatters, and updateable. Keys and annotations, too.
I suspect an AI bibliography will have two major problems:
1) AI is a much bigger field.
2) AI has more hype literature associated with it.
If it were possible to moderate the technical content of the papers,
you will succeed nicely. I have a separate bibliography for the
"top ten" required readings in software engineering. I plan to update it
yearly with a call for suggestions. Books will be booted in and out (I hope).
Other minor problems: some work was received in Scribe bibliographic
format: I decided on refer: ran on smaller machines, Unix more widely
available, and so on. I had to write crude Scribe->refer translators.
Getting people to help add, correct, and delete work is surpising difficult:
everybody wants loaves of bread, but few want to do the work.
The initial start is the hardest of course. Try to build off of others
work if they will let you.
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Research Center
emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA
ames!aurora!eugene on UUCP
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 85 13:28:56 pdt
From: aurora!eugene@RIACS.ARPA (Eugene miya)
Subject: Additional comment about master bibliography
[Copied from AIList V 3 #113. - Ed]
Oh, I forgot one MAJOR point of maintenance work.
I am just now receiving smaller bibiliographies on things like computer
networks. There are many collisions with papers already in the existing file.
The problem is subtle because of slight variations in annotation
styles which bibliographic sorting programs cannot appropriately
handle. Also, transferring interesting comments and annotations
from one entry to another is also time consuming. Two smaller
bibliographies have come from England, and differences in spelling are
another subtle problem: Defense and Defence.
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Research Center
{hplabs,hao,dual,ihnp4,vortex}!ames!aurora!eugene
emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA
------------------------------
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI>
Date: Sat 17 Aug 85 08:34:38-PDT
Subject: Export Control
... big file of mail on the issue of technology export control ...
The gist is that the regulations cover everything under the sun,
but that no one is likely to come down on your discussion list.
Just be sure that your list members know they are presenting their
material in an international forum so that the responsibility is theirs.
[Please note! - Ed ]
-- Ken
------------------------------
From: Lee Hollaar <Hollaar@UTAH-20>
Date: Mon 19 Aug 85 19:22:39-MDT
...
We have the latest prototype of the hardware-based search engine operating,
and plan to take it to Washington DC next week to show it off to a number
of government agencies. It is being offered for sale through a spin-off
of the University of Utah. Since it's now a commercial product, albeit in
limited production, I don't know how you would like to handle news of it
for the IR net list.
Lee
[As long as people are not advertising, we are all interested in
hearing about developments in research and industry. - Ed]
------------------------------
Date: 13 AUG 85 15:57-N
From: ROSNER%CGEUGE51.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Subject: Call for Papers - Knowledge Represention, Proc. IEEE
[Copied from AIList V3 #112. - Ed]
CALL FOR PAPERS
Proceedings of the IEEE
Special Issue on Knowledge Representation
Guest Editors: M King, M Rosner, University of Geneva
The special issue is scheduled for publication during the second half of
1986. You are invited to submit a 6-10 page extended abstract on any topic
relevant to the current state of the art in Knowledge Representation.
Deadlines:
submission of abstracts: 30th September 1985
notification of acceptance: 30th December 1985
final copy: 15th February 1986
contact: ROSNER%cgeuge51@WISCVM.ARPA (bitnet)
mcvax!cernvax!cui!rosner (usenet, eunet, uucp)
M Rosner
ISSCO,
54 route des Acacias,
1227 Geneva, Switzerland
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END OF IRList Digest
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