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IRList Digest Volume 1 Number 10
IRList Digest Sunday, 22 Sep 1985 Volume 1 : Issue 10
Today's Topics:
Query - Books in Print Database?
Announcement - Contents of upcoming issue of ACM SIGIR Forum
- Seminar on Constructive Lexicon-Grammar (BBN)
- Plans for DOE Forum Session on Online Documentation
Research Interest - Cooperative structuring of information
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From: RGARRETT%LAJ.SAINET.MFENET@LLL-MFE
Date: Mon, 9 Sep 85 10:36 PDT
Subject: Books-in-Print type database
I am looking for a "Books - in - Print" style database for use as the
foundation for an expert system retrieval system. Does anyone know where
such a thing might be available on magnetic media in the public domain
(or otherwise low cost format). I am aware of some commercial on-line
sources,but these are quite unsuitable for my purposes. Any help would
be appreciated.
Randy Garrett
(305)626-6700
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From: "Edward A. Fox" <fox@vpi>
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 85 17:15:28 edt
Subject: Preview of upcoming issue of ACM SIGIR Forum - Cover Page
SIGIR NEWS Volume 18 Issues 2-4
Chairman's Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
SIGIR Officers' Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Conference/Workshop Reports
BCS/IR & SIGIR 1984. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
RIAO/85 in Grenoble. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
SIGIR 1985 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
SIGIR 1985 Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
University of Regina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
News from NSF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Announcements
IRList - Electronic Mail Digest . . . . . . . . . . 21
CAIS 1986. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Articles
Online Access Aids for Documentation . . . . . . . . 23
Some Characteristics of Future Information Systems . 28
Calls for Papers
JASIS Submissions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
SIGIR 1986 - Pisa, Italy . . . . . . inside back cover
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Date: 4 Sep 1985 17:37-EDT
From: AHAAS at BBNG.ARPA
Subject: Seminar - Constructive Lexicon-Grammar (BBN)
[copied from AIList Digest V 3 N 121 - 11 Sept; which was]
[Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.]
The next BBN Artificial Intelligence seminar will be held in the 3rd
floor large conference room at 10 Moulton Street, 10:30 on Friday
September 13. Bruce Nevins of BBN wil speak on "Constructive
Lexicon-Grammar". His abstract:
Maurice Gross's group in Paris found that, after they had specified
French verbs by their syntactic properties, there was no need for
lexical features to make further semantic distinctions between them.
Because of this perhaps surprising result, they have been able to
develop a highly specific lexical representation, using classifier
words in sentence forms rather than abstract features. Their
lexicon-grammar replaces most context-free parsing with simple lookup
in 3-dimensional tables of syntactic properties of words.
Constructive grammar, as exemplified by Harris's _A_Grammar_of
_English_on_Mathematical_Principles_ (Wiley, 1984), uses only the
constructive `has-a' relations of dependency and adjunction, limiting
the taxonomic `is-a' relation to classifier hierarchies of words in
the lexicon. A given input morpheme can only be one of a few kinds of
things: an operator with specified argument requirement, a primitive
argument (roughly, a concrete noun), an argument-indicator like -ing,
the operator-indicator -s, or a product of certain precisely
specifiable reductions of strings to more compact, and more
conventional, form. Because each morpheme has at most only a very few
possible syntactic roles--frequently, just one--computer analysis of
text has much less structural ambiguity to cope with than in other
approaches.
In this talk, I will show how these two approaches to natural language
processing may be combined in a system for construing (as opposed to
parsing) natural language input that should be readily adaptable to
text generation as well. I will sketch extensions similar to Naomi
Sager's system for automatically incorporating new text information
into subject-matter specific data bases.
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From: "girill terry%e.mfenet"@LLL-MFE
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 85 10:49 pst
Subject: DOE Forum Session on Online Documentation
The U.S. Department of Energy is hosting its 2nd Forum on
Computer Systems for Documenation at a conference center in Livermore,
California, from October 29-31, 1985. One session at this event
has special relevance to IRlist readers, because it concerns the
impact and accessibility of online documentation (i.e., material both
prepared and distributed through computers).
Below are abstracts for the talks slated for the online-documentation
session. Whether published versions are prepared depends partly on
reader interest. Comments or requests can go to me
("girill%mfe"@lll-mfe.arpa) or directly to Carol Tull
("tull#carol%mfe"@lll-mfe.arpa).
DOE Documentation Forum
Thursday, October 31, 1985
Technical Session on
The Question-Answering Role of Online Documentation
T. R. Girill,
Session Chair
9:00-10:15 a.m.
Carol Tull, National MFE Computer Center
"The Impact of Online Documentation on Consulting Services"
Commentator: to be arranged
Abstract: From a consultant's point of view, the key advantages
of online documentation are (1) rapid access to passages, (2)
frequent, inexpensive, on-demand updates, and (3) 24-hour/day
availability. Active support for the software that distributes
documentation online is essential to good consulting. One reason is
that the user interface to documentation is often among the first
that a new user encounters. In addition, a well-designed user
interface promotes effective information retrieval. Finally,
collaboration between editorial and consulting staffs dramatically
improves the organization and content of online documents, as
NMFECC's recent experience with drafting topical and task-oriented
documents reveals. Future work on an automated consultant system
will require further close cooperation between the two groups.
10:30-NOON
Vicki Jackson and
Mary Ethel Jae, Fireman's Fund Insurance Companies
"A Practical Inquiry System for Accessing Online Documentation"
Commentator: to be arranged
Abstract: The Documentation Support System (DSS) developed by
Fireman's Fund is an online inquiry system containing information
previously communicated in offline manuals and memos. Features
include retrieval via hierarchical subject categories, retrieval via
search terms and pointers (e.g., business site), and news messages.
Subject and search-term retrieval have been successfully tested at
one field location. This presentation will cover system development
from design (by an interdisciplinary team) through implementation.
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From: Lowe@NYU-CSD2
Date: 14 Sep 1985 16:07-EDT
Subject: Cooperative structuring of information
Readers of IRList may be interested in research I have been doing on methods
for information retrieval that are not based on the use of keywords. Most
IR researchers are aware of the many shortcomings of keywords as a method
for accessing useful information: keywords are ambiguous, have synonyms, do
not specify structured concepts, and make no attempt to evaluate important
attributes of documents such as accuracy, clarity, or currency of
information. The alternative that I have been working on is to allow many
users of an information system to structure the information themselves. The
users can create an extensive network of links joining related concepts as
well as providing new information and commentary. The users can contribute
to areas in which they are knowledgeable, rather than relying upon some
database cataloger who is unlikely to have much knowledge or understanding
of the material that is being indexed.
The obvious problem in allowing a large number of individuals to contribute
to a common database is one of quality control. This problem can be
partially handled through the use of voting techniques in which material is
structured according to a consensus opinion of the users. However, simple
voting would be just an opinion poll and does not do enough to assure the
best possible accuracy of information. Therefore, I have been developing a
structured representation for debate in which the computer maintains a
record of the reasoning behind each decision. Rather than simply voting on
the correctness of each item in the database, users are required to indicate
which items of evidence support or refute a particular conclusion. Not only
are users more likely to agree on whether specific evidence supports a
conclusion than they are to agree on the conclusion in the abstract, but the
representation provides a record for each user of what others have
considered to be the best available evidence bearing on each conclusion.
The representation is used not only to debate aspects of presentation and
indexing, but also to represent the content of much of the material in the
database as a snapshot of the reasoning process that links the concepts in
mind of each user.
The specific representation that is used for debate is derived from the
theory of argument developed by the British philosopher Stephen Toulmin.
There is not space here to give a full explanation of the system, but I have
written a fairly detailed paper on the topic. This paper was published as
"The representation of debate as a basis for information storage and
retrieval" by David G. Lowe, AFIPS Conference Proceedings Volume 53, 1984
National Computer Conference, pp. 595-603. A more extensive version of this
paper will soon be published in the International Journal of Man Machine
Studies. I will be happy to mail copies to anyone who sends me their U.S.
mail address. I can be reached at LOWE@NYU-CSD2 on the ARPANET or the
following address:
Prof. David Lowe
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
251 Mercer Street
New York, NY 10012
Finally, let me point out the importance of performing further research in
the area of cooperative information systems as an alternative to current
methods of information access. The shortcomings of keyword based systems
have already been mentioned. Another form of information exchange is the
electronic digest, such as the one you are reading. However, the
information in these digests is seldom retained for further use as there is
just too much junk mixed in with the useful information. Another potential
solution to the information retrieval problem would be natural language
understanding, in which the computer could access the relevant information
by making use of a representation of its content. However, natural language
understanding of arbitrary text to the degree that would be required is
still many years or decades away. My own research background is in
artificial intelligence, but I have come to believe that the best route to
progress lies in having the computer represent the content of information in
the manner of AI systems while leaving the input task up to human users.
This type of system is well within the scope of existing technology and
would greatly increase the range of applications for information retrieval.
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END OF IRList Digest
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