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IRList Digest Volume 1 Number 20
IRList Digest Monday, 11 Nov 1985 Volume 1 : Issue 20
Today's Topics:
Reply - Previous Index In Context Question
Announcement - Deafnet, CRTNET, other new networks and IR
Report - ACM SIGIR Business Meeting
- ASIS 85 Annual Meeting (partial report)
CogSci Talks - Tree Adjoining Grammar, Prescriptive Introspection,
Type Recognition Without Token Individuation
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: krovetz@UMASS-CS
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 85 12:00 EST
cc: zimmer%lll-tis-a.arpa%csnet-relay.arpa@CSNET-RELAY
Subject: index-in-context (KWIC)
Mark,
The program you describe is called a KWIC index and is available
under Unix. The program is called ptx (permuted index). Does
anyone know of one available under VMS?
Thanks,
Bob
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 85 07:34:55 PST
From: co175fag%sdcc3@SDCSVAX.ARPA (Melissa O'Neill)
Students at UCSD are currently involved in a number of
networking projects which may be of interest to those on
IRlist. For example, there in one group working on a net-
work to assist the hearing impaired and deaf. Code named
DEAFNET, they are working with several schools in the San
Diego area to find out the potential for computers for these
people.
A group is trying to organize an international interactive
computer group, while still another group is interested in
forming "after school schools" for children utilizing com-
puter networks, where children can message children at loca-
tions other than San Diego. Several other projects are
underway as well.
The success of networking projects is of great interest
to these students, and they would like to connect with oth-
ers who have similar interests, or can offer some pearls of
wisdom as to how to "make the system work,". I am involved
with a project regarding CRTNET, and want to discuss with
interested parties the benefits of networking. Any discus-
sion with regards to networking would be welcome.
-Melissa O'Neill co175fag@sdcc3
------------------------------
From: "V.J. Raghavan" <ihnp4!sask!regina!raghavan@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 85 16:37:19 cst
Subject: Report
Report on SIGIR Business Meeting
A meeting of the ACM-SIGIR executive was held at Denver Radisson
Hotel, where the 1985 ACM annual conference took place. The meeting was
at 5:00 p.m. on October 15 th. In attendance were Clement Yu, Gerry
Salton, Mike McGill, Donna Williamson, Tomas Doszkocs, Roy Rada and
myself.
Some of the areas that were considered to need the immediate atten-
tion of the executive were membership improvement, publicity activities
and financial status.
From two years ago the membership has dropped from about 2000 to
little over 1800. While this is not a big concern, it was felt some
actions are needed to maintain this level and, gain if possible.
Clement suggested that each of us try to canvass in our own institu-
tions and get colleagues and students to join. Gerry explained the
importance of making sure that the SIGIR Forum gets out regularly.
It was mentioned that Fall issue is about to be mailed (all must have
received it by now). Clement indicated that Forum is in good hands
and that he is not concerned about the Forum getting out every 3
months. I pointed out that we are in good shape for the Winter '86
issue. (Naturally, we are looking for more contributions from all inte-
rested folks out there.) Donna brought many ideas for improving the Forum,
some of which she had picked up from attending meetings of other SIGs.
In particular the following ideas were noted:
* publishing special purpose issues with a guest editor appoin-
ted (I liked that),
* having reports from different groups engaged in IR research.
Perhaps, one such report in each issue,
* publish invited columns on "bridge" areas( eg. AI and IR),
* having different people responsible for submitting abstracts
of recent material published in journals, etc. The idea is
to have someone who is in hardware, for example, to provide
abstracts of interest to IR and hardware, someone else for
another area, etc.
Clement suggested that we plan to print a brochure explaining
Sigir objectives, etc. and distribute them widely to attract new
members. Tomas agreed to think about this and see if such brochures
could be printed at NLM. The question of distributing proceedings
of SIGIR annual conference was raised. In particular, why 1985
proceedings were not distributed as an issue of Forum. Clement
mentioned that the finacial position is such that we cannot
afford to do that. At the time of original printing, enough
copies were not ordered. However, several hundred copies are
available at the ACM head quarters. Order number can be found
in Fall '85 issue of SIGIR. Clement also pointed out that the
projection of SIGIR's finances suggests that we will have a deficit
at the year end (or in two years' time?). He proposed that the member-
ship fee to SIGIR be increased from $6 to $10 or $12. Mike felt
that the current bank balance is good and that we should not raise
the fee until SIGIR becomes more active and the image of SIGIR
is enhanced. He also suggested that we consider other money making
ventures, such as cosponsoring conferences with other societies.
It was decided to leave the membership fee at current level for
the moment.
Other publicity ideas such as representation in conferences of other
groups (eg. SIGMOD, ASIS, OA, ACM annual), display of SIGIR related
material at these conferences and so on were put forward. I am working
with Prof. C. Davis in having a SIGIR session at ASIS '86. Clement and
other members of the executives will pursue this kind of work with
other groups. Efforts such as that of M.Lesk (He is planning a joint
workshop in '86 with SIGDOC.) is something we would like to see more
of.
Gerry wondered about the SIGIR's "Distinguished Service" award that
was established some years ago. It has not been awarded for two years.
Clement reported that Prof. Don Kraft is the chairman of the selection
committee and that he is looking after the matter. It is hoped that
some prominent person will be selected for this award in time for the
next SIGIR conference in Pisa.
There was some discussion about locations of future conferences. The
conference will be in New Orleans in 1987 (Chairman: Don Kraft, Program
Chairman: Clement Yu). It is not clear where the conference will be in
1988. There has been some correspondence with Prof. Fraenkel, who is
willing to have it Isreal, as well as some people in Grenoble. Bruce
Croft agreed to host the conference in or around Amherst in 1989.
The meeting adjourned around 7:00 p.m.
Vijay Raghavan.
(Forum Co-Editor)
------------------------------
From: fox (Ed Fox)
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 85 16:23:26 est
Subject: ASIS Annual Meeting Report and Request for Other Reports
October 20-4, 1985 - Las Vegas, Nevada - 48th Annual Mtg ASIS
Saturday, 19 Oct: Continuing Education Courses on
Seminar in User Surveys
Expert Systems and Artificial Intelligence: A Primer
Management Skills for the Information Profession
PRECIS: Preserved Cintext Index System
Sunday, 20 Oct: Continuing Education Courses on
Stess Management for the Information Professional
Information Age Economics
Information Centers and Record Centers
Marketing Information Services
Money, Planning and Entrepreneurship
Exhibits throughout the Week:
There was equipment of many varieties, book displays, and many posters.
Demonstrations used micros or online services. It was clear that the informa-
tion producers (ex. book publishers) are now trying to enter the field with
new services, but are still watching thfor ways and consumer needs.
Information providers were showing micro systems and front-ends,
and some optical disk equipment. There was an air of expectation for
new approaches, but no revolutionary announcements.
Program:
1985 is the 20th year for the "Annual Review of Information
Science and Technology" (ARIST) and so the program was structured in
five tracks based on themes of that publication -
Distribution, Communication, and Hardware
Databases: Organization and Access
Information Products and Services
Management, Policy and Politics
Human Factors/Man-Machine Interface
I found this differentiation to be interesting, but not binding
regarding what talks were given when. In a little over two days, I
was only able to get a glimpse of what went on, and so can share but a
fragment of the totality - I hope others will send in other partial
reports too!
Monday 21 Oct:
Keynote Address - Dr. William F. Marovitz - "The Information
Industry: Its Development and Integration within a Corporate Organization"
Clearly, our field is becoming of interest to large corporations. Future
developments, investments for research, timing of new services, will all
be partially supervised by large holding companies now buying up information
providers and suppliers. With micros, networks, and information all
being integrated, companies are creating and/or capturing key markets.
Human Factors/Man-Machine Interfaces (Session 7)
Christine Borgman reviewed how to use specialized tests to measure
abilities of individuals in a number of areas which might relate to use
of information services. These tests may also help in designing new
systems better suited to individual needs.
Richard Veith commented on experimentation with spatial orientation
in display systems, esp. use of multiple planes of hierarchy.
"As We May Learn" - William Paisley, Knowledge Access Inc.
This veteran of ERIC & communication science traced history, including
technological stagnation of 1975-80, emergence of 2-tiered society
of uninformed and informed, and recent developments (micros, broadband
networks, cognitive engineering). He challenged us with social and
technical problems yet to be resolved.
Optical Disk and Electronic Publishing (Session 15)
Chuck Goldstein of NLM rescued the session as 2 of 4 speakers no-showed.
The Library of Congress pilot project is behind schedule and so the
evaluation effort is still being planned.
InfoTrac, described by Brett Butler, uses video disks for conventional
browsing of publications.
Michael Adams of Digital Equipment stole the show with his standing-room
only presentation on CD-ROM. He explored Myths and Realities of
this media, which stirred the imaginations of all attendees.
Tuesday 22 Oct:
Keynote Address - Judith Wanger - "The Online Database Industry:
A Midlife Crisis Coming?" She explored types and growth in online
services, use of gateways to connect networks and providers, use
of micros, growth of full text databases, optical disks.
Designing Databases for Searchers (Session 24)
Raya Fidel explored "Individual Variability in Online Searching Behavior"
by describing preliminary research. 10 experienced searchers verbalized
though processes in handling 2 very different types of search requests.
A large number of variables that may relate were discussed.
Several speakers from AT&T Communications gave an overview of Videotex
Design Considerations for Electronic Publishing (Session 31)
Victor Rosenberg appealed to designers to preserve the aethetics via fonts.
Bob Barnes of Drexler captivated audience with potentials of optical cards
which will soon store 2M bytes in billfold-size cards.
Sam Betty explained the magnitude of publishing field and its potentials.
"Information Products and Services - Coming of Age" (Session 35)
Herbert Brinberg of Aspen Systems traced history of the field.
Using Computers for Engineering Data (Session 40)
John Rumble of NBS wove together talks with questions and comments:
Susan Harvey explained the need, opportunities, and considerations.
Gary Craig of Wiley indicated how publishers are involved.
Wednesday 23 Oct:
Research in Electronic Conferencing (Session 45)
Trudi Bellardo gave a comprehensive overview on conferencing systems.
Edward Fox described international standards for mail systems, and
several research efforts underway.
Manfred Kochen provided a stimulating review of the emergence of computer
conference systems, focusing especially on models for group formation,
esp. evolution categorized by structure and participation distributions.
(Unfortunately, this conference overlapped with the Expert Systems in
Government Symposium in Washington, so I missed the rest of ASIS 85.
Please, other attendees - send in your summaries of subsequent interesting
sessions! - Ed)
------------------------------
From: Peter de Jong <DEJONG%MIT-OZ%mit-mc.arpa@CSNET-RELAY>
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1985 12:50 EST
Subject: Cognitive Science Calendar
Tuesday 12, November 7:30pm Room: 34-401 (Grier Conference Room)
MIT CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE
"The Linguistic Relevance of Tree Adjoining Grammar"
Speakers: Professor Aravind Joshi
Department of Computer and Information Science
University of Pennsylvania
Professor Anthony Kroch
Department of Linguistics
University of Pennsylvania
Commentary: Professor James Higginbotham
Department of Linguistics
MIT
Steven Abney
Department of Linguistics
MIT
copies of papers are available from Karen Persinger, Room 20B-225,
253-7358
------------------------------
Wednesday 13, November 4:00pm Room: NE43- 8th floor playroom
"Prescriptive Introspection"
Michael R. Genesereth
Logic Group
Knowledge Systems Laboratory
Stanford University
Introspection is a significant part of human mental activity. We
introspect whenever we think about how to solve problems, whenever we
decide what information we need to solve a problem, whenever we decide
that a problem is unsolvable.
By its nature, the process of introspection involves the manipulation
of knowledge about knowledge. Over the past years, logicians and AI
researchers have devoted considerable attention to self-descriptive
sentences (involving autoepistemic terms like KNOW). By comparison,
little attention has been paid to self-prescriptive sentences
(involving terms like OUGHT).
This talk introduces a semantics for prescriptive metaknowledge in
the form of constraints on the process of problem solving. It
demonstrates the computational advantages of introspection and
analyzes the computational fidelity and cost of various introspective
architectures. It also discusses the potential for practical
application in logic programming and building expert systems.
Refreshments will be served
Host: Randall Davis
------------------------------
Thursday 14, November 12:00pm Room: E25-401
VISION LUNCH
"Type Recognition Without Token Individuation"
Dr. Nancy Kanwisher
MIT - Psychology Department
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END OF IRList Digest
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