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IRList Digest Volume 2 Number 28
IRList Digest Tuesday, 17 June 1986 Volume 2 : Issue 28
Today's Topics:
Email - Summer Slowdown
Abstract - Connection Machine and IR
Newsletter - Centre for the New OED, May Issue
Announcement - FJCC'86
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>From fox Tue Jun 17 18:46 EDT 1986
Subject: summer slowdown
Not much has been reported, so this will be a short issue. Please send
news from conferences, talks, etc. to the next issue (scheduled late
June or beginning of July). Regards, Ed
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>From fox Tue Jun 17 19:00 EDT 1986
Subject: "Parallel Free Text Search on the Connection Machine System"
Authors: Craig Stanfill, Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines Corp.
Abstract:
A new parallel computer, the Connection Machine (Trademark) System,
has been applied to the free text search of large databases. In one benchmark,
the time to evaluate a 20,000 term boolean query on a 15 gigabyte database was
projected to be 3 minutes. The method has been adapted to implement Simple
Queries, in which documents are assigned scores based on the presence or
absence of various words, and the documents with the highest scores are
retrieved first.
These capabilities have been applied to create an experimental
document retrieval system. Simple queries are used to locate a small
number of possibly relevant documents. The user then has the option of marking
some of these documents as good or bad. Words contained in good documents
are given positive weights; words in bad documents are given negative
weights. This yields a new query, which is used to search the database a
second time. This process of iteratively refining queries based on marking
documents as good or bad is called Relevance Feedback, and is a significant
improvement over boolean queries, measured both by ease of use and quality
of results.
[Note: The paper this goes along was given to me but I have only heard
by rumor that the paper may appear in CACM. The 1st part, about using the
CM, is interesting. The experimental part is rather brief - only 2 queries
were considered. The paper has 9 references, so it is clear that the authors
have not had extensive experience with information retrieval work. But,
the use of a connectionistic type of machine is clearly of interest! - Ed]
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>From fox Tue Jun 17 19:10 EDT 1986
Subject: UW Centre for the New OED - Newsletter 10 May 1986
[Extracts are severely edited - Ed]
Lexicon Workshop: was held in Pisa May 19-23. Sponsored by EEC, Univ.
of Pisa, and the Istituto de Linguistica Computazionale del CNR, and
gave special emphasis to lexical knowledge bases and practices in a multi-
lingual environment.
Visiting Fellowship: awarded for 1 month to Dr. Lise Winer of Dept.
of Linguistics at Southern Illinois Univ. During her June visit she
will continue work on a Dictionary of Trinidadian English.
Advances in Lexicology: Call for Papers for 2nd Annual Conference
issued. Deadline 15 June; conference will run 9-11 November in
Waterloo.
Report from OUP: Vol. Iv of the Supplement, Se-Z, was published this
month. The fourth volume is the achievement of Dr. Robert Burchfield
and his editorial team, marking one of the great milestones in
historical scholarship.
John Simpson, who worked on the Supplement and who is now turning
his attention to the New English Words Series (NEWS), has been
appointed Co-Editor of the New OED. John spent 4 months at the UW
Centre last fall.
Research Fellowships: Several will be awarded for period July 1, 1986
to June 30, 1987. Letters of application and requests for additional
information should be addressed to: The Administrative Director, The
UW Centre for the New OED, Univ. of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario,
CANADA, N2L 3G1.
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>From fox Tue Jun 17 18:47 EDT 1986
Subject: Fall Joint Computer Conference
[Extract from News Release from ACM - Ed]
Program Set for ACM/IEEE Computer Society
1986 Fall Joint Computer Conference
"World's Largest Computer Organizations Join Forces for New
Conference at Infomart in Dallas, Nov. 2-6, 1986"
The ACM and the IEEE Computer Society, the world's largest volunteer
computer organizations, have announced the program for their 1986 Fall
Joint Computer Conference (FJCC) to be held Nov. 2-6 in Dallas, Texas.
According to Dr. Stanley Winkler, FJCC'86 General Chairman, "The time is
ripe to inaugurate a forum to provide the richest, most potent opportunity
for computer professions to share concepts and insights on how and where
we should apply computers today and into the 1990's."
Dr. Harold Stone, FJCC'86 Program Chairman, has assembled an array of more
than eighty sessions in thirty tracks covering the major arenas of concern
to computer professionals, including artificial intelligence, supercomputing,
software systems, data bases, operating systems, and computer design. Also
scheduled for FJCC'86 is a Professional Education Program consisting of
twenty-four one and two day tutorials on Nov. 2-3. These in-depth sessions
with hands-on capabilities, will cover such topics as robotics, network
management, VLSI circuit layout, fault-tolerant computing and RISC
architecture.
...
For further information ... call INFOMART at 1-800-722-FJCC
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END OF IRList Digest
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