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IRList Digest Volume 2 Number 30
IRList Digest Saturday, 5 July 1986 Volume 2 : Issue 30
Today's Topics:
Reply - Diff at the word level [See issue 24, May 21]
Discussion - FERRET [see issue 25, May 25], SMART, SIRE
Announcement - NSF's Project EXPRES
Announcement: Office Information Systems Conference Program Available
COGSCI - The Oncocin Project, An ES to assist with Cancer Treatments
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Date: Mon, 9 Jun 86 11:24:44 EDT
From: seismo!harvard.HARVARD.EDU!macrakis (Stavros Macrakis)
To: nlm-vax.arpa!donna
Subject: word-wise diff
[This is a reply to query of Donna Williamson appearing in Issue 24 - Ed]
The classic Unix-style approach to this is to translate the original
files to one-word-per-line, use diff, and then translate the diff
back. The main problems with this are:
1. Translating so that you can recover the original is finicky;
2. `diff' is (very) slow; for simple changes, `diff -h' may work;
3. Mapping the diff results back to source file terms is painful.
You might want to look at Walter Tichy's paper `The String-to-String
Correction Problem with Block Moves' ACM Trans. Comp. Sys. 2:4:309
(Nov 84) for an algorithm that seems far superior to that used in
`diff'. His implementation ran at about the same speed as `diff' in
tests, delivering 7% smaller output; it promises to be much faster and
much better in environments with more general kinds of changes.
-s
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jun 1986 22:12-EDT
From: seismo!cad.cs.cmu.edu!Michael.Mauldin
Subject: Re: try again to send msg, now with correct address
Dr. Fox,
I will send you a written copy of my proposal. Thanks for the
comments, and thanks for pointing out IRlist. I started subscribing to
IRlist just this month, so I am already in your tables.
Dr. Salton's ``single term indexing'' for comparison sounds like it
would reduce my workload and also give me a better comparison. Do you
have his net address so that I may contact him? My opinion is that
when my ``fancy conceptual text skimmer'' works, the ``right'' solution
will be a hybrid of both keyword based and conceptual based retrieval
systems. They each work best on different types of documents, and the
combination of approaches will have better recall AND precision. That
is similar to the SIRE approach: keywords to get EVERYTHING that might
be related, and something more intelligent to do the final winnowing.
I will be submitting to IRlist as sooon as I feel I have something
important to say. In the meantime, I look forward to reading it (and,
of course, storing the contents in FERRET).
Michael L. Mauldin (Fuzzy) Department of Computer Science
ARPA: Michael.Mauldin@CAD.CS.CMU.EDU Carnegie-Mellon University
Phone: (412) 268-3065 Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
[Note: G. Salton is, on the ARPANET, at gs@cornell.arpa and Mr.
Mauldin is, I believe, now in touch with him. - Ed]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 86 18:38:48 edt
From: vtopus!fox (Ed Fox)
Subject: Project EXPRES
On 4/17/86 the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced 2 solicitations
in the Commerce Business Daily. The 2nd, RFP 86-104, has been suspended.
The first, which now covers both topics, has been distributed as EXPRES
Project Solicitation for Research Groups, NSF 86-34. A meeting was held at
NSF on 13 June for EXPRES Research Group Proposers - I attended along with
almost 40 others. The following summary of the solicitation and meeting
is based on documents released by NSF, and my own impressions.
I. Solicitation:
"The Office of Information Systems of the National Science Foundation
(NSF) has initiated a project called "EXPerimental Research in
Electronic submission" (EXPRES). Its purpose is to improve the
ability of the Nation's research community to exchange documents
containing text, image and graphics. The vehicle for experimentation
will be the NSF proposal development, submission and review process.
Awards will be made to research groups to study the problems of
compound document transmission among different hardware/software
environments. The project duration will be three years, beginning in
September, 1986. NSF anticipates making awards to two research groups.
...
Proposal must be received on or before Friday, August 1, 1986 to be
considered for award under this solicitation.
BACKGROUND
...
The Goal:
To move to a situation in which the scientific and engineering
research community, building on computing equipment and facilities
currently available, will benefit from emerging technologies and will
be able to exchange compound documents among dissimilar [multivendor,
multiuniversity, multidisciplinary] hardware and software environments.
[Compound documents are those which may contain text with numerical
and symbolic data, images, drawings, charts and graphs, and photographs.]
...
The Approach:
The National Science Foundation has initiated a project called
"EXPerimental Research in Electronic submission" (EXPRES). The vehicle for
experimentation will be the NSF proposal development, submission and review
process, which embodies all aspects of the problem [high volume,
geographically dispersed community, and multivendor environments] but
permits a measure of control necessary for experimentation.
The National Science Foundation will make awards to groups to
perform research on overcoming the barriers to compound document
transmission in the multidisciplinary, multiuniversity and multivendor
environment. The research effort will include the design and
installation of pilot systems with the aim of expanding them. Systems
characterized as "high-function, single vendor" or
"mediaum/limited-function, multivendor" could be used as a basis for
the project.
The awardee[s] will cooperate with industry and government
initiatives advocating and promoting interoperability [communication
among multivendor equipment and software] based on the International
Standards Organization Open Systems Interconnecttion [OSI] standards.
The National Science Foundation: NSF faces a subset of the
communication problems of the Nation's research community. Scientists
and engineers at about 2,400 organizations submit proposals to the
National Science Foundation each year; the vast majority of these
organizations is educational. NSF receives approximately ten copies
of 37,000 proposals annually. Each proposal averages 50 pages and may
contain more than 100 pages. Most contain not only text but images
and graphics; some contain black and white or color photographs. After
their initial review at NSF over half of these proposals are mailed to
6-8 reviewers for analysis. ...
...
Research Areas: It is anticipated that research in the following
areas will be required during the project:
- document representation and management
- networking protocols
- authentication, certification and security
- data compression
- data management
- high volume image transmission
- graphics
- human-machine interface
- user acceptance and impact on work and social patterns
Electronic proposal submission: The EXPRES experimental design will be
based on the following model for electronic propsal preparation,
submission and processing.
- The principal investigator prepares the proposal using a computer
workstation.
- The proposal is forwarded through institutional channels in the Research
Administration Office where it is approved by the authorized officials
- It is then submitted over NSFNET or another wide-area network to NSF
- A receipt acknowledgement is sent to the submitting institution
- The proposal is entered into the computerized processing systems at
NSF and assigned to a program manager
- After initial review, the program manager selects reviewers
- The proposal and reviewing instructions are sent to the reviewers
- Reviews are completed and sent back to NSF
- The program manager evaluates the reviews, and decides to recommend
award or declination of the proposal
- For recommended awards, the necessary forms are completed and sent
with the proposal through division and directorate approvals, then to
the administrative divisions for final processing
- For declinations, the decision justification and proposal are sent
to the division director for concurrence
- The notification of award or declination is transmitted to the
institution
It is expected that paper copies of the proposal and forms could be
generated at any stage in this process, but transmisison and handling
would be primarily of electronic media.
Cost Sharing: The current total level of NSF funding available for
this EXPRES activity is approximately $2 million per year.
Accordingly, it will not be possible for NSF to bear all the costs
associated with the project, and significant cost sharing by the
research groups may therefore be necessary. ..."
[Note: the solicitation advertised the meeting of 13 June, and gave
David Staudt at (202) 357-7448 as the contact.]
II. Minutes of Meeting
"...
What are your really looking for? What will constitute "success"?
As stated in the Management Plan, "The primary objective of EXPRES
is to provide an environment in which compound documents can be
transmitted efficiently and economically." What we want is a system
that will eventually work, that can be used by the academic scientific
and engineering research community to communicate electronically
quickly, efficiently, economically, fully and robustly. ...
...
What will happen to the installed equipment and software at the end
of the project?
Disposition of any equipment provided to colleges and universities as
part of the EXPRES project is a matter between them and the vendors.
Any equipment installed at NSF must either be returned or purchased
separately.
...
Will the pilot system have to handle fascimile or some other method of
inputting paper proposals?
No. The purpose of the pilot is to research and demonstrate an
electronic system. ...
What percentage of proposals contain photographs and other image?
The percentages vary by discipline, but about 75% have graphics or
image. Some have color. We would expect that an electronic system
would ultimately be able to handle color.
...
How important is it to be able to edit the data contained in the
proposal?
We wouldn't necessarily need to change the proposal, but we would
want to be able to search for words, for example, or otherwise be
able to scan the document using its contents.
..."
III. My comments
1. Interested parties
a- Companies
Serious interest was expressed by vendors like IBM, Digital, Xerox
Organizations like BBN, Aspen have done work in related areas
b- Educational Institutions
MIT, Carnegie-Mellon, Berkeley are expected to compete
States like NY, NJ, Michigan may submit proposals
2.Communications
NSFNET will be used; there is interest in moving to the OSI protocols
but that may take longer than it will take to complete this part of EXPRES
3.Importance
The Director of NSF, and several of the program directors, attended the
meeting. There is keen interest at NSF in this venture!
4.Becoming involved
Due to the short time before proposals must be submitted, and the
orientation to having consortiums send proposals, it seems imperative
for anyone interested to become part of a large consortium of say 2-5
universities along with 1-3 vendors.
5.For more information:
Contact David Staudt at the phone number given above. I hope that the
information I included is enough to help people decide if they are
interested in getting involved. But the intent of the explanation is
really for those who would like to know that such an effort is
underway! - Ed
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 86 00:55:09 edt
From: rba@PETRUS.ARPA
Subject: Office Information Systems Conference Program
ACM CONFERENCE ON OFFICE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
October 6-8, 1968, Providence, R.I.
Conference Chair: Carl Hewitt, MIT
Program Chair: Stan Zdonik, Brown University
Keynote Speaker: J.C.R. Licklider, MIT
Distinguished Lecturer: A. van Dam, Brown University
Panels and Sessions
Advanced Computational Models
AI in the Office
Impacts of Computer Technology on Employment
Organizational Analysis: Due Process
Future Directions in Office Technology
Comparison of Social Research Methods
Organizational Analysis: Organizational Ecology
Models of the Distributed Office
Interfaces
For more information, call the Conference Registrar at Brown U.
(401-813-1839), or send electronic mail to mhf@brown.CSNET.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 86 06:53:08 edt
From: DEJONG%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Cognitive Science Calendar [Extract - Ed]
Thursday, 26 June 1:00-4:00pm Room: E51-329
EXPERT SYSTEMS SEMINAR
The Oncocin Project
An Expert System to Assist Physicians with Cancer Treatments
Curtis P. Langlotz
Stanford University
The Oncocin Project is overseen by a collaborative group of physicians
and computer scientists who are developing an intelligent system that
uses the techniques of knowledge engineering to advise oncologists in
the management of patients receiving cancer chemotherapy. The general
research focus of the group members include knowledge acquisition,
inexact reasoning, explanation, and the representation of time and of
expert thinking patterns. Much of the work developed from research in
the 1970's on the MYCIN and EMYCIN programs, early efforts that helped
define the group's research directions for the coming decade.
The prototype ONCONCIN system is in limited experimental use by
oncologists in the Stanford University Oncology Clinic. Thus much of
the emphasis of this research has been on human engineering so that
the physicians will accept the program as a useful adjunct to their
patient care activities. ONCOCIN has generally been well-accepted
since its introduction, and we are now testing a version of the
program which runs on Xerox 1100-series professional workstations to
further enhance its acceptability and to facilitate its evaluation at
sites away from the University.
Hosts: Sloan School of Management, MIT
Xerox Arificial Intelligence Systems
Info: (603) 881-7028
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END OF IRList Digest
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