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IRList Digest Volume 4 Number 02
IRList Digest Monday, 25 January 1988 Volume 4 : Issue 2
Today's Topics:
Interest - User-oriented and/or adaptible retrieval techniques
Query - Machine readable dictionary for French
- Stories on machine readable dictionaries
Reply - Articles on Responsa Project
Discussion - Pointer on S. Weiss and on IR relating to chemistry
Announcement - Microsoft CD-ROM Conference and SIGIR session
- Thesis defense on CODER system
- TINLAP3 Position Papers available from ACL
- TEXAS indexer/browser/database Hypercard stack news
News addresses are
Internet or CSNET: fox@vtopus.cs.vt.edu
BITNET: foxea@vtvax3.bitnet
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ralf Cordes <cordes@dbsinf6>
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 88 15:08:25 -0100
Subject: interest in user-oriented and/or adaptible retrieval techniques
DATE : 18. Jan. 1988
NAME : Ralf Cordes , cordes@infbs.uucp, cordes@DBSINF6.BITNET
TOPIC: user-oriented and/or adaptible retrieval techniques
I work in the field of "user-oriented" and "adaptible" retrieval
techniques including machine learning approaches such as mentionend in
Wong/Ziarko "A machine learning approach to IR" (Proc. SIGIR R&D in IR
Conf., Pisa 86).
So I'm in search for papers which were focussed on the problem
mentioned above.
Thanks in advance
Ralf Cordes
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 88 14:14:33 GMT
From: steinmetz!uunet!mcvax!cnetlu!gilloux (Gilloux)
Subject: Seeking machine readable dictionaries for the french language
I am in search of machine readable dictionaries in French.
The intended use is to extract automatically semantic information
needed in a NL parser.
Any help would be appreciated on that topic.
Michel Gilloux
Centre National d'Etudes des Telecommunications
LAA/SLC/AIA
Route de Tregastel, BP 40
22301 Lannion CEDEX
FRANCE
UUCP: mcvax!inria!cnetlu!gilloux
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 88 17:06 EDT
From: krovetz@UMass.bitnet
Subject: dictionary stories
Ed,
Robert France posted a msg to the net that mentioned you had
some stories to tell about your experience with machine readable
dictionaries. Well, I'd be interested to hear them! We recently
got a copy of the Longman dictionary. It took me almost two years
to get it. I've had a few hassles with it, but nothing major (I
had to convert from the cambridge lisp escape character to that
of common lisp, and I found a message in the middle of the file
that said "processing priority changed from 1.39 to 1.45").
Bran Boguraev took care of the worst of it by converting the
typesetting tape to a sequence of s-expressions. So, what kind
of war stories do you have to tell?
-bob
[Note: there has been discussion in AIList, which I won't duplicate,
that led to the above msg. I believe Robert will put together a
reply to several inquiries and send it in to IRList - Ed]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 16 Jan 88 18:13:36 est
From: batesdl@gecrdvm1.bitnet (David Bates)
Subject: Query by Abigail Ann Young
Ed: I sent the following E-Mail in response to a request from Abigail
Ann Young in a recent IR-List. If you think there would be more general
interest, feel free to reprint part or all of it.
Dr. Young:
I read your inquiry in the IR-List. As it happens, there was a passing
reference in the List a couple months back to something called the
Responsa project, which aroused my curiosity. Responsa is apparently
a full-text system storing (I suspect in Hebrew) (Jewish)Talmudic
Responsas. I was curious enough to do a quick search of two or
three bibliographic databases (although not curious enough to
get copies of the articles. Several citations follow:
Choueka, Y. Computerized full-text retrieval systems & research in
the humanities: the Responsa project. Comput. & Hum., v.14, no.3,
Nov. 1980 . pp. 153-169.
Borko, H. The Responsa project: a full text retrieval system for
Hebrew case law. ASIS '85 (Proceedings of the 48th ASIS Annual Mtg.)
pp. 367-8.
(Additionally there was a citation to a group called
the Institute for Computers in Jewish Life (in Chicago) which
has mounted for the use of scholars, etc. a copy of the Responsa
data base. This was mentioned in Softalk, vol.3, no.6, Feb. 1983,
p. 229).
Finally, a comparison of Responsa and some other info-retrieval
systems can be found in:
Silberglad, I. Full test information retrieval software...
Online Review, v.11, no.2, April 1987, pp. 107-117.
I don't know if any of this helps you at all, but here it is.
I have not seen any of these articles, so I can't vouch for much
about it.
Sincerely,
David Bates
Whitney Library
G.E. R&D Center
Schenectady NY
(518) 387-7538
(E-mail: via bitnet on node gecrdvm1 , username BATESDL )
[Note: Yaacov Choueka might want to comment more. I have found the
Responsa Project to be an important effort well worth following. - Ed]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 88 19:25 EDT
From: LEWIS@UMass.bitnet
Subject: query on Weiss dissertation, chemistry & IR refs
Dear Dr. Fox:
In your addendum to my November query to IRLIST re determining relevance
by matching non-surface text representations you mentioned a dissertation
by a "S. Weiss" as worth looking at. I haven't run into this name anywhere
since, so I was wondering if you could give me a pointer to where to find
out more--do you know their school. I'd also be interested to hear any
specific references you suggest on IR for chemistry, which you also
mentioned.
Many thanks,
David D. Lewis CSNET: lewis@cs.umass.edu
COINS Dept. BITNET: lewis@umass
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003
[Note: I was referring to dissertation of Stephen F. Weiss, who is at
UNC Chappel Hill. I read his dissertation about 9 years ago in the
library at Cornell - don't know how easy it is to get access to a
copy. He is on the net and might be able to give pointers. Regarding
IR and chemistry, I suggest you look into the recent CACM article on
ARIADNE - others may have suggestions to share too. - Ed]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 88 11:18:07 est
From: vtvax3::foxea
Subject: Microsoft CD-ROM Conf. and SIGIR session (comments welcome!)
The 3rd International Conference on CD-ROM will be sponsored by
Microsoft and will be held March 1-3, 1988 in Seattle. On Thursday
March 3 there will be 1 1/2 hours for SIGs to meet. ACM SIGIR will be
given a room and there should be interesting discussions. I am in the
process of drawing up plans for the session, and so welcome any
comments or volunteers to help - we should make it serve SIGIR as
best as possible. I look forward to seeing some of you there, Ed
Note that you can obtain more details about the conference by calling
(206) 867-3341 or (206) 882-8080 x7213 or writing to Microsoft Corp.,
Sherrie Eastman, Dept. CDR1, Box 97017, Redmond WA 98073-9717
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 88 10:23:43 est
From: fox (Ed Fox)
Subject: demonstration and MS thesis defense
What: M.S. Thesis Defense
Who: Marybeth T. Weaver
Moderator: Edward A. Fox
Date: January 29, 1988
Time: 9:00 a.m. [Note: vtopus is reserved then for demo!]
Place: Virginia Tech, 558 McBryde Hall
Title: Implementing an Intelligent Information Retrieval System
The CODER System, Version 1.0
Abstract:
For individuals requiring interactive access to online text, information
storage and retrieval systems provide a way to retrieve desired documents
and/or text passages. The CODER (COmposite Document Expert/effective/extended
Retrieval) system is a testbed for determining how useful various artificial
intelligence techniques are in increasing the effectiveness of information
storage and retrieval systems. The system, designed previously, has three
components: an analysis subsystem for analyzing and storing document contents,
a central spine for manipulation and storage of world and domain knowledge,
and a retrieval subsystem for matching user queries to relevant documents.
This thesis discusses the implementation of the retrieval subsystem and
portions of the spine and analysis subsystem. It illustrates that logic
programming, specifically the Prolog language, is suitable for development of
an intelligent information retrieval system. Furthermore, it shows that
system modularity provides a flexible research testbed: many individuals
may work on different parts of the system which can later be quickly integrated.
The retrieval subsystem has been implemented in a modular fashion so that new
approaches to information retrieval can be easily compared to more traditional
ones. A powerful knowledge representation language, a comprehensive lexicon
and individually tailored experts using standardized blackboard modules for
communication and control allowed rapid prototyping, incremental development
and ready adaptability to change. The system executes on a DEC VAX 11/785
running ULTRIX, a variant of 4.2 BSD UNIX. It has been implemented as a set
of MU-Prolog and C modules communicating through TCP/IP sockets.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 20:49:02 est
From: Don Walker <walker@FLASH.BELLCORE.COM>
Subject: TINLAP3 Position Papers available from ACL
TINLAP-3 POSITION PAPERS AVAILABLE FROM ACL
The Association for Computational Linguistics has just published the
Position Papers prepared for TINLAP-3, the Third Conference on
Theoretical Issues in Natural Language Processing. TINLAP-3 was
organized by Yorick Wilks and held at New Mexico State University, 7-9
January 1987. There were sessions on "Words and World
Representations," "Unification and the New Grammatism," "Connectionist
and Other Parallel Approaches to Natural Language Processing,"
"Discourse Theory and Speech Acts," "Why Has Theoretical NLP Made so
Little Progress?," "Formal Versus Common Sense Semantics," "Reference:
The Interaction of Language and the World," "Metaphor," "Natural
Language Generation." Many of the papers in this proceedings were
revised by their authors following the meeting, so it is different from
the one distributed there. The price is $20 for ACL personal and
student members, $30 for individual nonmembers, and $40 for
institutions. Copies are available from the ACL Office: D.E. Walker
(ACL), Bell Communications Research, 435 South Street - MRE 2A379,
Morristown, NJ 07960-1961, USA.
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jan 88 17:54 EST
From: Mark Zimmermann <science@NEMS.ARPA>
Subject: TEXAS indexer/browser/database Hypercard stack news
I found your various net addresses in an old file of folks who, somehow
or other, expressed interest in my indexing/browsing/database software (or
who were subjected to my ravings on that subject). Well, my sabbatical time
is over, and I've got a nifty HyperCard stack for the Apple Macintosh that
incorporates in a friendly fashion much of what I've accomplished in the
area of free-text database tools.
If you're interested in the stack (HyperCard program), and can make
use of a Binhex'd Stuffit format file (compressed hex dump of a compressed
Macintosh file), drop me a note on the net here and I'll be happy to zap
it to you ... it is about 67kB long. I've posted copies to Info-Mac and to
HyperHackers on arpanet, and it should be available in their archives and
at Simtel20.arpa for anonymous ftp capture.
If you want to get a copy for the Mac and the above paragraph makes no
sense to you, drop me a disk, a self-addressed stamped envelope, and a few
dollars for me to give to my son (who does the disk duplicating), and I'll
send you the stack and all the Lightspeed C source code for the 13 external
Hypercard functions which are included (compiled) in the stack.
Here is the msg announcing the program which I sent off to various
folks; it explains what the program is all about.... ^z
------------
I've just uploaded TEXAS01.SIT - HyperCard stack which lets you browse
through multi-megabyte collections of free-text information. TEXAS
includes facilities for building and sorting a complete inverted index
to every word in a 'dataspace' text file. Very friendly and easy to use!
To browse and retrieve information, begin with the index display, a
scrolling list of key words, e.g.:
3 HYPERBOLIC
28 HYPERBUG
2 HYPERBUTTONS
10 HYPERC
2545 HYPERCARD
...etc. -- whatever words are in your input file. If you're interested in
hypercard, just click on that word in the index and get a key word in
context display (a scrolling window), e.g.:
ay with these new tools. HyperCard, I believe, will be even better
he pyramid is an index in HyperCard which knows something about the
Bill Atkinson talks about HyperCard -----------------------------
y seeing products such as HyperCard, and we are too, as soon-to-be
...etc. -- a line of the actual text around every occurrence of your chosen
word, centered on that word. If you want to read what Bill had to say,
just click on that line in the context display, and get the full text in a
scrolling window on your dataspace.
This upload is version 0.1 -- it works great, but many features remain
on my list to be added. It uses 13 XFCNs (written in Lightspeed C) to
open, index, browse, etc. through files. Everything is included in the
stack -- extensive help, documentation of all features, etc. TEXAS builds
indices at a rate of over 3 MB/hour on my Mac Plus; browsing speeds are
limited by HyperCard response times to a screenful/second or so.
If you like TEXAS 0.1, send me encouraging words, ideas, or other
contributions to keep me going further on it! (And contact me if you
want copies of all the source code for my XFCNs, at nominal cost.)
TEXAS has evolved out of my earlier Indexer/Browser programs during
the past year. I use it to think with and to remember items from the Mac
Tech Notes, from various online discussion groups, etc. The more info you
put into it, the better it gets (until you run out of disk space)!
--------------
Mark^Zimmermann science@nems.arpa [75066,20444] CompuServe
9511 Gwyndale Dr.
Silver Spring, MD 20910 301-565-2166
USA
------------------------------
END OF IRList Digest
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