IRList Digest Tuesday, 25 August 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 30 Today's Topics: Announcement - Abstracts from next ACM SIGIR Forum (part 2 of 4) News addresses are ARPANET: fox%vtopus.cs.vt.edu@relay.cs.net BITNET: foxea@vtvax3.bitnet CSNET: fox@vt UUCPNET: fox@vtopus.uucp ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 10 Aug 87 15:17:43 CDT From: nancy@usl-vb.usl.edu (Nancy ) Subject: Abstracts from next ACM SIGIR Forum - sent by Raghavan ABSTRACTS (part 2 of 4) 10. COGNITIVE MODELS IN INFORMATION RETRIEVAL - AN EVALUATIVE REVIEW P. J. Daniels Department of Information Science City University Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB Selected current and recent work in the area of cognitive modelling is reviewed. Particular attention is paid to user models (that is, the model held by a system of a user). The relevance of this work to information retrieval is assessed and some attempts to include user models in IR sys- tems are discussed. Implications are drawn for future work in IR. (JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 272-304, 1986) 11. IMPROVED DESIGN OF GRAPHIC DISPLAYS IN THESAURI - THROUGH TECHNOLOGY AND ERGONOMICS Suzanne Bertrand-Gastaldy School of Library and Information Science University of Montreal and Colin H. Davidson School of Architecture University of Montreal Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3J7 Within the framework of a research project into alternative ways of representing documentation languages and into their flexibility, an attempt is made to draw up a list of performance criteria that an `ideal' thesaurus graphic display should respect. However, a study of the main bibliographies listing thesauri, shows that less than 6 per cent of them contain graphic displays, even though a concurrent literature survey reveals that such displays offer many potential advantages. Up to now, use of displays was probably limited by technology and by the rarity of studies into the cognitive processes of the users of automated systems. Current research in several disciplines (computer graphics, ergonomic psychology and spatial representation) should contribute to the emergence of new types of documentation retrieval tools, well adapted to a broader and more diversified clientele. (JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 225-251, 1986) 12. DESKTOP PUBLISHING: WHAT IT CAN AND CANNOT DO Ronald K. Jurgen Senior Editor Desktop publishing is an evolutionary outgrowth of word processing. This low-cost alternative to typesetting services has decided limitations in many applications. (IEEE SPECTRUM, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 50-52, 1987) 13. COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE FOR A SURROGATE FILE TO A VERY LARGE DATA/KNOWLEDGE BASE P. Bruce Berra, Soon Myoung Chung, and Nabil I. Hachem Syracuse University This article presents techniques for managing a very large data/knowledge base to support multiple inference-mechanisms for logic programming. Because evaluation of goals can require accessing data from the extensional database, or EDB, in very general ways, one must often resort to indexing on all fields of the extensional database facts. This presents a formidable management problem in that the index data may be larger than the EDB itself. This problem becomes even more serious in the case of very large data/knowledge bases (hundreds of gigabytes), since considerably more hardware will be required to process and store the index data. In order to reduce the amount of index data considerably without losing generality, we form a surrogate file, which is a hashing transfor- mation of the facts. Superimposed code words (SCW), concatenated code words (CCW), and transformed inverted lists (TIL) are possible structures for the surrogate file. Since these transformations are quite regular and compact, we consider possible computer architectures for the processing of the surrogate file. We discuss the use of associative memory methods, as well as a back-end system that we are developing, in order to illustrate how nonsequential computer architectures can be used to advantage in solv- ing this problem. Finally, we consider how one might perform rational operations on the surrogate file rather than on the full data. (IEEE Computer, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 25-32, 1987) 14. INFORMATION SCIENCE AS INTERFACES OF THE COGNITIVE SPHERE AND SOCIETY Sinisa Maricic The Research Library of the National and University Library 41000 Zagreb P. O. B. 550 SR Croatia, Yugoslavia Ideas from the science of science literature have been put within the framework of information science in a synthetic, critical assessment of information science philosophy. The information field is found to be in a transition state and the concept of its autocatalytic self-organization can be applied. Information science is expected to study preponderantly the ways by which humankind's cognitive creativity, with perpetually changing content, becomes humankind's everyday living force. Information science is likened to a membraneous system which takes active part in this transfer process both at the internal interfaces within the cognitive sphere itself and at the external interfaces between the cognitive sphere and the society at large. Examples of various types of information sci- ence membranes are given as possible research projects. (INFORMATION PROCESSING & MANAGEMENT, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 33-43, 1987) 15. HOW WELL DO WE ACKNOWLEDGE INTELLECTUAL DEBTS? Manfred Kochen Mental Health Research Institute University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 Authors of scientific articles often read a paper that fails to cite their prior work when they feel it should have. A survey of university faculty shows the extent to which such opinions abound. If justified, they reflect non-use of bibliographic search methods, their inadequacy or non-scholarly use of the result. Principles for the design of a new kind of automated or semi-automated document retrieval system are formulated. They are analysed and shown likely to improve the scholarly quality of scientific work as represented by the bibliographies in manuscripts reporting that work. (JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 54-64, 1987) 16. A REFERENCE AND REFERRAL SYSTEM USING EXPERT SYSTEM TECHNIQUES Alina Vickery, Helen Brooks, Bruce Robinson Central Information Service University of London Senate House, Malet Street London WC1E 7HU and Brian Vickery University College Gower Street London WC1E 6BT The issues involved in the construction of an expert system for retrieval are described, together with some of the techniques that have been used in artificial intelligence and information science to tackle them. The solutions adopted by the prototype expert system PLEXUS are described, with particular reference to the semantic processing that takes place. The paper concludes with a discussion of continuing issues on which work is currently proceeding. (JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 1-23, 1987) 17. IMPLICATIONS FOR LIS EDUCATION OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN EXPERT SYSTEMS Michael Brittain Department of Library and Information Studies Loughborough University Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU Great Britain Although there is general agreement that library and information sci- ence (LIS) education must include a sizable component of information tech- nology (IT), there is less agreement about which aspects of IT should be included, in particular about the role of expert systems. There is a grow- ing body of educators and researchers enthusiastic about expert systems, although there are still no examples of fully operating expert systems in LIS work, with the exception of activity in the related field of intelli- gent front ends for data bases. Expert Systems are likely to impinge upon LIS work, to varying degrees, in one or more of the following six areas: 1. Library management and library routines 2. Classification and indexing 3. Interactive information retrieval services 4. Knowledge acquisition and knowledge refinement stages of expert system development. 5. The development of expert systems for client groups 6. The operation of expert systems for client groups This paper considers the implications for LIS education of these different levels of involvement. It touches upon recent developments in programming, expert system shells, generation of rules from examples, heuristic programming, and knowledge refining techniques. In a field that is rapidly changing, the dangers of a too rapid crystalization of new courses on expert systems are set against the lost opportunities of a fast-growing emerging market for new types of information professionals who almost certainly require some expertise in expert system design, development, and operation. Finally, reference is made to the level at which expert systems should be taught (e.g., postgraduate versus undergraduate, in-service training, etc.), the practical problems involved in the implementation of instruc- tion with existing library school resources, problems of practical experi- ence, and the implications for the recruitment of students to LIS courses. (INFORMATION PROCESSING & MANAGEMENT, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 139-152, 1987) 18. CANSEARCH: AN EXPERT SYSTEMS APPROACH TO DOCUMENT RETRIEVAL Steven Pollitt Huddersfield Polytechnic Great Britain This paper concerns the provision of a computerized intermediary system to facilitate online document retrieval from large-scale data bases directly by users of the retrieved information. The system does not require the user to be knowledgeable or undergo any training in the use of the underlying retrieval system. The scope for a novel intermediary sys- tem relating to recent developments in expert systems has been identified and a system entitled CANSEARCH designed to enable doctors to specify queries to retrieve cancer-therapy-related documents stored in the MEDLINE data base. The design of the intermediary system uses the principle of search space abstraction, employing menu selection from a touch terminal and encapsulating the necessary intermediary expertise using rule-based techniques programmed in PROLOG. CANSEARCH performed well enough to jus- tify the approach taken, suggesting that further development of CANSEARCH and of intermediary systems for document retrieval in other subject areas should be undertaken. (INFORMATION PROCESSING & MANAGEMENT, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 119-138, 1987) 19. PLEXUS-THE EXPERT SYSTEM FOR REFERRAL A. Vickery and H. M. Brooks Central Information Services University of London Senate House, Malet Street London, WC1 7HU, Great Britain PLEXUS is an expert system which is designed as a referral tool to be used in public libraries. It was developed by the Central Information Service (CIS) at the University of London under a grant awarded by the British Library Research and Development Department. The first phase, which resulted in a working prototype, was completed in 20 months. A second phase, also funded by the British Library, is now under way and will involve the testing, evaluation, and further development of the pro- totype. The system should be able to carry out the same kind of tasks as the human reference librarian does and should do it in a way which, if done by a human would be described as intelligent. The system should be able to obtain a description of the user's problem and, if necessary, to supplement the user's original statement either by deriving additional concepts or by asking the user to answer some questions. The problem description should then be transformed into a search strategy that could be applied to a data base or referral resources. The results of a search should be evaluated both by the system and the user. Should the initial search strategy produce unsatisfactory results, the system should infer an appropriate action. The search strategy would be gradually reformulated until a satisfactory outcome was achieved. The result of the search should then be presented to the user. The prototype system is restricted to gardening because it was assumed that it would be of general appeal to the users of a public library. The paper describes the knowledge base of PLEXUS, its representation, the control mechanism, and the working system as a whole. (INFORMATION PROCESSING & MANAGEMENT, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 99-117, 1987) [Note: continued in next 2 issues - Ed] ------------------------------ END OF IRList Digest ********************