IRList Digest Friday, 28 August 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 33 Today's Topics: Announcement - Browser for Macintosh's: more details Call for Papers - RIAO '88 (with encouragement to submit papers) News addresses are Internet or CSNET: fox@vtcs1.cs.vt.edu BITNET: foxea@vtvax3.bitnet UUCPNET: fox@vtopus.uucp ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Aug 87 09:40 EDT From: Mark Zimmermann Subject: brwsr/ndxr announcement [Note: this is a sequel to msg in V3. #28 - Ed] If anybody is interested and can figure out how to get a msg back to me, I'll be happy to send you copies of my latest indexing and browsing programs in C. They seem to work fine on the Macintosh, the VAX, and the Sun that I've tried them on. "ndxr.c" takes a single, arbitrarily-large, text file as input and produces a complete inverted index to every word in that file. It currently runs at over 2 MB/hour on the Mac Plus, and 6-12 MB/hour on a Sun 3/140, depending on what else is running at the same time. Final index files are around 80% the size of the input document, though one still needs 5-6 times the size of the input document in free space on the disk while the index is being sorted. (I'm working on reducing that intermediate storage requirement still.) "brwsr.c" is a command-line-oriented version of the Macintosh Browser program. It enables you to interact with an indexed document -- you can search around the index itself, and when an interesting word turns up, drop down into a key-word-in-context display of all the occurrences of that word. From an interesting line in the KWIC display, you can then jump into the actual text of the document. "brwsr.c" includes facilities for proximity restrictions on searches (so the size of the search space can be cut down for commoner terms -- e.g., instead of having to scroll through 10,000 occurrences of "Apple" you can only look at the 200 occurrences of "apple" in the neighborhod of "Macintosh" or "Mac"). The browser also lets you route output into a "notes" file as desired, so if you're not working in a multiwindow cut/paste environment you can at least take some clippings out of the text you have retrieved. There's a third file, a descriptive commentary and mini-manual for using "brwsr.c", that I can also send you if interested. "ndxr.c" is around 35 kB, "brwsr.c" is around 55 kB, and the descriptive file is around 11 kB long. Heavily commented C code, but designed to compile and run without any editing or magic as far as I can tell (on VAX and Sun, anyway). No guarantees, of course! ^z (science@nems.arpa) Mark Zimmermann, 9511 Gwyndale Dr., Silver Spring, MD 20910, USA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Aug 87 19:13:03 edt From: fox (Ed Fox) Subject: more on RIAO '88 In V3 #20 the call for papers for RIAO '88 was published. I have heard that there has been a disappointing response from US universities. Since some of you may not have received #20, due to mail problems or summer trips, I am sending out the call again. Some may have noted that this conference is the same week as the Office Information Systems Conference. Special arrangements will be made to schedule people who want to attend both to speak on the 21st or 22nd if they want to then go on to the OIS conference. While it is desirable that systems being discussed be demonstrable, it is understood that university systems are typically prototypes, so people should not be scared off by that factor. - Ed CALL FOR PAPERS RIAO 88 USER-ORIENTED CONTENT-BASED TEXT AND IMAGE HANDLING Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA March 21-24, 1988 Conference organized by: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Centre National de Recherche des Telecommunications (CNET) Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (INRIA) Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris Centre de Hautes Etudes Internationales d'Informatique Documentaires (CID) US participating organizations: American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) American Society for Information Science (ASIS) Information Industry Association (IIA) This conference is prepared under the direction of: Professor Andre Lichnerowicz de l'Academie des Sciences de Paris and Professor Jacques Arsac correspondant de l'Academie des Sciences de Paris RIAO: Recherche d'Informations Assistee par Ordinateur A GENERAL INTRODUCTION: RIAO 88 is being held to demonstrate the state of the art in information retrieval, a domain that is in rapid evolution because of developments in the technology for machine control of full-text and image databases. This evolution is stimulated by the demands of end-users generated by the recent availability of CD-ROM full text publishing and general public access to information data bases. A group of French organizations has taken the initiative of preparing this conference. Its wish in promoting this forum is not only to stimulate and challenge researchers from all nations but also to increase an awareness of European technology. This "call for papers" is beeing distributed world-wide. We want to reach individuals in the research communities throughout the university and industrial sectors. The conference will be held in Cambridge, MA. We hope that it will encourage the exchange of European and American viewpoints, and establish new links between research teams in United-states and Europe. CALL FOR PAPERS General theme Full-text and mixed media database systems are characterized by the fact that the structure of the information is not known a priori. This prevents advance knowledge of the types of questions that will be asked, unlike the situation found in hierarchical and relational database management systems. You are invited to submit a paper showing how the situation can be dealt with. Special attention will be given to: - techniques designed to reduce imprecision in full-text database searching; - data entry and control; - "friendly" end-user interfaces. - new media A large number of specific subjects can be treated within this general framework. Some suggestions are made in the following section. Specific themes A) Linguistic processing and interrogation of full text databases: - automatic indexing, - machine generated summaries, - natural language queries, - computer-aided translation, - multilingual interfaces. B) Automatic thesaurus construction, C) Expert system techniques for retrieving information in full-text and multimedia databases: - expert systems reasoning on open-ended domains - expert systems simulating librarians accessing pertinent information. D) Friendly user interfaces to classical information retrieval systems. E) Specialized machines and system architectures designed for treating full-text data, including managing and accessing widely distributed databases. F) Automatic database construction scanning techniques, optical character readers, output document preparation, etc... G) New applications and perspectives suggested by emerging new technologies: - optical storage techniques (videodisk, CD-ROM, CD-I, Digital Optical Disks); - integrated text, sound and image retrieval systems; - electronic mail and document delivery based on content; - voice processing technologies for database construction; - production of intelligent tutoring systems; - hypertext, hypermedia. Conditions for participation The program committee is looking for communications geared toward practical applications. Papers which have not been validated by a working model, a prototype or a simulation, or for which a realization of such a model seems currently unlikely, may be refused. Authors must submit a paper of about 10 pages doubled spaced, and a 100 word abstract. Four copies must be sent before October 30 to one of these two addresses: - RIAO 88, Conference Service Office, MIT, Bldg 7, Room 111 CAMBRIDGE, MA 02139 - RIAO 88, CID, 36 bis rue Ballu, 75009 PARIS FRANCE Each presentation will last 20 minutes followed by 10 minutes of discussion and questions. Arrangement have been made with the international journal "Information Processing and Management" for publishing expanded versions of some papers. High quality audiovisual techniques should be used when presenting the paper. Separate demonstration sessions can be scheduled if requested. Particular attention will be paid to : - the use of readily available equipment for demonstrations (IBM PC, APPLE, network connec- tions...); - pre-recorded video or floppy disk displays. Hardcopy printouts of results should be avoided if possible. English is the working language of the conference. For further information call: in North America : Karen Daifuku, tel: (202) 944 62 52 in other countries: Secretariat General du CID in France, tel: (1) 42 85 04 75 ------- PROGRAM COMMITTEE French co-chairman US co-chairman Prof. Christian FLUHR Dr. Donald WALKER Universite Paris XI/INSTN BELL Communications Research J.C. Bassano (F) Universite d'Orleans A. Bookstein (USA) University of Chicago J. Bing (N) Norwegian research Center for Comp. and law E. Black (USA) T.J. Watson IBM Research Center C. Boitet (F) Universite de Grenoble J. Boucher (CAN) Universite de Montreal C. Chen (USA) Simmons College Y. Choueka (Israel) Bar-Ilan University C. Ciampi (I) Instituto per la Doc. jiuridica X. Dalloz (F) Centre National de la Cinematographie T. Doszkocs (USA) National Library of Medecine E. Fox (USA) Virginia Polytechnic Institute E. Garcia Camarero (SP) Universitad Complutense de Madrid C. Goldstein (USA) National Library of Medecine G. Grefenstette (F) Universite de Tours H. Hjerppe (S) University of Link~oping D. Kayser (F) Universite Paris XIII P. Kirstein (UK) University College of London R. Marcus (USA) Massachusetts Institute of Technology P. Mordini (F) Ecole des Mines de Paris C. D. Paice (UK) University of Lancaster A. S. Pollitt (UK) The Polytechnic Queensgate Uddersfield F. Rabitti (I) Instituto dei Elabor. della Informazione J. Rohmer (F) Bull, Louveciennes G. Sabah (F) LIMSI(CNRS) Orsay T. Saracevic (USA) Rutgers University W. Turner (F) CDST (CNRS) Paris H. J. Schneider (FRG) Technische Universit~at Berlin C. Schwartz (FRG) Siemens M~unchen assisted by a Technical and an Organisation Committee. APPLICATION FORM NAME:........................................................................... TITLE/POSITION:................................................................. ORGANIZATION:................................................................... ADDRESS:........................................................................ CITY:................................STATE:.......................ZIP:......... COUNTRY:........................................................................ I plan to attend the conference, please send me the program: YES NO I plan to present a paper: YES NO Conference theme (circle one): A B C D E F G Title of the communication: Are you willing to present a demonstration of your prototype? YES NO Equipment needed: Please mail this form before September 15, 1987 to: RIAO 88 Conference Service Office MIT Bldg 7, Room 111 CAMBRIDGE, MA 02139 USA ------------------------------ END OF IRList Digest ********************