IRList Digest Sunday, 28 February 1988 Volume 4 : Issue 11 Today's Topics: Announcement - OED Word Appeal - New OED project wins award Abstracts - Recent dissertations News addresses are Internet or CSNET: fox@vtopus.cs.vt.edu BITNET: foxea@vtvax3.bitnet ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Feb 88 16:34:00 gmt From: Stefek Zaba Subject: OED word appeal Dear Editor: I just done posted this on "sci.lang". If you think it's Permissable (i.e. not straying *too* close to "commercial interest"), not too huge, and of some interest, please include it in IR-DIGEST. My link with OUP is no more than this: my wife is one of the army of 60 proofreader/copy-editors checking the integration of original, supplement, and new material on the new OED - and I think it's a fascinating project. Almost a follow-on from "Machine Readable Dictionaries"; in fact a request for *in-print* examples of English language words, for the new OED. Note - I have no commercial connection with Oxford University Press! The remainder is lifted directly from an OUP document, by hand (so all typos are my fault); if using the net proves effective I'll try to get the electronic source for NEWS appeals lists from OUP... New English Words Series (NEWS) Appeal List no. 12 Dictionary entries for new words, senses, and expressions are now being prepared for the OED and for other Oxford dictionaries. Additional quotations for the following words would usefully complement the entries now under consideration. Unless otherwise stated, examples are needed whih predate the bracketed date in each request. Please send quotations to John Simpson, Co-Editor, New OED, Oxford University Press, Walton Street, OXFORD, England, OX2 6DP [or by email to me, Stefek Zaba @ Hewlett-Packard Labs, Bristol, UK: sjmz%otter.hple.hp.com@hplabs.hp.com for you Internet freaks, {any-big-site}!mcvax!ukc!hplb!sjmz for you Usenet types, sjmz@hplb.csnet if you can get to CSNet]. ITEM REQUEST do(v.) repetitive use as in ``They went to sea in a sieve, they did'' (recent ex.) doorstep(v.t.) to waylay on the doorstep to get an interview etc. (1987) dopily(adv.) (1958) dormer bungalow (1977) dormer room (1951) douairi\`{e}re [\`{e} = TeXspeak for e grave] = dowager (any exx.) double-park(v.) passive, of a person, as in ``I am double-parked'' (any exx.) down ellipt. for down to, down at, as in ``down the pub'' (1911) down(n.) a period of depression, a depressing experience (any exx.) down(a.) designating such an experience; as in ``a down movie'' (any exx.) drop off(v.t) to let (someone) alight (from a vehicle); to deliver (an object) (1978) egomaniacal(a.) (1934) estouffade = meat stew (1955) `'{e}tatiste (1961) ethnicism}........ (any exx.) ethnicist} evangelist = a zealous advocate of a cause (1978) eventfully (any ex. before 1911 and between 1911 and 1976) evocatively (1934) exacting of a (species of) tree: requiring particular conditions in order to thrive (recent ex.) exaction = claim \underline{on} one's time or energy (any exx.) excerpt(v.t.) to make extracts from (a book) (1976) explicably (1972) fink out (v.) = to back out }............ (1966) fink out on = to let (someone) down } fist = to form into a fist (recent ex.) fit (v.i.) = to have en epileptiic fit (1969) fit as a flea (recent ex.) flair = stytlishness (of dress) (1969) flambeau = royal poinciana (tree) (any ex.) flask = vacuum flask (1967) fleeciness (any exx.) flower-girl (at a wedding) (UK ex. pre-1977) fog (v.t.) = to cover (a surface) with condensed vapour (1940) fog (v.i.) = to become covered with condensed vapour (any exx.) foreigner = thing done or made in firm's time and with firm's materials to do a foreigner = to be paid for work done whil on the dole (any exx., esp. pre-1943) forensic ellipt. use of adj. as noun, = forensic science dept. of lab., as in ``are you from forensic?'' (1963) foreseeably (1965) freelance (adv.) (1985) frustratedly (1978) frustrating (1973) frustratingly (a.) (1972) furriness (1900) to raise one's hackles } to put one's hackles up }------- (any exx., esp. pre-1977) to put up/raise (another's) hackles } right the way down, in, out, over, past (but not `through') (any exx.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Feb 88 16:46:12 gmt From: Stefek Zaba Subject: New OED project wins British Comp. Soc. award This may also be of passing interest.... Reproduced without permission from New OED Newsletter nr. 17, January 1988: The British Computer Society 1987 Applications Award has been won by OUP for the New Oxford English Dictionary project. Specifically, the Award was made for the automatic processing of the machine-readable text of the Oxford English Dictionary and the Supplement, and the OEDIPUS system. [OEDIPUS = OED Interactive P U System; one module called OEDIPUS LEX. Groan! [contributor]] The processes comprise: loading data to the database; parsing the data to add further structural tags [NB these are SGML, though I don't think they were going to be when the project started [contributor]]; converting the phonetics to IPA; integrating the two texts; resolving corss references; inspection, revision, and approval of the integrated material using OEDIPUS. [Last comment from contributor: unusually for a large computerisation project, I don't think they've slipped deadlines by more than 2 weeks in the last 3 years! though I may exaggerate...] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Feb 88 12:57:35 EST From: "Susanne M. HUMPHREY" Subject: more abstracts to insert into previous list Ed, if it is not too late, these two may be inserted into the other new list I sent you recently. The first sort is by DE, second by AU. Perhaps I should alert you to the fact that since the previous new list, paragraphs in abstracts are separated by a blank line. I am also leaving titles all caps (in addition to authors, as before). --Susanne [Note: I am publishing these separately, but they should be viewed as being part of the set distributed in issues 5-7. - Ed.] AN University Microfilms Order Number ADG87-17545. AU STONE, DAN NORMAN, JR. IN The University of Texas at Austin Ph.D 1987, 275 pages. TI THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION FORM ON COGNITIVE PROCESSES AND CHOICE IN AN INFORMATION SYSTEM SELECTION TASK. DE Business Administration, Accounting. AB The form in which information is presented to a decision maker can impact both cognitive processes and choice. This research explores the impact of verbal and numeric information forms on decision processes and choices. Experimental participants are asked to make choices of information systems using numeric or verbal data for their decisions. Participants' information acquisition behavior, decision strategies, and choices are recorded using both computer-assisted and verbal protocol data collection techniques. The investigation thereby tests a contingency theory of the adaptation of human information processing to task demands. AN University Microfilms Order Number ADG87-24311. AU MEADOR, JACK LEWIS. IN Washington State University Ph.D 1987, 144 pages. TI PATTERN RECOGNITION AND INTERPRETATION BY A BINARY-TREE OF PROCESSORS. DE Engineering, Electronics and Electrical. AB High-level-language-architecture research is an area which focuses upon narrowing the so-called "semantic gap" between high-level programming languages and computer hardware. The goal is to improve processing efficiency by bringing hardware and software design closer together. This goal is typically achieved by considering software and hardware aspects concurrently as part of an overall design process. A variety of approaches exist within this area, ranging from machines having optimized instruction sets to direct execution architectures where high-level tokens are fetched from program memory like low-level instructions. A key aspect of any high-level-language architecture is that the execution algorithm can be modeled as language translation. Any high-level-language architecture is effectively a direct implementation of an interpreter. A large numer of multiprocessor organizations exist today. A fundamental problem of multiprocessing is becoming less one of how to physically organize the processor, and more one of how to program it. The difficulty associated with programming multiprocessors is characterized here as a "parallel semantic gap". The research described within is motivated by the direct interpretation model used to narrow the sequential semantic gap. The direct implementation of an interpreter on some multiprocessor organization is proposed. The specific approach is to study syntax-directed interpretation on a binary-tree multiprocessor organization. Any interpretation scheme must use some pattern recognition algorithm to discern the actions that programs are to carry out. This dissertation presents two new recognition algorithms for a binary-tree multiprocessor and studies the application of these algorithms to parallel interpretation. Language interpretation is not the only application which these algorithms have. Compelling research directions are suggested for architectures supporting expert systems and complex pattern analysis. Included among these are machines for information retrieval from a semantic-network knowledge base and ones which perform scene analysis by detecting graph isomorphisms. ------------------------------ END OF IRList Digest ********************