Information Retrieval List Digest 064 (May 24, 1991) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/irld/irld-064 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 91 13:57:47 PST Reply-To: Information Retrieval List Sender: Information Retrieval List From: IRLIST Subject: IRLIST Digest, Vol. VIII, No. 22, Issue 64 IRLIST Digest May 24, 1991 Volume VIII, Number 22 Issue 64 ********************************************************** I. NOTICES A. Meeting Announcements/Calls for Papers 1. 3rd International Seminar on Management of Information Related to Water and the Environment, Royal Museum for Central-Africa, Belgium, November 14-15, 1991 2. Symposium on Document Analysis and Information Retrieval, Las Vegas, Nevada, March 16-18, 1992 3. IJCAI '91 Workshop: Computational Approaches to Non-Literal Language: Metaphor, Metonymy, Idiom, SpeechActs, Implicature, Sydney, Australia, August 24, 1991 II. QUERIES B. Requests for Information 1. Request for recommendations on speakers for Future Generation Information Technologies Symposium IV. PROJECT WORK B. Bibliographies 1. Selected IR-Related Dissertation Abstracts ********************************************************** I. NOTICES I.A.1. Fr: P. Nieuwenhuysen (BIBL) Re: 3rd International Seminar on Management of Information Related to Water and the Environment 3rd International Seminar on Management of Information Related to Water and the Environment organized in the framework of the UNESCO International Hydrological Programme (UNESCO - IHP) at the Royal Museum for Central-Africa near Brussels (Belgium) on 14 - 15 November 1991 Attendance free of charge! Background information: In the UNESCO International Hydrological Programme Phase IV, the Working Group for M.2.1 and M.2.2 deals with water-related information in a broad sense and concentrates on: - Promoting, explaining, and using internationally available bibliographic data bases related to water and the environment. This includes the use of data bases on CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read Only Memory) and by online access. - Guiding those who are planning to set up their own (national) water-related information systems, perhaps in a later stage to be connected with international information systems. (The use of Micro CDS/ISIS software plays a major role here, including the handling of factual data bases.) UNESCO-IHP offers a series of seminars on these topics. Previous seminars were organized in London, UK (1989) and Dubrovnik, YU (1990). This seminar will take place in the period that the Training Course on Management of Information in Science and Technology (MIST) takes place in Brussels. This assures the presence of experts in the field as well as about 15 trainees from various countries. Organizers: W.W. de Mes (Rapporteur to UNESCO-IHP) P. Nieuwenhuysen (Chief Rapporteur to UNESCO-IHP, Free University of Brussels) F. Provost (Rapporteur to UNESCO-IHP, Free University of Brussels) More information can be obtained from: Secretariat Seminar W.W. de MES Rapporteur UNESCO-IHP Loevestein 24 2703 JC Alphen a/d Rijn The Netherlands Tel Home: 31 1720-45223 Telefax: 31 1720-74935 or by e-mail from Paul NIEUWENHUYSEN (Chief Rapporteur to UNESCO-IHP, Free University of Brussels) Internet e-mail: PNIEUWEN@RC1.VUB.AC.BE PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME: Lectures: Information is important (A. Aureli, UNESCO - Water Sciences Division) UNESCO and information related to water and the environment (P. Nieuwenhuysen, Free University of Brussels) Retrieval from internationally available water-related data bases (W.W. de Mes, Rapporteur to UNESCO-IHP) Urban Drainage Bibliographic Data base under CDS/ISIS (M. Sicevic, Jaroslav Cerni Institute, Belgrade) Information services to external users provided by the Free University Brussels (VUB) (F. Provost and P. Nieuwenhuysen, Free University of Brussels) Micro CDS/ISIS to manage water-related bibliographic information (P. Vanouplines and P. Nieuwenhuysen, Free University of Brussels) Conversion of data for import in Micro CDS/ISIS data bases (H. Besemer, PUDOC Wageningen, and P. Nieuwenhuysen) Factual data bases under CDS/ISIS (M. Fernandez, Royal Museum for Central Africa) Others... Lecturers are also expected from IRC in The Hague and from KIT in Amsterdam Posters Demonstrations Product reviews Hands-on practice (for instance Georef on CD-ROM,...) ------------------------------------------------------- ANSWER FORM: I am interested in attending the Seminar in Brussels and wish to receive further information I propose to contribute a lecture on the following theme and will send an abstract: I propose to contribute a poster on the following theme: I propose to present our product: Name: Title: Address: Organization: Country: Telephone/FAX/E-mail: ********** I.A.2. Fr: Kazem Taghva Re: IJCAI non-literal language deadline information CALL FOR PAPERS IJCAI-91 WORKSHOP COMPUTATIONAL APPROACHES TO NON-LITERAL LANGUAGE: METAPHOR, METONYMY, IDIOM, SPEECH ACTS, IMPLICATURE Dan Fass, James Martin, Elizabeth Hinkelman Sydney, Australia, 24th August 1991 o New deadline for submissions Thursday May 30th o New notification of acceptance/rejection Friday June 7th 1. Focus of the Workshop The purpose of the workshop is to stimulate exchange and discussion of theoretical issues and practical problems of artificial intelligence (AI) models of non-literal language. Non-literal language includes metaphor, idiom, "indirect" speech acts, implicature, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, sarcasm, and other devices whose meaning cannot be obtained by direct composition of their constituent words. Non-literal language is increasingly acknowledged as pervasive in natural language and is important to subfields of natural language processing like machine translation and parsing ill-formed input. Non-literal language has also attracted interest from researchers in knowledge representation, planning and plan recognition, learning, belief modeling, and other subfields of AI. Researchers are invited to submit papers on topics including (but not limited to) the computer recognition, interpretation, acquisition, generation, and robust parsing of non-literal language. Issues of interest include: o the relationship of non-literal to literal language, o the adequacy of various forms of knowledge representation (symbolic vs connectionist vs statistical), o static vs dynamic mechanisms, o general vs idiosyncratic treatment of instances, o instances as novel vs conventional forms, o comparison and contrast of models of the various forms of non-literal language, o broader implications for AI. 2. Organizing Committee Dan Fass James Martin Centre for Systems Science, Computer Science Department and Simon Fraser University, Institute of Cognitive Science, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. University of Colorado at Boulder, Tel: (604) 291-3208 Box 430, Boulder, CO 80309-0430, USA. Fax: (604) 291-4951 Tel: (303) 492-3552 E-mail: fass@cs.sfu.ca Fax: (303) 492-2844 E-mail: martin@boulder.colorado.edu Elizabeth Hinkelman Center for Information and Language Studies, University of Chicago, 1100 E. 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Tel: (312) 702-8887 Fax: (312) 702-0775 E-mail: eliz@tira.uchicago.edu 3. Submission Details Authors should mail three (3) copies of a submission in hard copy form. Submissions should be no longer than 8 pages (excluding title page); have 1 inch margins on the top, sides and bottom; and use no smaller than 10 point type. The title page, separate from the body of the paper, should contain title, names of authors, their affiliation, address, phone, e-mail address, and an abstract of 100-200 words. Papers that do not conform to this format will not be reviewed. Send submissions to Dan Fass at his address, given above. Please do not send submissions to James Martin or Elizabeth Hinkelman. 4. Workshop Details Attendance at the workshop will be limited to 30 participants. Only one invitation will be issued per accepted submission. To cover costs, it will be necessary to charge a fee of $US65 for each participant. Participants will be given further instructions on preparation of camera ready copy and session format when they receive notification of acceptance. Final papers will be collected into a set of proceedings and circulated to participants at the workshop. Arrangements (yet to be confirmed) are being made for a Special Edition of Computational Intelligence journal, edited by Fass, Martin and Hinkelman, in which selected papers from the workshop will appear. ********************************************************** II. QUERIES II.B.1. Fr: Bob Weiner Re: Request for recommendations on speakers for Future Generation Information Technologies Symposium I am interested in nominations of distinguished speakers in the following information technology areas, as candidates for presenting at a technical symposium. Both academic and industrial speakers are welcome, including the nominator him/herself. The time frame would be the latter part of this year. For contact information, please provide the e-mail address of the person nominated or telephone number and postal address. Of course, a description of the person's prior contributions and current work should be included, though I need only the key details, not an entire resume. Note that the focus is on future or least advanced information technology issues. The areas (in no particular order) are: Hypermedia Information Visualization Information Services Communications/Delivery Technologies Information System Development Environments Intelligent Information Access Suppport (agents, expert systems, neural nets) Distributed Information Systems Information Personalization Thanks for the help. Bob Weiner ********************************************************** IV. PROJECT WORK IV.B.1. Fr: Susanne Humphrey Re: Selected IR-Related Dissertation Abstracts The following are citations selected by title and abstract as being related to Information Retrieval (IR), resulting from a computer search, using BRS Information Technologies, of the Dissertation Abstracts Online database produced by University Microfilms International (UMI). Included are UMI order number, title, author, degree, year, institution; number of pages, one or more Dissertation Abstracts International (DAI) subject descriptors chosen by the author, and abstract. Unless otherwise specified, paper or microform copies of dissertations may be ordered from University Microfilms International, Dissertation Copies, Post Office Box 1764, Ann Arbor, MI 48106; telephone for U.S. (except Michigan, Hawaii, Alaska): 1-800-521-3042, for Canada: 1-800-268-6090. Price lists and other ordering and shipping information are in the introduction to the published DAI. An alternate source for copies is sometimes provided. Dissertation titles and abstracts contained here are published with permission of University Microfilms International, publishers of Dissertation Abstracts International (copyright by University Microfilms International), and may not be reproduced without their prior permission. AN This item is not available from University Microfilms International ADG06-63893 AU SWANEPOEL, MARINUS. TI THE AVAILABILITY OF ELECTRONIC SOURCE DATABASES AT SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES AND TECHNIKONS. (AFRIKAANS TEXT). IN University of Pretoria (South Africa) M.Lib.Sc. 1989. DE Library Science. AB Electronic databases can be divided into two categories: reference databases and source databases. A taxonomy of source databases is established through division. Source databases, which constitute 60-70% of all databases, are a major source of information. Traditionally source databases were regarded as an information source of minor importance. With the increasing use that is being made of modern information technology by library and information services the time has come to devote more attention to this method of searching for information. It has also been shown that although 32,8% of the identified source databases are readily available to researchers/lecturers of other universities and technikons, they are being utilized exclusively by the personnel of the tertiary institutions at which they are located. The possibilities that are offered by the South African academic network for making the source databases available to the South African academic community at large, are also investigated. AN University Microfilms Order Number ADG90-25738 AU WEINTRAUB, IRWIN. TI A COMPARISON OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RESEARCH LITERATURES OF CONVENTIONAL AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE. IN The University of Wisconsin - Madison Ph.D. 1990, 321 pages. DE Library Science. Agriculture, General. Environmental Sciences. AB A citation analysis was carried out to examine the characteristics of research literature in conventional and sustainable agriculture. The intent of the study was to determine whether there were two different literatures covering these two approaches to agricultural production or one literature covering both approaches. One hundred research documents in conventional agriculture and one hundred research documents in sustainable agriculture published in the year 1987 were chosen at random from a search of the AGRICOLA database and the Bibliography of Agriculture. Only research documents written by United States authors in plant science, pesticides, soil science and animal science were included in the sample. Characteristics examined were journal title dispersion, age, form, language, countries of origin and subjects of literature cited in the source documents. Results indicated that there was a single corpus of research literature in conventional and sustainable agriculture. This included 761 journal titles cited by authors in conventional and sustainable agriculture with 220 titles cited at least once in each group. Journals were the predominant form used by the authors; mean age of cited items was 10-11.5 years; English was the predominant language and the United States was the country of origin of most of the cited items. Entomology, crops and soils, biology, veterinary science and biochemistry were the five subjects cited most heavily in conventional agriculture. Entomology, crops and soils, botany, genetics and biology were the five subjects cited most heavily in sustainable agriculture. It was concluded that the archival research journals accepted research articles in both conventional and sustainable agriculture. This may be the result of the growing acceptance of the philosophy of sustainable agriculture and an awareness of its importance as an alternative form of agricultural production. AN This item is not available from University Microfilms International ADGC1-49265 AU KATZEFF, CECILIA. TI COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION: MENTAL MODELS IN DATABASE QUERY WRITING. IN Stockholms Universitet (Sweden) Fil.Dr 1989, 42 pages. DE Psychology, Industrial. IS ISBN: 91-7146-723-8. PU AKADEMITRYCK AB, TABY OCH EDSBRUK, SWEDEN. RC DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF STOCKHOLM, S-106 91 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN. AB This thesis attempts to view problems of human-computer research in relation to theories in cognitive psychology. The thesis investigates adults' reasoning when learning to use database systems. One main objective is to identify cognitive steps involved in query writing. Another main objective is to examine the significance of the "system image" for users' mental models. The general procedure of the four studies is to present subjects with an instruction of how to use a certain query language and then ask them to carry out a number of tasks by posing queries to a database system. During their interaction with the system subjects are asked to "think aloud". Study I analyses problem-solving attempts both in terms of the instruction text and in relation to the database query language. In spite of the fact that constructing a complex query required more problem-solving than using two simple queries, 65% of the subjects attempted to construct complex queries. 25% preferred to answer questions by issuing two simple queries. Think-aloud data indicated four different routes in finding a reply. In studies II and III the task of writing queries is viewed as a hypothesis testing activity. In study II subjects are divided into four groups and each group is presented with a different manual to the query language. Manuals presenting models of the query language in terms of a logical analysis of queries produced superior performance to manuals lacking such an analysis. The formulation of an expected reply was identified as a crucial stage towards successful query writing. Study III identifies the evaluation of the received computer reply as a second crucial stage in the query writing process. Study IV investigates the relationship between mental models required by the system, clues provided for these models, and users' behaviour in operating the system. When the system's clues corresponded to the required knowledge subjects succeeded in carrying out 90% of the tasks correctly, but when clues did not correspond to this knowledge subjects only succeeded in carrying out 65% of the tasks correctly. (Abstract shortened by UMI.). ********************************************************** IRLIST Digest is distributed from the University of California, Division of Library Automation, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA. 94612-3550. 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