Information Retrieval List Digest 075 (July 22, 1991) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/irld/irld-075 IRLIST Digest July 22, 1991 Volume VIII, Number 32 Issue 75 ********************************************************** I. NOTICES A. Meeting Announcements/Calls for Papers 1. Final Call: NCCV/92 C. Miscellaneous 1. What is an Archie? II. QUERIES B. Requests for Information 1. IR-Related Tools in ADA ********************************************************** I. NOTICES I.A.1. Fr: Walter Maner Re: FINAL CALL, COMPUTING & VALUES CONFERENCE, AUG 12-16 FINAL CALL FOR PARTICIPATION N C C V / 91 THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTING AND VALUES August 12-16 in New Haven, Connecticut USA o CURRENT STATUS: The workshop structure of N C C V / 91 limits participation to approximately 500 registrants, but space is still available at this time (mid-July). Registration is $225 for the full conference, $100 for any of the special one-day workshops. Limited scholarships are available for persons with disabilites. Deeply discounted motel rates (Quality Inn, 203/387-6651) and air fares (USAir Gold File #36470000) remain available. o MORE THAN 50 DISTINGUISHED SPEAKERS: Ronald E. Anderson, Daniel Appleman, John Perry Barlow, Tzipporah Ben Avraham, Tora Bikson, Timothy Binkley, Della T. Bonnette, Leslie Burkholder, Terrell Ward Bynum, David Carey, Jacques N. Catudal, Gary Chapman, David Chaum, Frank Connolly, Marvin Croy, Peter Danielson, Dorothy Denning, Peter Denning, Charles E. M. Dunlop, Batya Friedman, Ken W. Gatzke, Richard Gordon, Donald Gotterbarn, Michael S. Hart, Barbara Heinisch, Deborah Johnson, Mitch Kapor, Isaac Victor Kerlow, John Ladd, Marianne LaFrance, Ann-Marie Lancaster, Paul Lansky, Doris Lidtke, Walter Maner, David H. Martin, Dianne Martin, Keith Miller, James H. Moor, William Hugh Murray, Barbara Nessim, Peter Neumann, George Nicholson, Helen Nissenbaum, Daniel Ort, Judith Perrolle, Amy Rubin, Lillian F. Schwartz, Sanford Sherizen, John Snapper, Kenneth Snelson, Eugene Spafford, Richard Stallman, T.C. Ting, Willis H. Ware, Sally Webster, Vivian Weil, Joseph Weizenbaum, Terry Winograd, Richard A. Wright, and Bob Zenhausern o 18 FOUR-DAY WORKSHOPS ON SIX MAJOR THEMES (MAIN TRACKS): * Computer Privacy & Confidentiality * Computer Security & Crime * Ownership of Software & Intellectual Property * Equity & Access to Computing Resources * Teaching Computing & Values * Policy Issues in the Campus Computing Environment o 7 ADDITIONAL ONE-DAY WORKSHOPS (SHORT TRACKS): - On August 13th: * Short track on philosophical and ethical issues * Short track on campus computing issues - On August 14th: * Short track on legal and governmental issues * Short track on business and computer ethics issues * Short track on ehical issues in city government computing - On August 15th: * Short track on issues of accessibility for persons with disabilities * Short track on software ownership issues o COMPUTER ART BY WORLD-FAMOUS ARTISTS o COMPUTER MUSIC BY A NATIONALLY KNOWN COMPOSER o FILM FESTIVAL ON COMPUTING AND HUMAN VALUES o EXTENSIVE EXHIBITS: * Books and articles * Organizations and resources * Hardware and software * Adaptive technology N C C V / 91 is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and hosted by the Research Center on Computing and Society and Southern Connecticut State University. TO REGISTER IMMEDIATELY and assure yourself of a place at N C C V, please send a check payable to "B G S U" for $225 (full conference) or $100 (one-day) to: Professor Walter Maner; Dept. of Computer Science; Bowling Green State University; Bowling Green, OH 43403 USA FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION and literature, contact Professor Maner as follows: BITNet MANER@BGSUOPIE.BITNET; InterNet maner@andy.bgsu.edu (129.1.1.2); Fax (419) 372-8061; Phone (419) 372-8719 (answering machine); Phone (419) 372-2337 (secretary) ********** I.C.1. II.A.2. Fr: Richard Hintz Re: What is an Archie? Archie: The McGill School of Computer Science Archive Server To access type telnet quiche.cs.mcgill.ca or 132.206.2.3 login: archie Archie: the McGill School of Computer Science Archive Server Listing Service Given the number of hosts being used as archive sites nowadays, there can be great difficulty in finding needed software in a distributed environment. You may know that the software that you need is out there, but it can sometimes be difficult to find. The School of Computer Science at McGill University has one solution to the problem - "archie". Archie is a pair of software tools: the first maintains a list of about 600 Internet ftp archive sites. Each night software executes an anonymous ftp to a subset of these sites and fetches a recursive directory listing of each, which it stores in a database. We hit about 1/30th of the list each time, so each site gets updated about once a month, hopefully balancing timely updates against unnecessary network load. The "raw" listings are stored in compressed form on quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (132.206.2.3), where they are made available via anonymous ftp in the directory ~ftp/archie/listings. The second tool is the interesting one as far as the users are concerned. It consists of a program running on a dummy user code that allows outsiders to log onto the archive server host to query the database. This is in fact the program we call Archie. Users can ask archie to search for specific name strings. For example, "prog kcl" would find all occurences of the string "kcl" and tell you which hosts have entries with this string, the size of the program, its last modification date and where it can be found on the host along with some other useful information. In this example, you could thus find those archive sites that are storing Kyoto Common Lisp. With one central database for all the archive sites we know about, archie greatly speeds the task of finding a specific program on the net. Complete anonymous ftp listings of the various sites that we keep in the database may be obtained via the 'site' command and for a list of the sites which we keep track of, see the 'list' command. Archie also maintains a 'Software Description Database' which consists of the names and descriptions of various software packages, documents and datasets that are kept on anonymous ftp archive sites all around the Internet. The 'whatis' command allows you to search this database. Send comments, bug reports etc to archie-l@cs.mcgill.ca If you have a favourite anonymous ftp site that archie doesn't seem to maintain, or if you have additions or corrections to the Software Description database, send mail to archie-admin@cs.mcgill.ca Archie was written and is maintained by Alan Emtage (bajan@cs.mcgill.ca) and Bill Heelan (wheelan@cs.mcgill.ca). Peter Deutsch (peterd@cc.mcgill.ca) provided (and continues to provide) ideas and inspiration. ********************************************************** II. QUERIES II.B.1. II.A.1 Fr: Ed Dorsey Re: Inquiry re: IR-Related Tools in ADA I am working at the SRC (Systems Research Center) on a software documentation analyzer. Implementation time has arrived, and Dr. Nance suggested that I contact you to inquire as to the existence of any public domain software which could assist in the areas of: * text recognition (I am using lex/yacc currently) * parts of speech recognition * textual content interpretation/representation (i.e., 'what does this sentence mean, and what is a good way to represent it for comparison purposes?') * textual comparison/partial matching I have spoken to members of the CODER project previously, and would like to express my appreciation for their help and offers of CODER use; however, CODER is too large to port and not in Ada, etc. If you know of any PD or commercial software related to the above topics, or of any resources which might provide such information, I would appreciate the information. Thank you in advance for your time/effort. IRLIST Digest is distributed from the University of California, Division of Library Automation, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA. 94612-3550. Send subscription requests to: LISTSERV@UCCVMA.BITNET Send submissions to IRLIST to: IR-L@UCCVMA.BITNET Editorial Staff: Clifford Lynch lynch@postgres.berkeley.edu or calur@uccmvsa.bitnet Nancy Gusack ncgur@uccmvsa.bitnet Mary Engle engle@cmsa.berkeley.edu or meeur@uccmvsa.bitnet The IRLIST Archives will be set up for anonymous FTP, and the address will be announced in future issues. To access back issues presently, send the message INDEX IR-L to LISTSERV@UCCVMA.BITNET. To get a specific issue listed in the Index, send the message GET IR-L LOG ***, where *** is the month and day on which the issue was mailed, to LISTSERV@UCCVMA.BITNET. These files are not to be sold or used for commercial purposes. Contact Nancy Gusack or Mary Engle for more information on IRLIST. The opinions expressed in IRLIST do not represent those of the editors or the University of California. Authors assume full responsibility for the contents of their submissions to IRLIST.