Information Retrieval List Digest 122 (July 29, 1992) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/irld/irld-122 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 12:40:08 PST Reply-To: "Information Retrieval List" Sender: "Information Retrieval List" From: IRLIST Subject: IR-L Digest, Vol.IX, No.26, Issue 122 IRLIST Digest July 29, 1992 Volume IX, Number 26 Issue 122 ********************************************************** I. NOTICES B. Publications Announcements 1. Studies in Artificial and Natural Intelligence 2. INDEX-L C. Miscellaneous 1. Issue 121 Error IV. PROJECT WORK C. Abstracts 1. IR-Related Dissertation Abstracts ********************************************************** I. NOTICES I.B.1. Fr: EINA@ccvax.unicamp.br Re: Studies in Artificial and Natural Intelligence STUDIES IN ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL INTELLIGENCE PURPOSE: The relevance of the study of the human brain to the study of artificial intelligence has long been an issue of debate both in the AI community and in the Neuroscience field. On the one hand, it has been claimed that the study of the brain is too complex and mysterious to yield useful guides for the construction of intelligent machines and that these machines may be developed under different guidelines and hardware. On the other hand, it is claimed that the behavior of the brain is the very inspiration for the study of artificial intelligence. Of course, when neurons agglutinate into brains, new (emergent) properties arise, not possessed by each of these neurons themselves, but which derive from their association. This could be the argument to support the claim that Neuroscience is irrelevant to AI. But besides these emergent properties, the high order system (brain) also inherits properties from the unitary elements (neurons) composing it. This could be the justification for the attempt to reduce reasoning to the physiology of the neuron. As a matter of fact, this discussion is an old issue in the history of the western phylosophy, since it refers to the mind and brain dualism. The modern connectionism starts to provide the ways to approach experimentally this mutual correlation under the optics of science, that is, putting it as a workable hypothesis which may be falsified by empirical data. The development of new techniques to knowledge acquisition and analysis in the AI filed, was very much encouraged by the success of the Expert System technology. They were initially developed with the purpose of obtaining the contents of the knowledge base of the expert system. However, these methodologies may be applied to investigate the human thinking. In this way, AI may provide Neurosciences with a very strong tool to empirically test their hypotheses about the human reasoning. The purpose of the present series of books is to be a forum for this kind of scientific debate. Any work contributing to the comprehension of the correlation between Artificial and Natural Intelligence; the experimental approach of Intelligence; the simulation of Intelligent Activities, and the multidisciplinary approach of Natural and/or Artificial Intelligence, is welcome to integrate the Studies In Artificial and Natural Intelligence forum. The series may also be the adequate vehicule for publishing selected papers from congresses and conferences on the above topics. AUDIENCE: This series intends to be of interest for people working on distintic fields of science but with interest on both (or either) Natural and (or) Artificial Intelligence, such as: Neurophysiology, Neurochemistry, Neurogenetics, Psychology, Mathematical Biology, Intelligent Control, Expert Systems, Logic, Machine Learning, Connectionism, Hybrid Intelligent Systems, Robotics, Pattern Recognition, Philosophy, etc. DISTRIBUTION: The books are printed in Polland by Omnitech and are distributed around the world by Physica Verlag. CONTACTS: Editor-in-chief: Prof. Armando F. Rocha RANI - Research on Artificial and Natural Intelligence Rua Tenente Ary Aps, 172 13200 - Jundiai - Brasil e-mail: eina@bruc.bitnet Publisher: Omnitech Press ul. Chmielna 16-2 00-020 Warsaw - Poland Phone/FAx: (48) (22) 27-34-94 ---------- Armando Freitas da Rocha Dep. Physiology and Dep. Computer Engineering and Automation UNICAMP BRAZIL ********** I.B.2. Fr: Charlotte Skuster Re: INDEX-L This announcement is being posted to NEW-LIST, PACS-L, IR-L, and HUMANIST INDEX-L A new discussion group for indexers Created to promote good indexing practice by providing a forum for aspiring and professional indexers to share information and ideas relating to all aspects of index preparation. Topics for discussion can include various types of index structures such as indexes for books, periodicals, online text, databases, of hypermedia. Participants may include but not be limited to members of professional indexers organizations (ASI, NFIAS); librarians and library school faculty and students; information access professionals; hypertext and database developers; and authors indexing their own works. To subscribe, send the following message to LISTSERV@BINGVMB: Subscribe INDEX-L (your first and last name) Listowner: Charlotte Skuster Science Library Binghamton University Box 6012 Binghamton, NY 13902-6012 Phone: 607-777-4122 E-mail skuster@bingvmb ********** I.C.1. Fr: Nancy Gusack, IR-L Moderator Re: Issue 121 Error Note that the IR-Related Dissertation Abstracts identified in the Table of Contents did not appear in the body of the issue! Those abstracts appear in this issue. ********************************************************** IV. PROJECT WORK IV.C.1. Fr: Susanne M. 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 University Microfilms Order Number ADG91-30763. AU ROSE, DANIEL ERIC. TI A SYMBOLIC AND CONNECTIONIST APPROACH TO LEGAL INFORMATION RETRIEVAL. IN University of California, San Diego Ph.D. 1991, 310 pages. SO DAI V52(05), SecB, pp2654. DE Computer Science. Information Science. Artificial Intelligence. AB Many existing information retrieval (IR) systems are surprisingly ineffective at finding documents relevant to particular topics. Traditional systems are extremely brittle, failing to retrieve relevant documents unless the user's exact search string is found. They support only the most primitive trial-and-error interaction with their users. They are also static; even systems with so-called "relevance feedback" are incapable of learning from experience with users. SCALIR (a Symbolic and Connectionist Approach to Legal Information Retrieval), a system for assisting research on copyright law, has been designed to address these problems. By using a hybrid of symbolic and connectionist artificial intelligence techniques, SCALIR develops a conceptual representation of document relationships without explicit knowledge engineering. SCALIR's direct manipulation interface encourages users to browse through the space of documents. The system then uses these browsing patterns to improve its performance by modifying its representation, resulting in a communal repository of expertise for all of its users. SCALIR's representational scheme also mirrors the hybrid nature of the Anglo-American legal system. While certain legal concepts are precise and rule-like, others (which legal scholars call "open-textured") are subject to interpretation. The meaning of legal text is established through the parallel and distributed precedence-based judicial appeal system. SCALIR represents documents and terms as nodes in a network; it captures the duality of the legal system by using symbolic (semantic network) and connectionist links. The former correspond to a priori knowledge, such as the fact that one case overturned another on appeal. The latter correspond to statistical inferences, such as the relevance of a term describing a case. SCALIR's text corpus includes all federal cases on copyright law. The hybrid representation also suggests a way to resolve the apparent incompatability between the two prominent paradigms in artificial intelligence, the "classical" symbol-manipulation approach and the neurally-inspired connectionist approach. Part of the dissertation focuses on a characterization of the two paradigms and an investigation of when and how--as in the legal research domain--they can be effectively combined. AN University Microfilms Order Number ADG91-29756. AU SIMOUDIS, EVANGELOS. TI RETRIEVING JUSTIFIABLY RELEVANT CASES FROM A CASE BASE USING VALIDATION MODELS. IN Brandeis University Ph.D. 1991, 207 pages. SO DAI V52(05), SecB, pp2654. DE Computer Science. AB Case-based reasoning (CBR) consists of two phases: case retrieval, and case reasoning. The goal of case retrieval is to extract from a memory of cases the items most appropriate to a particular problem. An effective retriever must have both high recall and precision, and perform each retrieval operation quickly. One way to achieve the necessary speed is for a retriever to extract cases using the low level features, termed surface features, that characterize them. These features can be acquired inexpensively but their information content is low. By adding domain-specific surface feature knowledge to these retrievers, the recall can be improved but the precision worsens. For example, to achieve 100% recall using two databases with 200 and 355 real-world cases 22 and 68 cases were retrieved respectively through surface feature retrieval. On the average only 4.5 and 4 of the retrieved cases respectively were relevant. In this dissertation I present validated retrieval a method for retrieving cases that are justifiably relevant to a new problem, and a system, called scSTAIN, that implements this method. Validated retrieval improves the precision, maintains the recall of surface feature-based retrieval, and justifies the relevance of each retrieved case by augmenting surface feature-based retrieval with a second processing step called validation. Applying validation to parts of the same two databases improved the precision by reducing the cases to 4.5 and 4 respectively of the total number of cases in the databases while maintaining a recall of 100%. The knowledge used during validation is organized in a knowledge structure called the validation model. The validation model is acquired through a methodology which utilizes the contents of the cases. Two case-based expert systems were implemented around scSTAIN, and were subsequently used to evaluate the performance of validated retrieval and the effectiveness of the knowledge acquisition methodology. The evaluation of these expert systems showed that their development costs are six times smaller than the corresponding costs of the rule-based expert systems, while their development time is four times smaller. AN University Microfilms Order Number ADG91-29129. AU BURNETT, ALLEN JAMES. TI AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF HYPERTEXT PROCESSING STRATEGIES. IN University of Pittsburgh Ph.D. 1991, 123 pages. SO DAI V52(05), SecA, pp1717. DE Education, Technology. Information Science. Library Science. AB Rapid access to information and knowledge stored electronically holds promise for augmenting human thinking. Hypertext, an approach to computerized information storage and retrieval, is beginning to make this a reality. In a hypertext information is stored in "nodes" connected by electronic links. The links provide associative relationships between concepts stored in the nodes. The system provides rapid browsing capabilities to end users. This study examines how people use a hypertext system for reading or searching for task-related information. A hypertext was developed as a learning aid and reference source for writing marketing proposals. Users were videotaped as they explored the knowledge base and as they searched for answers to typical questions they might have when writing a proposal. The personal computer hardware for this project was an IBM-compatible 286 computer with VGA monitor and mouse. The hypertext was implemented in a Windows environment with Guide 3 software from Owl International. The Information Mapping method was used to organize the structure of the hypertext and to design the screen format. Results of the study showed that the Information Mapping method for organizing the material and designing the screens allowed users to easily navigate in the system. Only ten minutes of training were required for users to comfortably navigate in the system. They were able to freely explore the hypertext and then able to find locations for answering specific questions. Attitudes toward using the system were very positive. AN University Microfilms Order Number ADG91-30268. AU STONE, SANDRA KAYE KING. TI FACTORS IMPACTING THE AVAILABILITY AND EVALUATION OF CD-ROM END-USER INSTRUCTION IN MAJOR UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES. IN The University of Alabama Ed.D. 1991, 142 pages. SO DAI V52(05), SecA, pp1556. DE Library Science. Education, Technology. Education, Higher. AB This survey of professional librarians employed at research-oriented academic libraries in the United States examined the availability of CD-ROM work-stations, types of CD-ROM end-user instruction, and certain CD-ROM products and the instruction utilized for them. The utilization of the results of formal effectiveness testing of CD-ROM end-user instructional methods and the source of the effectiveness testing were also analyzed. The study also sought to determine the impact of certain perceived factors on the decision-making process concerning the availability of types of instruction, and the relationship of cost-of-living adjusted library expenditures per study on those decisions. A high survey response rate of 87% was achieved. Widespread availability of CD-ROM technology was reported with at least 70% of institutions making available up to 15 multi-product, public-use work stations. The type of CD-ROM end-user instruction which had the greatest utilization was on-demand direct individual instruction provided by librarians, a type considered expensive to provide. Less than 10% of institutions utilized any type of formal effectiveness testing. This finding, although not totally unexpected, was significant in that there was a lack of utilization of established research methods for assessing the outcome or the effectiveness of end-user instruction by the largest, more affluent, research-oriented institutions. The results tended to indicate that the amount of library budget available per student did not drive decisions for making any or all types of CD-ROM instruction available. The factor which had the greatest overall perceived impact on decisions was high demand by end-users. The primary implication for librarians and administrators is that during the time of increasing costs and strained library budgets, a method of assessing the effectiveness of high cost end-user instructional types should be seriously considered. Also, lower cost CD-ROM end-user instruction should be developed by individual libraries, even if end-user instruction development funds must be temporarily diverted from library staff budgets. Cooperation of vendors in development of lower cost instruction should also be sought. ********************************************************** 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@uccmvsa.ucop.edu or calur@uccmvsa.bitnet Nancy Gusack ncgur@uccmvsa.bitnet Mary Engle 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.