Information Retrieval List Digest 189 (November 22, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/irld/irld-189 IRLIST Digest ISSN 1064-6965 November 22, 1993 Volume X, Number 45 Issue 189 ********************************************************** II. QUERIES B. Requests for Information 1. Outsourcing of I/S Facilities III. ACADEMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS 1. Faculty Position in Cognitive and Neural Systems at Boston University 2. Cognitive and Neural Systems Education at Boston University IV. PROJECT WORK C. Abstracts 1. IR-Related Dissertation Abstracts ********************************************************** II. QUERIES II.B.1. Fr: James White Re: Outsourcing of I/S Facilities I would like to hear from anyone on this list who has had some experience with outsourcing of Information Systems (including but not limited to business systems analysis, applications programming, data center, and telecommunications). I'm interested in pros and cons, especially from folks who have been through it. Thanks in advance for your time and effort. If you answer via the list rather than direct mail to me, I suspect there are others who will benefit from the answer as well. ********************************************************** III. ACADEMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS III.1. Fr: announce@cns.bu.edu Re: Faculty Position in Cognitive and Neural Systems at Boston University NEW SENIOR FACULTY IN COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY Boston University seeks an associate or full professor starting in Fall 1994 for its graduate Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems. This Department offers an integrated curriculum of psychological, neurobiological, and computational concepts, models, and methods in the fields of neural networks, computational neuroscience, and connectionist cognitive science in which Boston University is a leader. Candidates should have an international research reputation, preferably including extensive analytic or computational research experience in modeling a broad range of nonlinear neural networks, especially in one or more of the areas: vision and image processing, visual cognition, spatial orientation, adaptive pattern recognition, and cognitive information processing. Send a complete curriculum vitae and three letters of recommendation to Search Committee, Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems, Room 240, 111 Cummington Street, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215. Boston University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. ********** III.2. Fr: announce@cns.bu.edu Re: Cognitive and Neural Systems Education at Boston University DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS (CNS) AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY Stephen Grossberg, Chairman Gail A. Carpenter, Director of Graduate Studies The Boston University Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems offers comprehensive advanced training in the neural and computational principles, mechanisms, and architectures that underly human and animal behavior, and the application of neural network architectures to the solution of technological problems. Applications for Fall, 1994 admission and financial aid are now being accepted for both the MA and PhD degree programs. To obtain a brochure describing the CNS Program and a set of application materials, write, telephone, or fax: Department of Cognitive & Neural Systems Boston University 111 Cummington Street, Room 240 Boston, MA 02215 617/353-9481 (phone) 617/353-7755 (fax) or send via email your full name and mailing address to: cns@cns.bu.edu Applications for admission and financial aid should be received by the Graduate School Admissions Office no later than January 15. Late applications will be considered until May 1; after that date applications will be considered only as special cases. Applicants are required to submit undergraduate (and, if applicable, graduate) transcripts, three letters of recommendation, and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores. The Advanced Test should be in the candidate's area of departmental specialization. GRE scores may be waived for MA candidates and, in exceptional cases, for PhD candidates, but absence of these scores may decrease an applicant's chances for admission and financial aid. Non-degree students may also enroll in CNS courses on a part-time basis. DESCRIPTION OF THE CNS DEPARTMENT: The Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS) provides advanced training and research experience for graduate students interested in the neural and computational principles, mechanisms, and architectures that underlie human and animal behavior, and the application of neural network architectures to the solution of technological problems. Students are trained in a broad range of areas concerning cognitive and neural systems, including vision and image processing; speech and language understanding; adaptive pattern recognition; cognitive information processing; self- organization; associative learning and long-term memory; computational neuroscience; nerve cell biophysics; cooperative and competitive network dynamics and short-term memory; reinforcement, motivation, and attention; adaptive sensory-motor control and robotics; active vision; and biological rhythms; as well as the mathematical and computational methods needed to support advanced modeling research and applications. The CNS Department awards MA, PhD, and BA/MA degrees. The CNS Department embodies a number of unique features. It has developed a curriculum that consists of twelve interdisciplinary graduate courses each of which integrates the psychological, neurobiological, mathematical, and computational information needed to theoretically investigate fundamental issues concerning mind and brain processes and the applications of neural networks to technology. Nine additional advanced courses, including research seminars, are also offered. Each course is typically taught once a week in the evening to make the program available to qualified students, including working professionals, throughout the Boston area. Students develop a coherent area of expertise by designing a program that includes courses in areas such as Biology, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and Psychology, in addition to courses in the CNS curriculum. The CNS Department prepares students for thesis research with scientists in one of several Boston University research centers or groups, and with Boston-area scientists collaborating with these centers. The unit most closely linked to the department is the Center for Adaptive Systems (CAS). Students interested in neural network hardware work with researchers in CNS, the College of Engineering, and at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Other research resources include distinguished research groups in neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, and neuropharmacology at the Medical School and the Charles River campus; in sensory robotics, biomedical engineering, computer and systems engineering, and neuromuscular research within the Engineering School; in dynamical systems within the Mathematics Department; in theoretical computer science within the Computer Science Department; and in biophysics and computational physics within the Physics Department. In addition to its basic research and training program, the Department conducts a seminar series, as well as conferences and symposia, which bring together distinguished scientists from both experimental and theoretical disciplines. 1993-94 CAS MEMBERS and CNS FACULTY: Jacob Beck Daniel H. Bullock Gail A. Carpenter Chan-Sup Chung Michael A. Cohen H. Steven Colburn Paolo Gaudiano Stephen Grossberg Frank H. Guenther Thomas G. Kincaid Nancy Kopell Ennio Mingolla Heiko Neumann Alan Peters Adam Reeves Eric L. Schwartz Allen Waxman Jeremy Wolfe ********************************************************** 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 ADG92-36618. AU WALKER, THOMAS DAVID. TI AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LIBRARY CENSUS: ADALBERT BLUMENSCHEIN'S "BESCHREIBUNG VERSCHIEDENER BIBLIOTHEKEN IN EUROPA". IN University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Ph.D. 1992, 303 pages. SO DAI V53(07), SecA, pp2143. DE Library Science. Literature, Germanic. History, European. AB Adalbert Blumenschein (1720-1781), an Austrian librarian and priest, wrote a "Beschreibung verschiedener Bibliotheken in Europa" that contains about 2500 descriptions of eighteenth-century European libraries and their holdings. The "Beschreibung," which exists in a single four-volume manuscript at the Austrian National Library and has not previously been studied in detail, is analyzed with the aid of a database created for the purpose. Investigated are the work's overall physical arrangement, its internal organization, its contents, and its sources. The work is compared with Friedrich Hirsching's Versuch einer Beschreibung sehenswurdiger Bibliotheken Teutschlands (1786-1791) and works of other contemporary library scholars. To demonstrate the range of information found in the work, the entry for the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana (Milan) is examined in detail. To illustrate the richness of Blumenschein's coverage of libraries, the entries for Regensburg (Germany) are compared with those of Hirsching and several other contemporaries. The project places Blumenschein in historiographical and cultural contexts, outlines the history of his church and library, and addresses his possible motives for writing a large-scale work about libraries. The appendices include a catalog of Blumenschein's entries, indices of place names, private owner names, libraries visited by Blumenschein, and library types, a physical description of the manuscript, a transcription of Blumenschein's foreword, a description of the project database, and a statistical survey of the work. The "Beschreibung" is demonstrated to be one of the most important and perhaps the largest work about libraries written before the twentieth century. While it is seen as an extraordinarily rich and reliable primary source of information about European libraries based in part on almost 400 personal visits by Blumenschein, it is also judged to be an unusually detailed secondary source supported by nearly 300 printed sources as well as an abundant tertiary source that cites or describes thousands of books and manuscripts. Because of its size and detail and in view of its having been written shortly before events that radically affected libraries of the period, such as the widespread dissolution of monasteries, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars, the work is argued to be a crucial record of the state of European libraries in the eighteenth century. AN University Microfilms Order Number ADGMM-65079. 9212. AU OMOUMI, HEIDEH. TI GEMIDENT: A DATA BASE FOR GEMS AND SOME APPLICATIONS OF THE ELECTRON MICROPROBE IN GEM CHARACTERISATION. IN University of Alberta (Canada) M.Sc. 1990, 291 pages. SO MAI V30(04) pp1257. DE Mineralogy. IS ISBN: 0-315-65079-6. AB GemIdent is a literature based gemmological data base modelled after the MinIdent data base. It is a command driven program written in 25KLOC of FORTRAN and 1KLOC of Microsoft FORTRAN/C requiring 430 Kbytes of memory and it is IBM-compatible. The data base consists of a literature compilatior of optical, physical and compositional data. Optical properties comprise of refractive indices birefringence, optic sign, dispersion, pleochroism, transparency, absorption spectra, ColorMaster colour, and fluorescence. In addition, structural and physical parameters such as symmetry, cell dimensions, density, MOHs' hardness, inclusions, collection number, cut-type, carat weight, occurrence, locality, and source reference have been included. Compositional data collected with microbeam or wet chemical techniques have also been stored in the data base. GemIdent is the first gemmological data base which can select, sort, compare, integrate, and identify gems based on any combination of the above parameters. A hierarchial scheme of classification with division such as class, family, group etc., has been implemented for all gem minerals in the data base. An extensive synonyms list with over 700 entries, containing archaic names, trade name, and misnomers is also available. The GemIdent data base contains the first compilation of microprobe data on gem minerals and additional data have been contributed in this study. (Abstract shortened by UMI.). AN University Microfilms Order Number ADG92-29867. AU AN, HICHUL. TI KNOWLEDGE-BASED SEMANTIC QUERY OPTIMIZATION AND INTEGRITY CONSTRAINT ENFORCEMENT. IN Northwestern University Ph.D. 1992, 125 pages. SO DAI V53(06), SecB, pp2973. DE Computer Science. AB The purpose of semantic query optimization is to use semantic knowledge to transform a query into an equivalent one in the sense that the new one will yield the same answer as the original one and yet may be answered more efficiently. This semantic knowledge is usually expressed as integrity constraints (ICs) but also includes any information relevant to the database. We propose a method of compiling the ICs before queries are submitted so that the query optimization time may be reduced. Compiling the ICs is based on the characteristics of the IC behavior in the optimization process. Also, new integrity constraints can be generated using other semantic knowledge to reflect the current state of the database. These newly generated ICs may be (not always are) invalidated by database operations, and not like other ordinary constraints, they have to be either modified or to be deleted when a violation occurs. Integrity constraints should be maintained to be true at all times and the database operations which violate the constraint should not be allowed. An integrity constraint enforcement strategy using modified subsumption and resolution is developed. The result of applying these methods is a condition which can be proved to be true or false, and any database operation which cannot make the condition true is not allowed. Therefore, when a violation occurs, the database operation is either rejected or another database operation is to be triggered to make the generated test to become true. We use an auxiliary storage to keep the values of existentially quantified variables to reduce the number of database accesses for consistency checking. The extra storage needed for keeping this information and the number of comparisons needed for IC enforcement in our strategy is analyzed. Transactions of database operations including a database operation which refers to multiple tuples at one time is also described, and a way to handle a modify operator, which should be different from being treated as a series of deletions and insertions, is also presented. AN University Microfilms Order Number ADG92-31476. AU BHASKER, BHARAT. TI QUERY PROCESSING IN HETEROGENEOUS DISTRIBUTED DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS. IN Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Ph.D. 1992 230 pages. SO DAI V53(06), SecB, pp2975. DE Computer Science. AB The goal of this work is to present an advanced query processing algorithm formulated and developed in support of heterogeneous distributed database management systems. Heterogeneous distributed database management systems view the integrated data through a uniform global schema. The query processing algorithm described here produces an inexpensive strategy for a query expressed over the global schema. The research addresses the following aspects of query processing: (1) Formulation of a low level query language to express the fundamental heterogeneous database operations; (2) Translation of the query expressed over the global schema to an equivalent query expressed over a conceptual schema; (3) An estimation methodology to derive the intermediate result sizes of the database operations; (4) A query decomposition algorithm to generate an efficient sequence of the basic database operations to answer the query. This research addressed the first issue by developing an algebraic query language called cluster algebra. The cluster algebra consists of the following operations: (a) Selection, union, intersection and difference, which are extensions of their relational algebraic counterparts to heterogeneous databases; (b) Normal-join and normal-projection which replace their counterparts, join and projection, in the relational algebra; (c) Two new operators embed and unembed to restructure the database schema. The second issue of the query translation was addressed by development of an algorithm that translates a cluster algebra query expressed over the virtual views to an equivalent cluster algebra query expressed over the conceptual databases. A non-parametric estimation methodology to estimate the result size of a cluster algebra operation was developed to address the third issue described above. Finally, this research developed a query decomposition algorithm, applicable to the relational and non-relational databases, that decomposes a query by computing all profitable semi-join operations, followed by the determination of the best sequence of join operations per processing site. The join optimization is performed by formulating a zero-one integer linear program that uses the non-parametric estimation technique to compute the sizes of intermediate results. The query processing algorithm was implemented in the context of DAVID, a heterogeneous distributed database management system. AN University Microfilms Order Number ADG92-32665. AU BOUGUETTAYA, ATHMAN. TI A DYNAMIC FRAMEWORK FOR INTEROPERABILITY IN LARGE MULTIDATABASES. IN University of Colorado at Boulder Ph.D. 1992, 125 pages. SO DAI V53(06), SecB, pp2976. DE Computer Science. AB As the number of autonomous databases proliferate and the need for more information sharing becomes more pressing, new research is needed to first determine the new problems that arise and second, find adequate solutions to them. This thesis is an effort to contribute to this emerging field. We first describe some important problems and propose an extensible solution to some of them. In that respect, we describe a system where sharing information among a large network of autonomous heterogeneous databases is achieved with little loss of site autonomy. The idea is to partition the information space, using information interest as a main criterion. Using information types as units of data sharing lets users investigate information by using documentation about structure and behavior, without sacrificing site autonomy. The query resolution relies on an object-oriented architecture to educate users about the available domain of information and help them locate component databases where the information resides. ********************************************************** IRLIST Digest is distributed from the University of California, Division of Library Automation, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA. 94612-3550. Send subscription requests to: NCG@UCCMVSA.UCOP.EDU Send submissions to IRLIST to: NCG@UCCMVSA.UCOP.EDU Editorial Staff: Clifford Lynch calur@uccmvsa.ucop.edu or calur@uccmvsa.bitnet Nancy Gusack ncgur@uccmvsa.bitnet or ncgur@uccmvsa.ucop.edu Mary Engle meeur@uccmvsa.bitnet The IRLIST Archives is now set up for anonymous FTP, as well as via the LISTSERV. Using anonymous FTP via the host dla.ucop.edu, the files will be found in the directory pub/irl, stored in subdirectories by year (e.g., /pub/irl/1993). Using LISTSERV, send the message INDEX IR-L to LISTSERV@UCCVMA.BITNET. 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