Information Retrieval List Digest 350 (April 7, 1997) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/irld/irld-350.txt IRLIST Digest ISSN 1064-6965 April 7, 1997 Volume XIV, Number 12 Issue 350 ********************************************************** III. NOTICES A. Publications 1. FARNET's Washington Update, March 14, 1997 2. ELSNET Book "Corpus-Based Methods" 3. Journal of Digital Information 4. FARNET's Washington Update, March 28, 1997 5. Internet Research: An Electronic Journal B. Meetings 1. RIAO '97 2. HIM '97 3. HICSS '97 C. Miscellaneous 1. SIGIR '97 Student Volunteers 2. AltaVista Search Engine ********************************************************** III. NOTICES III.A.1. Fr: Heather Boyles Re: FARNET's Washington Update FARNET's Washington Update --- March 14, 1997 IN THIS ISSUE: - Internet tax bill introduced - Senate Commerce Chairman McCain holds hearing on FCC's implementation of universal service, school/library discounts and ISP access charge issues >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Written from FARNET's Washington office, "FARNET's Washington Update" is a service to FARNET members and other interested subscribers. We gratefully acknowledge EDUCOM's NTTF and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) for additional support. If you would like more information about the Update or would like to offer comments or suggestions, please contact Heather Boyles at heather@farnet.org. ********** III.A.2. Fr: Yvonne van Holsteijn Re: ELSNET Book "Corpus-Based Methods" CORPUS-BASED METHODS IN LANGUAGE AND SPEECH PROCESSING edited by Steve Young and Gerrit Bloothooft the FIRST ELSNET book, available NOW!! An in-depth introduction to corpus-based methods by excellent authors through chapters describing statistical modeling techniques for language and speech, the use of Hidden Markov Models in continuous speech recognition, the development of dialogue systems, part-of-speech tagging and partial parsing, data-oriented parsing and n-gram language modeling. The book attempts to give both a clear overview of the main technologies used in language and speech processing, along with sufficient mathematics to understand the underlying principles. The book will give newcomers a solid introduction to the field and it will give existing practitioners a concise review of the principle technologies used in state-of-the-art language and speech processing systems. CONTENTS: Hermann Ney (1 - 26) "Corpus-Based Statistical Methods in Speech and Language Processing" Kate Knill & Steve Young (27 - 68) "Hidden Markov Models in Speech and Language Processing" Egidio Giachin and Scott McGlashan (69 - 117) "Spoken Language Dialogue Systems" Steve Abney (118 - 136) "Part-of-Speech Tagging and Partial Parsing" Rens Bod & Remko Scha (137 - 173) "Data-Oriented Language Processing" Hermann Ney, Sven Martin & Frank Wessel (174 - 207) "Statistical Language Modeling Using Leaving-One-Out" Bibliography (210 - 234) ELSNET wishes to give this excellent book (hard cover, 234 pages, Kluwer, ISBN 0-7923-4463-4) a wide distribution and offers it for the special price of HFL 85 (39 ECU, includes 6% VAT). FOR COMPLETE INFORMATION SEE OUR WEB SITE: http://www.elsnet.org/publications/elsnetBook.html or contact us at: email: elsnet@let.ruu.nl mail : Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, Trans 10, 3512 JK, Utrecht, The Netherlands tel : +31 30 253 6039 fax : +31 30 253 6000 www : http://www.elsnet.org ********** III.A.3. Fr: Cliff McKnight Re: JoDI Journal of Digital Information -- Call for Submissions The Journal of Digital Information, JoDI, is an electronic journal (with no paper equivalent form) intended to serve the community of workers in the multidisciplinary field of digital information. The journal aims to be the primary electronic source for high quality refereed articles. The journal will also provide support for the online discussion of articles, a process as vital to the community as the formal publication process itself. The journal invites submissions on a wide variety of topics, for example: digital libraries hypermedia systems intelligent agents information management interfaces to digital information social consequences of digital information digital information design ..and related topics. Furthermore, submission of electronic documents which could not exist in paper form (e.g., containing sound, animation, hypermedia links) is encouraged. Articles can be submitted in most electronic formats. However, since the journal will be made available over the World Wide Web, articles already in this format will require less modification prior to publication. Access to JoDI will be free at least until December 1998. There is a once-only registration process before articles can be accessed in order to help in monitoring usage and developing pricing models. JoDI will also contain abstracts, book reviews and lab reports which do not require reader registration. For details on how to submit articles to JoDI, please refer to the JoDI web site at http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ Journal of Digital Information, is a new electronic journal supported by the British Computer Society and Oxford University Press, hosted at the University of Southampton Multimedia Group and mirrored at the Center for the Study of Digital Libraries, Texas A&M University. ********** III.A.4. Fr: Heather Boyles Re: FARNET's Washington Update FARNET's Washington Update --- March 28, 1997 IN THIS ISSUE: - PACI awards announced - FCC staff release working paper on impact of the Internet on telecommunications policy - CDA case heard by Supreme Court justices: will legislators try again if Court rejects? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Written from FARNET's Washington office, "FARNET's Washington Update" is a service to FARNET members and other interested subscribers. We gratefully acknowledge EDUCOM's NTTF and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) for additional support. If you would like more information about the Update or would like to offer comments or suggestions, please contact Heather Boyles at heather@farnet.org. ********** III.A.5. Fr: Sarah Haigh Re: Internet Research: An Electronic Journal INTERNET RESEARCH: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy An Electronic Journal from MCB UNIVERSITY PRESS View the journal homepage on: http://www.mcb.co.uk/liblink/intr/jourhome.htm For access to sample articles, abstracts and keywords INTERNET RESEARCH: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy is the first academic journal to debate a seriously powerful resource which has radical implications for many facets of professional, political, personal and academic life. The journal describes, assesses and fosters understanding of the role of telecommunication networks in society, as well as promoting and encouraging their informed use. Concentrating on large international systems such as the Internet and the National Research and Education Network, the journal offers scholarly papers on key issues and technological development in this fast-developing area of information technology. THE EDITOR: John Peters is a business consultant, writer and editor. He holds/has held visiting academic positions at a number of institutions including International Management Centres, City University (London), South Bank University (London) and University of Sydney. He has worked as a business adviser in the UK, North America and Australia, mainly in the fields of strategy and quality improvement. He has written many articles and two books. JOURNAL CONTENT: Recent articles have included: The Hundred Years War started today: an exploration of electronic peer review ALIBI: A novel approach to resource discovery Security issues and concerns with the Internet Getting close from far away: Zoos on the Internet Information retrieval on the Internet: An evaluation of the tools Internet Conferencing with networked virtual environments WHO SHOULD SUBSCRIBE? This journal's serious treatment of the sociological and economic issues relating to the internet will be of special importance to: Schools of library and information sciences in academic institutions Academics in computer science departments Government departments Computer developers Communications executives Libraries catering for the above ONLINE DELIVERY: INTERNET RESEARCH embraces new technologies by being published on-line via the Internet. This medium will allow you to maximize the journal's use and therefore value for money as follows: Multiplicity of Access... Internet access comes complete with a site licence which allows anyone whose email address includes your organization's domain name to access the journal at any time from their own workstation. Access to the wider Community... Each electronic issue will have a space in which you can post your thoughts and ideas. Your comments will be held within the journal contents to provide a wide variety of viewpoints designed to move the debate along far more quickly than by traditional methods. A live debate will ensue which will make a real contribution to the body of knowledge. Regular Home Page Updates... In today's fast-moving world of business and academic information, we have found that a subject such as INTERNET RESEARCH necessitates a method of informing readers of new developments within the field on a continuous basis. AS such, the 1997 Internet subscription of the journal will include an automatic email link that will inform you and your colleagues when a journal page has been updated. Your Searchable On-line Archive... Your 1997 subscription will include access to the earlier volumes of the journal. Like the current volume, this will be networked to the desks of colleagues within your organization. Articles will be available in a searchable format, and subscribers can browse the journal using search terms that range from author and subject to article style. Quality indicators rate articles on originality, practice and research implications and readability. The full text of all articles published in the 1994, 1995 and 1996 volumes will be available. If you are interested in electronic journals and the internet, access the journal homepage on: http://www.mcb.co.uk/liblink/intr/jourhome.htm For further information contact Gillian Crawford, email: gcrawford@mcb.co.uk or log on to the Internet at: http://www.mcb.co.uk/liblink/intr/jourhome.htm Sarah Haigh Electronic Publishing & Information MCB University Press Limited Tel: 44 1274 777700, Fax: 44 1274 785201, E-mail: shaigh@mcb.co.uk Visit us on: Emerald Internet Site on http//www.mcb.co.uk/emrld.htm Latest Management Research & Practice - the FREE official journal of Emerald on http//www.mcb.co.uk/lmrp.htm ********** III.B.11. Fr: Abdellatif Saoudi Re: RIAO '97 [this submission is heavily cut for length] Call For Participation RIAO'97 CONFERENCE Computer-Assisted Searching on the Internet June 25-27, 1997 McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada http://www.sciences.univ-nantes.fr/RIAO97 [note: RIAO in CAPS] BRIEF DESCRIPTION: Every three years the Centre de Hautes Etudes Internationales d'Information Documentaire (CID) of Paris, France, along with various international affiliates, organizes an RIAO conference (RIAO is the French acronym for Computer-Assisted Information Retrieval). RIAO97 will be the fifth conference in the series. RIAO85 was held in Grenoble, France; RIAO88 at MIT; RIAO91 in Barcelona; and RIAO94 at Rockefeller University in New York. RIAO conferences have the special feature of incorporating both scientific papers and innovative product demonstrations. Both the product demonstrations and the scientific papers (which are often accompanied by prototype system demonstrations) are subject to a rigorous selection process. The mix of scientific expertise and state-of-the-art industrial development lends itself to a critical examination of both aspects, stimulating both new product development, ecnouraging sponsorship of start-ups, as well as initiating lines of further, critical research investigations. RIAO97 focuses on new problems in information retrieval, filtering, and dissemination resulting from the recent profusion and extensions of networks. In particular, RIAO97 brings together search specialists and web-based media specialists to consider how searching can best be accomplished in the context of the proliferation of web sites, content formats, browsing modalities, amount of data accessible, and number of user accesses. GENERAL SESSION Welcoming Statement: Dr B. Robaire, Vice Principal, Research, McGill University, Canada RIAO97' Introduction: J. Thuiller, Professor at the College de France, President of the C.I.D. Invited Speaker: GILS Project, N. Brodie, National Library of Ottawa, Canada SESSION 1: INFORMATION DISCOVERY SESSION 2: VISUALISATION TOOLS FOR INFORMATION NAVIGATION SESSION 3: AUTOMATIC ABSTRACTING, REPOSITORIES SESSION 4: LINGUISTIC APPROACH FOR INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SESSION 5: MULTILINGUAL APPROACH SESSION 6: IRS ARCHITECTURE SESSION 7: INFORMATION EXTRACTION SESSION 8: DOCUMENT / RELEVANCE RANKING SESSION 9: IRS ARCHITECTURE- II SESSION 10: QUERY REFORMULATION SESSION 11: INFORMATION FILTERING SESSION 12: INFORMATION EXTRACTION II SESSION 13: JUDICIAL PROBLEMS FOR COMPLETE INFORMATION, SEE: http://www.sciences.univ-nantes.fr/RIAO97 [note: RIAO in CAPS] ********** III.B.10. Fr: Joerg Westbomke Re: Hypertext - Information Retrieval - Multimedia (HIM) '97 FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS HYPERTEXT - INFORMATION RETRIEVAL - MULTIMEDIA (HIM'97) September 29 - October 2, 1997 Dortmund, Germany In Cooperation with German Informatics Society (GI) Austrian Computer Society (OCG) Swiss Informaticians Society (SI) Hypertext, Information Retrieval and Multimedia are essential for designing and building current and future information systems that meet the demands of a wide range of applications and users. Thus, there is a clear need for combining the work of the three subfields in order to develop integrated HIM systems. The HIM conference strives to be a forum for this integration by bringing together researchers from the different communities. The first HIM conference took place at Konstanz in 1995. It was a joint effort of the three GI special interest groups on Hypertext, Information Retrieval and Electronic Multimedia Documents, following prior individual series of conferences in the three subfields. With almost 200 participants and publications from each of the three subfields as well as contributions presenting integrated approaches, HIM '95 was a great success. A variety of recently appearing, popular information systems can be seen as variations of HIM systems. The World Wide Web, Digital Libraries, Teleteaching, Video on Demand or Personalized Information Systems are examples of these new applications. TOPICS: HIM '97 seeks original papers on significant contributions to the broad fields of Hypertext, Information Retrieval and Multimedia covering the underlying theories, models, and implementations. Work dealing with the handling of all types of information in HIM systems is welcome. Papers describing approaches for the integration of the three subfields are especially relevant. We encourage discussions of experimental studies, tests of usability, explorations of information systems behavior, reports on large-scale syst em performance, and demonstrations of advanced approaches. Relevant papers should address (at the theoretical, methodological, syste m or application level) the analysis, design or evaluation of functions such as o Representation and Transformation o Storage and Compression o Versioning o Authoring and Cooperation o Presentation o Content Analysis o Browsing o Retrieval and Filtering o User Interaction for the following types of documents and databases: o Monomedia documents (text, graphics, image, audio, video) o Composite documents o Multimedia documents o Hypermedia documents o Active documents o Distributed documents and databases PAPER SUBMISSIONS: HIM is a bilingual conference, with German and English as conference languages. Papers may be written in either language, but must have an abstract in English. The length of the paper should not exceed 5000 words. Submit 4 copies to: Prof. Dr. Norbert Fuhr Computer Science VI University of Dortmund D-44221 Dortmund Germany Delivery address (for courier services): August-Schmidt-Str. 12 D-44227 Dortmund e-mail: fuhr@ls6.informatik.uni-dortmund.de DEMONSTRATIONS: Demonstrations provide an excellent opportunity for first-hand, interacti ve experience with HIM systems. Presentations of experimental as well as commercial systems are welcome. Demonstrators will have to bring their ow n hardware equipment, but Internet access will be available. Persons interested in giving a demonstration should send a short proposal (up to 3 pages) to the Demonstrations Chair: Thomas Roelleke Computer Science VI University of Dortmund D-44221 Dortmund Germany e-mail: roelleke@ls6.informatik.uni-dortmund.de DATES: April 11,1997 : Submission of papers May 30, 1997 : Submission of demonstration proposals July 1, 1997 : Author notification August 1, 1997 : Final manuscript due September 29, 1997 : Tutorials September 30 - October 2, 1997 : Conference CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT o Joerg Westbomke University of Dortmund Computer Science I D-44221 Dortmund Germany Tel.: (+49) 231-755-6326 Fax: (+49) 231-755-6555 e-mail: him97@ls1.informatik.uni-dortmund.de You get latest information under http://ls1-www.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/HIM97/ ********** III.B.2. Fr: Hinrich Schuetze Re: HICSS '98 "GENRES OF DIGITAL DOCUMENTS" Part of the Digital Documents Track of the Thirty-first Annual Hawai'i International Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS) Big Island of Hawaii, HI - January 6 - 9, 1998 http://www.cba.hawaii.edu/hicss We invite papers for a minitrack on "Genre in Digital Documents" as part of the Information Systems track at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). It is becoming increasingly clear that the succcessful use of digital media requires the emergence of new or transformed genres of digital communication. By genres we mean not just particular technologies or modes of communication or presentation (e.g., hypertext, email, the Web, and so on), but complex communicative forms anchored in specific institutions and practices -- the digital analogues, that is, of print forms like the newspaper, the annual report, the how-to manual, the scholarly journal. We invite papers that address digital genres from points of view like the following -- though this list is intended to be suggestive, not exhaustive: * Issues in the transformation of print genres to digital form * Genres in digital search and classification * Genre theory and its application to digital documents * Investigations of genre in use * Analyses of particular document genres * Designing in support of genre We invite two kinds of submissions: "position papers" that take on the broad questions of the role of genre in our understanding of digital documents, and case studies, designs, or reports that shed light on particular aspects of digital genres. Please submit your paper to: Geoffrey Nunberg Jan Pedersen Xerox Palo Alto Research Center Verity Inc 3333 Coyote Hill Road 894 Ross Dr. Palo Alto, CA 94304 Sunnyvale, Ca 94089 nunberg@parc.xerox.com jpederse@verity.com fax: 415-812-4777 ABOUT HICSS: The purpose of HICSS is to provide a forum for the interchange of ideas, research results, development activities, and applications among academicians and practitioners in computer-based systems sciences. The conference consists of tutorials, advanced seminars, presentations of accepted papers, open forum, tasks forces, and plenary and distinguished guest lectures. There is a high degree of interaction and discussion among the conference participants because the conference is conducted in a workshop-like setting. INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING PAPERS: 1. Submit 6 (six) copies of the full paper, consisting of 20-25 pages double-spaced including title page, abstract, references and diagrams directly to the minitrack coordinator. 2. Do not submit the paper to more than one minitrack. The paper should contain original material and not be previously published or currently submitted for consideration elsewhere. 3. Each paper must have a title page which includes the title, full name of all authors, and their complete addresses including affiliation(s), telephone number(s) and e-mail address(es). 4. The first page of the paper should include the title and a 300- word abstract. DEADLINE: APRIL 20, 1997: 300-word abstract submitted to track chairs or minitrack chairs for guidance and indication of appropriate content. JUNE 15, 1997: Full papers submitted to the appropriate minitrack chair AUG. 31, 1997: Notification of accepted papers mailed to authors. Oct. 1, 1997: Accepted manuscripts, camera-ready, sent to minitrack chair; author(s) must register by this time. NOV. 15, 1997: All other registrations must be received. Registrations received after this deadline may not be accepted due to space limitations. FOR COMPLETE INFORMATION, CONTACT: CONFERENCE COORDINATOR: CONFERENCE VENUE: HICSS-31 Conference Office The Orchid at Mauna Lani College of Business Administration One North Kaniku Drive University of Hawai'i Kohala Coast, Hawai'i , 96743 2404 Maile Way Honolulu, HI 96822 (808) 956-3251 FAX: (808) 956-9685 e-mail: hicss@hawaii.edu ********** III.C.1. Fr: Eric W. Brown Re: SIGIR '97 Student Volunteers SIGIR '97 STUDENT VOLUNTEERS We are looking for STUDENT VOLUNTEERS to help out at the 20th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR '97), which is being held July 27 through July 31, 1997 at the DoubleTree Hotel, Philadelphia, PA, USA. In return for volunteering six (6) hours of your time during the conference, you will receive: o Free student conference registration o Free conference tee-shirt o The chance to meet interesting people in the IR community Volunteer duties include staffing the registration desk, supervising the email room, and serving as a session aid during the technical sessions and panels. Session aids assist speakers and session chairs with miscellaneous details (e.g., contacting the technical support staff to resolve A/V issues). If you would like to be a student volunteer, please send email (preferable) or regular mail with your name, school address, and email address to: Eric Brown SIGIR '97 Student Volunteer Coordinator IBM T. J. Watson Research Center P.O. Box 704 Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 Phone: +1 914 784 7708 Fax: +1 914 784 6307 Email: Student volunteers will be selected on a first-come first-served basis. See http://www.acm.org/sigir/conferences/sigir97/volunteers.html for additional information and updates on the SIGIR '97 student volunteer program. ********** III.C.2. Fr: Stanley Rice Re: AltaVista Search Engine AltaVista is a fantastic search engine. A perfect partner to extend the promises of AltaVista is Autospec Thematics. And they are both FREE! We're not selling anything, honest. We are giving away keys to "relevance" to see what happens. Relevance is not objective to us. It is knowledge related to purpose and dependent on fuzzy context. Those are the keys. Treating attributes, entities and categories as crisp and/or objective seems still to pervade information handling, even if not explicitly - contrary to psycho-linguistic research and common sense. (The "objectivist fallacy" in language is well-recognized, a la Lakoff.) We all EXPERIENCE "relevance" as mainly subjective and fuzzy. AltaVista gives us a great new filtering tool. 'Thematics' sharpens it and uses it. CONTEXTUAL AND CONCEPTUAL FUZZY FILTERING are considered in: http://www.cruzio.com/~autospec/ (green-green grass of home) http://www.cruzio.com/~autospec/quikstar.htm (quick-start) http://www.cruzio.com/~autospec/testpg.htm (AltaVista views) http://www.cruzio.com/~autospec/xmatches.htm (romance+sales) Try AltaVista search: http://www.altavista.digital.com Look for: AUTospec Or: +FUZzy +PIDgin (and watch the caps!) Just two keys to finding relevance in 30-40 million pages. Yes, principles of Thematics are simple. Really smart folks may even consider them too simple! Is the sky blue? There must be a lot more people interested in fuzzy contexts than we know about here. Any help in contacting such people and their work will be much appreciated. ********************************************************** IRLIST Digest is distributed from the University of California, Division of Library Automation, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA. 94612-3550. Send subscription requests and submissions to: NCGUR@UCCMVSA.UCOP.EDU Editorial Staff: Clifford Lynch calur@uccmvsa.ucop.edu Nancy Gusack ncgur@uccmvsa.ucop.edu The IRLIST Archives is set up for anonymous FTP. Using anonymous FTP via the host ftp.dla.ucop.edu, the files will be found in the directory /data/ftp/pub/irl, stored in subdirectories by year (e.g., data/ftp/pub/irl/1993). Search or browse archived IR-L Digest issues on the Web at: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/idom/irlist/ These files are not to be sold or used for commercial purposes. Contact Nancy Gusack 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