Information Retrieval List Digest 476 (October 26, 1999) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/irld/irld-476.txt IRLIST Digest ISSN 1064-6965 October 26, 1999 Volume XVI, Number 40 Issue 476 ****************************************************************** I. QUERIES 1. Linguistic Analysis in IR II. JOBS 1. Queen Mary and Westfield College: Computer Science: Reader/Sr. Lecturer and Lectureships III. NOTICES A. Publications 1. Knowledge and Information Systems: 1:4 (1999) 2. Mira '99: Proceedings B. Meetings 1. CoopIS'2000: CFPapers 2. MT 2000: Conference and CFPapers 3. 3rd Intl. Symposium on Electronic Theses/Dissertations: CFSubmissions 4. PODS: CFPapers 5. ANLP/NAACL2000 Tutorial: CFPapers REMINDER 6. Searching for Information: Artificial Intelligence and Information Retrieval Approaches C. Miscellaneous 1. Courses in Library Science 2. Clustering and Classification Bibliographies -=20 and Now Software 3. Metadata and Social Science Data Report IV. PROJECTS C. Awards, Fellowships, Grants, & Scholarships 1. SPARC's SCI Awards Grants Worth a Half-Million Dollars ****************************************************************** I. QUERIES I.1. Fr: Karol Ruckschloss =20 Re: Linguistic Analysis in IR=20 Hello all,=20 I am a student of computer science at the Comenius University of Bratislava and I have been working on a project named "IR Systems and Computational Linguistics", it is my diploma work. If there is anyone who has ever dealt with linguistic methods in information retrieval, I would be grateful for information about his/her projects and links/references to publications about this topic. Thank you for your patience. Regards,=20 Karol Ruckschloss ****************************************************************** II. JOBS II.1. Fr: Sue White =20 Re: Queen Mary and Westfield College: Computer Science: Reader/Sr. Lecturer and Lectureships=20 Department of Computer Science=20 Queen Mary and Westfield College Chair in Computer Science (ref. 99174) Reader/Senior Lecturer in Computer Science(ref. 99175) Lectureships In Computer Science (ref. 99176) Applications are invited from those whose research interests will extend or complement any of the current areas of research in the Department of= Computer Science which are: logic and foundations of computing; computer vision; information, media and communications; parallel computing; and human= computer interaction. Research interests that interact with the College’s= Medical and Dental School or other departments are welcome. Appointments may be at the level of Professor (not less than GBP 38,535), or Reader/Senior Lecturer (GBP 33,697-37,804) or Lecturer (GBP19,372-32,199) all inclusive of London Allowance.=20 In the event of suitable senior candidates presenting themselves, one or= more lectureships may be associated with their posts. Informal enquiries may be made to Prof. Malcolm MacCallum (email:M.A.H.MacCallum@qmw.ac.uk or phone +44 20 7882 5213 or 5445).=20 For an application form and further particulars please email coll-recruit@qmw.ac.uk, or telephone 020 7975 5171, quoting the appropriate reference, or write to the=20 Personnel Office,=20 Queen Mary and Westfield College,=20 Mile End Road, London E1 4NS The closing date for receipt of applications is November 12th 1999. Further details of the department are given in this file. ****************************************************************** III. NOTICES III.A.1. Fr: Xindong Wu =20 Re: Knowledge and Information Systems: 1:4 (1999)=20 Knowledge and Information Systems: An International Journal ISSN 0219-1377 by Springer-Verlag Home Page: http://kais.mines.edu/~kais/ Volume 1 Number 4 (November 1999): Table of Contents Regular Papers - Exploration of Ordinal Data With Association Rules by Oliver Buchter and Rudiger Wirth=20 - An Axiom Foundation for Uncertain Reasonings in Rule-Based Expert Systems: NT-Algebra by Xudong Luo and Chengqi Zhang=20 - Run Placement Policies for Concurrent Mergesorts Using Parallel= Prefetching by Kun-Lung Wu, Philip S. Yu and James Z. Teng=20 - Imprecise Reliability of General Structures by Lev V. Utkin and Sergey V. Gurov=20 - Efficient Join Processing Using Partial Precomputation by Kian-Lee Tan, Cheng Hian Goh, Mong Li Lee and Beng Chin Ooi Calls for Papers - ICCI '2000: The 10th International Conference on Computing and= Information, Kuwait, November 18-21, 2000=20 - MICAI-2000: Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2000, Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico, April 10-14, 2000 ********** III.A.2. Fr: Ian Ruthven =20 Re: Mira '99: Proceedings=20 Mira 99: Evaluating interactive information retrieval. Glasgow, UK, 4-16=20 April, 1999. Proceedings of this workshop are now available in the electronic Workshops= in Computing Series, http://www.ewic.org.uk/ewic/workshop/view.cfm/MIRA-99. Editors: S. W. Draper, M. D. Dunlop, I. Ruthven, and C.J. van Rijsbergen, University of Glasgow.=20 The Mira working group consisted of 13 European Information Retrieval (IR)= and information science research groups with a special interest in the= evaluation of interactive IR systems. The papers in this, the final Mira workshop, reflect the diversity of approaches to evaluating IR, with topics ranging from experimental studies of user behaviour to theoretical models of information seeking. Contents:=20 Information Seeking as Explorative Learning. Giorgio Brajnik The Application of Work Tasks in connection with the Evaluation of=20 Interactive Information Retrieval Systems: Empirical Results. Pia Borlund= and Peter Ingwersen Measuring the Agreement Among Relevance Judges. Stefano Mizzaro Process and outcome: On the evaluation of IR systems in the age of interaction, GUIs and multimedia. Stephen Robertson Toward a theoretical framework for information retrieval evaluation in an information seeking context. Amanda Spink The word association methodology - a gateway to work-task based retrieval.= =20 Marianne Lykke Nielsen and Peter Ingwersen The Perceived Similarity of Photos - A Test-Collection Based Evaluation=20 Framework for the Content-Based Image Retrieval Algorithms. Eero Sormunen, Marjo Markkula, and Kalervo J=E4rvelin Reassessing and extending the Precision and Recall concepts. M. H. Heine Negotiating a Multidimensional Framework for Relevance Space. Silvia= Gabrielli and Stefano Mizzaro Can Rule-Based Indexing Support Concept-Based Multimedia Retrieval in=20 Digital Libraries? Some Experimental Results. Ulrich Thiel, Andre Everts, Barbara Lutes, and Adelheit Stein Example of field data about the work context: the case of IR on the web. Annelise Mark Pejtersen and Raya Fidel Ian Ruthven Tel: +44 (0)141 330 6292=20 Research Assistant Fax: +44 (0)141 330 4913=20 Department of Computing Science=20 University of Glasgow=20 http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~igr http://ir.dcs.gla.ac.uk/projects/explanation/ ********** III.B.1. Fr: David Carmel =20 Re: CoopIS'2000: CFPapers=20 Call for Papers - CoopIS'2000 Fifth IFCIS International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems In Cooperation with VLDB'2000 Neptune Hotel Eilat, Israel, September 6-8, 2000 http://www.haifa.il.ibm.com/coopis2000.html What is CoopIS? CoopIS is the leading conference for system cooperation. Cooperation among systems has gained substantial importance in recent years: electronic commerce, virtual enterprises, and the middleware paradigm are just some examples of this area. Several levels of cooperation are present: * The subject matter is the foundation and implementation of cooperation= among systems.=20 * The CoopIS area is a meeting of disciplines which provide concepts and techniques. The relevant disciplines are: collaborative work, distributed databases, distributed computing, electronic commerce, human-computer interaction, multi-agent systems, information retrieval, and workflow systems.=20 * The CoopIS series provides a forum for well-known researchers, that are drawn from the stature and the tradition of these conference series, and has a leading role in shaping the future of the cooperative information systems area. Opportunities for informal meetings between the conference delegates will be enhanced with a series of social events, including pre-conference= exploration of Eilat, in-conference tour of the surrounding desert, and post-conference excursion that will enable easy connection for those continuing to VLDB'2000 in Cairo. CoopIS'2000 is the seventh conference in the series and the fifth conference organized by the International Foundation on Cooperative Information Systems (IFCIS). It is sponsored by the International Foundation in Cooperative Information Systems (IFCIS), and the IBM Research Laboratory in Haifa (other sponsors pending). It replaces the erstwhile international workshops on Interoperability in Multidatabase Systems (IMS) and the conference series on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS & ICICIS). The conference will be held in Eilat, A resort town and bustling port, combining sea and desert, Eilat lies at Israel's southernmost tip. Sixty minutes by plane from Tel-Aviv, Eilat is situated between the wondrous= scenery of the deep azure Red Sea and the multitude Edom Mountains and is a paradise for sea-sports fans. Important dates: Submission Intention Notice Deadline March 13, 2000=20 Paper Submission Deadline March 27, 2000=20 Acceptance Notification May 29, 2000=20 Final Version Due June 26, 2000=20 Early registration deadline July 31, 2000=20 The Conference September 6-8, 2000 Who should submit papers ? Papers are solicited in two categories: regular research papers and= industrial experience papers. The category should be clearly identified. Regular= research papers should contain original research concepts and results in one or more technologies relevant to cooperative information systems. Industrial experience papers should describe technical or key business issues and lessons learned= in developing, applying, and deploying relevant technologies, highlighting aspects of cooperation and interoperation. Submitted papers should not be longer= than 5000 words.=20 Submissions should be unpublished and should not be under consideration by another conference or journal. A few papers will be selected for= publication, after appropriate expansion and review, in the International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems. One of the main themes will be information services in the 21st century, and we particularly welcome papers related to this theme. We also encourage the submission of all topics related to cooperative information systems, including (but not limited to) the= following: * Agent Technology * Business Intelligence Frameworks=20 * Business Process Modeling * Communication infrastructure for collaboration=20 * Computer-supported Cooperative work * Cooperative Information System Architectures=20 * Cooperative Information System foundations=20 * Cooperative Transactions=20 * Cooperative Transactions * Digital Libraries=20 * Distributed Problem Solving=20 * Distributed GIS * Distributed Multimedia Systems * Distributed Object Management=20 * Distributed Warehousing and mining * Electronic Commerce=20 * Enterprise Knowledge management * Event Based Systems=20 * Engineering Distributed systems * Federated and Multi-database systems=20 * Human-Computer Interaction for cooperation * Information Filtering=20 * Information Resource Discovery * Information Retrieval * Information, Data and knowledge Modeling * Integration and Interoperability=20 * Legacy Data Access and Management * Mediators, Wrappers=20 * Middleware Technology * Meta-data and Repositories=20 * Multi-agent Systems * Mobile Computing for Cooperation=20 * Organizational Aspects of Cooperative * Semantic Interoperability Systems (including virtual organizations)=20 * Web-based Information Systems * Web-based Services * Workflow Systems Papers Submission Papers will be submitted in an electronic fashion (Postscript or PDF files)= to both program chairs. A pre-submission intention notice to both program= chairs with the paper's authors, title, and classification is requested. The CoopIS'2000 team: General Chairs=20 Avigdor Gal Michele Missikoff=20 Rutgers University, USA IASI-CNR,=20 Italy=20 E-mail: avigal@rci.rutgers.edu E-mail:=20 missikoff@iasi.rm.cnr.it Program Chairs=20 Opher Etzion Peter Scheuermann=20 IBM Research Laboratory in Haifa, Northwestern=20 University, USA=20 Israel=20 E-mail: opher@il.ibm.com E-mail:=20 peters@ece.nwu.edu Publicity and Proceedings Chair=20 David Carmel=20 IBM Research Laboratory in Haifa, Israel=20 E-mail: carmel@il.ibm.com Organization Chairs=20 David Botzer=20 Tova Berger=20 IBM Research Laboratory in Haifa, IBM Research=20 Laboratory in Haifa,=20 Israel Israel=20 E-mail: botzer@il.ibm.com E-mail:=20 tova@il.ibm.com ********** III.B.2. Fr: Roger Harris =20 Re: MT 2000: Conference and CFPapers=20 PRELIMINARY CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT and CALL FOR PAPERS MT 2000 MACHINE TRANSLATION AND MULTILINGUAL APPLICATIONS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM Exeter, United Kingdom 20-22 November 2000 The Natural Language Translation Specialist Group, part of the British Computer Society URL: http://www.bcs.org.uk/siggroup/sg37.htm The Natural Language Translation Specialist Group (NLTSG) of the British Computer Society (BCS) announces an international conference to be held at= the University of Exeter (UK) on 20-22 November 2000. The focus will be on= machine translation and other multilingual NLP applications. MT 2000 will continue= the tradition of the friendly and informative events organised by the Specialist Group at Cranfield in 1994 and 1984. The organisers aim to attract a wide range of contributions from researchers, users and educationalists in the field of multilingual language engineering. The conference will take the form of invited keynote speakers plus= individual papers. Papers will be refereed by a programme committee. All papers= accepted and presented will be available as a volume of proceedings at the= conference.=20 Selected papers will be published in book form soon after the conference. There will also be an exhibition area and an opportunity for poster sessions. Details of the time-table for submissions/reviewing, length and format of papers, the membership of the programme committee, and of the cost will be announced shortly and will be posted on our web-site at http://www.bcs.org.uk/siggroup/sg37.htm We invite papers covering but not limited to multilingual aspects of the following topics: Machine translation (developments, advances, applications, uses)=20 Translation aids=20 Lexicography=20 Corpora (construction, annotation, exploitation)=20 Evaluation=20 Part-of-speech tagging=20 Parsing=20 Computer-assisted language learning=20 Machine translation in education=20 Information retrieval=20 Information extraction=20 Automatic abstracting=20 Word-sense disambiguation=20 Anaphora resolution=20 Text categorisation=20 Speech processing MT 2000 web-site at Exeter University:=20 http://www.exeter.ac.uk/flc/MT2000=20 Further information:=20 Derek Lewis (Co-chair: Programmme Committee)=20 Director of the Foreign Language Centre, Queen's Building,=20 University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QH, United Kingdom.=20 E-mail: mailto:D.R.Lewis@exeter.ac.uk=20 Telephone: +44 (0)1392-264 296=20 Facsimile: +44 (0)1392-264 293 Professor Ruslan Mitkov (Co-chair: Programme Committee)=20 School of Languages and European Studies, University of=20 Wolverhampton, Stafford Street, Wolverhampton WV1 1SB, United Kingdom.=20 E-mail: mailto:r.mitkov@wlv.ac.uk=20 Telephone: +44 (0)1902-322 471=20 Facsimile: +44 (0)1902-322 739 If you would like to receive further information by e-mail then please send= a blank e-mail message with 'SUBSCRIBE' in the subject line to mailto:MT2000-request@rwsh.dircon.co.uk You can cancel your subscription by typing 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the subject line. ********** III.B.3. Fr: Ed Fox =20 Re: 3rd Intl. Symposium on Electronic Theses/Dissertations: CFSubmissions=20 Call for Submissions Third International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations: Applying New Media to Scholarship USF, St. Petersburg, Florida March 16th-18th, 2000 Conference Web Site: http://etd.eng.usf.edu/Conference Call for Submissions Brochure in PDF:=20 http://etd.eng.usf.edu/Conference/submissions.pdf Deadline for Submissions: 12/1/1999 Note: Preference will be given to online submissions. See=20 http://etd.eng.usf.edu/Conference/tsubmissions.asp Conference Sponsors: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations;= =20 Council of Graduate Schools; Microsoft; Adobe, University of South Florida Dear Colleagues: We invite you to participate in The Third International Symposium on ETDs (Electronic Theses and Dissertations), March 16th-18th, 2000, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida.=20 Preconference: March 15, 2000. This symposium is organized by the NDLTD (Networked Digital Library of= Theses and Dissertations), a consortium of research universities committed to improving graduate education by developing digital libraries of theses and dissertations. This conference will serve as a multi-disciplinary forum for graduate deans and their staff, librarians, faculty leaders, and others who are interested in electronic theses and dissertations, digital libraries, and applying new media to scholarship. Featured keynoters and plenary workshop leaders include Ed Fox, Director, NDLTD; Clifford Lynch, Director, CNI; Ann Hart, Provost, Claremont Graduate School; Gerry Lang, Provost, West Virginia University; John Eaton, Associate Provost, Virginia Tech; Delphine Lewis, Director of Dissertations, UMI; Roy Tennant, Digital Library Project= Manager, University of California, Berkeley; Stuart Weibel, Senior Research= Scientists, OCLC. The symposium will balance plenary keynote speakers and panels, papers, tutorials, and concurrent discussion sessions, demonstrates, posters, and exhibits. We invite you to visit the symposium website: http://etd.eng.usf.edu/Conference. From the Web site, you can view the program or you can submit an online proposal to present a paper, poster, demonstration, tutorial, or discussion. We expect the review of proposals to be competitive. The Council of=20 Graduate Schools, the NDLTD, and West Virginia University Libraries are cosponsoring this year's publication of the Symposium Proceedings. Please note that we expect to limit the number of registrants. Because March is such a popular time in Florida, we encourage you to make your reservations early, whether you stay at the conference hotel or along the Gulf beaches.= =20 Please email Joe Moxley if you have questions: moxley@chuma1.cas.usf.edu ********** III.B.4. Fr: Maurizio Lenzerini =20 Re: PODS: CFPapers=20 CALL FOR PAPERS SIGMOD / PODS 2000 19th ACM SIGMOD-SIGACT-SIGART Symposium on Principles of Database Systems Dallas, Texas May 14-19, 2000 Topics: Suggested topics include the following (this list is not exhaustive and the order does not reflect priorities): Access Methods and Physical Design=20 Complexity and Performance Evaluation=20 Concurrency Control=20 Transaction Management=20 Integrity and Security=20 Data Models=20 Logic in Databases=20 Query Languages=20 Query Optimization=20 Database Programming Languages=20 Database Updates=20 Active Databases=20 Deductive Databases and Knowledge Bases=20 Object-oriented Databases=20 Multimedia Databases=20 Spatial and Temporal Databases=20 Constraint Databases=20 Real-time Databases=20 Distributed Databases=20 Data Integration and Interoperability=20 Views and Warehousing=20 Data Mining=20 Databases and Information Retrieval=20 Semistructured Data and XML=20 Information Processing on the Web=20 Databases in E-commerce=20 Databases and Workflows=20 Submission format: Titles and short abstracts: this year, authors are required to submit a= paper title and short abstract about 100 words before submitting their paper (see the important dates below). Papers: The address, telephone number, FAX number, and e-mail address of the contact author should appear on the title page of the submission.= Submissions should be limited to 10 pages (with font size at least 11 pts) and may= consist of extended abstracts. Each submission must provide sufficient detail to= allow the program committee to assess its merits and should include appropriate references to and comparisons with the literature. It is recommended that= each submission begin with a succinct statement of the problem, a summary of the main results, and a brief explanation of their significance and relevance to the conference, all suited for the non-specialist. Technical development of the work, directed to the specialist, should follow. If the authors believe more details are necessary to substantiate the main claims of the paper, they may include a clearly marked appendix to be read at the discretion of the committee. Submission Instructions: Paper titles and short abstracts (about 100 words) should be received by the PC Chair on or before November 2, 1999. Papers are due on November 8, 1999.= These are firm deadlines. There will be no exceptions.Electronic and hard copy submissions are accepted. Note that for accepted papers, an electronic= version of the final paper is required by the camera-ready copy due date. Electronic submission at http://www.seas.smu.edu/sigmod2000/ of both short abstracts and papers is strongly preferred. Hardcopy submissions: If an electronic submission is not possible, send one copy of the short abstract and 16 copies of the paper to the Program=20 Chair (see address below). Program Chair: Georg Gottlob=20 gottlob@dbai.tuwien.ac.at=20 Institut fuer Informationssysteme=20 TU Wien=20 Paniglgasse 16=20 A-1040 Wien, AUSTRIA Program Committee: S. Abiteboul, INRIA, France=20 Y. Breitbart, Bell Labs, USA=20 S. Davidson, Univ. of Pennsylvania, USA=20 T. Eiter, TU Wien, Austria=20 G. Gottlob, TU Wien (Chair), Austria=20 R. Hull, Bell Labs, USA=20 G. Lausen, Univ. of Freiburg, Germany=20 M. Lenzerini, Univ. of Rome, La Sapienza, Italy=20 L. Libkin, Bell Labs and INRIA, USA & France=20 T. Milo, Tel Aviv University, Israel=20 Z.M. Ozsoyoglu, Case Western Reserve Univ. USA=20 D. Sacc=E1, University of Calabria and ISI-CNR, Italy=20 H.-J. Schek, ETH Zurich, Switzerland=20 J. Ullman, Stanford University, USA=20 J. Van den Bussche, Univ. of Limburg, Belgium=20 M. Y. Vardi, Rice University, USA Important Dates: November 2 - Paper titles and short abstracts due.=20 November 8 - Papers due.=20 February 8 - Notification about acceptance/rejection.=20 March 5 - Camera-ready due. ********** III.B.5. Fr: Priscilla Rasmussen =20 Re: ANLP/NAACL2000 Tutorial: CFPapers REMINDER=20 NAACL/ANLP TUTORIAL PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE OCTOBER 28 (THIS THURSDAY)=20 ANLP-NAACL 2000 Call for Tutorial Proposals TUTORIALS CHAIR: Jennifer Chu-Carroll Lucent Technologies Bell Laboratories CALL:=20 The ANLP/NAACL Program Committee invites proposals for the Tutorial Program for ANLP/NAACL 2000, to be held in Seattle, Washington, USA, April 29 - May 3, 2000. The tutorials will be held on April 29th.Each tutorial should be well-focused so that its core content can be covered in a three hour= tutorial slot (plus a 30 minute break). In exceptional cases, 6-hour tutorial slots= are possible as well. There will be space and time for between four and six three-hour tutorials. Submission Details: Proposals for tutorials should contain: * A title and brief (< 500 word) content description of the tutorial topic. * The names, postal addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of the tutorial speakers, with one-paragraph statement of the speaker's(s')=20 research interests and areas of expertise. * Any special requirements for technical needs (computer infrastructure,= etc.) Proposals should be submitted by electronic mail, in plain ASCII (iso8859-1) text as soon as possible, but no later than October 28, 1999. Please E-mail proposals to jencc@research.bell-labs.com, with the subject line:= "ANLP/NAACL 2000 TUTORIAL PROPOSAL". Please Note: Proposals will not be accepted by regular mail or fax. PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS: Accepted tutorial speakers must provide descriptions of their tutorials for inclusion in the Conference Registration material by January 10, 2000. The description must be provided in three formats: a latex version that fits= onto 1/2 page; an ascii (iso8859-1) version that can be included with the email announcement; an HTML version that can be included on the Conference home page. Tutorial speakers will provide tutorial materials, at least containing= copies of the overhead sheets used, by March 17, 2000. FINANCES: The current ACL policy is that tutorials are reimbursed at the following= rate: $500 per session plus $25 per registrant in the range 21-50 plus $15 per registrant in excess of 50. Note that this is per tutorial, not per= presenter: multiple presenters will split the proceeds, the default assumption being an even split. The ACL does not usually cover travel expenses except where the presenter(s) are not independently attending the conference and getting= travel reimbursed. IMPORTANT DATES: Submission deadline for Tutorial Proposal October 28, 1999=20 Notification of acceptance of Tutorial Proposal November 8, 1999=20 Tutorial descriptions due to Tutorial Chair January 10, 2000=20 Tutorial course material due to Tutorial Chair March 17, 2000=20 Tutorials Date April 29, 2000 ********** III.B.6. Fr: Mounia Lalmas =20 Re: Searching for Information: Artificial Intelligence and Information Retrieval Approaches Searching for Information: Artificial Intelligence and Information Retrieval Approaches 11-12 November 1999 IEE Scottish Engineering Centre Glasgow, Scotland Introduction The amount of information available is currently growing at an incredible= rate - the growth of the Internet being a prime example. To fully exploit this information, whether for business or leisure purposes, you need techniques= and tools that allow fast, effective and efficient access in order to filter through the vast amounts of stored information. The fields of information retrieval (IR) and, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI) have been looking at this problem. The IR field has developed successful methods to deal effectively with huge amounts of information, whereas the AI field has developed methods to learn the user's information needs, extract information from text, and represent the semantics of information. All too often, however, both fields have suffered from a lack= of integration. Quite simply, each community is often unaware of each others work. Aims This event will, for the first time, attempt to bridge the gap between the fields of AI and IR. Over two days this Seminar will bring, from academia= and industry, some of the leading pioneers in both fields, (see programme= below), to provide a forum for sharing and combining techniques, with the ultimate= aim of improving the search process. The event will include results of both theoretical and applied experiments= in using IR and AI techniques to seek information. Participants will benefit= from learning about the latest developments across a broad range of activities. Who Should Attend? The event will not only be of interest to academics and post-graduate= students working in the field but also those involved in industrial and commercial research. In addition - and just as importantly - the event will be of= direct relevance to people who are the end-users of search systems. Posters To truly make this an interactive event, posters will be presented= describing late-breaking results, work in progress, or work that is best presented interactively or graphically. Programme Thursday, 11 November=20 10.00 Registration and coffee=20 10.45 Opening and introduction=20 11.00 The issues of representations in AI, IR and NLP. Yorick Wilks (University of Sheffield, UK)=20 11.45 Applying AI to the web. Dieter Fensel (University of Karlsruhe, Germany)=20 12.30 Lunch and poster session=20 14.00 How smart are current image retrieval techniques? John P Eakins (University of Northumbria at Newcastle, UK)=20 14.45 A picture representing triumph or similar: classification based navigation and retrieval for picture archives. Carole Goble (University of Manchester, UK)=20 15.30 Coffee=20 16.00 Intelligent information retrieval agents. Theo Huibers (DOXiS, The Netherlands)=20 16.45 Personalised information objects. Marc Moens (Language Technology Group, UK)=20 17.30 CLOSE Friday, 12 November=20 9.15 Opening and introduction=20 9.30 IR lessons for AI. Karen Sparck-Jones (University of Cambridge, UK)=20 10.15 Coffee=20 10.45 Reinforcement learning for information seeking. Susan Craw (The Robert Gordon University, UK)=20 11.30 Learning by examples as relevance feedback, and relevance feedback as learning by examples. Gianni Amati (University of Glasgow, UK)=20 12.15 Lunch and poster session=20 13.30 Quantum logic: a new paradigm for IR. Keith van Rijsbergen (University of Glasgow, UK)=20 14.15 Probabilistic retrieval: thresholding for automatic filtering. Stephen Robertson (Microsoft Research Ltd, UK)=20 15.00 Coffee=20 15.30 To be advised. Yves Chiaramella (Laboratoire CLIPS- IMAG, France)=20 16.15 Discussion=20 17.30 CLOSE To receive a registration form for the event please contact the IEE Events Office,Savoy Place, London WC2R 0BL, tel: +44 (0)20 7344 5732/5733, fax: +44 (0)20 7497 3633 or email: events@iee.org.uk. Accommodation For anyone requiring hotel accommodation, the IEE recommends that you= contact the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Valley Tourist Board for information on +44 (0)141 221 0049. Organisers The Seminar has been organised by Mounia Lalmas (Queen Mary & Westfield=20 College), Alison Cawsey (Heriot-Watt University) and Keith van Rijsbergen=20 (University of Glasgow) - all members of IEE Informatics Professional Group A4=20 (Artificial intelligence) - in association with the British Computer=20 Society Information Retrieval Specialist Group. Web page: http://WWW.iee.org.uk/Events/a11nov99.htm ********** III.C.1. Fr: Mark Linsenmayer =20 Re: Courses in Library Science=20 Hello, I'm with the Graduate School of Library Science at the University of Texas= in Austin. We're doing some feasibility studies about expanding our distance education program. If you're thinking of taking classes (anywhere) in the fields of librarianship, arhives, or information science (whether for a= degree or as continuing education), please consider taking two minutes to answer= our survey. Just follow the link: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~disted/gslisde.html Thank you very much, Mark Linsenmayer ********** III.C.2. Fr: Prof. F. Murtagh =20 Re: Clustering and Classification Bibliographies - and Now Software The Classification Literature Automated Search Service (CLASS), the only classification bibliography, published annually since the 1970s by the Classification Society of North America (CSNA), is undergoing big changes.= =20 From 2000, CLASS will be available on CD. It is available as a supplement to the Journal of Classification. On the CD will be a range of other= information from CSNA, and about public domain clustering and classification software.= The CD will save time and effort in looking for clustering and classification information, and will be availed of by a key group of researchers and developers worldwide. In addition, it will be available on library shelves with the Journal of Classification.=20 Availability on CD also means that information on commercial software, shareware, and clustering- and classification-related services will also be available. Now is the time to reserve space on this CD. More information is available from the CSNA web site, http://www.pitt.edu/~csna (see under 'New developments relating to Classification Literature Automated Service'). F Murtagh, Editor, CLASS=20 Computer Science=20 Queen's University of Belfast=20 f.murtagh@qub.ac.uk ********** III.C.3. Fr: Joan K Lippincott =20 Re: Metadata and Social Science Data Report=20 For those of you interested in metadata, social sciences statistics, global access to statistical data, or XML tagging standards I strongly recommend= the following paper:=20 Providing Global Access to Distributed Data through Metadata Standardisation -- The Parallel Stories of NESSTAR and the DDI=20 http://www.nesstar.org/papers/GlobalAccess.html=20 This paper was presented by Jostein Ryssevik of The Norwegian Social Science Data Services at the Economic Commission for Europe, Conference of European Statisticians, UN/ECE Work Session on Statistical Metadata (Geneva, Switzerland, 22-24 September 1999). ****************************************************************** IV. PROJECTS IV.C.1. Fr: Joan K Lippincott =20 Re: SPARC's SCI Awards Grants Worth a Half-Million Dollars For Immediate Release=20 October 15, 1999 For more information, contact:=20 Alison Buckholtz, 202-296-2296 x115 or alison@arl.org SPARC'S SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITIES INITIATIVE AWARDS GRANTS WORTH A=20 HALF-MILLION DOLLARS Columbia, California Digital Library and MIT Receive Support for Innovative Electronic Ventures in Scientific Publishing Washington, DC. SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) announced today the three winners of its Scientific Communities Initiative grant competition.= The grants are awarded to spur digital science publishing ventures based in academe. Columbia University Press's Columbia Earthscape, the California=20 Digital Library's eScholarship, and MIT's CogNet will each receive= substantial support from the Scientific Communities Initiative. The Scientific Communities Initiative's goal is to stimulate and accelerate the creation of new non-profit information communities for users in key fields= of science, technology or medicine. The awardees were chosen on the basis of an independent peer review; compatibility with SPARC values; feasibility of the business model and plan; and likelihood of becoming financially self-sustaining. The three selected projects will receive a total of= $519,000 in start-up development funding. "Each of these projects has enormous potential to transform the scientific information economy," said Rick Johnson, SPARC Enterprise Director. "Each= will reduce the cost of information access and use, expand the dissemination of research, support practice and teaching, and generally benefit science, academe and society at large. The Scientific Communities Initiative grants are= direct investments in pursuit of our primary goal: to facilitate a more effective= and responsive system of scholarly communication." The selected projects also indicate the capacity to foster a more open and competitive marketplace in which academe exercises an increased role. Significantly, in some cases the project chosen had input from the= university press; the library; the computing center; and the faculty. This was the case with Columbia University's Columbia Earthscape: An Online Resource in Earth Sciences, to be managed within the Electronic Publishing Initiative at Columbia (EPIC) under the direction of Kate Wittenberg, Director of EPIC. "The Scientific Communities Initiative grant will allow us to develop=20 Columbia Earthscape much more effectively and quickly than would have been possible otherwise," said Kate Wittenberg. "It will help us enter a competitive market with a distinct advantage as a university-based publication."= "Columbia University Press and Libraries are delighted to be part of the Scientific Communities Initiative," said Elaine F. Sloan, Vice=20 President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University. "We are particularly pleased that our model of= library/information technologist/publisher collaboration has resulted in an award-winning project." Columbia Earthscape will include reports of research projects and conference proceedings as well as curricular materials for teaching about the earth. It will link to data sets and computer models and an online magazine, Earth Affairs, designed to educate undergraduate students, the general public, and policy-makers about current issues in earth interactions, domestic and international environmental policy, and other related topics.=20 eScholarship, another SCI grant awardee, is to be managed within the California Digital Library (CDL) of the University of California, under the direction= of Richard Lucier, CDL Executive Director and University Librarian. The CDL is= a tenth research library for the University whose mission and funding include= a significant continuing commitment to innovation in scholarly communications."The University of California's eScholarship activities will provide scholars with digital technologies for experiments in scholarly communication that are designed and managed by the primary producers, consumers, and arbiters of quality scholarship, the scholars themselves,"= said Richard Lucier, University Librarian and Executive Director of the= California Digital Library. "We're very appreciative of the leadership provided by= SPARC and pleased that support from the Scientific Communities Initiative program= is available to help us create the scholar-led community of support,= innovation, and policy setting necessary for eScholarship's success." eScholarship will support scholar-led innovations in scholarly communication by providing an infrastructure for experimentation.=20 The first part includes an electronic print (e-print) database system; the second part includes a set of support services and community building activities for its use. Initially, eScholarship will focus on creating electronic publications and support services that build upon and extend existing, proven innovations in this area. Planned objectives include: development and deployment of the eScholarship Archive, initially by= mirroring and extending the Los Alamos National Laboratory xxx e-print server;= creation of new and linkage of existing digital journals; implementation and support services for community-led innovations; and integration of digital= publishing and digital access. MIT CogNet: The Internet Gateway to the Cognitive and Brain Sciences, the third SCI awardee, will be managed within the MIT Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the direction of Teresa Ehling, Manager of the Digital Projects Lab, The MIT Press. CogNet will be further developed in collaboration with the MIT Libraries and the CogNet Academic Council, with representatives from Dartmouth, Cornell, MIT, Columbia, UC San Diego and the Salk Institute. "The MIT Press is delighted to be the recipient of an inaugural grant under SPARC's Scientific Communities Initiative," said Ann J.=20 Wolpert, Director of Libraries and Chair of the MIT Press Management Board. "This generous grant will enable the MIT Press and the MIT Libraries to experiment with exciting new forms of scholarly communication in an= important, emerging academic discipline. SPARC's recognition of this new, productive collaboration between a university press and a university library affirms MIT's commitment to innovation in scholarly communication." "With SPARC's support, the Press and the Libraries hope to evince a new business model for the design and delivery of scholarly information on= line," said Teresa Ehling, Manager of the Digital Projects Lab, The MIT Press. "The CogNet project is a testimony to the efficacy of a library-publisher alliance." As an electronic community for the cognitive and brain sciences,=20 CogNet integrates a range of online utilities in a unique customized workspace, delivering access to the very best, accurate, and most timely technical information in contemporary cognitive and brain research. (The prototype is now live at http://cognet.mit.edu.) Grant awards begin immediately and are implemented over a three-year period. For further information about individual projects or to reach managers of Columbia Earthscape, eScholarship, or MIT CogNet, please contact the institution at the number listed below: * Columbia Earthscape/Kate Wittenberg: 212 666 1000 x7110 or kw49@columbia.edu. * eScholarship/John Ober, California Digital Library: 510 987 0425 or john.ober@ucop.edu * MIT CogNet/Teresa Ehling, MIT: 617 253 1672 or ehling@mitpress.mit.edu. SPARC is an alliance of universities and research libraries that support increased competition in scientific journal publishing. Its membership currently numbers over 170 institutions and library consortia in North America, the U.K., continental Europe and Asia. SPARC is also affiliated with major library organizations in Canada, the U.K. and Ireland, Denmark, Australia= and the USA. More information on SPARC is available at http://www.arl.org/sparc. SPARC is an initiative of the Association of Research Libraries. Alison Buckholtz=20 Assistant Director, Communications=20 SPARC -- The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition=20 21 Dupont Circle, Ste. 800, Washington, DC 20036=20 phone: 202 296 2296=20 fax: 202 872 0884=20 web: http://www.arl.org/sparc/ ****************************************************************** IRLIST Digest is distributed from the University of California, California Digital Library, 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA. 94607-5200. 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