FOX@VTCS1.BITNET ("Edward A. Fox") (11/15/87)
IRList Digest Sunday, 15 November 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 41
Today's Topics:
Query - Archive for IRlist
- Text retrieval programs or info. on signature methods
- OCLC address
Reply - Comments on RDBMS (actually B-tree software)
Discussion - Lexicon development: terms used by library catalog searchers
- U. Melbourne bibliography for compact disc
- IR test collections on CDROM and disc drivers
Announcement - Atari CD player and workstation
Seminar - MS defense on regression and probabilistic IR
COGSCI - Longman's machine readable dictionary and NLP
News addresses are
Internet or CSNET: fox@vtcs1.cs.vt.edu
BITNET: fox@vtcs1.bitnet
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Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1987 12:37 CST
From: Robin C. Cover <ZRCC1001@SMUVM1>
Subject: IRList Request (for Directory of Archived Digests)
Ed: Please forgive me if there's a way to request a directory of archived
digests of the IRList discussions. I would like to receive the digests from
the past four months -- assuming that the files are of reasonable, or even of
substantial size. Could you indicate if there's a way to request these without
bothering you? Many thanks! Professor Robin C. Cover
[Note: I hope I sent you enough - please let me know if you want more.
I have not made a type of yearly index or directory - would someone
like to volunteer to do that or is there need for me to do so?
I still hope to set up an archive for FTP access but it will probably
be a few months at least before we can do that. It might be possible
to keep a listserv archive for recent issues, perhaps starting in V4,
if there is interest. Meanwhile, I and others keep their own archives
and you can tap into or request from those. - Ed]
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Date: Thu, 5 Nov 87 13:40:44 CST
From: Richard Pollard <rpollard@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Subject: Text retrieval progs
Would it be possible to post the following request for information on IRList
Digest?
I recently saw an announcement in a microcomputer trade weekly about the text
retrieval programs FastFind and WordCruncher. The note suggests that these
programs use a "bit map algorithm" approach rather than an inverted file.
I'd be interested in hearing from people who are familiar with either of these
programs. Exactly what approach do they use? I'd also like to know if there
are any IR programs for microcomputers that use text signatures for retrieval.
Thanks.
Richard Pollard
School of Library and Information Science
University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
<rpollard@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
[Note: I know that there is work at Univ. Waterloo, Univ. Maryland,
and I think also at NC State on signature files - can we get any
comments from those places or others? - Ed]
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Date: Thu, 5 Nov 87 14:51 EST
From: Jan Walker <JWalker@YUKON.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: need an address
You seem to be the clearing-house who knows where
everybody is so maybe you can help me! At the SIGIR
conference in June I was talking with Martin Dillon from
OCLC. I didn't get a list of attendees at the conference
so I don't know how to contact him. Do you know an
address for OCLC or can you give me a pointer?
[Note: OCLC is 6565 Frantz Rd., Dublin, Ohio 43017-0702 (614) 764-6000
I was told that they will have a BITNET node soon and believe they are
on UUCPnet too but don't have any addresses for those. - Ed]
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Date: Sun, 01 Nov 87 18:04:47 EST
From: "James H. Coombs" <JAZBO@BROWNVM>
Subject: RDB Tools
To: RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU
C-Tree from Faircom provides a b-tree system that can be used as a basis for
developing a relational dbms. They have an excellent reputation, and their
code looks very good. I have not used the system yet, so I cannot give a full
evaluation. They have a report generator, R-Tree, and are appraently working
on query facilities. They advertise regularly in the PC magazines, and you
can get a substantial discount from Programmer's Connection. C-Tree has
been ported to a variety of systems, possibly already to the Mac. (Ports
are by individual developers though, not from Faircom.)
Oh, yes, already to the Macintosh.
FairCom
2606 Johnson Drive
Columbia, MO 65203
(314) 445-6833
Stay in touch. I will be developing a dbms as soon as I finish my editor.
--Jim
Dr. James H. Coombs
Adjunct Lecturer in English
Software Engineer, Research, IRIS (as of December)
Brown University
Acknowledge-To: <JAZBO@BROWNVM>
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Date: 4 November 1987, 20:37:14 CST
From: Leff (Southern Methodist University) E1AR0002 at SMUVM1
Subject: U. Melbourne bibliography for compact disc
Are you aware of the University of Melbourne bibliography for possible
inclusion in your Compact Disk. It is abuot eight megabytes of BIB
format materials including various magazines, conferences, technical
report lists and the like that might be useful to add. It includes
my bibliography series sent to AILIST and my Technical Report List
Series.
[Note: thanks for the tip - I have been trying to get a message
through to them to ask about this. - Ed]
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Date: Fri, 13 Nov 87 09:28:53 CST
From: Richard Pollard <rpollard@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Subject: CD-ROM collection
I would like to express an interest in your proposal for putting several IR
test collections on CD-ROM. I think the idea is an excellent one and would be
interested in purchasing the discs for research purposes.
My research interest is focused on comparing retrieval methods for both
bibliographic records and full text. This includes use of conventional and
non-conventional approaches (such as text signatures). I think the discs
would also be useful for teaching courses in IR.
To answer some of your questions: the Cranfield collection would be most
useful if you could get hold of it; indexed as well as text forms would also
be useful if that were possible; queries and relevance judgements would be of
great value.
A couple of questions about accessing the data on the discs.
1. We currently use Philips CM100 CD-ROM drives, do you anticipate that the
discs will be compatible with these drives?
2. We have a variety of discs here (Wilson Disc, OCLC ERIC, ISI Science
Citation Index, DIALOG ERIC, etc) and each uses its own retrieval software
and its own device drivers to allow MS-DOS to access the CD-ROM drive. Do
you anticipate allowing a standard device driver such as the Microsoft MS-
DOS extensions to be used with your discs or will they use yet another
proprietary system?
Richard Pollard
School of Library and Information Science
University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
<rpollard@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
[Note: I expect the discs will have to come with drivers for at least
the most popular drives like Philips, Sony, Hitachi. Yes, we will use
the Microsoft Extensions with new "High Sierra" standard. Any other
requests? - Ed]
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From: VTCS1::JARRELLRA "Ronald A. Jarrell" 9-NOV-1987 15:09
To: FOX,JARRELLRA
Subj: got this from the newswire
Reut 11/02 ATARI (ATC) ADDS CD PLAYER AND WORKSTATION
LAS VEGAS, NOV 2 - ATARI CORP SAID IT INTRODUCED A COMPACT DISK PLAYER, AND
A HIGH-PERFORMANCE WORKSTATION TO ITS COMPUTER PRODUCT LINE.
THE PRODUCTS WERE INTRODUCED AT THE COMDEX/FALL'87 COMPUTER SHOW HERE.
OTHER NEW PRODUCTS INCLUDE A CONNECTIVITY SYSTEM, DESKTOP PUBLISHING
SOFTWARE AND TWO MODELS OF PC-COMPATIBLES.
THE CD PRODUCT PLAYS MUSIC AND CONNECTS TO THE COMPANY'S ST AND MEGA
COMPUTERS THROUGH A COMMUNICATIONS CHANNEL TO TRANSMIT DATA.
THE CD PLAYER WILL AVAILABLE EARLY NEXT YEAR FOR ABOUT 600 DLRS.
THE COMPANY SAID ITS NEW WORKSTATION, KNOWN AS ABAQ, RUNS TEN TIMES FASTER
THAN A PC AT MADE BY INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP (IBM).
IT DESCRIBED THE ABAQ AS A MICRO VERSION OF A SUPERCOMPUTER.
THE CONNECTIVITY SYSTEM FROM ATARI CAN CONNECT UP TO 17 PERSONAL COMPUTERS
IN A STAR CONFIGURATION USING OFF-THE-SHELF TELEPHONE WIRE, THE COMPANY SAID.
THE SYSTEM IS COMPATIBLE WITH IBM PCS AND COMPATIBLES AND ALLOWS A
CONNECTION OF APPLE MACINTOSHES, MADE BY APPLE COMPUTER INC (AAPL.O). THE
COMPANY ALSO SAID IT EXPANDED ITS LINE OF PC COMPATIBLE COMPUTERS BY ADDING TWO
MODELS WITH MORE POWER AND FEATURES THAN THE IBM PC AND IBM AT.
SIX NEW SOFTWARE PROGRAMS GIVES THE COMPANY'S ST AND MEGA COMPUTERS
MULTI-USER AND MULTI-TASKING CAPABILITIES.
REUTER 2044
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From: VTCS1::FOX "Edward A. Fox" 10-NOV-1987 16:37
To: FACULTY,FOX
Subj: Gary Nunn's defense
Gary Nunn, one of our former instructors who is now teaching at Radford
Univ., will defend his M.S. project "Regression Analysis of Extended Vectors
to Obtain Coefficients for Use in Probabilistic Information Retrieval
Systems" on Thur, 19 Nov, 9-11am, McB 558. Everyone is invited - Ed
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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1987 10:28 EST
From: Peter de Jong <DEJONG%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Cognitive Science Calendar [Extract - Ed]
Date: Sunday, 8 November 1987 17:42-EST
From: Marc Vilain <MVILAIN at G.BBN.COM>
Re: BBN AI Seminar -- Bran Boguraev
BBN Science Development Program
AI Seminar Series Lecture
THE USE OF AN ON-LINE DICTIONARY FOR NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
Bran Boguraev
Computer Laboratory,
University of Cambridge (UK)
(bkb%computer-lab.cambridge.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK)
BBN Labs
10 Moulton Street
2nd floor large conference room
10:30 am, Friday November 13
This talk is an attempt at a retrospective analysis of the collective
experience stemming from the use of the machine-readable version of the
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English for natural language processing. It
traces the relationships between specific requirements for lexical data and
issues of making such data available for diverse research purposes. A
particular model of on-line dictionary use is presented, which promotes a
strong separation between the processes of extracting information from
machine-readable dictionaries and using that information within the pragmatic
context of computational linguistics. The talk further analyses some
characteristics of the raw lexical data in electronic sources and outlines a
methodology for making maximal use of such potentially rich, but inherently
unreliable, resources.
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END OF IRList Digest
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