Search results

Many retrieval experiments have been based on inadequate test collections, and current research is hampered by the lack of proper collections. This short review does not attempt a fully documented survey of all the collections used in the past decade: hopefully representative examples have been studied to throw light on the requirements test collections should meet, to show how past collections have been defective, and to suggest guidelines for a future ‘ideal’ test collection. The specifications for this collection can be taken as an indirect comment on our present state of knowledge of major retrieval system variables, and experience in conducting experiments.

Providing effective subject access to OPACs is a major problem area and this article considers the relative merits of providing enhanced content indexing of document records with natural language or controlled vocabulary. The retrieval performance of a particular approach is not the only factor to be taken into consideration and the need for multilingual subject access to OPAC records is discussed.

Retrieval languages may have varied structural characteristics, and these are summarized. The languages serve varied purposes in information systems, and a number of these are identified. The relations between structure and function are discussed and suggestions made as to the most suitable structures needed for various purposes.

The service management literature emphasizes the importance of communication, but language difficulties can make communicating in business settings more difficult. The purpose of this paper is to address consumer willingness to communicate in a second language to identity the antecedents that drive consumer language preferences.

The paper presents the findings from two empirical studies in two multilingual countries with a total of 361 adult respondents.

The findings show perceived control to be the strongest antecedent of consumer willingness to communicate in a second language, and identifies second language skills as an antecedent in countries with little political tensions related to language, while political considerations is a strong antecedent in countries where language use is political.

The studies are limited to countries with more than one official language. While multilingual countries make up around two-third of the world's population, future research could test whether the same antecedents are applicable in monolingual societies.

The findings help managers to understand in which situations consumers may be willing to switch language, and in which situations it is important to serve consumers in more than one language.

The paper is the first to draw upon both the service management literature and the sociolinguistic literature to develop and test a model to explain consumer language preferences. This model may help managers to develop strategies for customer service in multilingual markets.

This paper examines the implications of the findings of evaluative tests regarding the retrieval performance of natural language in various subject fields. It suggests parallel investigations into the structure of natural language, with particular reference to terminology, as used in the different branches of basic science. The criteria for defining the terminological consistency of a subject are formulated and a measure suggested for determining the degree of terminological consistency.

Distributed systems usually contain objects with heterogeneous security requirements that pose important challenges for the underlying security mechanisms and especially in access control systems. Access control in distributed systems often relies on centralised security administration. Existing solutions for distributed access control do not provide the flexibility and manageability required. This paper presents the XML‐based secure content distribution (XSCD) infrastructure, which is based on the production of protected software objects that convey contents (software or data) and can be distributed without further security measures because they embed the access control enforcement mechanism. It also provides means for integrating privilege management infrastructures (PMIs). Semantic information is used in the dynamic instantiation and semantic validation of policies. XSCD is scalable, facilitates the administration of the access control system, guarantees the secure distribution of the contents, enables semantic integration and interoperability of heterogeneous sources, provides persistent protection and allows actions (such as payment) to be bound to the access to objects.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight limits to the dominant model of social inclusion under which UK public libraries operate, to analyse how and to what extent processes of socio‐cultural exclusion emerge in the subject representation and discoverability of “non‐dominant” resources in public library OPACs, and to consider folksonomy as a solution to any issues raised.

The paper first develops a critique of the dominant model of “inclusion” within UK public libraries, drawing on feminist and critical theories of identity. It then considers how this critique overlaps with and offers fresh insights into major debates within subject indexing, and develops a theoretical rationale for considering the potential of folksonomy to intervene in more inclusive subject‐indexing design. A user‐based critical interpretive methodology which understands OPACs as texts open to multiple interpretations is developed, and a comparative reading of standard OPACs and LibraryThing folksonomy is undertaken to evaluate the discoverability and subject representation of LGBTQ and ethnic minority resources.

LibraryThing folksonomy offers benefits over LCSH subject indexing in the discoverability and representation of LGBTQ resources. However, the folksonomy is dominated by US taggers, and this impacts on the tagging of ethnic minority resources. Folksonomy, like traditional indexing, is found to contain its own biases in worldview and subject representation.

The importance of subject indexing in developing inclusive library services is highlighted and a new method for evaluating OPACs is developed.

One major aspect of T.D. Wilson’s research has been his insistence on situating the investigation of information behaviour within the context of its occurrence Ö within the everyday world of work. The significance of this approach is reviewed in light of the notion of embodied cognition that characterises the evolving theoretical episteme in cognitive science research. Embodied cognition employs complex external props such as stigmergic structures and cognitive scaffoldings to reduce the cognitive burden on the individual and to augment human problem‐solving activities. The cognitive function of the classification scheme is described as exemplifying both stigmergic structures and cognitive scaffoldings. Two different but complementary approaches to the investigation of situated cognition are presented: cognition‐as‐scaffolding and cognition‐as‐infrastructure. Classification‐as‐scaffolding views the classification scheme as a knowledge storage device supporting and promoting cognitive economy. Classification‐as‐infrastructure views the classification system as a social convention that, when integrated with technological structures and organisational practices, supports knowledge management work. Both approaches are shown to build upon and extend Wilson’s contention that research is most productive when it attends to the social and organisational contexts of cognitive activity by focusing on the everyday world of work.

This paper describes a symbolic manipulator control language, WAVE. WAVE resembles a computer machine language and has been used for performing such tasks as a the assembly of a “Model T” water pump, the block manipulation needed to solve the “Instant Insanity” puzzle, bruch caligraphy, crank turning, the two handed mounting of a door hinge, and the assembly of a pencil sharpener. The language specifies motions, provides force and touch control and is capable of interacting with external vision systems. A model of the manipulator is maintained to translate positions in rectangular co‐ordinates into joint angles and to predict joint inertias and gravity loads. Programming is interpretative and uses a PDP‐10 computer running under time‐sharing. The planning programm calculates manipulator trajectories and dynamic constants and writes an executable program on a disk.