The derivation of a general retrieval effectiveness measure is investigated. Inconsistencies in the definition of relative importance are resolved, and it is shown that the influence of the assigned weight on the effectiveness measure can produce counterintuitive results. An alternative effectiveness measure provided by the Marczewski-Steinhaus…

Presents a general mathematical framework for information retrieval, in which query evaluation is seen as a mapping from the free term algebra built by query descriptors and weights to the semantic algebra of evaluation value. Competing mathematical models that try to describe how retrieval systems behave are reviewed. (Author/MBR)

Summarizes the similarities between classification systems for catalog selection and information retrieval systems, and discusses system characteristics that allow the use of measures such as recall and precision in system evaluation. (27 references) (Author/CLB)

A comparison of the effectiveness of information retrieval based on full-text documents with retrieval based on paragraphs, abstracts, or controlled vocabularies was accomplished using a subset of journal articles with nine search questions. It was found that full-text retrieval achieved significantly higher recall and lower precision than did the…

Three articles describe a series of observations and experiments that examined the user context of questions in information retrieval, the structure and classification of questions, cognitive traits and decision-making searchers, and different searches of the same question. (71 references) (Author/CLB)

Designed to assist evaluators in selecting the appropriate software for the generation of various data collection instruments, this guide discusses such key program characteristics as text entry, item storage and manipulation, item retrieval, and printing. Some characteristics of a good instrument generation program are discussed; these include…

Describes and discusses the findings of an experiment that tested the precision of full-text retrieval enhanced by 29 document term weighting algorithms at the lowest, middle, and highest levels of recall, and compared with the precision of full-text retrieval without algorithms and with paragraph retrieval. (29 references) (Author/CLB)

This report is a collection of 11 recent papers by the Human-Machine Interaction Group at the University of California, San Diego. The following papers are included: (1) "Stages and Levels in Human-Machine Interaction," Donald A. Norman; (2) "The Nature of Expertise in UNIX," Stephen W. Draper; (3) "Users in the Real…

This investigation of the use of database management systems (DBMS) in a research environment used the Rand Corporation as a case study. After a general introduction in section 1, eight sections present the major components of the study. Section 2 contains an overview of DBMS terminology and concepts, followed in section 3 by a general dsecription…