With the increased popularity of electronic textbooks, there is a growing interest in developing a new generation of "intelligent textbooks," which have the ability to guide readers according to their learning goals and current knowledge. Intelligent textbooks extend regular textbooks by integrating machine-manipulable knowledge, and the…

Discussion forums in learning management systems (LMS) have been shown to promote student interaction and contribute to the collaborative practice in the teaching-learning process. By evaluating the postings, teachers can identify students with learning difficulties. However, due to the large volume of posts that are generated on a daily basis in…

The concept of learning objects has been applied in the e-learning field to promote the accessibility, reusability, and interoperability of learning content. Learning Object Metadata (LOM) was developed to achieve these goals by describing learning objects in order to provide meaningful metadata. Unfortunately, the conventional LOM lacks the…

Shows that in advanced information-retrieval applications capabilities for data aggregation, transitive computation and non-first normal-form relational computation are often necessary at the same time. Topics include complex objects; advanced data models; query languages; query formulation; knowledge representation; and query-language syntax.…

Presents a faster method for determining hierarchical relationships in information retrieval by using trie structures instead of a linear storage of a concept code. Highlights include case structures, a knowledge representation for natural-language understanding with semantic constraints; a compression algorithm of tries; and evaluation.…

Discusses the requirements of information retrieval systems to support creative thinking as well as more convergent thinking. Highlights include the nature of creative thinking; similarity relationships; serendipity; machine processing of similarities; high order knowledge representation; and fuzzy and parallel information retrieval. (Contains 34…

The link between classification and knowledge is explored. The strengths and limitations of four classificatory approaches (hierarchies, trees, paradigms, and faceted analysis) are described in terms of their ability to reflect, discover, and create new knowledge. Examples are provided of the way in which knowledge and the classification process…

Discusses automatic document classification and document retrieval systems and presents a strategy for building a morphological machine dictionary of English that infers meaning of derivations by considering morphological affixes and their semantic classification. Proposes a method for selecting compound field association terms from a large pool…

Discusses object-centered knowledge representation and information retrieval. Highlights include semantic networks; frames; predicative (declarative) and associative knowledge; cluster analysis; creation of subconcepts and superconcepts; automatic classification; hierarchies and pseudohierarchies; graph theory; term classification; clustering of…

Presents an approach for dynamic database integration and query processing in the absence of information about attribute correspondences and global IDs. Defines different types of equivalence conditions for the construction of global IDs. Proposes a strategy based on ranked role-sets that makes use of an automated semantic integration procedure…

Content-based image retrieval is based on the idea of extracting visual features from images and using them to index images in a database. Proposes similarity measures and an indexing algorithm based on information theory that permits an image to be represented as a single number. When used in conjunction with vectors, this method displays…

Presents an overview of artificial-intelligence-based inductive learning techniques and their use in information science research. Three methods are discussed: the connectionist Hopfield network; the symbolic ID3/ID5R; evolution-based genetic algorithms. The knowledge representations and algorithms of these methods are examined in the context of…

Discusses the basic elements of a global cognitive theory for information retrieval (IR) interaction from a cognitive point of view. Within this framework are outlined the principles underlying the concept of polyrepresentation applied simultaneously to the user's cognitive space and the information space of IR systems. Contains 95 references.…

In the "Ant World" project, items to be retrieved are "quests" represented by entire collections of judged documents. To save space and time, methods were developed for representing these complex entities in a short string of about 1,000 bytes, called a Digital Information Pheromone (DIP). Principles are presented for…

Proposes an alternative real valued representation of color based on the information theoretic concept of entropy. A theoretical presentation of image entropy is accompanied by a practical description of the merits and limitations of image entropy compared to color histograms. Results suggest that image entropy is a promising approach to image…