An evaluation of the Epilepsy Abstracts Retrieval System (EARS) was performed. Searches were conducted on the on-line system and evaluated in terms of recall, precision, and general user satisfaction. A detailed analysis of factors affecting the success and failure of the on-line searches was carried out. (4 references) (Author/SJ)

The results showed that the selection criteria laid down by Drugdoc are strictly adhered to; the mean time of alerting of an article is 11.3 weeks after receipt of the journal, and all articles from a particular journal issue are reported by Drugdoc on average within 13.6 weeks. (3 references) (Author/MM)

The cost-performance evaluation of an on line free-text bibliographic retrieval system, SUPARS, is reported. Two measures of cost were used in the evaluation: a computer processing charge expressed in dollars, and the number of documents retrieved. The measure of performance was an estimate of the recall ratio. (11 references) (Author/SJ)

The simulation model described is used as a tool for designing and evaluating literature search systems. The simulation program creates a well specified collection of documents and analyzes the effect of charges in query file characteristics on system output performance. (14 references) (Author/KE)

A little understood aspect of implementing on-line software is the problem of effective monitoring. Northwestern University has developed techniques to monitor an on-line information retrieval system, by using that system both to monitor itself and to process the data collected. The Remote Information Query System is a batch and on-line…

The search for an optimal decision strategy can be treated as a mathematical programming problem with linear objective function to be maximized over the convex set of certain functional space, provided one is willing to accept some ergodicity assumptions of the Markovian environment. (10 references) (Author)