Substantial alterations to a system often have little or no effect on particular collections. This may be due to poor separation of relevant and non-relevant documents. The paper presents a procedure for characterizing this separation, which can show whether proposed modifications of the base system are likely to be useful. (8 references)…

Retrieval performance with automatic term classifications for three test collections has been variable. This paper attempts to discover why. The real difference between the collections is in the separation of relevant from non-relevant documents. The separation is so poor that classification cannot be expected to succeed. (14 references)…

The present report is the twenty-first in a series describing research in information storage and retrieval conducted by the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University. The report covering work carried out by the SMART project for approximately two years (summer 1970 to summer 1972) is separated into five parts: automatic content…

Discusses the application of theories of cognitive modeling to information systems design and describes research that investigated the validity of the repertory grid for incorporation into intelligent front-end interfaces for information storage and retrieval systems. Personal construct theory is discussed and future research is suggested. (67…