The performance of a selective dissemination of information service based on computer scanning of Nuclear Science Abstracts tapes was compared with a current awareness service based on visual scanning of journals and reports by information specialists. (6 references) (Author/SJ)

The study compares the retrieval effectiveness of two alternative input and search systems in terms of such measures as recall, fallout, precision, and total retrieval. One system uses manually indexed document files searched by controlled vocabulary, while the other employs fulltext input using natural language searching. Both systems are applied…

Identifies characteristics of the experienced online searcher and discusses the results of three searches carried out by a variety of searchers in widely differing subject fields--presence of arsenic in coal, problems of working alone in laboratory or work area, and spectral sensitivity of the insect eye. (8 references) (EJS)

Discussion of information filtering (IF) and information retrieval focuses on the use of an artificial neural network (ANN) as an alternative method for both IF and term selection and compares its effectiveness to that of traditional methods. Results show that the ANN relevance prediction out-performs the prediction of an IF system. (Author/LRW)

The relative retrieval performances of the CA Integrated Subject File (CAISF), CA Condensates, and a Merged File created from these two data bases were measured. Retrieval performance is reported in terms of recall, precision values, and costs. (Author/JB)

Reports on a comparative study of the postcoordinate retrieval effectiveness of Library of Congress Subject Headings and the Preserved Context Indexing System (PRECIS). Data are presented in six tables and one figure, and a reference list is included. (Author/JL)

Document retrieval tasks composed of human relevance judgments need test sets that allow comparison of human retrieval and automated retrieval and that place absolute limits on performance by any method. Results suggest that it should be possible to improve retrieval system performance within recommended limits by incorporating specific subject…

Describes a theoretic process to apply Bahadur-Lazarsfeld expansion (BLE) to general probabilistic models and the state-of-the-art 2-Poisson model. Through experiments on two standard document collections, one in Korean and one in English, it is demonstrated that incorporation of term dependences using BLE significantly contributes to performance…

Describes research which measured the efficiency of role operators through frequency of appearances in PRECIS input strings for 200 abstracts related to taxation, genetic psychology, and Shakespearian drama. Frequencies of appearance of major categories of role operators, role operators in different subjects, individual main line operators, and…

Investigates the application of a relevance ranking technique, cover density ranking that is based on term proximity and cooccurrence for information retrieval on the World Wide Web that augments coordination ranking when one to three search terms are used. Compares cover density ranking with standard ranking methods and discusses implementation…

Presents findings of project aimed at improving subject access in online library catalogs by generating records with augmented subject descriptions, termed BOOKS records, and comparing them with MARC records. Procedures involved in the selection of subject descriptions to generate a BOOKS record are described and illustrated. Six references cited.…

This study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of keyword searching in an online catalog to traditional subject searching in one special collection of vocational rehabilitation materials. Subject area specialists assessed the contents of books using their terminology, and compared the results to MARC records. It was found that slightly…

Online seaches of sample topics in the area of forensic medicine were conducted in the following life science databases: Biosis Previews, Excerpta Medica, Medline, Scisearch, and Chemical Abstracts Search. Search outputs analyzed according to criteria of recall, uniqueness, overlap, and utility reveal the need for a cross-database approach to…

Provides background of automatic indexing and overview of Fully Automatic Syntactically based Indexing of Text (FASIT), a system based on idea that content-bearing words belong to certain syntactic categories. Results of comparison of FASIT with thesaurus and stem-based indexing systems on database of 250 documents and 22 queries are summarized.…

Discusses previous research that examined the effects of different kinds of vocabulary control on retrieval effectiveness, and describes a study that addressed the effects of indexing depth on standard retrieval evaluation measures in the context of a typical commercial retrieval system. It is concluded that controlled vocabularies affect…