Explores inter-record linkage relationships of a bibliographic hypertext system through the use of descriptor term co-occurrences. Using term distribution and term exhaustivity data for an existing system, three models of term co-occurrence are developed and tested against the observed data. (Author/LRW)

Describes the process used to produce the conversions that take scores from the original Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scales to recentered scales in which the reference group scores are centered near the midpoint of the score-reporting range. Also describes the performance of the 1990 reference group and discusses issues related to…

Describes a study that collected statistics on the occurrence of terms used in searching an online catalog and investigated the correlation of the selection of terms with their occurrence in indexing. The discussion of the results includes implications for indexing theories. (19 references) (CLB)

The use of mean inter-item correlation as a technique for examining homogeneity is proposed as a descriptive tool that can orient researchers to salient aspects of their scales. A study of 341 undergraduates who completed the NEO Personality Inventory illustrates the technique. (SLD)

In many evaluations, presenting probability distributions of cost-effectiveness results offers a convenient way to show the likelihood of various conclusions given the uncertainties in the inputs. The techniques presented in this paper should be useful for many programs characterized by controversy over perspectives, assumptions, and dollar…

Examines the robustness property of Lotka's law for scholarly papers with more than one author. Adjusted counts for assigning credit to authors proportionally are explained, and two bibliographies are analyzed using frequency distributions that show where the robustness property breaks down. (nine references) (LRW)

Reviews the literature on Bradford's law (i.e., an empirical relationship describing the distribution of scholarly articles in relevant journals). A model for the distribution of articles, based on random partitioning, is presented; and a mathematical formulation for a law of scattering is derived. The relationship of the model to Bradford's law…

A complete enumeration method and a Monte Carlo method are presented to calculate the probability distribution of arbitrary statistics of adjacency matrices when these matrices have the uniform distribution conditional on given row and column sums, and possibly on a given set of structural zeros. (SLD)

Results of a Monte Carlo study with 4 populations (3,072 conditions) indicate that when distributions depart markedly from normality, nonparametric analysis and parametric analysis of transformed data show superior power to parametric analysis of raw data. Under conditions studied, parametric analysis of transformed data is more powerful than…

Proposes a procedure for generating multivariate nonnormal distributions. The procedure, an extension of the Fleishman power method (A. Fleishman, 1978), generates the average value of intercorrelations much closer to population parameters than competing procedures for skewed and heavy tailed distributions and small sample sizes. Reports Monte…

Examines various kinds of uncertainty in information science. The notion of ambiguity is defined and contrasted with the more familiar notions of randomness and vagueness. Functional forms resistant to ambiguity are defined, and it is shown how to incorporate a random component, that is itself also resistant to ambiguity, into a resilient, but…

This study presents detailed distributional analyses of voice onset times (VOTs) from seven 5-year-old children and 14 adults. Distributional non-normality was common in both data sets with children showing greater skew. Results suggest that theories of VOT development should not be based solely on means and standard deviations but need to address…

The purpose of the study was to identify strategies used by preservice elementary teachers to index distributions of data. A secondary purpose of the study was to investigate whether representational form influenced the type of representative values constructed. Two hundred eighty-three preservice teachers were administered a selection of tasks…

An inventory replenishment policy is developed for a deteriorating item and price-dependent demand. The rate of deterioration is taken to be time-proportional and the time to deterioration is assumed to follow a two-parameter Weibull distribution. A power law form of the price dependence of demand is considered. The model is solved analytically…

Mardia's measure of multivariate kurtosis has been implemented in many statistical packages commonly used by social scientists. It provides important information on whether a commonly used multivariate procedure is appropriate for inference. Many statistical packages also have options for missing data. However, there is no procedure for applying…