Search

This article reports that the study was undertaken to test whether titles of chemical papers are becoming more informative and whether uninformative titles of chemical papers are being eliminated since the advent of the KWIC index in 1958. One of the strongest objections voiced against such indexes is that titles of papers are unsatisfactory as a basis for subject index entries because titles are not composed with indexing in mind. The adequacy of titles as a source of subject content clues has been given much attention in the last decade, and many studies have been published on the subject.

A bibliography on the drug tholidomide was prepared through a search of Chemical Abstracts (CA) and Index Medicus (IM) for the years 1956-1964, which took 14.6 hours. This was compared with a similar bibliography prepared through a search of Science Citation Index [SCI) 1961 and 1964, carried out for an equal length of time according to search procedures described, in an effort to determine if and how SCI might be helpful in subject searches. A satisfactory procedure for manual search of SCI was developed. The cumulative number of references found through SCI plotted against time gave a convex curve, while corresponding data from the conventional indexes gave a linear response. For periods up to eight hours, SCI yielded more references than did either IM or CA. However, at 14.6 hours SCI did not produce all references obtainable through CA-IM. Each of the three indexes produced a high percentage of unique references, SCI's being the highest. SCI-1964's coverage of articles published in 1964 was more complete than was IM-1964's. CA-IM gave superior coverage of chemical papers, patents, and papers in the less common languages. SCI's coverage of pharmacological papers was superior to that of either CA or IM. In this search SCI and conventional indexes could be profitably used together; each produced a large number of references not to be found in the other. In this search SCI was not appreciably less efficient in retrieving drug references than were CA and IM; for short time intervals, it was more efficient. More general conclusions must await further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citation indexes to large bodies of science literature can often list far more citing references under the known cited reference than the user can afford the time to look up. By providing some additional information, beyond the minimal association of the citing reference with the cited reference, a citation index could provide the means for the user to select from a long list those citing references which are most relevant to his immediate search requirement. Means of providing this selectivity are discussed. Particular attention is given to the possibility of adding short codes to the citation entries which would be informative on the way in which the citing publication is operationally related to the cited one (this method is an integral feature of the Shepard's legal citations). A scheme of citation relationships of potential value to users of science literature is presented. These relationships were tested on a sampling of physics literature. The suggested categories include indicators of the relation of the citing reference to the scientific process in general, as well as indicators of its relationship to the cited reference in particular. Assignment of the categories to a citation requires the exercise of judgment, as in subject indexing, but does not involve the use of subject terminology. An illustration is provided of the application of citation relationship indicators to an excerpt from a citation index to physics literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article informs that the information requirements can be specified in terms of one or more characteristic features. If the identification and selection of papers, patents, and other records is to be accomplished with the aid of automatic equipment, then such identification and selection must be formalized in terms of well-defined routine operations. The analysis of the subject content of documents is a necessary prerequisite to rendering them amenable to identification by machine searching operations. In conducting such analysis, the significance of the subject content of each document must be carefully considered in the light of its importance and probable usefulness to other workers in the field.

This paper describes the solution of a multi-index transportation problem where there are three indices The method of solution is an extension of the modi-method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents comments and discussion on an article by Saul Hymans on composite leading indicators. Discussion of various parts of the paper; Criticism.

The Montgomery-Swanson study of Index Medicus heading-title correlations is discussed. Some presently unanswered questions relevant to practical use of their automatic indexing technique are indicated. Contrasted with the 86% heading-title correlation figure which they found for Index Medicus are the following ranges (based on small samples); Index-Handbook of Cardiovascular Agents: 19-45%. Merck Sharp and Dohme Retrieval System: 40-68%; NIH Research Grants Index: 13-39 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a bibliography related to information science that appeared in the 1963 issue of the journal "American Documentation." It includes author and corporate source index, documentation, general reference works and sources of information. Some of the documentations include: "Concerning the Probability That a Given Paper Will Be Cited," by M.M. Kessler and F.E. Heart; "Action Plan for Improved Dissemination of Engineering Information," by Eugene Wall; "The Critical Problem of Biological Information," by B. Glass.

Presents a paper on capacity in manufacturing and the need for accuracy since it is used to formulate many other forecasts. Series of indexes on operating rates of manufacturers; Recent developments on measuring operating rates; Belief that operating rates promise significant clues to the most important stabilization questions of the day; Suggestion of alternate measures of capacity; Comment on the McGraw-Hill surveys; thoughts on the Federal Reserve Board index; Comments on the Wharton Index; Listing of characteristics of the measure included cyclical bias and growth in capacity; Recent hazards for estimating capacity; Disaggregating measure of capacity; Predicting capacity growth and investment; Prediction of price changes; Operating rate levels; The inflation on 1973 and its role in determining performance; Conclusions.

Presents an index of various literature on rural sociology.

In this paper we studied the pattern of occurrences of words in text as part of an attempt to develop formal rules for identifying those indicative of content and thereby suitable for use as index terms. The significance of this work lies in its potential use in more efficient fully automatic retrieval systems, and possibly even for providing insight into the intellectual process of indexing. This work begins with the observation that content- bearing words are concentrated in fewer documents than non-content-bearing words. This concept is made more precise and tested in a corpus made up of abstracts to the works of Freud. It was found that most non-content words have distributions much closer to what would result from a random process than is the case for words useful for indexing. A probabilistic model was proposed which, with a suitable fitting of parameters, could account for the occupancy distribution of most words, both index terms and non-index terms. The parameters take quite different values for the two classes. In this model each abstract was considered to receive word occurrences in a Poisson process. Abstracts can then be divided into classes, such that all abstracts within a given class receive word occurrences at the same average rate. The appearance of a particular number of occurrences of some word within an abstract then serves to give information, in a Bayesian sense, on the class membership of that abstract. It is of central interest to determine the minimum number of classes that can account for the occupancy distribution of each word. Though more testing needs to be done it may be concluded that the distribution of a very large majority of words can be accounted for by assuming three or fewer classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a paper that attempts to provide a fairly complete analysis of the performance of the existing composite index of leading indicators as a predictor of the major swings in economic activity in the period since the Second World War. Identification of the twelve variables that form the composite index of leading indicators (CLI) and presents a view of the rationale for constructing the CLI; Indication of how spectral analysis might be used to form a new leading indicator that overcomes some of the difficulties revealed in the current CLI, and the evaluation of two variants of such an indicator; Conclusions and suggestions for further work.

Despite excessive glamorizing of the role of computers in publishing, truly economical applications are beginning to emerge. Many types of directories, indexes, cumulated bibliographies, and cumulated library book catalogs can today be put through a computer in less time and at less cost than for conventional typesetting. Examples of successful applications are given, after taking up one by one the many system design decisions that must be made in the areas of input hardware, computer hardware, computer software, and output hardware. Major attention is given to the proofreading problem, because line printers are still far from ideal for producing the equivalent of galley proofs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines and describes the KWIC (keyword in context) index concept, providing a history of the concept and of its literature. It discusses variations of the index, such as the Bell Telephone Index, KWOC indexes, and the WADEX. The paper discusses improvements and variations to the KWIC index, such as manipulation of the index line, variations of the code, addition of classification information, combination of author index and title index, and improvements of the type face. It also discusses improvements to the preparation of the KWIC indexes, such as improvement of titles and use of a thesaurus, and discusses improvement of the use of the KWIC index. The paper discusses the usage of the KWIC index and comments on the future of KWIC indexes and of the KWIC concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents block diagrams for the process of index-making by computer, as well as explanatory text, based on experience in the application of the diagram to the production of two different indexes. The method described is called a generalized method because, first of all, its presentation is in general terms, and secondly, because its property of generality makes it suitable to a "first-cut" analysis of a great variety of index-making applications. More detailed flow charts for two different applications (one of them proposed) of the generalized method are given, as well as a diagram for combining an information retrieval system with a system for index production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is an attempt to evaluate the registered data on Canadian Indians collected by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and to prepare vital rates for 1960-1970 using the adjusted data. A cursory examination of registered data for the purpose of developing various demographic indices and for making future estimates of population indicates certain anomalies that call for a careful appraisal of the data. The main problem is the inconsistency in the reporting of births, due largely to the late registration of births. One plausible reason for late registration may be the increased outward movement of Indians from their reserves. Indirect methods are used to adjust the number of births and infant deaths reported annually since 1960. On the basis of the adjusted data, vital rates for the Canadian Indians are calculated for the period 1960-1970. The crude death rate decreased from 10.9 in 1960 to 7.5 in 1970. The infant mortality rate registered a drastic decline, from 81.5 deaths per 1,000 births in 1960 to 34.9 in 1970. During this same time period the birth rate also declined, from 46.5 to 37.2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, which is the first step in our efforts to produce an objective standard for use in measuring the investment performance of any portfolio of securities over some period of time, we introduce the average investment performance index (AIPI). The AIPI measures the average return which could have been realized during a particular time period from some specified universe of securities. Our reasons for constructing the AIPI are presented in Section I, where we also formally define the AIPI and discuss the random portfolios which conceptually underlie it. Section II is a mathematical development of the AIPI's properties. We find that the AIPI is equivalent to an unweighted arithmetic average of all actual returns in the given universe of securities, we show how to compute the variance of returns from all possible random portfolios, and we develop a method for linking the values of the AIPI across successive time periods. The use of the AIPI and the variance of random portfolio returns for rating the investment results achieved by portfolio managers is discussed and illustrated in Section III. We feel that the objective evaluations which are the basis of our illustrations should allow the reader to assess the applicability and implications of using the AIPI as a measure of investment performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the research paper "Commercial and Technical Library Service in Great Britain," by Agnes O. Hanson. The integration of commercial, scientific and technical information service is achieved, according to the writer, mainly through the Science Museum Library, DSIR and the research associations, indexes and abstracting services, Aslib, and certain London libraries.

The article presents a discussion on the papers written by students of the third grade about the history of the growth of Chicago, Illinois from the time it was a trading post through its pioneer stage. It also presents the first of two sections of the papers entitled "Chicago of Long Ago" and a subject index to provide an idea about the contents of each child's book. It also presents selected sections from the children's works which are most essential in telling a brief story of Chicago's growth through the past century. The papers present correlated works in geography, industrial science, mathematics, handwork, and art.

Computer dissemination of information offers significant advantages over manual dissemination because the computer can use strategies that are impractical and in same cases impossible for a human. This paper describes the Ames Laboratory Selective Dissemination of Information system with emphasis on the effectiveness of user feedback. The system will accept any document, abstract, keywords, etc., in a KWIC or Science Citation Index Source format. User profiles consist of words or word clusters each with an initially assigned significance value. These values are used in making the decision to notify a user that he may be interested in a particular document. According to responses, the significance values are increased or decreased and quickly attain an equilibrium which accurately describes of user's interests. The system is economical compared to other existing SDI systems and human intervention is negligible except for adding and deleting profile entries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though a single summary index of mortality can never replace the set of age-specific death rates, it has been found to be extremely useful for a wide variety of purposes. Such indexes are generally one of two types: aggregative indexes, such as directly standardized rates which reflect absolute differences between corresponding age-specific mortality rates; and average of relatives indexes which reflect proportional differences between those rates. The choice of index depends upon the purposes for which it is to be used, and is important as different indexes can produce very different results. While directly standardized rates are widely used, they depend upon the selection of an appropriate standard population and give disproportionately heavy weight to the high ages. Average of relatives indexes give equal weight to all ages, but are infrequently used as no index of that type has gained wide acceptability. This paper recommends the use of the geometric mean of the age-specific mortality rates as such an index, and shows that this index is readily calculable, unbiased, needs no standard population, is directly comparable to all other indexes so calculated, and accurately reflects exponential mortality patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a discussion on "segregation indices" which deals with issues like the way to define the amount of Negro segregation in a city. It is to define measures of association for a contingency table with only two columns, that is, where one of the attributes, like Negro and non-Negro, is dichotomous. Instead of a minority and dominant group, one may, for instance, compare men and women, an experimental and control group, and so forth. Likewise, the manifold attribute need not be location. If there is anything special about the residential segregation problem, it is that there are a large number of census tracts roughly equal in population, that is, that the row totals of the contingency table are approximate. To convert chi square for a table with two columns into an index with the range o to 1, one merely divide it by the total population. The quotient is called the mean square contingency, or phi square. Two of the proposed indices are nothing but special applications of phi, in one case for a particular fourfold table, in the other by k table. Furthermore, the familiar approach by k table is more easily generalized.

Presents an index of books and related references on sociology, which appeared in the June 1970 issue of "Rural Sociology." Population, labor force, migration; Ecology, use of physical and natural resources; Social organization, community institutions.

Presents an index of books and related references on sociology, which appeared in the September 1969 issue of "Rural Sociology."

The article presents the results of a study in which analyzes the relationships between factuality and the discussion of value in an impartial sample of recent sociological writings. In this study, two sentences were chosen, by explicit routine rules, from each available page in 51 consecutive signed articles in the "American Sociological Review" and from 19 consecutive signed articles in the "American Journal of Sociology." This study considered factual and non-factual sentences dealing directly with values. The first type of non-factual sentences is referred as unsupported value judgments. The second type of non-factual sentences included all generalizations not dealing directly with values and clearly not belonging in the category. This group if informally referred as sweeping generalisations. This study involved calculation on intercorrelations between indexes representing the relative frequencies of all types of sentences. The objective of the study is to determine to what extent factual and non-factual treatments of values are correlated with each other and with factual and non-factual treatments of non-valuational matter.

This article reports that the January-February 1970 issue of "Journal of the American Society for Information Science," offered two interesting and stimulating articles on KWIC indexes--Robert T. Bottle's "Title Indexes as Alerting Services in the Chemical and Life Sciences," and Nancy E. Brodie's "Evaluation of a KWIC Index for Library Literature." Some additional information, together with the results of a replication of the Montgomery and Swanson study by Doris Miller and comments on the suitability of KWIC indexing for library literature may also be found in a paper by one of the authors for the Albany Conference on Bibliographic Control of Library Science Literature.

The article presents a list of papers published in the 1973 issue of the periodical. Some papers are "Announcements," "API Method Extended," "Airline Crew-Scheduling," "Air-Cargo Deployment Combat Personnel," "Aircraft Average Number Collisions," "Collision Probabilities," "Large Relative Velocity," "Special Cases, Velocity," "Air Fleet Evaluation Model (AFEM)," "Airports, Parallel Runways," "Air Routes, Potential Conflict," "Air-Route Network Planning," "Augmented Predecessor Indexing Method," "Books of Interest," "Brisbane City Council Transport Services, Note," "Broken Shifts, Bus Scheduling," "Bus Crew Scheduling," "Chesapeake Bay Bridge Traffic Control," "Column Generation Algorithm," "Combat Personnel, Equipment, Deployment," "Comparison, Steady-State and Simulation Methods," "Designing Transportation Networks," "Digital Simulation, Freeway Traffic, Long Island Expressway, New York," "Facility Location Algorithm," "Feeder Transit Lines," "Freeway Traffic, Digital Simulation," "General Networks Lemmas," "Generalized Network Problems," and "Generalized Transportation Problems."

The article presents information on the search system analysis sheet prepared by National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Scientific and Technical Information Facility operated for NASA by Documentation Incorporated delivered to selected NASA contractors nearly 700 literature searches, which are not necessarily restricted to the collections of the Facility, but now are in excess of 100,000 documents. Since searching of the Facility's store is done by computer, however, a request which limits itself to this universe can be delivered many times faster than one requiring more conventional techniques, such as manual searching of abstract journal indexes.

A curious inconsistency in the contention that descriptors are different from Uniterms is described. In the actual operation of a descriptor system, Uniterms play an important, if not critical, role. In fact, the descriptor itself is dispensable, its sole purpose being to code Uniterms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information how abstract plus indexes versus translations as services contribute to the availability of scientific information. Availability of information is the basic objective both of (1) the translation and (2) the abstracting and accompanying indexing of scientific publications. Both methods help scientists to keep informed, but he believes that informative abstracts plus thorough indexes thereto are far and away the more useful for this purpose. The literature of science is enormous and it is growing very rapidly. Much importance must be accorded to the question of the availability of recorded information for use when needed.

A subject index for the September 1973 issue, "The Production and Properties of Nonwoven Fabrics," is presented.

Presents a response to the article by George Perry on manufacturing capacity. How the indexes measuring capacity have been contradictory at times; Reasons for that; Explanation of the full capacity concept; Consideration of capacity utilization as an explanatory variable; Contemporary findings.

This paper considers the adequacy of unit value indexes as proxies for industrial selling price indexes in Canada, in light of the considerations raised in the Searle report for the United States (summarized elsewhere in this issue). Some 3,237 regressions are run using the industrial selling price index for a commodity group as the dependent variable and the corresponding unit value index as the independent variable. The unit value indexes perform poorly as predictors of the I.S.P.I.; the overall tendency is for the unit value index to overestimate changes in the I.S.P.I., and to explain on average only about 30 percent of the total variance of the I.S.P.I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cluster analysis procedure is described in which 288 journals in the disciplines of physics, chemistry and molecular biology are grouped into clusters. Most of the clusters are easily identified as subdisciplinary subject areas. The data source was the cross citing amongst the journals derived from the Journal Citation Index UCI), a file derived in turn from the Science Citation Index (SCI)®. The JCI consists of journal by journal tabulation of citings to and from each journal processed in the SCI. Two-step citation maps linking the clusters ore presented for each discipline. Within the disciplines the clusters of journals form fully transitive hierarchies with very few relational conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a statistically adequate set of construction price indexes is the goal of a research effort recently instituted at the Bureau of the Census. This paper describes research done to date on price indexes for single-family houses and indicates plans for future research. Using data from the Bureau's Housing Sales Survey, indexes of the price of new one-family houses sold (including value of site) have been computed by determining the most important characteristics of these houses and estimating, by regression analysis, the price change in houses with a constant "mix" of these characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]