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Abstract

A special issue dealing with the object oriented approaches in artificial intelligence and human computer interactions

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Abstract

Ask a person on the street whether new technologies bring about important social change and you are likely to hear a resounding "yes." But the answer is less definitive amongst academics who study technology and social practice. Scholarly writing has been heavily influenced by the ideology of technological determinism - the belief that some types or technologically driven social changes are inevitable and cannot be stopped. Rather than argue for or against notions of determinism, the authors in this book ask how the materiality (the arrangement of physical, digital, or rhetorical materials into particular forms that endure across differences in place and time) of technologies, ranging from computer-simulation tools and social media, to ranking devices and rumors, is actually implicated in the process of formal and informal organizing. The book builds a new theoretical framework to consider the important socio-technical changes confronting people's everyday experiences in and outside of work. Leading scholars in the field contribute original chapters examining the complex interactions between technology and the social, between artifact and humans. The discussion spans multiple disciplines, including management, information systems, informatics, communication, sociology, and the history of technology, and opens up a new area of research regarding the relationship between materiality and organizing.

Content

Materiality and Organizing marks a long overdue turning point in the scholarly study of the human-technology relationship that now engulfs our lives. For too long, researchers have tended to treat technology as a dream conjured by agents and imbued with their projects. This brilliant sequence of essays restores and deepens the entire field of perception. It finally returns us to the facticity of technology as it persistently redefines the horizon of the possible. These tightly argued masterpieces reestablish technology as embodied and significant. Most importantly, they return us to materiality just in time. With each passing day, technology becomes both more abstracted from its physical manifestations and more ubiquitous, producing a dematerialized materiality. Only a relentless focus on this paradox will yield the intellectual tools that are required to participate in our own destinies. Shoshana Zuboff, Charles Edward Wilson Professor, Harvard Business School This volume is a much-needed exploration of the material aspects of the technologies that have reshaped our world. For two decades, a narrative framing technologies as social constructions has led to important advances in our understanding of their nature and impacts. Materiality and Organizing provides an important counterbalance to this approach in its exploration of the dimensions of materiality that constrain but also enable technologies to connect with and affect people, organizations, and society. This volume is required reading for scholars interested in technology, its development, and its impacts. Its insights into information technology are particularly significant. Professor Marshall Scott Poole, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign For too long the materiality of social life has been ignored by sociologists and organization studies scholars. The role of materiality in social life is turning out to be one of the most interesting and difficult issues in the field. This multidisciplinary collection does not offer a single solution but offers the latest thoughts of scholars who try and take materiality seriously in their own research. The resulting volume is a deep and fascinating collection of essays. (Professor Trevor Pinch, Cornell University)

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Abstract

With the ongoing digitization and virtualization of goods, services and living environments, information science reflects on the potential changes within the information society. While some parts of the community proclaim a revolutionary shift not only in the way we approach information and information systems, but also in the way society constitutes itself, other state that while the applications and interfaces adapt to advances in information technology, the underlying principles for human interactions with informations remain the same. In the ISI 2017 proceedings, contributions on the development of innovative information spaces and services, on analyses of human-computer interactions in physical or virtual inforamtion spaces and on the role of information science and its research endeavors are included.

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Abstract

For the purposes of library and information science research, transaction lof analysis can be narrowly defined as the study of electronically recorded interactions between online information retrieval systems and the persons who search for the information found in those systems. Researchers most often use transaction log data with the intention of improving an information retrieval system, human utilization of the system, and human (and perhaps also system) understanding of how the system is used by information seekers. Transaction log analysis can provide system designers and managers with valuable information about how the system is being employed by actual users. It also can be used to study prototype systems or potential system improvements

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Abstract

Organizing is such a common activity that we often do it without thinking much about it. In our daily lives we organize physical things--books on shelves, cutlery in kitchen drawers--and digital things--Web pages, MP3 files, scientific datasets. Millions of people create and browse Web sites, blog, tag, tweet, and upload and download content of all media types without thinking "I'm organizing now" or "I'm retrieving now." This book offers a framework for the theory and practice of organizing that integrates information organization (IO) and information retrieval (IR), bridging the disciplinary chasms between Library and Information Science and Computer Science, each of which views and teaches IO and IR as separate topics and in substantially different ways. It introduces the unifying concept of an Organizing System--an intentionally arranged collection of resources and the interactions they support--and then explains the key concepts and challenges in the design and deployment of Organizing Systems in many domains, including libraries, museums, business information systems, personal information management, and social computing. Intended for classroom use or as a professional reference, the book covers the activities common to all organizing systems: identifying resources to be organized; organizing resources by describing and classifying them; designing resource-based interactions; and maintaining resources and organization over time. The book is extensively annotated with disciplinary-specific notes to ground it with relevant concepts and references of library science, computing, cognitive science, law, and business.

Content

Foundations for Organizing Systems -- Activities in Organizing Systems -- Resources in Organizing Systems -- Resource Description and Metadata -- Describing Relationships and Structures -- Categorization: Describing Resource Classes and Types -- Classification: Assigning Resources to Categories -- The Forms of Resource Descriptions -- Interactions with Resources -- A Roadmap for Organizing Systems.

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Abstract

Environmental changes are the result of complex interplay among a number of natural and human-related systems. The global ggregate of interactive linkanges among the major systems that affect the environment has become defined as 'global change', The term is intended to encompass the full range of global issues and interactions concerning natural and human-induced changes in the earth's environment. The Global Change Research Act of 1990 defines global change as 'changes in the global environment (including alterations in climate, land productivity, oceans or other water resources, atmospheric chemistry, and ecological systems) that may alter understanding and predicting the cvauses and impacts of; and potential chnages in, atmospheric ozone and UV radiation; and natural climate fluctuations over seasonal to interannual time periods. Other related global issues include desertification, deforstation, land use management, and preservation of ecosystems". These articles deal with how the federal agencies and other organizations are working together to address the critical issues of our earth's changing environment

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Abstract

Web-related studies are a relatively new area of research. Tremendous growth continues in Web use, Web search engines, and Web sites. The interdisciplinary scope of Web research is broadening, and is now an important topic for publication in prestigious scientific journals such as Science and Nature. We are beginning to map the nature of users' Web interactions and the dimensions of better Web systems. However, researchers' and users struggle daily with the tough problems inherent in a system used for general interaction and e-commerce on a massive scale. This special issue of the Journal of the American Society for Information Sciences and Technology includes research articles that address key Web-related issues and problems. Individually and collectively, the articles provide a significant and substantial body of Web research. The diverse range of articles includes studies in Web searching, Web pages, and Web agents. Web searching research develops models of user behavior and conducts trends analysis of large-scale user data. Web page and system research centers on the development and testing of new algorithms, agents, Web page design, interfaces, and systems. Social and organizational impacts and aspects of the Web are not well represented in this special issue. A further special issue including social and organizational Web research is much needed

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Abstract

Knowledge Organization Systems/Services (KOS), such as classifications, gazetteers, lexical databases, ontologies, taxonomies and thesauri, model the underlying semantic structure of a domain. They can support subject indexing and facilitate resource discovery and retrieval, whether by humans or by machines. New networked KOS services and applications are emerging and we are reaching the stage where we can prepare the work for future exploitation of common representations and protocols for distributed use. A number of technologies could be combined to yield new solutions. The papers published here are concerned with different types of KOS, discuss various standards issues and span the information lifecycle.

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Abstract

Held for the first time in the United States, the Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS4) is the fourth in the series of international conferences that bring together leading researchers from around the world. CoLIS4 provides a forum for critically exploring and analyzing library and information science as a discipline and as a field of research from historical, philosophical, theoretical, and methodological perspectives. The papers in this volume cover a wide variety of topics, presenting the latest research and information on new developments and new approaches to conceptual frameworks and methods in library and information science. Papers range from a re-examination of the core concepts to empirical studies, analyzing such areas as Web searching, information retrieval, informetrics, information behavior, aspects of learning, business intelligence, and information processing mechanisms. As library and information science is closely associated with a variety of other disciplines and its practice employs technologies that are changing rapidly, presenters focus on the old and the new, address theory and practice, and bridge diverse intellectual areas. From challenging existing approaches and proposing new ones to establishing models and reviewing methods-the presenters lead the way to change and further exploration.

Content

The Fourth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS4), held at the The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, continued the tradition of the previous three CoLIS conferences, begun in 1991 at the University of Tampere, Finland. CoLIS4 was organized by Washington in cooperation with the Department of Information Studies, Tampere, the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Denmark, and the American Society for Information Science and Technology. As in the previous conferences, CoLIS4 invited papers presenting new research topics and approaches in library and information science (LIS) and, at the same time, encouraged contributors and attendees to step back from the practice and dissemination of their research to assess the current state of LIS as a discipline, from historical, theoretical, philosophical, and empirical perspectives. Held for the first time in North America-significantly at the home of a revitalized and actively expanding LIS program in a technology-rich region-CoLIS4 attracted 120 attendees from 16 countries. Presenters and attendees were mostly LIS researchers from academic institutions and research institutes, as well as a number from the information and technology industries. Three full days included a keynote address, 17 papers by an international slate of presenters, two panel discussions, and a poster session during an evening reception. The conference was preceded and followed by two days of tutorials and workshops, as well as a doctoral presentation forum. Breakfasts, lunches, coffee breaks, and a banquet at Microsoft Corporation headquarters were provided to give participants ample time to mix informally.
To encourage a spirit of deeper reflection, the organizing committee invited 20-minute paper presentations, each followed by 10 minutes of discussion. (There were no separate, concurrent tracks.) This approach encouraged direct follow-up questions and discussion which carried forward from session to session, providing a satisfying sense of continuity to the overall conference theme of exploring the interaction between conceptual and empirical approaches to LIS. The expressed goals of CoLIS4 were to: - explore the existing and emerging conceptual frameworks and methods of library and information science as a field, - encourage discourse about the character and definitions of key concepts in LIS, and - examine the position of LIS among parallel contemporary domains and professions likewise concerned with information and information technology, such as computer science, management information systems, and new media and communication studies. The keynote address by Tom Wilson (University of Sheffield) provided an historical perspective on the philosophical and research frameworks of LIS in the post-World War II period. He traced the changing emphases on the objects of LIS study: definitions of information and documents; information retrieval, relevance, systems, and architectures; information users and behaviors. He raised issues of the relevance of LIS research to real-world information services and practice, and the gradual shift in research approaches from quantitative to qualitative. He concluded by stressing the ongoing need of LIS for cumulative, theory-based, and content-rich bodies of research, meaningful to practitioners and useful to contemporary LIS education.
Themes and questions threaded throughout the conference papers and panels addressed the uniqueness of LIS as a contemporary "intersection of information, technology, people, and society" (CoLIS Proceedings Preface). Papers by Birger Hjørland and by Sanna Talja, Kimmo Tuominen, and Reijo Savolainen directly addressed the essential nature and metatheory of LIS as a field of inquiry by reviewing its theoretical models and epistemological perspectives, such as the information transfer model and socio-cognitive theory. The cognitive grounding of much LIS research was present in Pertti Vakkari's and Mikko Pennanen's study linking university students' concept formation with their search processes and task performances while preparing research proposals, as well as in Peter Ingwersen's analysis of the cognitive conception of document polyrepresentation (multiple ways of representing documents) applied to information retrieval. A number of papers presented empirically and theoretically derived taxonomies of the fundamental characteristics of information bearers (documents and systems) and information behaviors (both individual and collaborative). These mark a contemporary effort to enumerate and classify the elements that LIS researchers should be examining and with which they should be building systems and generating theory. Nicholas Belkin and Colleen Cool reported on field research with which they are constructing a taxonomy of interactions in information seeking and communication behavior, to be used to inform information system building. Rong Tang presented her taxonomic study of Web searching query patterns and argued for the need to link these to user cognitive operations and search tasks. Linda Cooper explored school children's categorizations and knowledge of information organization in libraries by having them arrange books and topics visually and spatially on "virtual" bookshelves. Kartriina Byström and Preben Hansen proposed a nested typology of the concepts of work tasks, information seeking tasks, and information retrieval tasks as units of analysis for LIS research. Work task and domain analysis figured importantly in several papers, reflecting a increasing application of information context research approaches. In addition to Byström and Hansen's theoretical study of the concepts of tasks in general, the work reported by researchers at Risø National Laboratory, Denmark (Annelise Mark Pejtersen, Bryan Cleal, Morten Hertzum, Hanne Albrechtsen) demonstrated the application of the Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) framework used to inform the design of a virtual "collaboratory" used by three European film archives. Birger Hjørland asserted that domain analysis, including the study of the interests, goals, values, and consequences of information use and users in specific subject and work domains, is central to the practice of LIS.
LIS research and evaluation methodologies fell under the same scrutiny and systematization, particularly in the presentations employing multiple and mixed methodologies. Jaana Kekäläinen's and Kalervo Järvelin's proposal for a framework of laboratory information retrieval evaluation measures, applied along with analyses of information seeking and work task contexts, employed just such a mix. Marcia Bates pulled together Bradford's Law of Scattering of decreasingly relevant information sources and three information searching techniques (browsing, directed searching, and following links) to pose the question: what are the optimum searching techniques for the different regions of information concentrations? Jesper Schneider and Pia Borlund applied bibliometric methods (document co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and co-word analysis) to augment manual thesaurus construction and maintenance. Fredrik Åström examined document keyword co-occurrence measurement compared to and then combined with bibliometric co-citation analysis to map LIS concept spaces. Ian Ruthven, Mounia Lalmas, and Keith van Rijsbergen compared system-supplied query expansion terms with interactive user query expansion, incorporating both partial relevance assessment feedback (how relevant is a document) and ostensive relevance feedback (measuring when a document is assessed as relevant over time). Scheduled in the midst of the presentations were two stimulating panel and audience discussions. The first panel, chaired by Glynn Harmon, explored the current re-positioning of many library and information science schools by renaming themselves to eliminate the "library" word and emphasize the "information" word (as in "School of Information," "Information School," and schools of "Information Studies"). Panelists Marcia Bates, Harry Bruce, Toni Carbo, Keith Belton, and Andrew Dillon presented the reasons for name changes in their own information programs, which include curricular change and expansion beyond a "stereotypical" library focus, broader contemporary theoretical approaches to information, new clientele and markets for information services and professionals, new media formats and delivery models, and new interdisciplinary student and faculty recruitment from crossover fields. Sometimes criticized for over-broadness and ambiguity-and feared by library practitioners who were trained in more traditional library schools-renaming schools both results from and occasions a renewed examination of the definitions and boundaries of the field as a whole and the educational and research missions of individual schools.
Another panel discussion, "The Dark Side of Information Technology," chaired by Victor Rosenberg, focused on the role of LIS in studying and ameliorating the contemporary social impact of technology and of information itself. Panelists Rosenberg, Paul Edwards, and David Levy asked what the social and psychological impact of information and its technologies means for how LIS studies people and collections as parts of information "systems." They suggested that LIS as a discipline is the logical forum for discussing the negative effects of technology and the less healthy aspects of information-its increasing ubiquity and volume, speedy proliferation, and invasive potential-as well as their demonstrated positive potential for applications in education and community-building. Several audience contributors, however, questioned the reality and "hype" of information overload and threats to human psychology and social values, and also reminded the attendees that new technologies and information encourage self-sufficiency and independence in developing countries. (Indeed, the global impact of information science and technologies was a theme of several conference papers, for example, in the studies of Erica Cosijn, Ari Pirkola, Theo Bothma, and Kalervo Järvelin of cross-lingual information access in indigenous languages and in Irene Wormell's study of the global dissemination of national and regional LIS journals by means of informetric analysis and the quantitative study of information flows.) With re-examination of such a broad range of interests, principles, methodologies, and applications of LIS currently taking place, CoLIS4 was in itself a demonstration of a spontaneous, collaborative "domain analysis." The CoLIS4 goal of providing a forum for just this sort of discussion was well realized.

Date

22. 2.2007 18:56:23
22. 2.2007 19:12:10

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Classification

303.48/33 22 (LoC)

DDC

303.48/33 22 (LoC)

Footnote

Rez. in: JASIST 58(2007) no.1, S.150-151 (L. Westbrook): "The purpose of this volume is to bring together various analyses by international scholars of the social and cultural impact of information technology on individuals and societies (preface, n.p.). It grew from the First International Conference on Human Perspectives in the Internet Society held in Cadiz, Spain, in 2004. The editors and contributors have addressed an impressive array of significant issues with rigorous research and insightful analysis although the resulting volume does suffer from the usual unevenness in depth and content that affects books based on conference proceedings. Although the $256 price is prohibitive for many individual scholars, the effort to obtain a library edition for perusal regarding particular areas of interest is likely to prove worthwhile. Unlike many international conferences that are able to attract scholars from only a handful of nations, this genuinely diverse conference included research conducted in Australia, Beijing, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, England, Fiji, Germany, Greece, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Norway, Russia, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United States. The expense of a conference format and governmental travel restrictions may have precluded greater inclusion of the work being done to develop information technology for use in nonindustrialized nations in support of economic, social justice, and political movements. Although the cultural variants among these nations preclude direct cross-cultural comparisons, many papers carefully provide sufficient background information to make basic conceptual transfers possible. A great strength of the work is the unusual combination of academic disciplines that contributes substantially to the depth of many individual papers, particularly when they are read within the larger context of the entire volume. Although complete professional affiliations are not universally available, the authors who did name their affiliation come from widely divergent disciplines including accounting, business administration, architecture, business computing, communication, computing, economics, educational technology, environmental management, experimental psychology, gender research in computer science, geography, human work sciences, humanistic informatics, industrial engineering, information management, informatics in transport and telecommunications, information science, information technology, management, mathematics, organizational behavior, pedagogy, psychology, telemedicine, and women's education. This is all to the good, but the lack of representation from departments of women's studies, gender studies, and library studies certainly limits the breadth and depth of the perspectives provided.
The editorial and peer review processes appear to be slightly spotty in application. All of the 55 papers are in English but a few of them are in such need of basic editing that they are almost incomprehensible in sections. Consider, for example, the following: "So, the meaning of region where we are studying on, should be discovered and then affect on the final plan" (p. 346). The collection shows a strong array of methodological approaches including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies; however, a few of the research efforts exhibit fundamental design flaws. Consider, for example, the study that "set[s] out to show that nurses as care-givers find it difficult to transfer any previously acquired technological skills into their work based on technology needs (p. 187). After studying 39 female and 6 male nurses, this study finds, not surprisingly, exactly what it "set out" to find. Rather than noting the limitations of sample size and data gathering techniques, the paper firmly concludes that nurses can be technologists "only in areas of technology that support their primary role as carers" (p. 188). Finally, some of the papers do not report on original research but are competent, if brief, summaries of theories or concepts that are covered in equal depth elsewhere. For example, a three-page summary of "the major personality and learning theories" (p. 3) is useful but lacks the intellectual depth or insight needed to contribute substantially to the field. These problems with composition, methodological rigor, and theoretical depth are not uncommon in papers designed for a broadly defined conference theme. The authors may have been writing for an in-person audience and anticipating thoughtful postpresentation discussions; they probably had no idea of the heavy price tag put on their work. The editors, however, might have kept that $256 in mind and exercised a heavier editorial hand. Perhaps the publisher could have paid for a careful subject indexing of the work as a substantive addition to the author index provided. The complexity of the subject domains included in the volume certainly merits careful indexing.
The volume is organized into 13 sections, each of which contains between two and eight conference papers. As with most conferences, the papers do not cover the issues in each section with equal weight or depth but the editors have grouped papers into reasonable patterns. Section 1 covers "understanding online behavior" with eight papers on problems such as e-learning attitudes, the neuropsychology of HCI, Japanese blogger motivation, and the dividing line between computer addiction and high engagement. Sections 2 (personality and computer attitudes), 3 (cyber interactions), and 4 (new interaction methods) each contain only two papers on topics such as helmet-mounted displays, online energy audits, and the use of ICT in family life. Sections 6, 7, and 8 focus on gender issues with papers on career development, the computer literacy of Malaysian women, mentoring, gaming, and faculty job satisfaction. Sections 9 and 10 move to a broader examination of cyber society and its diversity concerns with papers on cultural identity, virtual architecture, economic growth's impact on culture, and Iranian development impediments. Section 11's two articles on advertising might well have been merged with those of section 13's ebusiness. Section 12 addressed education with papers on topics such as computer-assisted homework, assessment, and Web-based learning. It would have been useful to introduce each section with a brief definition of the theme, summaries of the major contributions of the authors, and analyses of the gaps that might be addressed in future conferences. Despite the aforementioned concerns, this volume does provide a uniquely rich array of technological analyses embedded in social context. An examination of recent works in related areas finds nothing that is this complex culturally or that has such diversity of disciplines. Cultural Production in a Digital Age (Klinenberg, 2005), Perspectives and Policies on ICT in Society (Berleur & Avgerou, 2005), and Social, Ethical, and Policy Implications of Information Technology (Brennan & Johnson, 2004) address various aspects of the society/Internet intersection but this volume is unique in its coverage of psychology, gender, and culture issues in cyberspace. The lip service often given to global concerns and the value of interdisciplinary analysis of intransigent social problems seldom develop into a genuine willingness to listen to unfamiliar research paradigms. Academic silos and cultural islands need conferences like this one-willing to take on the risk of examining the large questions in an intellectually open space. Editorial and methodological concerns notwithstanding, this volume merits review and, where appropriate, careful consideration across disciplines."

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Content

Inhalt: Patrick Hayes: On being the same: keynote address 1. The role of classification and ontology on the Web Dan Brickley: Classification, collaboration and the Web of data - Guus Schreiber: Issues in publishing and aligning Web vocabularies - Thomas Baker: The concepts of knowledge organization systems as hubs in the Web of data 2. Classifications and ontologies on their own terms Barbara H. Kwasnik: Approaches to providing context in knowledge representation structures - Richard Smiraglia; Charles van den Heuvel; Thomas M. Dousa: Interactions between elementary structures in universes of knowledge - Emad Khazraee; Xia Lin: Demystifying ontology 3. Classification meets the Web Daniel Kless; Jutta Lindenthal; Simon Milton; Edmund Kazmierczak: Interoperability of knowledge organization systems with and through ontologies - Vincenzo Maltese; Feroz Farazi: Towards the integration of knowledge organization systems with the linked data cloud - Maria Rüther; Joachim Fock; Thomas Schultz-Krutisch; Thomas Bandholtz: Classification and reference vocabulary in linked environment data
7. Transforming and extending classification systems Joan S. Mitchell; Marcia Lei Zeng; Maja Zumer: Extending models for controlled vocabularies to classification systems: modelling DDC with FRSAD - Fran Alexander; Andy Heather: Transformation of a legacy UDC-based classification system: exploiting and remodelling semantic relationships - Posters - Short papers Andrea Scharnhorst; Almila Akdag Salah; Krzysztof Suchecki; Cheng Gao; Richard P. Smiraglia: The evolution of knowledge, and its representation in classification systems - Charles van den Heuvel; Almila Akdag Salah; Knowledge Space Lab: Visualizing universes of knowledge: designs and visual analysis of the UDC - Ricardo Eito-Brun; Alfredo Calosci: UDC as a knowledge framework for building a civil engineering ontology: a practical approach to knowledge representation and visualization

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Content

Enthält u.a. die Beiträge: HILDEBRANDT, B. u.a.: Kognitive Modellierung von Sprach- und Bildverstehen; KELLER, F.: How do humans deal with ungrammatical input? Experimental evidence and computational modelling; MARX, J:: Die 'Computer-Talk-These' in der Sprachgenerierung: Hinweise zur Gestaltung natürlichsprachlicher Zustandsanzeigen in multimodalen Informationssystemen; SCHULTZ, T. u. H. SOLTAU: Automatische Identifizierung spontan gesprochener Sprachen mit neuronalen Netzen; WAUSCHKUHN, O.: Ein Werkzeug zur partiellen syntaktischen Analyse deutscher Textkorpora; LEZIUS, W., R. RAPP u. M. WETTLER: A morphology-system and part-of-speech tagger for German; KONRAD, K. u.a.: CLEARS: ein Werkzeug für Ausbildung und Forschung in der Computerlinguistik

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Content

Enthält die Kapitel: (1) HEIT, E.: Knowledge and concept learning (2) HAHN, U. u. N. CHATER: Concepts and similarity (3) MURPHY, G.L. u. M.E. LASSALINE: Hierarchical structure in concepts and the basic level of categorization (4) HAMPTON, J.: Conceptual combination (5) SMITH, L.B. u. L.K. SAMUELSON; Perceiving and remembering: category stability, variability and development (6) SHANKS, D.R.: Distributed representations and implicit knowledge: a brief introduction (7) KNOWLTON, B.: Declarative and nondeclarative knowledge: insights from cognitive neurosciences (8) GOSCHKE, T.: Implicit learning and unconscious knowledge: mental representation, computational mechanisms, and brain structures (9) WHITTLESEA, B.W.A.: The representation of general and particular knowledge (10) LAMBERTS, K.: Process models of categorization (11) BUSEMEYER, J.R. u.a.: Learning functional relations based on experience with input-output pairs by humans and artificial neural networks (12) STORMS, G. u. P. DeBOECK: Formal models for intra-categorial structure that can be used for data analysis

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Abstract

In an ideal world, everyone would always have the right information, in the right form, with the right context, right when they needed it. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. This book looks at how people in the real world currently manage to store and process the massive amounts of information that overload their senses and their systems, and discusses how tools can help bring these real information interactions closer to the ideal. Personal information management (PIM) is the practice and study of the activities people perform to acquire, organize, maintain, and retrieve information for everyday use. PIM is a growing area of interest as we all strive for better use of our limited personal resources of time, money, and energy, as well as greater workplace efficiency and productivity. Personal information is currently fragmented across electronic documents, email messages, paper documents, digital photographs, music, videos, instant messages, and so on. Each type of information is organized and used to complete different tasks and to fulfill disparate roles and responsibilities in an individual's life. Existing PIM tools are partly responsible for this fragmentation. They can also be part of the solution that brings information together again. A major contribution of this book is its integrative treatment of PIM-related research. The book grows out of a workshop on PIM sponsored by the National Science Foundation, held in Seattle, Washington, in 2006. Scholars from major universities and researchers from companies such as Microsoft Research, Google, and IBM offer approaches to conceptual problems of information management. In doing so, they provide a framework for thinking about PIM as an area for future research and innovation.

Content

Inhalt: How people find personal information / Jaime Teevan, Robert Capra, and Manuel Pe?rez-Quin?ones -- How people keep and organize personal information / William Jones -- How people manage information over a lifetime / Catherine C. Marshall -- Naturalistic approaches for understanding PIM / Charles M. Naumer and Karen E. Fisher -- Save everything : supporting human memory with a personal digital lifetime store / Desney Tan ... [et al.] -- Structure everything / Tiziana Catarci ... [et al.] -- Unify everything : it's all the same to me / David R. Karger -- Search everything / Daniel M. Russell and Steve Lawrence -- Everything through email / Steve Whittaker, Victoria Bellotti, and Jacek Gwizdka -- Understanding what works : evaluating PIM tools / Diane Kelly and Jaime Teevan -- Individual differences / Jacek Gwizdka and Mark Chignell -- Personal health information management / Anne Moen -- Group information management / Wayne G. Lutters, Mark S. Ackerman, and Xiaomu Zhou -- Management of personal information disclosure : the interdependence of privacy, security, and trust / Claire-Marie Karat, John Karat, and Carolyn Brodie -- Privacy and public records / Michael Shamos -- Conclusion / William Jones and Jaime Teevan.

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Date

23. 3.2008 19:10:22

Footnote

Rez. in: JASIST 54(2003) no.9, S.905-906 (C.A. Badurek): "Visual approaches for knowledge discovery in very large databases are a prime research need for information scientists focused an extracting meaningful information from the ever growing stores of data from a variety of domains, including business, the geosciences, and satellite and medical imagery. This work presents a summary of research efforts in the fields of data mining, knowledge discovery, and data visualization with the goal of aiding the integration of research approaches and techniques from these major fields. The editors, leading computer scientists from academia and industry, present a collection of 32 papers from contributors who are incorporating visualization and data mining techniques through academic research as well application development in industry and government agencies. Information Visualization focuses upon techniques to enhance the natural abilities of humans to visually understand data, in particular, large-scale data sets. It is primarily concerned with developing interactive graphical representations to enable users to more intuitively make sense of multidimensional data as part of the data exploration process. It includes research from computer science, psychology, human-computer interaction, statistics, and information science. Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) most often refers to the process of mining databases for previously unknown patterns and trends in data. Data mining refers to the particular computational methods or algorithms used in this process. The data mining research field is most related to computational advances in database theory, artificial intelligence and machine learning. This work compiles research summaries from these main research areas in order to provide "a reference work containing the collection of thoughts and ideas of noted researchers from the fields of data mining and data visualization" (p. 8). It addresses these areas in three main sections: the first an data visualization, the second an KDD and model visualization, and the last an using visualization in the knowledge discovery process. The seven chapters of Part One focus upon methodologies and successful techniques from the field of Data Visualization. Hoffman and Grinstein (Chapter 2) give a particularly good overview of the field of data visualization and its potential application to data mining. An introduction to the terminology of data visualization, relation to perceptual and cognitive science, and discussion of the major visualization display techniques are presented. Discussion and illustration explain the usefulness and proper context of such data visualization techniques as scatter plots, 2D and 3D isosurfaces, glyphs, parallel coordinates, and radial coordinate visualizations. Remaining chapters present the need for standardization of visualization methods, discussion of user requirements in the development of tools, and examples of using information visualization in addressing research problems.
In 13 chapters, Part Two provides an introduction to KDD, an overview of data mining techniques, and examples of the usefulness of data model visualizations. The importance of visualization throughout the KDD process is stressed in many of the chapters. In particular, the need for measures of visualization effectiveness, benchmarking for identifying best practices, and the use of standardized sample data sets is convincingly presented. Many of the important data mining approaches are discussed in this complementary context. Cluster and outlier detection, classification techniques, and rule discovery algorithms are presented as the basic techniques common to the KDD process. The potential effectiveness of using visualization in the data modeling process are illustrated in chapters focused an using visualization for helping users understand the KDD process, ask questions and form hypotheses about their data, and evaluate the accuracy and veracity of their results. The 11 chapters of Part Three provide an overview of the KDD process and successful approaches to integrating KDD, data mining, and visualization in complementary domains. Rhodes (Chapter 21) begins this section with an excellent overview of the relation between the KDD process and data mining techniques. He states that the "primary goals of data mining are to describe the existing data and to predict the behavior or characteristics of future data of the same type" (p. 281). These goals are met by data mining tasks such as classification, regression, clustering, summarization, dependency modeling, and change or deviation detection. Subsequent chapters demonstrate how visualization can aid users in the interactive process of knowledge discovery by graphically representing the results from these iterative tasks. Finally, examples of the usefulness of integrating visualization and data mining tools in the domain of business, imagery and text mining, and massive data sets are provided. This text concludes with a thorough and useful 17-page index and lengthy yet integrating 17-page summary of the academic and industrial backgrounds of the contributing authors. A 16-page set of color inserts provide a better representation of the visualizations discussed, and a URL provided suggests that readers may view all the book's figures in color on-line, although as of this submission date it only provides access to a summary of the book and its contents. The overall contribution of this work is its focus an bridging two distinct areas of research, making it a valuable addition to the Morgan Kaufmann Series in Database Management Systems. The editors of this text have met their main goal of providing the first textbook integrating knowledge discovery, data mining, and visualization. Although it contributes greatly to our under- standing of the development and current state of the field, a major weakness of this text is that there is no concluding chapter to discuss the contributions of the sum of these contributed papers or give direction to possible future areas of research. "Integration of expertise between two different disciplines is a difficult process of communication and reeducation. Integrating data mining and visualization is particularly complex because each of these fields in itself must draw an a wide range of research experience" (p. 300). Although this work contributes to the crossdisciplinary communication needed to advance visualization in KDD, a more formal call for an interdisciplinary research agenda in a concluding chapter would have provided a more satisfying conclusion to a very good introductory text.
With contributors almost exclusively from the computer science field, the intended audience of this work is heavily slanted towards a computer science perspective. However, it is highly readable and provides introductory material that would be useful to information scientists from a variety of domains. Yet, much interesting work in information visualization from other fields could have been included giving the work more of an interdisciplinary perspective to complement their goals of integrating work in this area. Unfortunately, many of the application chapters are these, shallow, and lack complementary illustrations of visualization techniques or user interfaces used. However, they do provide insight into the many applications being developed in this rapidly expanding field. The authors have successfully put together a highly useful reference text for the data mining and information visualization communities. Those interested in a good introduction and overview of complementary research areas in these fields will be satisfied with this collection of papers. The focus upon integrating data visualization with data mining complements texts in each of these fields, such as Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (Fayyad et al., MIT Press) and Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think (Card et. al., Morgan Kauffman). This unique work is a good starting point for future interaction between researchers in the fields of data visualization and data mining and makes a good accompaniment for a course focused an integrating these areas or to the main reference texts in these fields."

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Footnote

Rez. in: JASIST 57(2006) no.5, S.724-725 (P.K. Nayar): "The network society (Castells, 1996) calls for radically new definitions of the public sphere. and this is what Shaping the Network Society's essays set out to do. The first section lays out the essential issues at stake here: human rights, the sociology of cyberspace. and globalization. Oliver BoydBarrett characterizes cyberspace as exclusive. Pointing to the almost total corporate control of the technologies of cyberspace. Boyd-Barrett argues that any attempt of huge corporate bodies to get into grassroots democracy should be viewed with suspicion. The institution of a public sphere. argues Boyd-Barrett, must begin with an assessment of how far the Internet at fords a space of contestation of elitist governing frameworks. Gary Chapman looks at Italy's slow food movement as a counter to the technoglobalist trends, and suggests that the globaltechnological imperative must not be allowed to occlude human values. Rather we need a social imperative here. one which thinks about technology as "malleable, as capable of serving human-determined ends" (p. 64). Cees Hamelink discusses how four rights-right to speech. democratic order, equal participation in social life. and cultural identity are threatened by what he terms the billboardization of society in the networked age. In the second section a range of case studies are presented. Kate Williams and Abdul Alkalimat survey every public computing facility in Toledo (Ohio) to map the parameters of public access to information and decision-making. They conclude that government public computing sites arc situated randomly, community sites are in economically rich or poor (but not middle-stratum) localities, and that commercial and university sites are influenced by market forces. They suggest that future research must necessarily focus on what forms of cyberpower emerge through such use of public computing.
Geert Lovnik and Patrice Riemens explore the digital culture of Amsterdam to show how. despite the techno-social idealism of the early years of the public sphere Digital City project. the culture ran into problems. Susan Finquelievich studies the practices of civic networks in Buenos Aires and Montevideo to demonstrate how local sociohistorical conditions have shaped the technology's development. Veran Matic focuses on the role of media in defending human rights in a hostile environment (former Yugoslavia). Media, she notes, need not necessarily he (or become) a tool of fascist forces, but can he used to generate resistance and to forge a democratic public sphere. Scott Robinson looks at Mexico's telecenter movement to argue that these cybercafes are likely to become an institution for the new Second World of immigrants and refugees. through socially relevant functions. Fiorella de Cindio looks at one of the worlds most significant community networks that of Milan. She demonstrates how local citizens have used information and communication technologies to build a viable. and potentially empowering, participatory public sphere in academia, computer-supported cooperative work, participatory design, and civil engagement (what she calls genes). The third section, -'Building a New Public Sphere in Cyberspace," pros- ides a series of suggestions and frameworks for the spacing of public space through information and communications technologies. Craig Calhoun argues that a global public sphere is indispensable to the formation of a global democracy. Public discourse can still fight commercialism and violence to form a more democratic civil society. Howard Rheingold the great enthusiast of virtual worlds-performs an intricate mix of autobiographical reflection and speculation when he writes of the role of the new technologies. Rheingold, despite his fetishistic enthusiasm for technology and online community, is cautious when it comes to crucial issues such as the creation of democratic public spheres, arguing that we require a great deal more serious thinking on matters of ownership and control (over the technology). He argues that if citizens lose our freedom to communicate, then even the powerful potential of the Net to create electronic democracy will be fatal illusion (p. 275). Nancy Kranich turns to public libraries as the site of potential democratic society, arguing that as sites of informationdissemination. public libraries can become a commons for the exchange of ideas and social interaction. David Silver compares the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV) to the Seattle Community Network the former funded by corporations and the state, the latter built essentially out of and through volunteer efforts. Silver, in characteristic style. looks at the historical archaeologies of the networks to show how sociohistorical contexts shape certain kinds of public spheres (and public discourse). going on to ask how, these networks can overcome these contexts to achieve their original goals. He warns that we need to uncover the histories of such networks because they inform the kinds of interactions of communities that exist within them. Douglas Morris analyzes the Independent Media Centre (IMO) Movement of antiglobalization activists to argue that alternative viewpoints and ideological differences can he aired, debated, and appropriated through the new technologies in order to fight corporate and commercial forces.
Peter Day and Douglas Schuler wind up the book by taking a close look at the sociotechnical context in the 1990s. They argue that utopian schemes for the development of civil society and/or the public sphere may entail a degree of risk. However. Day and Schuler argue that community networks should be ''networks of awareness. advocacy and action" with a high degree of grassroots involvement. This can be done through more responsive policies. Local citizens-the first beneficiaries or victims of policy-should he brought into the decision-making process via civic dialogue. Public funding must be provided for projects that enable dissemination of information about a variety of cultures and belief systems. Shaping the Network Society is understandably more cautious than earlier accounts of cyberculture in its reception of new information and communications technology. Haunted by post 9/11 security measures. increasing surveillance, the faster erosion of liberal humanist ideals, and the internationalization/ commercialization of the media, the essays prefer to be wary about the potential of cyberpower. However, the optimist tone of every essay is unmistakable. While admitting that much more needs to be done to overcome the digital divide and the (mis)appropriation of cyberpower. the essays and ease studies draw attention to the potential for public debate and alternative ideologies. The case studies demonstrate success stories, but invariably conclude with a moral: about the need for vigilance against appropriation and fascist control! What emerges clearly is that the new media have achieved considerable progress in opening up the space for greater citizen involvement, more locally-responsive policy decisions. and socially relevant information-dissemination. Shaping the Network Society, with a strangely messianic slant, is a useful step in the mapping of the present and future cyberspace as the space of new democracies to come of a justice to he worked and prepared for."

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Content

A special issue devoted to relevance in learning and reasoning systems. The special issue addresses questions in automating relevance reasoning, focusing on autonomous systems with limited computational and sensory resources, embedded in dynamic environments. Considers definitions of relevance

Date

6. 3.1997 16:22:15

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Abstract

The development of innovative retrieval approaches for access to visual information is among the most significant of technological, conceptual, and institutional challenges for the library and information science community. On a conceptual level, it is clear that humans employ a variety of socio-cognitive processes, as well as sensory skills, in the retrieval and evaluation of visual information. From an institutional standpoint, libraries, archives, and museums have entered into digitization projects, varying in scope and scale, the results of which are beginning to challenge the manner in which information is described, stored, and delivered. The primary goal of this issue of Library Trends is to present practitioners, researchers, and educators in the areas of library and information science, archives, and museums, as well as "imagists" working with visual resources in any setting, with a current perspective on the development of visual information retrieval and access tools. The issue's scope is limited to the analysis and retrieval of bit-mapped or raster images and video (images that are comprised of pixels of varying color information values) and does not include work with vector graphics (images encoded as numeric formulas that represent lines and curves-e.g., Geographic Information Systems [GIS]). The contributions provide perspectives from researchers and practitioners-specialists in the areas of library and information science and computer science. In planning this issue, a conscious effort was made to include a perspective on the developing foundation of visual information retrieval, as well as work representing current and experimental systems. The issue is divided into three sections-I. Foundations of Intellectual Access to Visual Information, II. Implementation and Evaluation, and III. Experimentation.
Since 1988, two issues of Library Trends have been devoted to various aspects of image and multimedia information retrieval. In each issue, the editors call for a synergy across the disciplines that develop image retrieval systems and those that utilize these systems. Stam and Giral, in the 1988 issue of Library Trends titled "Linking Art Objects and Art Information," emphasize the need for a thorough understanding of the visual information-seeking behaviors of image database users. Writing in a 1990 issue of Library Trends devoted to graphical information retrieval, Mark Rorvig takes up the fundamental issue that "what can be listed cannot always be found" and uses that statement as a framework for examining progress in intellectual access to visual information. In the ensuing decade, several critical events have unfolded that have brought about some of the needed collaboration across disciplines and have enhanced the potential for advancements in the area of visual information retrieval. First, the field of computer vision has grown exponentially within the past decade, producing tools that enable the retrieval of visual information, especially for objects with no accompanying structural, administrative, or descriptive text information. Second, the Internet, more specifically the Web, has become a common channel for the transmission of graphical information, thus moving visual information retrieval rapidly from stand-alone workstations and databases into a networked environment. Third, the use of the Web to provide access to the search and retrieval mechanisms for visual and other forms of information has spawned the development of emerging standards for metadata about these objects as well as the creation of commonly employed methods to achieve interoperability across the searching of visual, textual, and other multimedia repositories. Practicality has begun to dictate that the indexing of huge collections of images by hand is a task that is both labor intensive and expensive-in many cases more than can be afforded to provide some method of intellectual access to digital image collections. In the world of text retrieval, text "speaks for itself" whereas image analysis requires a combination of high-level concept creation as well as the processing and interpretation of inherent visual features. In the area of intellectual access to visual information, the interplay between human and machine image indexing methods has begun to influence the development of visual information retrieval systems. Research and application by the visual information retrieval (VIR) community suggests that the most fruitful approaches to VIR involve analysis of the type of information being sought, the domain in which it will be used, and systematic testing to identify optimal retrieval methods.
Section I-"Foundations of Access to Visual Information"-is intended to provide a background in the familiar concept-based approach to describing and retrieving images, as well as the more recently developed content-based approach to visual information retrieval using inherent features such as color, shape, and texture. The importance of the articles in this section cannot be over-emphasized. In their own way, each clarifies the inevitable need to consider the interaction between high-level semantic concepts and inherent content in VIR. Content retrieval, the area which is newest to the library and information science community, will demand increased understanding and analysis in order to determine its value to users as we build more robust and lasting visual information retrieval systems. The authors in section I emphasize the need for a greater understanding of the interplay between concept-based indexing (performed by humans) and the automatic or semi-automatic process of indexing an image or a video sequence (using software) based on inherent image attributes. Section II-"Implementation and Evaluation"-focuses more specifically on the implementation and evaluation of visual information retrieval systems with cultural heritage information since this is a primary interest of libraries, museums, and archives. Section III-"Experimental Approaches"-presents articles describing three research projects that examine various aspects of image or combined image and text retrieval methods. The work represented in this issue suggests that a number of professional communities are contributing different but essential components to the development of useful and innovative image retrieval systems. In spite of the great technology strides in multimedia, image database developers and image content holders continue to grapple with the fluid issues of organization, access, retrieval, delivery, and representation. Computers now enable users to incorporate images of art and other works into their own personal information contexts-images which have for centuries been a powerful and efficient medium for conveying landmark concepts, emotions, and events. The concomitant challenge for libraries, museums, and archives also involves a shift-not only in technology and practice but also in focus-i.e., to equip ourselves with an effective understanding of the similarities and differences between text and multimedia information retrieval, and to use this knowledge as a foundation for developing effective access and archiving methods.

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Footnote

Rez. in: JASIST 55(2004) no.1, S.90-91 (N. Rhodes): "The recent near-exponential increase in XML-based technologies has exposed a gap between these technologies and those that are concerned with more fundamental data management issues. This very comprehensive and well-organized book has quite neatly filled the gap, thus achieving most of its stated intentions. The target audiences are database and XML professionals wishing to combine XML with modern database technologies and such is the breadth of scope of this book (hat few would not find it useful in some way. The editors have assembled a collection of chapters from a wide selection of industry heavyweights and as with most books of this type, it exhibits many disparate styles but thanks to careful editing it reads well as a cohesive whole. Certain sections have already appeared in print elsewhere and there is a deal of corporate flag-waving but nowhere does it become over-intrusive. The preface provides only the very brietest of introductions to XML but instead sets the tone for the remainder of the book. The twin terms of data- and document-centric XML (Bourret, 2003) that have achieved so much recent currency are re-iterated before XML data management issues are considered. lt is here that the book's aims are stated, mostly concerned with the approaches and features of the various available XML data management solutions. Not surprisingly, in a specialized book such as this one an introduction to XML consists of a single chapter. For issues such as syntax, DTDs and XML Schemas the reader is referred elsewhere, here, Chris Brandin provides a practical guide to achieving good grammar and style and argues convincingly for the use of XML as an information-modeling tool. Using a well-chosen and simple example, a practical guide to modeling information is developed, replete with examples of the pitfalls. This brief but illuminating chapter (incidentally available as a "taster" from the publisher's web site) notes that one of the most promising aspects of XML is that applications can be built to use a single mutable information model, obviating the need to change the application code but that good XML design is the basis of such mutability.
There is some debate over what exactly constitutes a native XML database. Bourret (2003) favors the wider definition; other authors such as the Butler Group (2002) restrict the use of the term to databases systems designed and built solely for storage and manipulation of XML. Two examples of the lauer (Tamino and eXist) are covered in detailed chapters here but also included in this section is the embedded XML database system, Berkeley DB XML, considered by makers Sleepycat Software to be "native" in that it is capable of storing XML natively but built an top of the Berkeley DB engine. To the uninitiated, the revelation that schemas and DTDs are not required by either Tamino or eXist might seem a little strange. Tamino implements "loose coupling" where the validation behavior can be set to "strict," "lax" (i.e., apply only to parts of a document) or "skip" (no checking), in eXist, schemas are simply optional. Many DTDs and schemas evolve as the XML documents are acquired and so these may adhere to slightly different schemas, thus the database should support queries an similar documents that do not share the same structune. In fact, because of the difficulties in mappings between XML and database (especially relational) schemas native XML databases are very useful for storage of semi-structured data, a point not made in either chapter. The chapter an embedded databases represents a "third way," being neither native nor of the XML-enabled relational type. These databases run inside purpose-written applications and are accessed via an API or similar, meaning that the application developer does not need to access database files at the operating system level but can rely an supplied routines to, for example, fetch and update database records. Thus, end-users do not use the databases directly; the applications do not usually include ad hoc end-user query tools. This property renders embedded databases unsuitable for a large number of situations and they have become very much a niche market but this market is growing rapidly. Embedded databases share an address space with the application so the overhead of calls to the server is reduced, they also confer advantages in that they are easier to deploy, manage and administer compared to a conventional client-server solution. This chapter is a very good introduction to the subject, primers an generic embedded databases and embedded XML databases are helpfully provided before the author moves to an overview of the Open Source Berkeley system. Building an embedded database application makes far greater demands an the software developer and the remainder of the chapter is devoted to consideration of these programming issues.
Relational database Management systems have been one of the great success stories of recent times and sensitive to the market, Most major vendors have responded by extending their products to handle XML data while still exploiting the range of facilities that a modern RDBMS affords. No book of this type would be complete without consideration of the "big these" (Oracle 9i, DB2, and SQL Server 2000 which each get a dedicated chapter) and though occasionally overtly piece-meal and descriptive the authors all note the shortcomings as well as the strengths of the respective systems. This part of the book is somewhat dichotomous, these chapters being followed by two that propose detailed solutions to somewhat theoretical problems, a generic architecture for storing XML in a RDBMS and using an object-relational approach to building an XML repository. The biography of the author of the latter (Paul Brown) contains the curious but strangely reassuring admission that "he remains puzzled by XML." The first five components are in-depth case studies of XMLdatabase applications. Necessarily diverse, few will be interested in all the topics presented but I was particularly interested in the first case study an bioinformatics. One of the twentieth century's greatest scientific undertakings was the Human Genome Project, the quest to list the information encoded by the sequence of DNA that makes up our genes and which has been referred to as "a paradigm for information Management in the life sciences" (Pearson & Soll, 1991). After a brief introduction to molecular biology to give the background to the information management problems, the authors turn to the use of XML in bioinformatics. Some of the data are hierarchical (e.g., the Linnaean classification of a human as a primate, primates as mammals, mammals are all vertebrates, etc.) but others are far more difficult to model. The Human Genome Project is virtually complete as far as the data acquisition phase is concerned and the immense volume of genome sequence data is no longer a very significant information Management issue per se. However bioinformaticians now need to interpret this information. Some data are relatively straightforward, e.g., the positioning of genes and sequence elements (e.g., promoters) within the sequences, but there is often little or no knowledge available an the direct and indirect interactions between them. There are vast numbers of such interrelationships; many complex data types and novel ones are constantly emerging, necessitating an extensible approach and the ability to manage semi-structured data. In the past, object databases such as AceDB (Durbin & Mieg, 1991) have gone some way to Meeting these aims but it is the combination of XML and databases that more completely addresses knowledge Management requirements of bioinformatics. XML is being enthusiastically adopted with a plethora of XML markup standards being developed, as authors Direen and Jones note "The unprecedented degree and flexibility of XML in terms of its ability to capture information is what makes it ideal for knowledge Management and for use in bioinformatics."
After several detailed examples of XML, Direen and Jones discuss sequence comparisons. The ability to create scored comparisons by such techniques as sequence alignment is fundamental to bioinformatics. For example, the function of a gene product may be inferred from similarity with a gene of known function but originating from a different organism and any information modeling method must facilitate such comparisons. One such comparison tool, BLAST utilizes a heuristic method has become the tool of choice for many years and is integrated into the NeoCore XMS (XML Management System) described herein. Any set of sequences that can be identified using an XPath query may thus become the targets of an embedded search. Again examples are given, though a BLASTp (protein) search is labeled as being BLASTn (nucleotide sequence) in one of them. Some variants of BLAST are computationally intensive, e.g., tBLASTx where a nucleotide sequence is dynamically translated in all six reading frames and compared against similarly translated database sequences. Though these variants are implemented in NeoCore XMS, it would be interesting to see runtimes for such comparisons. Obviously the utility of this and the other four quite specific examples will depend an your interest in the application area but two that are more research-oriented and general follow them. These chapters (on using XML with inductive databases and an XML warehouses) are both readable critical reviews of their respective subject areas. For those involved in the implementation of performance-critical applications an examination of benchmark results is mandatory, however very few would examine the benchmark tests themselves. The picture that emerges from this section is that no single set is comprehensive and that some functionalities are not addressed by any available benchmark. As always, there is no Substitute for an intimate knowledge of your data and how it is used. In a direct comparison of an XML-enabled and a native XML database system (unfortunately neither is named), the authors conclude that though the native system has the edge in handling large documents this comes at the expense of increasing index and data file size. The need to use legacy data and software will certainly favor the all-pervasive XML-enabled RDBMS such as Oracle 9i and IBM's DB2. Of more general utility is the chapter by Schmauch and Fellhauer comparing the approaches used by database systems for the storing of XML documents. Many of the limitations of current XML-handling systems may be traced to problems caused by the semi-structured nature of the documents and while the authors have no panacea, the chapter forms a useful discussion of the issues and even raises the ugly prospect that a return to the drawing board may be unavoidable. The book concludes with an appraisal of the current status of XML by the editors that perhaps focuses a little too little an the database side but overall I believe this book to be very useful indeed. Some of the indexing is a little idiosyncratic, for example some tags used in the examples are indexed (perhaps a separate examples index would be better) and Ron Bourret's excellent web site might be better placed under "Bourret" rather than under "Ron" but this doesn't really detract from the book's qualities. The broad spectrum and careful balance of theory and practice is a combination that both database and XML professionals will find valuable."

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Abstract

This book features theoretical and practical perspectives from a range of disciplines on the challenges of using digital media in interpretation and representation of cultural heritage. In "Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage", experts offer a critical and theoretical appraisal of the uses of digital media by cultural heritage institutions. Previous discussions of cultural heritage and digital technology have left the subject largely unmapped in terms of critical theory. The essays in this volume offer this long-missing perspective on the challenges of using digital media in the research, preservation, management, interpretation, and representation of cultural heritage. The contributors - scholars and practitioners from a range of relevant disciplines - ground theory in practice, considering how digital technology might be used to transform institutional cultures, methods, and relationships with audiences. The contributors examine the relationship between material and digital objects in collections of art and indigenous artefacts; the implications of digital technology for knowledge creation, documentation, and the concept of authority; and the possibilities for "virtual cultural heritage" - the preservation and interpretation of cultural and natural heritage through real-time, immersive, and interactive techniques. The essays in "Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage" will serve as a resource for professionals, academics, and students in all fields of cultural heritage, including museums, libraries, galleries, archives, and archaeology, as well as those in education and information technology. The range of issues considered and the diverse disciplines and viewpoints represented point to new directions for an emerging field.

Footnote

The major strength of Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage: A Critical Discourse is the balance of theory and practice achieved by its authors through the inclusion of discussion on digital culture exhibits and programs. By describing the work being done at diverse cultural institutions life is given to theoretical discussions. By relating theory to practice, the work becomes accessible to a broader range of readers. Further, these essays provide many examples of how libraries and museums could partner with each other in the realm of digital culture. The field of museum studies is dealing with the same issues as information and library science with regards to data organization, user behavior, object classification, and documentation schemas. Also, the emphasis on the users of digital cultural heritage and how individuals make meaningful connections with art, history, and geography is another asset of the book. Each chapter is well researched resulting in helpful and extensive bibliographies on various aspects of digital culture. Overall, the work is rich in discussion, description and illustrative examples that cover the subject of digital cultural heritage in terms of depth and breadth. The primary weakness of the title is on the focus on museum studies in the discourse on digital cultural heritage. There is much to be shared and discovered across other cultural institutions such as libraries and local historical societies and a more interdisciplinary approach to the essays included would have captured this. The overwhelming emphasis on museums, unfortunately, may cause some researching and studying digital cultural heritage from another perspective to overlook this work; thereby further dividing the efforts and communication of knowledge in this area. This work is highly recommended for collections on museum studies, cultural heritage, art history and documentation, library and information science, and archival science. This work would be most useful to educators and researchers interested in a theoretical understanding of cultural institutions and user interactions in view of the social and political impact of the evolving digital state of cultural heritage rather than in the specific technologies and specific user studies on the digital cultural heritage. Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage is an insightful work that will encourage further discourse and research."