Discusses the potential sources of knowledge for customizing transportable natural language query systems, including sophisticated dictionaries, database content, and human database experts. A rough quantification of the importance of each source is provided. (17 references) (Author/CLB)

This examination of the ability of Westlaw and Lexis to answer statistical questions about judicial decision making shows that the two databases have failed to achieve an adequate level of record segmentation and data integrity to answer questions reliably, and that editorially supplied text is not an adequate substitute. (MES)

Compares WILSONDISC's Index to Legal Periodicals with LEGALTRAC's Legal Resources Index in terms of: contents; searching (including comparison of several identical searches run on both databases); and costs. (MES)

Outlines the steps involved in bibliometric studies, and demonstrates the ability to execute simple studies on microcomputers by downloading files using only the capability of MS/DOS. Detailed illustrations of the MS/DOS commands used are provided. (eight references) (CLB)

Describes several databases relevant to the education field, including "PsychINFO,""Sociological Abstracts,""Congressional Information Service," and the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) system, the most widely used information source. Explains the "Current Index to Journals in Education"…

Discussion of Internet Gopher databases highlights the Gopher developed for AECT (Association for Educational Communications and Technology). Highlights include access information; guide to the AECT Gopher; access statistics, including international contacts; and future plans. (LRW)

Discusses methods of evaluating commercial online databases and provides examples that illustrate their hidden dimensions. Topics addressed include size, including the number of records or the number of titles; the number of years covered; and the frequency of updates. Comparisons of Readers' Guide Abstracts and Magazine Article Summaries are…

Examines and reviews the ability of various software packages and database systems to recognize and process chemical structures generated by chemical drawing packages, especially the ability of relational database management systems to recognize and process chemical structures from a variety of sources. The need for better standard representations…

Reviews four key Internet sites that offer environmental health research data, grant programs, environmental education resources, networking, and other environmental information. Provides addresses and brief descriptions of the resources. Discusses methods for making queries. (LZ)

Explains sublanguages in restricted domains in natural language processing and describes methods of comparing sublanguages through Case Hierarchy representation. Highlights include case grammar representations of natural language; case systems of sublanguages; sublanguage comparisons, including matching relationships and mapping relationships; and…

Provides guidelines on using two national networks, BITNET and the Internet. The discussion covers electronic mail, bulletin boards, collections of public files, downloading files, logging into remote systems over the Internet, online catalogs and local databases on the Internet, and future applications. (2 references) (MES)

Discussion of networked information retrieval and the interoperability of heterogeneous information-retrieval systems shows how differences concerning search operators and database schemas can be handled by applying data-abstraction concepts in combination with uncertain inference. Highlights include data types, data independence, schema…

Describes how a software program for DOS/Windows manages a collection of pictures such as photographic slides, overheads, or computer images in one or more databases. Explains how it transforms image files to raw binary files that can then be displayed like flash cards, or as an animated series of images. (Author/LRW)

Presents a framework that combines Genetic Programming and Inductive Logic Programming, two approaches in data mining, to induce knowledge from noisy databases. The framework is based on a formalism of logic grammars and is implemented as a data mining system called LOGENPRO (Logic Grammar-based Genetic Programming System). (Contains 34…

Discussion of XML (extensible markup language) and the traditional DTD (document type definition) format focuses on efforts of the World Wide Web Consortium's XML schema working group to develop a schema language to replace DTD that will be capable of defining the set of constraints of any possible data resource. (Contains 14 references.) (LRW)