Abstract Arrowsmith, a computer‐assisted process for literature‐based discovery, takes as input two disjoint sets of records (A, C) from the Medline database. It produces a list of title words and phrases, B, that are common to A and C, and displays the title context in which each B‐term occurs within A and within C. Subject experts then can try to find A–B and B–C title‐pairs that together may suggest novel and plausible indirect A–C relationships (via B‐terms) that are of particular interest in the absence of any known direct A–C relationship. The list of B‐terms typically is so large that it is difficult to find the relatively few that contribute to scientifically interesting connections. The purpose of the present article is to propose and test several techniques for improving the quality of the B‐list. These techniques exploit the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) that are assigned to each input record. A MesH‐based concept of literature cohesiveness is defined and plays a key role. The proposed techniques are tested on a published example of indirect connections between migraine and magnesium deficiency. The tests demonstrate how the earlier results can be replicated with a more efficient and more systematic computer‐aided process.

Abstract We present a model for estimating the probability that a pair of author names (sharing last name and first initial), appearing on two different Medline articles, refer to the same individual. The model uses a simple yet powerful similarity profile between a pair of articles, based on title, journal name, coauthor names, medical subject headings (MeSH), language, affiliation, and name attributes (prevalence in the literature, middle initial, and suffix). The similarity profile distribution is computed from reference sets consisting of pairs of articles containing almost exclusively author matches versus nonmatches, generated in an unbiased manner. Although the match set is generated automatically and might contain a small proportion of nonmatches, the model is quite robust against contamination with nonmatches. We have created a free, public service (“Author‐ity”: http://arrowsmith.psych.uic.edu ) that takes as input an author's name given on a specific article, and gives as output a list of all articles with that (last name, first initial) ranked by decreasing similarity, with match probability indicated.

Abstract Using novel informatics techniques to process the output of Medline searches, we have generated a list of viruses that may have the potential for development as weapons. Our findings are intended as a guide to the virus literature to support further studies that might then lead to appropriate defense and public health measures. This article stresses methods that are more generally relevant to information science. Initial Medline searches identified two kinds of virus literatures—the first concerning the genetic aspects of virulence, and the second concerning the transmission of viral diseases. Both literatures taken together are of central importance in identifying research relevant to the development of biological weapons. Yet, the two literatures had very few articles in common. We downloaded the Medline records for each of the two literatures and used a computer to extract all virus terms common to both. The fact that the resulting virus list includes most of an earlier independently published list of viruses considered by military experts to have the highest threat as potential biological weapons served as a test of the method; the test outcome showed a high degree of statistical significance, thus supporting an inference that the new viruses on the list share certain important characteristics with viruses of known biological warfare interest.

Article Complementary structures in disjoint science literatures Share on Author: Don R. Swanson Center for Information and Language Studies, University of Chicago Center for Information and Language Studies, University of ChicagoView Profile Authors Info & Claims SIGIR '91: Proceedings of the 14th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrievalSeptember 1991 Pages 280–289https://doi.org/10.1145/122860.122889Online:01 September 1991Publication History 31citation686DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations31Total Downloads686Last 12 Months10Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

Compte rendu d'une deuxieme experience de recherche documentaire, en medecine, sur deux sujets a priori non interactifs: la migraine, le magnesium. Un lien implicite entre ces deux sujets est decouvert grâce a un parcours aleatoire, dans MEDLINE, des titres qui revelent des themes de connection entre ces deux sujets. Le parcours des conclusions de 11 articles portant sur ces themes, explicitent ce lien. L'importance de ce mode de recherche (dit par exploration/exclusion, ou par essai-et-erreur) pour les connaissances medicales, est de nouveau prouve

More than thirty years ago there was good evidence to suggest that information retrieval involved conceptual prob-lems of greater subtlety than is generally recognized. The dramatic development and growth of online services since then seems not to have been accompanied by much interest in these conceptual problems, the limits they appear to im-pose, or the potential for transcending such limits through more creative use of the new services. In this article, I offer a personal perspective on automatic indexing and information retrieval, focusing not necessarily on the mainstream of research but on those events and ideas over a 34-year period that have led to the view stated above, and that have influenced my perception of important direc-tions for future research. Some experimental tests of information systems have yielded good retrieval results and some very poor results. I shall explain why I think that occurred, why I believe that the poor results merit special attention, and why we should reconsider a suggestion that Robert Fairthome put forward in 1963 to develop postulates of impotence—statements of what cannot be done. By understanding such limits we are led to new goals, metaphors, problems, postulates, and per-spectives.

This study demonstrates that certain unintended logical connections within the scientific literature, connections potentially revealing of new knowledge, are unmarked by reference citations or other bibliographic clues. Specifically, 25 biomedical articles central to the argument that dietary fish oil causes certain blood changes are compared with 34 articles on how similar blood changes might ameliorate Raynaud's disease. The two groups of articles are thus connected by a chain of reasoning implicitly suggesting that dietary fish oil might benefit Raynaud patients, an hypothesis not heretofore published explicitly. By retrieving and bringing together these two literatures, that implicit, unstated, and perhaps unnoticed hypothesis becomes apparent. The more general problem is posed of whether systematic search techniques for bringing together logically connected literatures can be developed and described, in the hope of discovering other implicit, unstated hypotheses. The example analyzed shows that the problem, while solved in this case by trial-and-error search methods, may be inherently and peculiarly difficult because there are virtually no references in either literature to the other, nor are there any clues from cocitation, bibliographic coupling, or statistical association of descriptors that the two literatures are logically related. © 1987 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Abstract The indexing of a document is among the most crucial steps in preparing that document for retrieval. The adequacy of the indexing determines the ability of the system to respond to patron requests. This paper discusses this process, and document retrieval in general, on the basis of formal decision theory. The basic theoretical approach taken is illustrated by means of a model of word occurrences in documents in the context of a model information system; both models are fully defined in this paper. Though the main purpose of this paper is to provide insights into a very complex process, formulae are developed that may prove to be of value for an automated operating system. The paper concludes with an interpretation of recall and precision curves as seen from the point of view of decision theory.