Statistical query expansion for sentence retrieval and its effects on weak and strong queries

The retrieval of sentences that are relevant to a given information need is a challenging passage retrieval task. In this context, the well-known vocabulary mismatch problem arises severely because of the fine granularity of the task. Short queries, which are usually the rule rather than the exception, aggravate the problem. Consequently, effective sentence retrieval methods tend to apply some form of query expansion, usually based on pseudo-relevance feedback. Nevertheless, there are no extensive studies comparing different statistical expansion strategies for sentence retrieval. In this work we study thoroughly the effect of distinct statistical expansion methods on sentence retrieval. We start from a set of retrieved documents in which relevant sentences have to be found. In our experiments different term selection strategies are evaluated and we provide empirical evidence to show that expansion before sentence retrieval yields competitive performance. This is particularly novel because expansion for sentence retrieval is often done after sentence retrieval (i.e. expansion terms are mined from a ranked set of sentences) and there are no comparative results available between both types of expansion. Furthermore, this comparison is particularly valuable because there are important implications in time efficiency. We also carefully analyze expansion on weak and strong queries and demonstrate clearly that expanding queries before sentence retrieval is not only more convenient for efficiency purposes, but also more effective when handling poor queries.     

The teaching of rhetoric in French Jesuit colleges, 1556–1762 1

This study examined the effects of sentence context on response variation for vague, ambiguous, and clear nouns. Thirty‐four subjects within a 2x3 mixed design responded to five nouns of each type. The results indicated that nouns appearing in sentence context produced less response variation than nouns appearing alone. It was also found that clear nouns generated more homogeneous responses than did vague or ambiguous nouns. Finally, the study showed that ambiguous nouns appearing in sentences did not result in more or less response variation than did vague nouns appearing in sentences.     

Resting Prefrontal Cortex Asymmetry and Communication Apprehension,Verbal Aggression,and Other Social Interaction Constructs: A Meta-Analytic Review

This study examined the effect of body piercing on perceptions of an employment seeker's credibility, hirability, and attractiveness. Participants (undergraduate students and managers) viewed a photograph of a job candidate who wore either no jewelry, an earring, or a nose ring, and then rated dimensions of the candidate's credibility, hirability, and attractiveness. Analysis indicated that although the candidate's attractiveness ratings were not affected by the type of jewelry he wore, his credibility ratings decreased when he was wearing jewelry, and his hirability ratings decreased when he was wearing a nose ring. These results and their implications are discussed.     

An analysis of attitudinal and normative variables as predictors of intentions and behavior

A questionnaire was developed to test the hypothesis that an individual's intention to perform a given behavior is a function of (a) his attitude toward performing that behavior and/or (b) his normative beliefs about what others think he should do, weighted by his motivation to comply with those others. It was also hypothesized that an individual's beliefs about the consequences of performing the behavior, weighted by his evaluation of those consequences, should be highly related to his attitude toward performing that behavior. Both hypotheses were supported. In addition, it was found that specificity of the attitude measure was a crucial mediator of the attitude‐intention relationship.     

Ronald Reagan's economic jeremiad

Ronald Reagan's address to the nation on February 5, 1981, concerning the state of the economy is a contemporary secular version of the jeremiad, a rhetorical form that has persisted in America since colonial times. Reagan skillfully utilizes the elements of the jeremiad genre to motivate citizen and congressional response to what he views as an economic crisis. He is adept in lamenting ills and faults, vividly depicting potential calamity, exhorting repentance and reform, and declaring optimism.     

Children's dependence upon visual context in sentence comprehension

This study explored the manner in which young children utilize meaning clues implicit in nonlinguistic aspects of context to aid comprehension of difficult sentences. Comprehension of reversible passive sentences was measured for the degree to which visual context could be helpful to sentence understanding. Results indicated a strong reliance on visual cues by children from three to seven years of age. The use of visual aids as a means of helping children develop comprehension strategies is suggested.     

Carl Becker and the epigrammatic force of style in history

Among historians in America, Carl Becker attained fame for style in discourse. Although his stylistic prowess was evinced in scholarly works which brought him eminence in his profession, epigrammatic style also was prominent in his writing of popular history, first in a polemic essay called “Kansas” which led to his role as propagandist in World War One, and then—and of particular interest to those interested in mass persuasion—an eminently successful high school textbook, Modern History. The objective of historiography herein is to establish causal relationships between epigrammatic style in those popular works and resultant, rhetorical effects upon Becker's readers mainly in the general public over a span of several decades. Primary source evidence of effectiveness is in letters to Becker, and other correspondence, that indicate which concepts and precise sentences in Modern History were salient and persuasive for a mass readership largely because of the epigrammatic style with which they were phrased.     

Personality studies in speech

From the turbulent seventies in California emerged two very different men with two widely divergent solutions to the problems of troubled times. Through violent invective Dennis Kearney won an immediate popular following for a vague political program directed against surface evils. Henry George, with less understanding of mass audiences, won acceptance for his thoughtful economic analysis more slowly. But by 1886 George had learned much about popular speaking, while Kearney's hollow rantings had lost their appeal. George's long‐range influence was in part the result of his new‐found skill with mass audiences.     

Administrative policies and practices in university speech departments

Adlai Stevenson's speech strategy in the 1956 campaign was radically different from his 1952 approach. How Stevenson conducted his second campaign and why it failed is the subject of this article. The author wrote his dissertation on the 1952 campaign, and in 1956 traveled with Stevenson on his Ohio tour.     

Trust in media and government: A recursive model for natives of Hong Kong and Mainland China

This study explored whether a female student's level of attractiveness affects the degree to which she is believed when making a claim of sexual harassment, and whether attractiveness is related to perceptions of how likely it is that she will be sexually harassed. Participants viewed one of three photographs of a female model who was made to appear a) unattractive, b) attractive and pristine, or c) attractive but not pristine. Afterwards they read a case file in which the photographed model claimed to have been sexually harassed by one of her professors. Finally, participants rated the photographed model's veracity and their perceptions regarding how likely it was that the model would be sexually harassed. Results indicated that when she was perceived as unattractive, the model was rated as more deceptive and less likely to be harassed than when she was perceived as attractive, regardless of whether she was perceived to be pristine or not. These results and their implications are discussed.     

Radio and Television

Ralph M. Jennings and Pamela Richard's How to Protect Your Rights in Television and Radio (Office of Communication, United Church of Christ, 289 Park Ave. South, New York 10010—price not given, paper)

Ted C. Smythe and George A. Mastroianni's Issues in Broadcasting: Radio, Television, and Cable (Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1975—price not given but around $7.00 we learned from editors, paper)

James D. Secrest's Electronic Industries Association: The First 50 Years (Washington: EIA, 1974—price not given)

Ann M. Velia's KOB: Goddard's Magic Mast, Fifty Years of Pioneer Broadcasting (Las Cruces, N.M.: New Mexico State University Press, 1972—$6.95)

Harold Niven's Broadcast Education 1975: 14th Report (Washington: National Association of Broadcasters, 1975—$5.00, paper)

Broadcast Programming and Production (bimonthly/$7.00 per year, with first three issues free on request)

Joel L. Efrein, Cablecasting Production Handbook (Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1975—$12.95)

NCTA is Over the Cable (Washington: National Cable Television Association, 1975—free on request, paper)

Community Antenna Television Journal (4209 N.W. 23rd St., Suite 106, Oklahoma City 73107)     

Writing and Publishing

John Tebbel's A History of Book Publishing in the United States: Volume III--The Golden Age Between Two Wars, 1920-1940 (New York: R.R. Bowker, 1978---$32.50)

Anne Lyon Haight and Chandler Grannis' Banned Books: 387 BC to 1978 AD (New York: Bowker, 1978---$13.95)

Bruce Joel Hillman and Judith Ann Beraha, eds. 1979 Writer's Market (Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer's Digest Books, 1978---$14.95)

Doris Ricker Marston's A Guide to Writing History (Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer's Digest, 1976---$8.50)

Girls Series Books: A Checklist of Hardback Books Published 1900-1975 (Children's Literature Research Collections, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis, Minn. 55455---price not given, but about $7.50, paper)     

Mass Communications

“Popular Culture in America” edited by David Manning White with help from Ray Browne, Marshall Fishwick, and Russel B. Nye

Marshall Fishwick, is author of his latest, a collection of his own essays entitled Parameters of Popular Culture (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1974—cost not known, but available in cloth and paper)

J. Meredith Neil to assemble Popular Architecture (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green Popular Press, n.d., but , 1974—price not given, paper)

James Philip Danky's UndergroundS; A Union List of Alternative Periodicals in Libraries of the United States and Canada (Madison: State Historical Society of'Wisconsin, 1974—$12.95, paper)

George D. Brightbill and Wayne C. Maxon's Citation Manual for United States Government Publications (Philadelphia: Temple University's Center for the Study of Federalism, 1974—75¢, paper)     

Stuart Hall at the Open University

ABSTRACT

Accounts of the influence of Stuart Hall's thought on subsequent developments tend to neglect his work at the Open University. This unjustifiable neglect is illustrated by the example of his contribution to the course on Beliefs and Ideology, especially his article on 'Religious ideologies and social movements in Jamaica' [Hall, S. (1985). Religious ideologies and social movements in Jamaica. In R. Bocock & K. Thompson (Eds.), Religion and ideology (pp. 269–297). Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press].     

John Morley and the Irish question: Chart‐prayer‐dream

Attempts to circumscribe “the Burkean method” of rhetorical criticism can be frustrating. Critics more profitably might use Burke as an example and a prod, appropriating—as was done in this study—whichever of Burke's concepts, methods, and metaphors seem applicable to a given rhetorical event. Burke's “chart‐prayer‐dream” trilogy, together with his understanding of “strategies,” was employed to examine Morley's “Home Rule” speech before the Oxford Union in 1888. Morley's reply to Randolph Churchill abandoned propositional argument in favor of reviv‐alistic‐exhortation early in the speech; his strategies of form, argument, labelling, style, and mimesis are best understood as those of the High Priest seeking a confessional and an act of expiation from his auditors.     

Production and Design Guides

Herbert Zettl's Television Production Handbook (Belmont, Calif. Wadsworth, 1976---$13.95)

Ira Schneider and BerytKorot (eds.) Video Art: An Anthology (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976---$19.95/9.95)

Kenneth B. Knecht's Designing and Maintaining the CATV and Small TV Studio (Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1976---$12.95)

Donald W. Miles' Broadcast News Handbook (Indianapolis: Howard W. Sams & Co., 1975---price not given, paper)

V. White's Designing for Magazines (New York: R.R. Bowker, 1976---$16.95)

John Borwick's Sound Recording Practice: A Handbook Compiled by the Association of Professional Recording Studios (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1976---L16.00 or $32.25, depending which side of the Atlantic you are on)

John M. Woram's The Recording Studio Handbook (Sagamore Publishing Co., 1120 Old Country Road, Plainview, N.Y. 11803, 1976---$35.00)

James W. Brown, Richard B. Lewis, and Fred F. Marcieroad's A V Instruction: Technology, Media and Methods (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977---$15.95)

Brown and Lewis' A V Instructional Technology Manual for Independent Study (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977---$7.95, paper)

Patrick S. Finnegan's Broadcast Engineering and Maintenance Handbook (Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1976---$19.95)     

The nature of novelty detection

Sentence level novelty detection aims at spotting sentences with novel information from an ordered sentence list. In the task, sentences appearing later in the list with no new meanings are eliminated. For the task of novelty detection, the contributions of this paper are three-fold. First, conceptually, this paper reveals the computational nature of the task currently overlooked by the Novelty community—Novelty as a combination of partial overlap (PO) and complete overlap (CO) relations between sentences. We define partial overlap between two sentences as a sharing of common facts, while complete overlap is when one sentence covers all of the meanings of the other sentence. Second, technically, a novel approach, the selected pool method is provided which follows naturally from the PO-CO computational structure. We provide formal error analysis for selected pool and methods based on this PO-CO framework. We address the question how accurate must the PO judgments be to outperform the baseline pool method. Third, experimentally, results were presented for all the three novelty datasets currently available. Results show that the selected pool is significantly better or no worse than the current methods, an indication that the term overlap criterion for the PO judgments could be adequately accurate.

Music and the Music Business

Sidney Shemel and M. William Krasilovsky's This Business of Music (New York: Billboard Publications, 1977— $16.95)

Marianne Lindvall's ABBA: The Ultimate Pop Group (New York: A&W Publishers, 1977—$6.95, paper)

Caroline Coon's 1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1978—$4.95, paper)

Mark C. Gridley's Jazz Styles (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978—price not given, paper)

Raoul Abdul's Blacks in Classical Music (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1977—$8.95)

David Horn's The Literature of American Music in Books and Folk Music Collections: A Fully Annotated Bibliography (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1977—$20.00)

Arthur Jacobs' British Music Yearbook: 1977-78 (New York and London: Bowker, 1977— $27.50)

The Book of Music (London: Macdonald Educational Ltd., 1977—E8.50 or about $17.00)