A Study on Engineering History Base

During engineering processes, many kinds and amounts of information are used and produced. Such information is useful in successive cases, and thus its reuse is desired. In this paper, information on attributes of the products is referred to as ‘product information’, and information on the reasons for and/or history of a designer’s thought process is referred to as ‘process information’. According to this classification, process information can be used for obtaining an explanation of product information. The purpose of this work is to build a database, called an ‘engineering history base’, from which engineers can retrieve explanations to enable the reuse of product information. In this paper, explanation from the ‘process’ viewpoint is thought to be important in promoting the reuse of product information. There are two types of explanation for the process: teleological and causal. However, until now, little attention has been paid to the causal explanation for the process. Thus, in this paper, an information model which focuses on both types of explanation is proposed. The model is adopted for the engineering history base and a prototype system is developed. The appropriateness of this model is discussed by analyzing the actual data in the development of a color video printer.     

Design of a confocal holography microscope for three-dimensional temperature measurements of fluids in microgravity

The design of a Confocal Scanning Laser Holography (CSLH) microscope applied to microgravity studies of fluids is described. This microscope generates a hologram for each three-dimensional point describing an object and offers a new, non-intrusive means to determine the three-dimensional temperature and composition of objects, which is useful information for heat and mass transfer studies. The holograms are created from the interference of a ‘known’ reference beam to an ‘unknown’ object beam, which contains the phase information from which the object’s index of refraction is determined. The key feature of the microscope for microgravity experimentation is the object remains stationary as the beam is rastered through the object, ensuring a quiescent environment. Additional vibration disturbances due to the motion of optical components are minimized by applying counter balances and by using the Motion-vibration Isolation System (MIM).     

On convergence of fisher informations in continuous models with quantized observations

Continuous location models with real observations and well defined Fisher information are considered and reduction of the Fisher information due to quantizations of the observation space intom intervals is studied. In fact, generalized Fisher informations of orders α≥1 are considered where α=2 corresponds to the classical Fisher information. By an example it is argued that in some models the information of order α=2 is infinite while the informations of some orders α↮2 are finite. Among the studied problems is the existence of optimal quantizations which maximize the reduced information for fixedm and α≥1 and the construction of simple and practically applicable quantizations for which the reduction converges to zero whenm→∞, uniformly for all α≥1. The rate of this convergence is estimated for all α≥1 and directly evaluated for α=1 and α=2. For special models the reductions are directly evaluated form=1.2,… either analytically or numerically. Supported by the ASCR grant A1075101 as well as BMF 2003-04820     

EVITHERM: The Virtual Institute of Thermal Metrology

Evitherm is a web-based thermal resource centre, resulting from a 3-year project partly funded by the EU’s GROWTH programme (2002–05). Evitherm links together the widely distributed centres of excellence (NMIs, research and teaching institutes, consultants, etc.) and others concerned with thermal measurements and technology to provide a focal point for information exchange and knowledge transfer between all these organizations and industry. To facilitate the quick and easy flow of thermal knowledge to users of thermal technologies, evitherm has a website (www.evitherm.org) through which it disseminates information and by which it also provides access to resources such as training, property data, measurements and experts. Among the resources available from the website are (1) thermal property data—offering access to some of the world’s leading databases; (2) expertise— evitherm has a database of consultants, an Advice line, a public Forum and a unique Consultancy Brokering Service whereby users are linked to the expert they need to solve their thermal industrial problems; (3) industry resources—thermal information for particular industry sectors; (4) services—information directories on thermal property measurement, training, equipment supply, reference materials, etc.; (5) literature—links to books, papers, standards, etc.; (6) events—conferences, meetings, seminars, organizations and networks, what’s happening. A user only has to register (for free) to gain access to all the information on the evitherm website. Much of the thermal property data can be accessed for free and in a few cases we have negotiated affordable rates for access to some leading databases, such as CINDAS, THERSYST and NELFOOD. This article illustrates the aims and structure of the evitherm Society, how it is directed, and how it serves the thermal community worldwide in its need for quick and easy access to the resources needed to help ensure a well resourced industrial work force and clean and efficient thermal processes.     

Analysis of measurement information on steady-state vibrations

Nowadays practically all forms of machine, including aircraft, are saturated with all kinds of electronic equipment. The equipment performs not only a service function but is the “brain” which is responsible for the efficiency of the machine. The present article is devoted, to analyzing information concerning steady-state vibrations. Translated from Izmeritel'naya Tekhnika, No. 8, pp. 22–23, August, 2000.     

Assessing the authority of free online scholarly information

Authority generally relates to expertise, recognition of official status of a source, and the reputation of the author and publisher. As the Internet has become a ubiquitous tool in modern science and scholarly research, evaluating the authority of free online scholarly information is becoming crucial. However, few empirical studies have focused on this issue. Using a modified version of Jim Kapoun’s “Five criteria for evaluating web pages” as framework, this research selected 32 keywords from eight disciplines, inputted them into three search engines (Google, Yahoo and AltaVista) and used Analytic Hierarchy Process to determine the weights. The first batches of results (web pages) from keyword searching were selected as evaluation samples (in the two search phases, the first 50 and 10 results were chosen, respectively), and a total of 3,134 samples were evaluated for authority based on the evaluation framework. The results show that the average authority value for free online scholarly information is about 3.63 (out of five), which is in the “fair” level (3 ≤ Z < 4) (Z is the value assigned to each sample). About 41% of all samples collected provide more authoritative scholarly information. Different domain names, resource types, and disciplines of free online scholarly information perform differently when scored in terms of authority. In conclusion, the authority of free online scholarly information has been unsatisfactory, and needs to be improved. Furthermore, the evaluation framework and its application developed herein could be a useful instrument for librarians, researchers, students, and the public to select Internet resources.     

Understanding the emergence of 'open science' institutions: functionalist economics in historical context

This essay exposes the limitations of the ‘logical origins’approach that has found favour among economists who seek tounderstand the workings of institutions in the past present.It pursues a different approach, applying functionalism in historicalcontext to explain the emergence of the characteristic ethosand institutions of ‘open science’. The emergenceduring the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries ofthe idea and practice of ‘open science’ representeda break from the previously dominant ethos of secrecy in thepursuit of ‘Nature’s secrets’. It was a distinctiveand vital organizational aspect of the scientific revolution,from which crystallized a new set of norms, incentives and organizationalstructures that reinforced scientific researchers’ commitmentsto rapid disclosure of new knowledge. To understand how thiscame about, it is necessary to examine the economics of patronageand the roles of asymmetric information and reputation in theearly modern reorganization of scientific activities. The riseof ‘cooperative rivalries’ in the revelation ofnew knowledge is seen as a functional response to heightenedasymmetric information problems posed for the Renaissance systemof court patronage of the arts and sciences; pre-existing informationalasymmetries had been exacerbated by increased importance ofmathematics and the greater reliance upon sophisticated mathematicaltechniques in a variety of practical contexts of application.Analysis of the court patronage system of late Renaissance Europe,within which the new natural philosophers found their support,points to the significance of the feudal legacy of fragmentedpolitical authority in creating conditions of ‘commonagency contracting in substitutes’. These conditions areshown to have been conducive to more favorable contract terms(especially with regard to autonomy and financial support) forthe agent–client members of western Europe’s nascentscientific communities. Some lessons may be drawn for contemporary scienceand technology policy debates, in which the open science modeof pursuing knowledge often seems to be viewed a robust concomitantof the power of scientific research techniques—whereasit is a fragile cultural legacy of western Europe’s history,upon which rests the ascendancy of modern science as a driverof long-term economic growth.     

Designing a computerized metrological production support system based on cals technologies

Designing a computerized metrological support system is considered, which incorporates not only metrological considerations on measuring instruments but also the computerized choice of production preparation facilities. Representations are considered for information on measuring instruments that allow one to integrate the metrological system in a unified CALS system for the organization. __________ Translated from Izmeritel’naya Tekhnika, No. 6, pp. 22–26, June, 2006.     

Conditioning on uncertain event: Extensions to bayesian inference

In this paper the alternative procedure for updating probabilities (that is, to calculate the posterior distribution from the prior distribution) proposed by Richard Jeffrey is considered, which allows the addition of new information to the prior distribution under more circumstances than with the Bayesian conditioning. A predictivistic approach for the Jeffrey’s rule is introduced and a definition of conjugacy according to this rule (named Jeffrey-conjugacy) is established. Results for Jeffrey-conjugacy in the exponential family are also presented. As a by-product, these results provide full predictivistic characterizations of some predictive distributions. By using both the predictivistic Jeffrey’s rule and Jeffrey-conjugacy, a forecasting procedure which is applied to the Chilean stock market, data is also developed. The Jeffrey’s rule with the Bayesian conditioning according to their capability of incorporating unpredictable information in the forecast is compared. Research support in part by FAPEMIG, grant CEX 795/00; PRPq-UFMG, grant 40-UFMG/RTR/FUNDO/PRPq/99; and CAPES (Brazil): FONDECYT, grants 8000004, 1971128 and 1990431; and Fundación Andes (Chile).     

A Tikhonov Regularizing Algorithm for Processing Multiwave Lidar Data in the Absence of Information on the Measurement Error

An algorithm is considered for recovering the aerosol size distribution and also the mean (effective) radius and quantitative concentration from optical data: back-scattering and total attenuation coefficients as measured with a certain error δ at various wavelengths. These quantities are connected by a linear integral Fredholm equation of the first kind. A solution is provided by the modified discrepancy, which enables one to estimate the regularization parameter in the absence of information on the error δ. __________ Translated from Izmeritel'naya Tekhnika, No. 10, pp. 8–14, October, 2005.     

Comparison of Five Isotope-Corrected Water-Triple-Point Cells with the NMIA-2002 WTP Ensemble

A comparison of NMIA’s new water-triple-point (WTP) ensemble with a previously established ensemble is reported. Until 2007, the kelvin in Australia was defined as the average of an ensemble of WTP cells that were selected for stability and purity and collected over a period of several years from a variety of sources. As a result of the recent CCT-K7 comparison, a clarification of the SI definition for the kelvin was adopted, explicitly specifying the isotopic composition of the water in WTP cells. Although NMIA’s results were within the estimated uncertainties, NMIA initiated a project to acquire cells with isotope information from several manufacturers and batches to establish a new ensemble. We find that the standard deviation of the isotope-shift-corrected temperatures of five cells from three manufacturers to be 6 μK, which is significantly lower than that of the cells in the previous ensemble, which was 24 μK. The average temperature of the new ensemble is found to be approximately 107 μK higher than that of the previous ensemble. This difference is consistent with the findings of CCT-K7, which identified a group of laboratories controlling isotope effects, and is displaced 73 μK from the mean of the other laboratories.     

Improving word coverage using unsupervised morphological analyser

Powerful computers are needed for processing tasks related to human languages these days. Human languages, also called natural languages, are highly versatile systems of encoding information and can capture information of various domains. To enable a computer to process information in human languages, the language needs to be appropriately ‘described’ to the computer, i.e. the language needs to be ‘modelled’. In this work, we present an approach for acquisition of morphology of inflectional language like Hindi. It is an unsupervised learning approach, suitable for languages with a rich concatenative morphology. Broadly, our work is carried out in three steps: 1. Acquire the morphology of Hindi from a raw (un annotated) Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore text corpus, 2. prepare clusters and prepare stem bag and suffix bag, 3. use the morphological knowledge to decompose given word as stems and suffixes according to their morphological behaviour and add new words. A prime motivation behind this work is to eventually develop an unsupervised morphological analyser which is language-independent (used for Hindi). Second motivation is to develop a Morphological segmentation which is language-independent as it is shown that study of morphology would benefit to a range of NLP tasks such as speech recognition, speech synthesis, machine translation and information retrieval. Though Hindi is an important and a national language in India, little computational work has been done so far in this direction. Our work is one of the first efforts in this regard and can be considered pioneering. There are many such languages for which it is very important to have a suitable but inexpensive computational acquisition process. Languages receive very little attention of computational linguistic research both in terms of availability of funds and number of researchers. We however do not claim that our approach is a solution for all such languages. Different languages have characteristics that require individual research attention.     

A comparative study of interdisciplinary changes between information science and library science

This study employs the method of direct citation to analyze and compare the interdisciplinary characteristics of the two disciplines of library science and information science during the period of 1978–2007. Based on the research generated by five library science journals and five information science journals, library science researchers tend to cite publications from library and information science (LIS), education, business/management, sociology, and psychology, while researchers of information science tend to cite more publications from LIS, general science, computer science, technology, and medicine. This means that the disciplines with larger contributions to library science are almost entirely different from those contributing to information science. In addition, researchers of library science frequently cite publications from LIS; the rate is as high as 65.61%, which is much higher than the rate for information science, 49.50%. However, a decreasing trend in the percentage of LIS in library science indicates that library science researchers tend to cite more publications from non-LIS disciplines. A rising trend in the proportion of references to education sources is reported for library science articles, while a rising trend in the proportion of references to computer science sources has been found for information science articles. In addition, this study applies an interdisciplinary indicator, Brillouin’s Index, to measurement of the degree of interdisciplinarity. The results confirm that the trend toward interdisciplinarity in both information science and library science has risen over the years, although the degree of interdisciplinarity in information science is higher than that in library science.     

Incentive contrats and strictly proper scoring rules

When a decision maker (DM) contracts with an expert to provide information, the nature of the contract can, create incentives for the expert, and it is up to the DM to ensure that the contract provides incentives that align the expert’s and DM’s interests. In this paper, scoring rules (and related functions) are viewed as such contracts and are reinterpreted in terms of agency theory and the theory of revelation games from economics. Although scoring rules have typically been discussed in the literature as devices for eliciting and evaluating subjective probabilities, this study relies on the fact that strictly proper scoring rules reward greater expertise as well as honest revelation. We describe conditions under which a DM can use a strictly proper scoring rule as a contract to give an expert an incentive to gather an amount of information that is optimal from the DM’s perspective. The conditions we consider focus on the expert’s cost structure, and we find that the DM must have substantial knowledge of that cost structure in order to design a specific contract that provides the correct incentives. The model and analysis suggest arguments for hiring and maintaining experts in-house rather than using outside consultants.     

An educational resource for information literacy in higher education: Functional and users analyses of the e-COMS academic portal

As in today’s knowledge society the Internet is playing an important role in the information literacy of university students the goal of this paper is to analyse, after its first year on the Web, the informational impact of an e-learning resource developed by Granada’s University lecturers (the e-COMS educational portal), a pioneer in Spain for training in information literacy. From the objective and subjective data provided by the own portal and by it users, two different and complementary kinds of analysis (functional and users’) are performed. Assessment of various capabilities, among which visibility and usability stand out, is provided. The highly positive but improvable results offer a detailed analysis of the functional aspects of the portal itself and of the users’ relations with this information resource. From these analyses strengths and weaknesses are extracted and some proposals for improvement are derived.     

Multiple formation of microcracks during mechanical loading of polymers

General kinetic and thermodynamic reasoning is used to propose a new mechanism for multiple crack formation caused by a mechanical action on a polymer. It is shown that the role of information “carrier” to “ weak” (in terms of thermodynamic stability) spots localized in the polymer matrix is assigned to phonons as a unique class of quasiparticles which exist in nonconducting and nonmagnetic dielectrics. Pis’ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 23, 80–85 (December 26, 1997)     

Using online databases to form subject collections for informetric analyses

The online databases of the Dialog System retrieve only 26% of documents in an exhaustively compiled collection on the subject of Bradford's Law of Scattering, with some documents being retrieved from many databases. However, when the Exhaustive Collection is more stringently defined to include only those documents more about the subject, the retrieval rate of Dialog improves to 61%, while its most productive database, LISA, alone retrieves 37%. Both of these ‘samples’ give good estimates of the size-invariant properties of the Exhaustive Collection which are typically studied in Bradford and Growth Analyses—vindicating this use of online searching. However, without additional information, online searches are of little use in determining size-related properties of subject literature collections. Whether the analysis reported here—which relies on identical interpretations of a ‘subject’—has secure foundations is briefly considered.     

The quality-quantity-quasity and energy-exergy-entropy exegesis of expected value calculation of citation performance

Quantitative assessment of information production processes requires the definition of a robust citation performance indicator. This is particularly so where there is a need to introduce a normalization mechanism for correcting for quality across field and disciplines. In this paper, we offer insights from the “thermodynamic” approach in terms of quality, quantity and quasity and energy, exergy and entropy to show how the recently introduced expected value measure can be rationalized and improved. The normalized energy indicator E is proposed as a suitable single number scalar indicator of a scientist’s or group’s performance (i.e. as a multiplicative product of quality and quantity), when complete bibliometric information is available.     

Measurement characteristics and properties of information entropy of heart rhythm diagrams

An entropy-based method of analysis consisting in a transition from probabilistic categories to the macro-parameters of the heart rhythm diagram is proposed for the heart rhythm diagram. These macro-parameters include the quantity of information, standard deviation, information entropy, and excess of entropy production. It is found that the heart rhythm diagram linearly accumulates a quantity of information. A distribution diagram of states and a distribution diagram of the scale of states are created. The system regulation–heart–adaptation includes mechanisms of control, regulation, and management.     

Measurement in information-operation systems for investigation of properties of objects

We synthesize a system of information operations for investigation of the properties of objects on the basis of the relations between the categories “quantity-quality,” “essence-being,” “special-general,” etc. We determine the place and role of measurements in this system, and we state the differences in the content of the information operations. Translated from Izmeritel'naya Tekhnika, No. 7, pp. 12–17, July, 1996