June 22, 2005
Binary relevance meassuring in today’s information management systems
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Within the LIS sector (Library and Information Science) there excits two concepts that everyone knows: Precistion and recall. They are interesting to have a closer look at because they are very traditional meassurement within the domain and at least earlier on very used and respected perameters.
The Cranfield II Studies
These parameters were developed through some expiriments called the Cranfield II studies back in the early 50′ies in the UK. In these studies there was a distinction between two kinds of relevance: ‘Stated relevance’ and ‘User relevance’. It is obvious that the difference is that the former is predefined and the latter is based on the users assesement - and therefor subjective - of relevance (Ellis 1990, p. 15-16).
In the Cranfield II Studies outer paramenters such as context, user level e.g., have not been taken into account. This has of course been strongly criticized by all theory within this domain (Harter, 1996, p. 45).
The relevance in the Cranfield II studies looks at relevance as either a document is relevant and it is retrieved or it is not relevant and therefor it is not retrieved (Bruhns, 1998, p.17). Pretty basic.
The question is if they are adequate parameters for the meassurement of relevance in intellegent information retrieval systems nowadays? And are these perameters called precision and recall?
There is an ongoing discussion on how many aspects relevance as concept has. As the Cranfield II Studies operates with a binary concept of relevance it can be stated that it is way too narrow. On the other hand if the judgement relevant is rather broad it can cover all the grey areas of what is really relevant to the user or the search.
The most normalt thing nowadays is though to have more than two levels for the concept of relevance.
Precesion is defined as:
The ratio between the number of relevant and retrieved documents and the number og retrieved documents.
Recall is defines as:
The ration between the number of relevant and retrieved documents and the total number of relevant documents in the system - retrived or not. This meassure provides that the total number of relevant documents in the system for the specific search is known.
The somewhat conclusion must be then, that if a system can be trained sufficiently and is intelligent enough the precision and recall meassures should be accepetable for meassurering binary relevance - but then a new question emerges: Is anyone interested in a relative narrow or very broard definition of ‘relevant’?
References:
Bruhns, 1998,
Ellis, P. 1990,
Harter, 1996,
June 18, 2005
QOTSA
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Last night, Friday the 17th of June, I went to the Queens of the stone age concert in Vega . I saw them two years ago as well on the Roskilde Festival, which was phenomenal.
I have to say (and my apology to Sune Wagner from Raveonettes - you are very very cool as well) that Josh Homme is about the coolest guy walking on earth!
The concert last night was fantastic!!! It was insanely wild and totally rocking! We were drenched in sweat and beer and were jumping around for a long time. I have no idea how long the concert lasted, but they definitely played for a long time which of course was cool. The only thing that could have been better was if Josh would have been talking more to the audience. But oh my God they were rocking and making Vega the place to be last night.
The guys from QOTSA have been playing in quite a few combinations with other bands and artists. You should check out Mark Lanegan, Desert Sessesions volume 9 and volume 10, Eagles of Death Metal, and Foo Fighters.
Anyways, I hope my hearing will come back on my right ear soon..
June 16, 2005
FreePint
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For those of you within the information architecture domain who does not already know this site, I think you should have a look at FreePint. FreePint is an online network of information searchers. Members receive this free newsletter twice a month, which is packed with tips on finding quality and reliable business information on the Internet. I think a lot of their topics are pretty interesting, and they give a good impression about what is going on around the world with research, conferences, litterature and so on.
I don’t really look that much at the website, but I like their newsletter. But the website gives many opportunities for looking for and participating in forums, shopping for reports, networking and the like.
On the website I particularly like the forum in there where it is possible to see what kind of barriers people around the world are having in their work, and what kind of interests they have. And a lot of people use it, so it is a very active forum.
It might be very focused on librarians, but many other professionals would get a lot of good information from the site, as it is rather minded on research but still practical.
June 9, 2005
British comedy
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I am a big fan of British comedy. My all time favorit must be the Harry Enfield and chums show. I have watched that show over and over again. There are so many funny sketches in the show, that only thinking about it makes me laugh - maybe that says more about me than the show - I don’t know really.
I haven’t seen it for a while, but they do show it on BBC Prime in periodes. They show a lot of fantastic British comedy, so if you should have a favorite or just a craving for a laugh - have a look there…you might just be lucky.
Other really funny shows are:
Father Ted - I have never seen that one on BBC Prime though, only on a Danish channel years ago.
Murder most horrid - Fantastic and bizarre - I love Dawn French!
The vicar of Dibley - Well Dawn French again, and other ever so lame character - amazing!
The comic strip - Back in around 1980 a lot of the Bristish comedians that we know and see today were starting out in this show. I have never seen it on BBC Prime though.
AbFab - We all know this show…
The fast show - Fabulous sketches.
Only fools and horses - An old show but a sure winner! And who would have thought that Sir David Jason (the guy from the ‘Frost’ crime series on tv) once were a comedian!
…and probably many many more.
I cannot imagine that I will ever get tired of those shows, I just need to get a hold of them on dvd. That would make a perfect weekend in front of the telly!