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The Size of Your Thesaurus
During the initial stages of discussing a new taxonomy project, I am frequently asked questions like: How granular does my taxonomy need to be? How many levels deep should the vocabulary go? And especially: How many terms should my thesaurus have? The answer is—of course—it depends.
Read MoreAccess Innovations, Inc. Announces Release of the Smart Submit Extension Module to Data Harmony Version 3.9
Access Innovations, Inc. announces the Author Submit extension module as part of their Data Harmony Version 3.9 release. Author Submit is a Data Harmony application for integration of author-selected subject metadata information into a publishing workflow during the paper submissions or upload process. Author Submit facilitates the addition of taxonomy terms by the author. With Author Submit, each author provides subject metadata from the publisher taxonomy to accompany the item they are submitting. During the submission process, Data Harmony’s M.A.I. core application suggests subject terms based on a controlled vocabulary, and the author chooses appropriate terms to describe the content of their document, thus enabling early categorization and selection of peer reviewers and support for trend analysis.
Read MoreHold the Mayo! A study in ambiguity
When we (at least those of us in Greater Mexico) hear of or read about Cinco de Mayo there is no question in our minds that “Mayo” refers to the month of May. The preceding “Cinco de” (Spanish for “Fifth of”) pretty much clinches it. Of course, if the overall content is in Spanish, there might still might be some ambiguity about whether it is the holiday that is being referred to, or simply a date that happens to be the one after the fourth of May. (As in “Hey, what day do we get off work?” “The fourth of July, I think.”)
Read MoreThe Supposed Advantages of Statistical Indexing
I would like to make some observations about statistics-based categorization and search, and about the advantages that their proponents claim.
First of all, statistics-based co-occurrence approaches do have their place. For wide-ranging bodies of text such as email archives and social media exchanges, and for assessing the nature of an unknown collection of documents, a well-defined collection of concepts covering a pre-determined area of study and practice is not possible. For lack of this foundation, and for lack of other practical approaches, attempts at analysis fall back on less-than -ideal mathematical approaches.
Read MoreData Harmony® Software Version 3.9 Now Available
Access Innovations, Inc. has announced that version 3.9 of its Data Harmony suite of software tools is now available. The Data Harmony® suite provides content management solutions to improve information organization by systematically applying a taxonomy or thesaurus, in total integration with patented natural language processing methods. MAIstro™, the award-winning flagship software module of the Data Harmony product line, combines Thesaurus Master® (for taxonomy creation and maintenance) with M.A.I.™ (Machine Aided Indexer) for interactive text analysis and better subject tagging.
Read MoreLimitations of Fuzzy Matching of Lexical Variants
Some vendors of text analytics software claim that their software can identify the occurrences of text reflecting specific taxonomy terms (with the strong, and false, implication that it identifies all such occurrences) using “fuzzy matching” or “fuzzy term matching.” Some explanations of the technology, from Techopedia and Wikipedia, show that it is a fairly crude mathematical approach, similar to the co-occurrence statistical approaches that such software also tends to use, and no match for rule-based indexing approaches that derive their effectiveness from human intelligence.
Read MoreThe Semantics of Whisk(e)y
As noted last week in our article, “A Spirit of Another Name”, Saveur has created a glossary of Whisk(e)ys. However, as we all know, a glossary does not a taxonomy make –it can, however, be a good starting point. One of the problems, of course, is that national styles – and even spellings—are mutable. In general, “whiskey” comes from Ireland and the United States, while “whisky” (no ‘e’) comes from Canada and Scotland. However, well-known bourbon Maker’s Mark long ago decided to buck the semantic trend and drop the “e” despite being an all-American brand.
Read MoreKnowledge Organization Systems and Return on Investment (KOSs and ROI)
Let’s call him George. George was having a very bad day. He needed legal advice. So, over his lunch hour he scheduled an appointment. After George described his situation, the lawyer pulled a book from the shelf behind him. After briefly scanning it and checking precedent, he confidently told George with a smile, “Relax. This is a slam dunk.” On his way out of the office, George gazed at the consultation invoice and muttered to himself: “15 minutes! Only 15 minutes and he charged me $325.00!”
Read MoreOf Taxonomies, Biology, and Moneyball
Baseball and biology are not commonly found in the same conceptual space. Neither do you find taxonomy associated with baseball, but in recent news these connections were made. Grant Bisbee, editor of “Baseball Nation”, digresses into the arcane as he laments the coming of the “He’s In the Best Shape of His Life” season. This is the time of year baseball writers must assess the prospects for the coming season, and clichés and hyperbole reign. The dubious practice of evaluating the physical condition of players runs rampant as spring training begins. With tongue in cheek, Bisbee tries to shape a taxonomy to classify this spring ritual. His would be the taxonomy of the “In the Best-shape Stories”.
Read MoreRelease of Data Harmony® Software Version 3.9 Planned for March 31, 2014
Data Harmony, a division of Access Innovations, Inc., has announced that version 3.9 of its suite of software tools will be released on March 31, 2014. Current customers will be the first to receive the new version.
“Our recent enhancements provide greater search efficiency while browsing your thesaurus through callouts and hyperlinks to related and narrower terms,” said Allex Lyons, one of the Data Harmony programming team. “Dropdown menus in the search window display subject terms with a type head (autocomplete) function that assists users of any skill or experience level.”
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