THE ROLE OF A MACHINE IN SCIENTIFICAND TECHNICAL INFORMATION*

It is streued that succeuful appUcation of ma-chines in the field of information retrieval will de-pend to a large extent on the devslopment of a eoundtheory of scientific informaUon or Informatice. Thisinvolves fundamental inv.,Ulallon. in the field. oflinguistiC', plychology, mathematicallopc, seman-tics, .emiotics, etc.

Recent years have been characterized byintensified activities in the field of scientificand technical information in many countriesthe world over.

Extensive theoretical and experimentalinvestigations into proce8ling scientific infor-mation have been developed. This is con-firmed by an enormous number of pubUcationsreflecting the development of the scientificthought in the field of information activities,by a great number of international, regional,national scientific meetings, symposia, con-ferences' etc. The main line of these studiesand scientific communications is a search forways of speeding up the information activityprocesses.

Despite successes reached in the fieldof scientific investigations and design develop-ments, in our days the necessity has becomeobvious of critical evaluation of obtainedresults in the field of evolvement of scientificfoundations and new engineering devices bothfrom a viewpoint of satisfying demands ofinformation users and from a viewpoint ofcomplex solution of the entire informationproblem.

We agree with the opmron of theAmerican investigator Ben-Ami Lipetz whowrote last year in the September issue of the

A I MIKHAILOV

All-Union I,..tit.de 01 Sdetltilicand Teebnieal Inlo""atio,.( VINrrlJ. "o.COIII

.Scientific American" journal clevot.d to uti-lization of computing machines: ·ExceptioD&lprogress has been made in providing hip-speed access to carefully defined and iimitedstores of records. With progress. however.has come the realization that the ultimate goalis far more difficult to achieve than had beenthought ear lier. It involves nt)t only tbe deve-Iopme nt of techniques for storing and manipu-lating recordll but also the improvement of ourunderstanding and simulation of the waYI inwhich people make a •• oclations and value Judg-ments, together with the development of morereliable methods of predictln, human informa-tion needll. The problem il larlely an intel-lectual one not simply one of developingfaster and le •• expensive machinery"[l).

Our investigationll in the palt weredirected in the main to solution of individual.specific problems. At prellent. however.more and more attention la devot.d to pro-blems of development of a theory ot sctenUnc-information activity.

So far we do not have an acceptable namefor a scientific discipline investigatinS thestructure and propertiell of scientific informa-tion, as well as regular feature. of informa-tion activity, its theory. history, methodll andorganization. The term "theory of llcientificinformation" used at pre lIent is obvioulIlynarrow and inconvenient. In my opinion, themost appropriate term will be "infurmatic II" •Such a lIuggestion is substantiated in an articlepublished in the journal "Scientific and Tech-nical Information", No.ll, 1966. Subsequent-ly I shall use thil term. We maintain that theaim of informatiCII is to study regularitiell andto evolve optimal methods and facilitiell ofcollection, analytical and lIynthetic procellsing,storage, retrieval and disllemination of llcien-tific information.

'-Pape, "" •• n'eti at tbe Hrti FID Con/e,erree. To4yo. 19 67. R e,"ntedby tbeleind cou,tesy of Pr ojes sor A I Mi4bailov.

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Much has been done already in informa-tics in order that modern technical facilities,in particular electronic digital computers, canoccupy a prominent place in scientific infor-mation activity. However, the role of amachine in informatics sometimes is under-stood. in a too simplified manner, and ininvestigations and experiments in which useis made of computers not all lines of researchhave been developed to a sufficient degree.

Informatics as independent field ofscience has been formed not only as a resultof an exponential increase in the amount ofscientific and technological literature but alsoas a re sult of peculiaritie s in the deve lopmentof scientific and engineering progress. Modernscience and technology is characterized by twotypical trends.

1. The eve r increasing complexity ofscientific and engineering problems, the solu-tion of which is feasible only by lar ge teamsof scientists and engineers of diverse spe-cia liti e s , The se teams need adequate infor-mation service which assumes the everincr eas ina mas s character. The effectivesolution of this problem require s the use ofmeans of mechanization and automation.

2. A rapid decrease in the time ofdevelopment, assimilation and introduction ofvarious discoveries and inventions. Academi-cian Keldysh, President of the USSRAcademyof Science s , points out in his article "NaturalSciences and Their Significance for Develop- 'ment of World Outlook and TechnologicalProgress" ("Kommunist" , 1966, No.17): "Thestatement to the effect that the age of scienceand technology is precisely our time is notquite correct. In all times the material andtechnological progress has been based, to aconsiderable degree, on the development ofscience. The roots of the industrial revolu-tion also lay in science. The past century wascharacterized by a very large amount of greatscientific achievements. It is erroneous tobelieve that earlier there were few discoveriesin the field of natural sciences which resultedin great consequences in the field of materialproduction, that it is only now that we haveentered the age of continuous descoveries.

However, there is one feature verytypical of modern development of science andtechnology, name ly, rapidity of practical

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utilization of scientific discoveries. A numberof examples may be cited. From the momentof discovery of electric current (Galvani) toestablishment of the first electric powerstation nearly a century has elapsed. It hastaken almost one hundred years to assimilatethis splendid discovery of enormous prospects.It may be also remembered that from elucida-tion of the role of mineral fertilizers in plantfeeding (the middle of the past century) totheir intense use, nearly seventy years haveelapsed. But their really extensive use beganonly after World War II. The situation wasdifferent with the discovery of uranium nuclearfission. From the moment of this discoveryto creation of the first nuclear reactor onlythree years have elapsed and to commissioningof the first atomic power station 15 years.

Due to the fact that our time is charac-terized by extremely fast utilization of scien-tific achievements, good organization ofscientific research and of use of their resultsin production is acquiring the ever increasingimportance. Today in realization of a pro-duction process not a country which was firstin making a new scientific discovery may beahead, but a country which will be able tobetter or ganize its fastest use in practice".

This peculiarity may be illustrated bysome other examples. From the moment ofdiscoveries which finally brought about theemergence of photography at the first half ofthe eighteen century and to the introduction ofphotographic facilitie s into practice 112 yearshave passed. It has taken 56 years for deve-lopment of facilities of telephone communica-tion' 35 years for radio, 15 years for radar,12 years for television and only five years fortransistors.

Such acceleration in the tempos ofresearch and development requires an adequatehigh-speed increase of information systems.Obviously this problem can be solved onlythrough extensive use of mechanization andautomation facilities in information.

Consequently modern organization ofinformation service should not only help theinvestigator in orienting to rapidly growingcollections of scientific data, but satisfyusers' needs proceeding from many aspectsof development of the scientific thought.

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The history of development of informa-tics can provide us with many examples offutility of solving a scientific informationproblem through creating complex machinessimulating some information processes. Toget convinced in it one should look back at thepast. Let us recall the unrealizable hopesconnected with creation of such information-retrieval systems as Rapid Selector, File-search, Minicarcl, etc. In 1958 we attendedan American exhibition sponsored by the FIDconference in the USA where a wide range ofperfect machines were exhibited which laterdid not find wide application in informationservice. At the same time the work on suchfacilities was useful at least in two respects.It made it pos sible to realize that the maindifficulties of mechanization and automationof information processes consist not in theabsence of necessary technological means butin the fact that inner processes of executionof such processes by man are unexplored.And when the inner mechanism of executionof this or that operation by man is not clear,we can only imitate this process but are unableto simulate it.

Another useful re sult of the work connec-ted with the development of information-retrieval facilities was accumulation of valu-able experience which finds ever widerapplication along various lines of informationservice.

Discussing the role of machines ininformation activity let us recall the evolutionof views of specialists on machine automatictranslation. If in early fifties many investiga-tors easily promised to replace a man -trans-lator by a machine literally in a few years,later their ungrounded optimism gave place tosober understanding of the extreme difficultyof the problem facing them. Now hardly anyserious investigator will state that a machinetranslation problem (in its strict sense) canbe solved in two or three year s to come.

Here the difficulty also lies not inimperfection of a machine but in the necessityof conducting profound theoretical investiga-tions. I would like to refer to the idea of aSoviet linguist I. A. Me1chuk from his criticaland bibliographic handbook -AutomaticTranslation" just published by the SovietInstitute of Scientific and Technical Information(VINITI) "The rules or algorithms of automatictranslation should be devised without any re-

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ference to engineering capacities of machinel.It is only necessary to enlure principle reaU-zability of these rules on a machine, i.e. toformulate them rigorously, unambiguously andto comprehensively list all data used- (p.8).

Our interests in problems of machinetranslation is determined not only by the factthat translation of lcientific and engine.rinltexts from one language into another occupi ••a prominent place in scientific informationactivity. Of far more importance is the factthat effective use of a machine in this workrequires a solution of problem. of automaticabstracting and indexing, and these problem.are related with automatic tran.laUon.

It should be pointed out that many inv•• -tigations of these problem. are performed ina purely practical, applied alpect. For'instance, automatic abstracting is carriedout on the basis of selectina some pbra.elreflecting to more or less extent the content ofan abstracted document. The late H. P. Lunnwas the pioneer of this technique. Since a letof phrases obtained by such methods i. not,strictly speaking, an abstract, it would bemore appropriate in the given ca •• to speakabout automatic quasiabltractins. In the .ameway attempts are being made for automaticindexing not by a full text of a primary docu-ment but by itl abltract or even title in whichthe main idea of the document il alreadyexpressed by man (the author of the abstractor the document itself).

By scientific aspect of thil problem weunderstand implementation of automaticabstracting and indexing in the full sense ofthese terms. This means that the unpreparedtext of a scientific document - a book, anarticle, a patent, etc., ill abltracted. Theprocedures of automatic abstracting may beas follows:

a) translation of the text of a documentinto a formalized language;

b) the revealing of the main subjectmatter of this document and expression of th.given subject in a formalir.ed language;

c) translation of an abstract fromformalized language into a natural language.

If the problem of automatic abltractingis solved (the detection of the main lubject

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matter of a scientific document is here themost important and difficult task), then auto-matic indexing becomes practically realizable.For this purpose it is sufficient to translate anabstract from a formalized language to anotherformalized language used in the information-retrieval system.

The solution of this circle of problemsis possible only after profound fundamentalinvestigations have been made in many bran-ches of science - linguistics, psychology,mathematical logic, semantics, semiotics,etc. The se investigations should disclose themystery of human thinking which"is of generalscientific interest. Such investigations areso complex that hardly any essential resultsmay be expected in the near future. Never-theless, investigations should undoubtedly beexpanded and deepened.

Attention should be drawn to the factthat without solving a machine translationproblem it is impossible to solve a problemof automatic abstracting and indexing. Tofulfil this essential problem all methods areappropriate and important, including automaticquasiabstracting in all its varieties and auto-matic indexing of abstracts of scientific docu-ments. Of course, here such factors shouldbe primarily taken into account, as compara-tive cost of processing the texts, gain in timeobtained, etc. It should be emphasized thatdevelopment and practical implementation ofthe above methods in no way means a solutionof a problem of automatic abstracting andindexing in its rigorous scientific sense.

To sum up, the problem under consi-deration has two aspects - a scientific oneand a practical one. Both these aspects areimportant but it is impossible to take achieve-ments in solving a practical aspect of thisproblem for solution of its scientific aspect.A clear understanding of this difference is thenecessary condition of success of our furtherwork in this important direction.

In this connection, of paramount impor-tance is to solve a problem of automaticreading of texts. Without autorna tic readingdevice s any practical system of automaticabstracting and indexing cannot be imple-merited and investigations in this field areimpossible on a sufficiently large scale. Itshould be borne in mind that all suggestionsof using punched tape obtained in £lexowriters,

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monotypes, etc. for feeding in a machine, aswell as other similar suggestions have nothingto do with the problem of automatic readingof texts, although they are quite useful in apractical respect.

Semiotics undoubtedly belongs to impor-tant line s of scientific inve stigations whichshould be developed for solving the problemsof informatics. Creation of artificial forma-lized languages of science and technology, aswell as languages of generalized programmingis one of the most significant conditions ofautomation of information work. The solutionof central problems of structural linguistics,machine translation and deciphering of oldwritten languages will considerably help us insolving the problem of automatic analysis ofthe context of scientific documents.

In this connection I would like to notethe following. It is supposed that results ofsemiotic investigations will find practical usein information activity in the future when themain problems of automatic analysis of thetext will be solved. However, we cannot waitfor this time. That is why it is an absolutenecessity that specialists in semiotics alreadynow take an active part in some concrete stu-die s into designing information -retrievalsystems, in studies into information require-ments of users, in improving methods ofdocument processing, in ordering of informa-tion flows. This will unite our efforts insolving urgent problems of informatics andwill make investigations of semiotics morepurposeful.

In connection with wide application ofmachinery one more important field of infor-matics has appeared.. I mean studies in asystem of scientific publications. Up till nowthe opinion has prevailed that the informationcrisis has appeared in connection with greatincrease in scientific publications. Authori-tative scientists have time and again pointedto the necessity of limiting and or dering_ ofpublishing scientific literature. As an exampleJ. D. Bernal's well known project may be citedwhich suggests replacement of the modernsystem of scientific journals and similarsugge stions to this effect. However, inves-tigations now being conducted in many coun-tries clearly show that we know very little theinner regularities characterizing the scientificpublication system. Being the chief means oftransferring scientific data in time and in

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space, scientific documents are governed bysome objective regularities, without which itis impossible to correctly plan informationactivity or improve the system of publications.

Long, ago attempts have already beenmade to study this problem on the basis ofregistration of cited literature, establishingcorrelations between documents formed througl:bibliographic references. However, onlyafter this technique has been made effectiveowing to computerization, it has startedyielding essential results.

The aim of my communication is to showthe role of a machine in information activity.It goes without saying that the path to acce-Ier ati on of all information processes can bemade only by an automatic machine in combi-nation with intellectual work of man necessaryin all case s. Requirements formed for suchmachinery should be scientifically substant ia>ted. We face two great independent problemscorrelaterl with each other in an inner way.

The first problem is centralized proces-sing of literature on science and engineering.Conditionally this problem can be representedas an information system at whose input thereis a flow of world literature. After processing,at the output of this conditional system we havebibliographic signal information, series ofabstracting journals with a system of variousindices. Here a computer's role is quiteobvious. The creation of automatic input of aprinted text remains an acute problem. Ofgreat importance are high-capacity repro-ducing instruments for type-setting printingand printing without type-setting. However,clearne s s in the se individual problems doe s

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not remove the necessity of a wide front ofinvesfigations mentioned at the beginnrng ofthe presented paper.

A whole group of complex problemsc'onnecte d with the creation of information-retrieval systems may be referred to the,second problem. Here great is the role of adigital computer as a means of helping toconduct experimental retrieval on a large scaleand in shorter periods of time. Over the recentyears in the Soviet Union some experimentalretrieval systt/ms have been designed. Allof them are built on differen.t principles, i s e ,they are fragmentary.

Can it be considered that today all thesestudies illumine the whole problem? Ofcourse not. But these investigations accumu-late very interesting facts which cannot beoverestimated. The sum of these facts willhelp us to approach in a proper way to thecreation of a centralized or coordinated infor-mation-retrieval system. In the USSR thisproblem is being solved on a state scale. Wehave started the organization of a single sys-tem of scientific and techni~al information.

In conclusion I would like to emphasizeonce more an acute necessity of developingextensive theoretical and experimental inves-tigations into cardinal problems of informatics.

REFERENCE

[1] LIPETZ. Ben-Ami: Information storageand retrieval. Scientific American1966, 215(3), 224.

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