Generating indicative-informative summaries with SumUM

We present and evaluate SumUM, a text summarization system that takes a raw technical text as input and produces an indicative informative summary. The indicative part of the summary identifies the topics of the document, and the informative part elaborates on some of these topics according to the reader's interest. SumUM motivates the topics, describes entities, and defines concepts. It is a first step for exploring the issue of dynamic summarization. This is accomplished through a process of shallow syntactic and semantic analysis, concept identification, and text regeneration. Our method was developed through the study of a corpus of abstracts written by professional abstractors. Relying on human judgment, we have evaluated indicativeness, informativeness, and text acceptability of the automatic summaries. The results thus far indicate good performance when compared with other summarization technologies

Volume 6, Number 2, June 1986 OLAC Newsletter

Digitized June 1986 issue of the OLAC Newsletter

AN ASSESSMENT OF INDEXING AND ABSTRACTING SERVICES IN NUHU BAMALLI POLITECHNIC LIBRARY, ZARIA, NIGERIA

This paper examines the concept of indexing and abstracting, where index is define as systematic arrangement of entries designed to enable users to locate information in a document. While abstract at the other hand is an intellectual summary of an information package. The paper tried to finds out the availability and use of indexes and abstracts in Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic Library (Annex) Zaria. The paper finds out that most types of indexes and abstracts are available and mostly used by Academic staffs and Students. It concludes that subject and citation indexes, as well as subject abstract were the most highly used by the respondents in the library; this could be due to lack of awareness about the other existing types of indexes and abstracts. However, some recommendations were made which includes; public awareness to the staffs and Students about the other existing types of indexes and abstracts and also more experts should be employed because as at present only one person is in charge of Indexing and Abstracting services.

Personal Change as a Key Determinant of the Outcomes of Organisational Transformation Interventions

The purpose of this study was to investigate the critical role of personal change, and its inherent elements, in determining the outcomes of organisational transformation interventions. The purposeful sampling method was used to involve expert organisational transformation consultants as participants (N=10). A qualitative content analysis technique was applied to infer meaningful explanations to the research problem. It was found that although personal change formed an integral part of transformation interventions, it was not adequately explored and utilised as a crucial and consequential dimension in influencing the results of organisational transformation interventions. The implications of the findings are discussed

Patient Compliance-Gaining: A Look At Care Facility vs. Home Health

The patient compliance-gaining strategies employed by health care providers in the care facility and home health environments were investigated. Each participant completed a two-page, open-ended survey. A content analysis, and more specifically a thematic analysis of the research, allowed for similarities and differences between the two settings to be compared to current literature. Results indicated that participants used similar strategies to those suggested by researchers in the field. The results showed that strategies applied by health care providers in this particular study are effective for gaining patient compliance

Leadership development in higher education for public health

The dearth of public health leadership and lack of leadership development in higher education for public health, reported by the Institute of Medicine Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health, prompted this study of leadership perspectives in schools of public health and the practices and behaviors of contemporary public health leaders and their followers. Ambiguity between management and leadership was evident. Academic responders identified transactional leadership roles and relationships more often than those of transformational leadership. Leader and follower ratings of leader performance were most often \u27moderate\u27 indicating that leaders sometimes or fairly often exhibit exemplary leadership practices and behaviors. Variances between academic and practice findings suggest that, although many graduates do become leaders in public health, this may not be an outcome of the educational experience. Content and comparative analyses identify twelve concepts of transformational leadership which form a framework for course content in leadership development for public health

Local culture and political socialization of Hong Kong’s Chinese language curriculum in the period of 1960s to 1997

Hong Kong was ruled by the British from 1842-1997. During that period, educational policy of Hong Kong differed from that in other colonial territories. The colonial government encouraged identification with the indigenous Chinese culture, particularly the values of Confucianism. One aim of this research is to explore the culture and values that were chosen by the colonial government as "legitimate knowledge". A second aim is to investigate the relationships between the promotion of the Chinese local culture and British colonial rule in Hong Kong. The methodology used in this study consists of content analysis, interview and documentary analysis to collect both primary and secondary sources of data. Hong Kong under British rule, pursued a deliberate policy of the "depoliticization" of society, both to avoid offending the Chinese government and to preserve Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity "conditions favourable to the colonial government's continued rule and the economic development of Hong Kong society. Hence, some scholars have argued that the colonial government's strategy was to depoliticize the curriculum in its educational policies. However, the present study demonstrates that politics and the Chinese Language curriculum were closely related. The Chinese Language curriculum strongly advocated Confucian values and this was in fact a tactic to achieve political socialization as well as consolidate British colonial rule over Hong Kong. The promotion of the Chinese local culture in Hong Kong was most probably a remedial measure to tackle political crisis arising from the anti-imperialist demonstrations, boycott and general strike against the British in Hong Kong in the 1920ร. Under such a cultural incorporation policy, traditional Chinese values, particularly Confucian ethics, were strongly promoted, in the hope of nurturing conservative attitudes among Hong Kong students and eliminating their radical behaviour. Such a move could not only pacify the anti-British emotions and win popular support, it could also further strengthen colonial rule without provoking political unrest. The key to British success in consolidating its rule depended heavily on its tactics of achieving "de-nationalization" (i.e. deliberately excluding the cultivation of a sense of national identity among the Chinese) through "nationalization" (i.e. cultural incorporation of Chinese culture) and made use of "de-politicization" (greatly promoting moral cultivation in the Chinese Language curriculum and discouraging people’s active participation in politics) to achieve politicization (political stability).Generally speaking, the indigenous language of a country, in addition to training students with language skills, provides students with an awareness of their national identity. In Hong Kong, by contrast, the subject of Chinese Language existed to supply students with a depoliticized and alienated vision of their national identity. As revealed by the findings in this study, the Chinese Language curriculum mainly emphasizes those values that contribute to social harmony as well as political stability, thus facilitating British colonial rule