notes

News from Kent and Elsewhere

BICA Issue No. 7: January 1989

CSAC Bulletin Board

It offers access to Lucy: you can run some of our programs, copy some of the files, send messages, and chat with other users. The information about current events is collected more or less as it falls into our hands, and entered when we have a moment to spare: we particularly welcome information about seminars, Visiting Anthros from other countries, projects in hand and so on: you are all extraordinarily welcome to contribute items. You can use the message service to do this. (We have found it very difficult to keep the news section up to date. We're trying to improve it).

You can access the Bulletin Board via JANET (Joint Academic Network) or via PSS. For all PSS connexions our number is: 234222715151. This also works from continental Europe, e.g. we know for certain that it works from Cologne via their Post Office network (which is called DatexP). The number connects you to the University of Kent Gateway, and you have to log on to the UKC gateway. You do that with the login name:

    OOR022 (letter O,letter O,R,Zero,2,2)

and using the password:

    anthro

You will then get a prompt for a `gate command'. You should type

    call lucy

You will then be prompted to log on to Lucy, and should give the name and password as:

    csa-c
  1. (password:) 12 anthro

The complexity of logging on twice, once to the gate and then to Lucy has still not been eliminated \*-it is a security hurdle, to exclude hackers and other malign beings. It is still possible that in the next months you will be able to log on direct to Lucy. We are promised that it should be clear from the messages on your screen which login procedure you should follow. But if you have trouble doing one procedure, try the other.

Once you have got through to Lucy we have a very friendly hold-your-hand set of procedures set up by Michael Fischer: a series of prompts and menus which are all self-explanatory. To get the full range of Bulletin Board facilities you will need to go through a registration procedure: Lucy will only transfer files to you if she knows your address; and the displays in some of the programs need to know what type of terminal you are using. This information has to be obtained from each user: once you have given it, Lucy will remember who you are. You can also by-pass that interrogation if you want to browse and explore; and you can register at a later time if you want to copy stuff to your own machine. In general terms: until you register, your terminal will appear much dumber than it probably is.

BICA -Editorship.

Michael Fischer will be the editor from the next issue. We all hope that BICA will appear more regularly as a result.

CSAC Grants.

Michael Fischer has had an ESRC grant for research entitled `Ethnographic Representations of indigenous knowledge using a computer'. It is concerned with marriage decisions in Lahore, up to the point of betrothal.

He has also had a grant from the University of Kent Research fund, to help him produce an `Anthropological Toolkit' \*-a set of software of general use to fieldworkers. For further information about either of these, contact him at CSAC.

Paul Stirling has continued to process his data on households in Elbasi and Sakultutan (Turkey), with support from ESRC. This work is now nearly complete, and will result in a unique data-set covering 35 years of movement. He has been at great pains to follow migrants from the villages, and this data is included. The data will be made available for any person who wishes to use it. Contact him at CSAC.

John Davis has a grant from ESRC, `Libyan marriage, 1932-79': it is to make a computer database from Libyan court records of marriage and divorce in that period.

CSAC has a grant from ESRC to run a Spring School in 1989. Details are attached to this issue of BICA.

CAAN vol 3 No 1 ( Computer-Assisted Anthropology News Edited by James Dow, Sociology and Anthropology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan 48309-4401, USA) contains three main articles: Anthropological journals in electronic format (Douglas White); Shared workstation applications project (Douglas White); Brief reviews of three text data base management systems (with commentary excerpted from the networks) (Rob Kling).

The 46-page issue also contains short notes and comments and announcements, including one which strikes an immediate chord of sympathy: `CAAN readers are probably wondering why a new issue hasn't arrived sooner ...'

We've had a nice note from James Cook University telling us about Graduate degrees from the Material Culture Unit: they have interest in computer usage in inventories of collections. Further details from Prof. Barrie Reynolds, James Cook University, Townsville Q 4811, Australia.

CSAC Software

This is a list of applications and databases which are available on Lucy: some are portable to other machines, some are very flexible, others are designed for very specific needs, but can be adapted, and in any case offer a model of how the machines can be used to solve particular problems. Please note that it is an abbreviated list: full details available on request to c-sac@uk.ac.ukc.

    Nick Ryan. Gtree is a program for representing graphically information and the relations between items of information, such as genealogical data, social networks, and semantic categories (as well as Ryan's work in stratigraphy). Planned distribution is for UNIX (older version available), the Atari ST, MacIntosh+, and IBM PC compatibles.
  1. Bricolog 16 Michael Fischer, Cris Simons. Bricolog works with data of the same sort as Gtree, but is more analytic in orientation. The basic data type is a set, with properties and relationships defined for these sets. Properties correspond to attributes such as sex, clan membership, occupation, and relationships correspond to relations between sets, essentially a set of relationships. At any time the contents of a set can be reported, either case by case or a simple count, or a crosstabulation. Planned distribution is for UNIX (beta available), the Atari ST, MacIntosh+, and IBM PC compatibles. C source available.
  2. Notescan 16 Michael Fischer. Notescan is a program for accessing databases that are relatively unstructured, such as fieldnotes or open-ended interview material. It can however work with highly structured data as well, or a mixture. It requires no special file structure, the data can be entered using any conventional text editor, and can search up to 50 different files in a single query. Unlike some similar programs it requires no index. It is quite fast with hard disk systems, and can search about 100,000 characters per second. It is somewhat slower from floppy disks. C source available.
  3. Bulletini\ Board 16 Michael Fischer. A program for operating a bulletin board from a UNIX service machine. Includes a special shell which aids security for the host. In use at Kent for the Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing Bulletin Board, accessible by JANET and PSS. C source code available. (further development planned).
  4. CrossCull 16 Michael Fischer. CrossCull is a program for interrogating the cross-cultural databases distributed by the World Cultures journal (Edited by D. White, UC, Irvine), as well as other sources. It offers quick cross-tabulations of cultures by variable (< one half second per table for the standard sample). Planned distribution is for MacIntosh (beta available). Turbo Pascal source available.
  5. Assoc 16 Michael Fischer. A teaching program for demonstrating categorical inheritance, whereby a category inherits the properties of dominating categories. This permits the student to test different structural models imposed over a set of categories. Available for UNIX. (works, no further development planned) C source available.
  6. Parse 16 Michael Fischer. A teaching program for demonstrating phrase structure grammars. The user writes a phrase structure grammar and can test target `sentences' against these rules to see if they are accounted for in the rules, and in how many different ways. Available for UNIX. (works, no further development planned) C source available.
  7. Infer 16 Michael Fischer. A teaching program for demonstrating expert systems, eg a simple expert system shell. Available for UNIX. (works, no further development planned) C source available.
  8. Outline 16 Michael Fischer. An `ideas processor' or outline processor. Based loosely on a commercial program, ThinkTank (Living Video). Available for UNIX. (works, further development planned) C source available.
  9. Menu 16 Michael Fischer. A program for constructing menu driven environments by non-programmers. Specifically for UNIX. The Social Anthropology Bulletin Board is written in a variant of menu, called smenu, that can act as a standalone UNIX shell. Smenu includes security components making it reasonably safe for anonymous logins. Available for UNIX. (works, further development planned) C source available.
  10. CrossFreq\ Suite 16 Michael Fischer. A crosstabs/frequencies program. A number of utilities are available for converting the output into table descriptions for nroff/troff, and plotting graphs using the UNIX plot library. Available for UNIX. (works, no further development planned) C source available.
  11. Kapauku 16 Michael Fischer. This simulation contributed to the paper "Ecological Structure, Economics and Social Organization: The Kapauku", in New Trends in Mathematical Anthropology, (ed) G. De\0Meur, 1986. It is also used as a teaching aid for the Computing for Social Anthropologists course. Available for UNIX and TOPS20. (no further development planned) C source available.
  12. !Kung 16 Michael Fischer. A teaching simulation for exploring the relationship between the !kung bushman and their ecosystem. Available for UNIX. (works, no further development planned) C source available.
  13. MapPlot 16 Michael Fischer. A program for plotting variables associated with map coordinates onto a laserprinter (HP LaserJet) or Plotter (HPPL compatible), or graphic terminal (via UNIX plot). Used for both research and teaching. Available for UNIX. (works, further development planned) C source available.
  14. Wterm 16 Michael Fischer. A program that makes it easier to setup complex applications for beginners, by emulating the user typing commands. UNIX, C source code available. (no further development planned)
  15. Codemaster 16 Michael Fischer. A program for solving simple substitution ciphers. Useful to introduce students to the keyboard, and to demonstrate how an interactive tool can help with a non-trivial problem. UNIX, C source code available. (no further development planned)
  16. Yoruba\ Traders 16 Jerry Eades. A simulation of trading behavior among the Yoruba, developed as part of a research project. It is also used as a teaching aid for the Computing for Social Anthropologists course. Available for UNIX. Pascal source available. (further development planned)
  17. Rels 16 Janet Bagg. An interactive program which builds a simple network of relationships between persons. While entering data from the keyboard decisions concerning the identity of persons are made on the basis of information already held in the database. Available for UNIX, C source code available. (A newer piece of software that is much more powerful will be available soon.)
  18. NewsRead 16 Michael Meerman. A news reading and posting program, for use with programs such as the Bulletin Board, or as a general message center for a UNIX 4.1 or 4.2 host. C source code available. (further development planned).
  19. Libent 16 Janet Bagg, John Davis. A menu-driven data-entry program, for work with documents from Libyan court archives. At the moment it is highly specific: a more generalised version is planned to allow users to define complex structures which are then used to derive prompts and storage. UNIX, Turbo C sources available. Databases

The databases are accessible through specific interfaces, or through the general Bulletin Baord, notescan, cross, freq etc.. All databases are or will be available on the Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing Bulletin Board.

a) Bibliographies.

    Makhzan John Davis. 4,000 entries, general anthropology. Samud Jeremy Kemp. 1,300 entries, S-E Asian anthropology.

b) Ethnographic data-bases: kinship, economic and political relations.

    Zuwaya Kinship and Census , Zuwaya Marriages , (Libya) John Davis. Saudi Royal Genealogy , John Davis. Goromese Census , (Mollucas) Roy Ellen. Greentown Census , Greentown Socio-Economic Survey , Punjabi Marriages (Lahore) Michael Fischer. Santo Thomas Census , Henry Selby, Michael Fischer. Yoruba Traders , Jerry Eades. A Turkish Village , Paul Stirling. Ethnographic Atlas , G.P.Murdock, (installed by MF).

c). Ethnographic data-bases: Linguistic, taxonomic and medical.

    Goromese Wordlist , Nuaulu Dictionary , Nuaulu Ethnozoological Inventory , (Mollucas) Roy Ellen. Greentown Malaria Survey , (Lahore) David Nalin, Michael Fischer.

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