Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1988,35(3),116-123

ABSCINDEX : PROPOSAL OF A NEW TOOL FORINFORMATION RETRIEVAL AND SCIENCE INDICATIONIN REGIONAL CONTEXTS

S & T indicators have been defined as concep-tual tools based on infonnation mechanism faci-litating infonnation search and/or retrieval ofappropriate key elements; and derivation ofpast, future and current trends of S & T evolu-tion in both R&D and interfacial contexts. Pre-sently available tools are the abstracting andindexing services of traditional type and the cita-tion indexes. Merits and demerits of both typesof tools as S & T indicators have been examined.A new tool (ABSCINDEX) has been proposedincorporating functions of both traditionalabstracting and citation indexing services. It hasbeen claimed that such a new tool will be highlyeffective in meeting the optimum demands of acompetent S & T indicator on regional basisespecially in the context of third world environ-ments.

INTRODUCTION

An indicator in a narrow sense is a pointer orrecorder or an agent showing a state, a course, atendency, a quality, a measure or a value in cer-tain context of a specified situation. An indica-tor is also a signal or caution towards a possiblecrisis. An indicator is usually an artfact concern-ed with material and physical parameters. Essen-tially, therefore, indicator functions are somesort of information mechanism.

When we want to use the term 'indicator' inthe parlance of mentefacts or intellectual activi-ties and in socio-cultural contexts we have tobroaden the sense and reformulate the semanticdimensions. Here, the notion of informationmechanism is most helpful and appropriate.

Science and technology (S & T) and theirsocio-cultural interfaces (including -economic

- and industrial applications) are cumulative andever changing. Tracking them is not only essen-tial but urgent as well. The devices developed forthis purpose are generically known as informa-tion tools. They are periodically (some aperiodi-cally) published inventories of surrogates orlocational addresses of S & T items. Such servic-

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SUBIR KSENSFR, Information Science Group85, Deoiniuas RoadCalcutta-700074

es are possible for any segment of the wholebody of knowledge vis-a-vis human cultural/intellectual endeavour.

S & T indicators are of two types. Indicatorsof the first type pinpoint an item or a set ofitems of literature which may be of interest orof use to an enquirer or searcher who might be apractitioner of S & T or an agent or simply aknower. Such indicators should also provide themultiple linkages (both vertical and horizontal)of the items or set of items with other items.

Indicators of the second type are usuallyderived indexes and descriptions of changes inS & T situations, projection of future trends,socio-cultural interfacing, growth, degeneration,decay or of crises of translation of mentefacts toartefacts, etc.

We, therefore, understand that both types ofS & T indicators are very much tool dependent.Such tools are records of S & T information. Itwould be futile or meaningless to attempt tohave or derive objective workable S & T indica-tors without having such tools at first. We arenow in a position to define more or less precise-ly what we should mean by science and techno-logy indicators.

DEFINING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYINDICATOR

Definition:

S & T indicators are devices based on someinformation mechanism or conceptual toolswhich are capable (i) of providing relevant,appropriate information regarding any matter ortopic of interest to a searcher in the context ofsome S & T need with an implicit or explicitsuggestion as to the focal points and key ingre-dients and (ii) of facilitating qualitative and/orquantitative understanding, measurement, pro-jection of socio-historiography as well as futuro-logy of S &,T, R & 0 and their cultural interfac-mg (including economic and industrial interfac-ing).

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It is intelligible that a single tool or a singleinformation mechanism cannot perform all thefunctions listed above. It is sufficient for adevice to be considered as an efficient indicatorif one or more function is performed elegantlyfor a number of different requirements. An indi-cator tool will be more useful if both types ofindicating services can be derived from it.

TOOLS OF S & T INDICATION AND INFOR-MATION RETRIEVAL

The first type of indicator function (given in thedefinition) is nothing but a skewed and some-what dilated view of information retrieval func-tion. The indicator tools in existence are prima-rily for this function. The second type of indica-tor functions has been imposed upon them. Inother words, they have been subjected to variousexploitive manipulations to get at some num-bers, parameters, characteristic features whichcould serve as indicating elements of the secondkind.

We find no tool or information sampler orinventory publication with the sole purpose ofproviding indicators of the second kind. Hardlythere is any device of indication which need notdepend upon manipulation of an informationStore or information service of the first type.

So, information retrieval tools or secondaryinformation services which are also called thebibliographic data bases serve for S & T indica-tions. So far such services or data bases exist intwo different forms. We call them traditionalsecondary services (TSS) which comprise abs-tracting and indexing services (TAS & TIS) andcitation indexing services (CIS). Both the formsof services may be global or regionally limited ingeographical senses and universal or specialisedin the senses of subject coverage. Each of themmay be selective or exhaustive, mayor may nothave linguistic bias or linguistic selectivity. Anapparently unimportant coverage feature is thetype, nature and form of documents e.g., whe-ther books, popular articles, class lectures, films,patents, industrial literatures, symposium pro-ceedings are to be incorporated or not. Howe~er,instead of considering such data bases or servicesas having only I.R. function in terms of currentR & D interests, if we take the view of consider-ing them as having indicator functions primarilyand give a broader I.R. perspective especially in

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the interfacing aspects, these unimportant fea-tures become very very important.

Input for the preparation of items of second-ary services are the currently. published lit~ra-ture. By suitable arrangements It may not be Im-possible to get the sources of input somewhatbefore the publication of primary materials.These source items provide such parametriccomponents as title, author(s), address(es) ofauthor(s), location of the item, key words, abs-tract, bibliographic references or (backward)citations. Many of the TSS now incorporatesuch information as addresses of authors, langua-ge of the primary publication, number of refer-ences. CIS have the same data source as TSS.But in this case an inversion in terms of referen-ces are affected. In TSS, citations are never ex-plicitly treated, in CIS citations are the keyele-ments of I.R.

CRITIQUE OF TRADITIONAL SECONDARYSERVICES

A TSS is a bibliographic data base (BDB). Thearchetype of a BDB is a bibliography or a catalo-gue. A bibliography when published in a serialform maintaining continued existence becomes aTSS. All the abstracting and indexing periodicalsare TSS. One need not dwell on their descrip-tions. TSS prepare their inventory from the re-search publications in academic sense. Patentitems are very less included, so are the trade andindustrial literature or circumstantial documentslike technical reports or policy papers.

Although a TSS can be global or universal inscope, existing ones are either regional or sub-ject-oriented. Those which attempt at beingglobal like Bulletin Signaletique or ReferetivniiZhurnal are either more selective or are publish-ed in many subject-wise parts. Even so, bulk ofany of them has become tremendous.

TSS allow retrospective searches as well ascurrent searches in the sense of immediate pastThey are usually fonnatted in a classified orderTopic-wise segregations are warranted to someextent. One gets all and sundry together at aplace. Approaches are possible through authorindexes or keyword indexes.

TSS serve their indicator roles in a verylimited way. A TSS caters some archival func-tions, as research publications of the past areavailable in various issues of such a TSS. In asubject TSS e.g., Chemical Abstracts one mayhope that

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subject TSS e.g., Chemical Abstracts one rr..ayhope that any research publication of the pastpertaining to that subject i.e., a chemical topicmay be found in an issue of the period. If onewanted to know what were the main topics inwhich papers were published in past few decadesand what were the numbers of such papers sothat it could be ascertained how many peoplewere attracted to what; or how the foci of inte-rests have shifted, one would not probably con-sider a subject TSS as a source, although thatcould have been derived from the TSS at an ex-pense of large manpower and time.

The purpose for which TSS are used can beenumerated as below:-

1. Preparing bibliographies,2. Retrospective searches for items,3. Addresses of authors to take the advantage

of invisible colleges,4. Browsing to get glimpses of what happened

or is happening in a subject,5. Giving SDI (selective dissemination of infor-

mation) services by the data base managers,6. Extracting and deriving numerical, quanti-

tative and qualitative values and parametersfor getting indication in growth or change ofliterature, research interests, publishingauthors, journals, etc.

However, TSS fail to suggest linkages ofvarious groups of researchers in space and time,shifting of research programmes, interdiscipli-nary growths, etc. Any researcher of science ofscience who has attempted exploiting a TSS forscience indication knows how difficult and tor-tuous it may be.

For personal searching/browsing purposes,TSS are till now the best tools. Whatever may bethe shortcomings in the tool when it can serve asan inventory-cum-archive, the searcher can withease or with effort adapt himself to get the bestout of the tool. Personal and group innovative-ness can come into play. In this regard Kochen[1] remarked: "By his resourcefulness andability to cope with unique situations, thehuman searcher can always be expected to origi-nate numerous and unexpected clause that aidsearch."

CRITIQUE OF CITATION INDEX SERVICE

It is an empirical fact that not all publicationsare equally important for the future progress of

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cumulative knowledge. It is also true that not allor every publication is cited equally by laterauthors. Majority of publications are not fatedto be cited at all [2]. The heuristic assumptionis that more important publications which com-prise the core of S& T progress are cited. Accor-ding to Lotka-Price Law, the theoretical rela-tionship ensures citable publications to be asmall proportion of all publications. It is claimedthat these citable publications appear largely in aproportionally fewer number of journals. Inother words Bradford's Law is operational inthis case. [3]

Therefore, a secondary service based on cita-tions may remove certain constraints of TSS. Itcan be global in both senses of subject divisionand geographical coverage, yet keeping the bulkto a manageable size. It can ensure weeding ofless important contributions and focus on moreimportant ones. Lastly, it can ensure forwardsearching and clustering of related papers. Infact a new concept of clustering and categorisa-tion has emerged on the basis of citation linksand nets. [4]

Exactly the motivations stated above havebeen exploited in Garfield's citation indexes. Sofar they are the only tools or services of thekind.

Advantages and lacunae of CIS have alreadybeen discussed in detail. We need not reviewthem. The most important advantage of CISover TSS is that in searching and grouping,dependence on human factors can be avoided.TSS is very much dependent on natural languageterms as well as on arbitrary classificatory princi-ples. Such situation cannot be tackled mechani-cally and objectively. CIS need not depend onsuch human elements and human interfacing atleast at the time of searching.

However, this claim of objectivity is some-how vitiated when it is considered that the veryact of citing has subjective influence to a largeextent and that the natural language descriptionsand arbitrary subject classifications in case ofTSS have to have literacy warrant.

The cultural constraint of the publicationmedia does not allow one to cite everything. Forevery publication, its cited pack is limited. Yet,except for a few core items an author can takeliberty of citing from among alternative items, aswell as of suppressing some and marginally in-putting some other. This subjectivity is retainedin a CIS. We have shown elsewhere that generali-sation of the idea of bibliographic coupling can

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help us in overcoming this subjectivity to largeextent. [4]

It is already established that CIS can servemuch better in socio-historiography of science(SHOS) than any other kind of tool in existence.In many respects CIS can compete and in manyothers CIS can complement TSS.

But the most important features or dangersof CIS are usually overlooked.1. Present principles and formatting of C.!.allow only a unidirectional (forward) mapping.A more viable exploitation for IR or SHOSwould require both forward and backward mapsto be apparent simultaneously. Generalised bib-liographic coupling can be effective, only if bi-directional maps are available. In the presentsituation, one can, of course refer to the originalsource items for backward references, but thatpose tremendous practical difficulties.

In machine-readable forms it may be possi-ble to go backwards, but in the present formatof the hard copy, there is no way of doing so.We are not aware what it is really there in themachine readable data base of CIS.

2. Effectiveness of principles guiding CIS be-comes questionable, when we change our pers-pective of S & T culture from the so calledadvanced and developed countries (AC's) to theLAC's (Less Advanced Countries).

If one compares citation practices of authorsfrom LAC's (especially those of the third worldor southern countries) with those of AC's, aparticular trend is apparent. Authors of LAC'sdo not usually refer to works of authors fromLAC's, not even of the same country and publi-shed in the same journal. They do not form invi-sible colleges among themselves except in rareoccasions, though th.ey form research and infor-mal discussion groups.

This tendency is a remarkable manifestationof information imperialism and inferiority com-plex of LAC authors. This is, because there is noproper tool which can make LAC authors awareof what is going where. The CIS, at present, most-ly serve towards the current trend of cultural andinformational imperialism, having more andmore dependence on intellectual thoughts andR & D requirements of AC's.

As we know, the R&D needs and indicatorneeds in LAC's are largely different and distin-guishable from those of AC's. The existing tools,

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especially the CIS, cannot meet those ends, sincethey cover very little source iteJ11Sfrom LAC's.As LAC authors tend to take up researches in ~o-

•called prestige topics and refer mostly to autho-rities of AC's, hence citation nets cannot revealany significant indicative fact for LAC's. At thesame time, many important R & D works arepublished in LAC publications in such areas andin such languages as are"considered unimportantby the CIS (or even TSS, though they are lessselective) .

For example, in literary criticism, philoso-phy, social sciences, etc., citations to Rabindra-nath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi or any otherclassical Indian text can be formidable in Indianlanguages but, they won't be reflected in CIS.Publications in tropical agriculture, extensionand field application of various methods arereported and discussed. These are very impor-tant for an LAC. But one cannot expect inclu-sion of such items in international CIS or '{SS.

REGIONAL SECONDARY SERVICE TOOLS

A regional service is geographically limited inscope. In subject coverage it may be universal orspecialised. But the source materials must bethose published within a certain geographicalarea. Similarly a secondary service may bethought of covering the publications in a spe-cific language only.

Secondary services such as Bulletin Signale-tique or Referativnii Zhurnal are not regional.Examples of regional services are Indian ScienceAbstracts or the national abstracting journals ofthe eastern European countries. All these publi-cations are TSS.

The main objective of a regional ( or na-tional)TSS is to encompass current publicationsand their representations within the specified re-gion (or country) in some organised manner.This is simply an archival function. Tendency ofpublishing a regional TSS is observed especiallyin LAC's. Very often such a regional TSS be-comes a white elephant.

The amount of money, manpower and or-ganisational efforts inputted remain unmatchedin terms of effective circulation and utilisationof the output service. It is not and cannot beused for information retrieval. The practisingscientist or technologist prefers even for brow-

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sing, a global service in his own speciality if thatis available easily. Current awareness type ofassistance is usually beyond question fromRTSS. That is served far better through currentcontent type publications in one's own subjectfield if they are available or alternatively fromnews type or semi-popular journals or throughinvisible colleges.

We have some preliminary observations withIndian Science Abstracts (ISA) [5]. Even withtwo decades' of its existence, ISA is selling a fewhundred copies. There is hardly any searcherlooking into them in the few libraries wherethey are available. Most of the Indian scientistsdo not even know that such a publication exists.

The most important purpose such as RTSScould serve is to facilitate searching, retrievalof publications on indegenous problems and en-vironment. Yet, formatting and search facilitiesbeing poorly designed, easy access is not alwayspossible.

The first one of the two criteria of an S&Tindicator is not fulfilled by an RTSS. Their I.R.function is insignificant. The second criterioni.e., of SHOS is more promising. Again, it wouldbe pretty difficult to derive any meaningful re-sult or indicative guide from a typical RTSS,that is the reason we hardly come across anysuch attempt.

This author has no knowledge of a paper orstudy in S & T indication with RTSS. This is so,as the brains behind the idea of RTSS neverthought of the second kind of indicator func-tion of such regional services and they could notbe designed suitably for the purpose.

RTSS focus on R & D or primary publica-tions. In case of India or other LAC's these pub-lications are mostly in English language (exceptfor the Latin American countries and a few Afri-can countries). Publications in local languages ina multilingual country like India where a dozenlanguages have large reading population and 2.many serial publications in subject areas arelargely neglected and not covered being consi-dered as unimportant R & D publications. RSSin LAC's as already mentioned can discharge theindicator function better if the scope is enlargedto cover interfacial, marginal and policy docu-ments. To do that, items published in local lan-

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guages need to be collected and covered. Theseitems may be from newspapers, magazines andgovernment documents.

The principle, objective and format of a toolwhich is expected to be more effective as a re-gional secondary service is described in the nextsection.

PROPOSAL OF THE NEW TOOL FOR S & TINDICATION

As already stated, we need a tool which willserve for both IR and SHOS functions, that is,for both types of indicator functions. When weare considering this we are mainly concernedwith a regional secondary service for LAC's. Byregional we mean coverage of a group of coun-tries or a group of languages (as may be in caseof South East Asian countries), or of a single po-litical unit (i.e., a national service tool) or asingle linguistic area (say, West Bengal andBangladesh) .

The proposed tool will be both a TSS and aCIS. It is almost impossible, because of sheerbulk, to conceive of such a tool as may be uni-versal in coverage both in subject & area and per-forming both the functions of TSS and CIS.With regional coverage such a tool is viable.

The tool will have two parts. The first partwill form a modified TSS. The second part willbe a modified CIS. The main entries of itemswill be broadly classified under title with theaddress and abstract. Each main entry will havea number or tag or serial number. But this willnot contain address( es) of the author( s). Theindex parts will contain several packages :-

1. An alphabetical subject index package (anysuitable system can be followed or develop-ed).

A source author index with address of eachauthor of the main items arranged alphabeti-cally and with reference to the tag numbersof the main items.

3. An institutional index giving the names ofthe institutions of the authors or the corpo-rate authorships.

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4. An index giving the categories of documentsi.e., books, reviews, lectures, patents, stan-dards, interfacing materials, etc.

5. The last one will be the cited pack. This willgive the citation indexes. The most impor-tant features will be to tag uniquely eachentry of this pack. The items of source au-thor index, the items of main entry packageor TSS pack and the entries of citation in-dex pack are to be cross referenced.

In dealing with this, we need to understandthe dimension of the problem appropriately. Fora published item, bibliographic references madein it are fixed once for all. But for a past item itscitable future .is never known and is everchang-ing, at least within a certain expected span oftime.

On the other hand, if we agree to the viewthat citations also follow Bradford type distribu-tion and most of the publications are never citedonce or more than once, then it is understand-able that citable items are somehow stable [2,3] .If this is true (which is supported by empiricismand phenomenology) for some items, citing packremain almost the same and for some others,they change rapidly.

For the citation index in our proposal, weface a filing and corroborating problem. In eachindividual issue of our service, the main entryitems are uniquely tagged. Their citations canalso be sorted, organised and arranged in someorder and can be given unique tags. But as soonas we go for cumulations of individual issues, sayhalf yearly, annually or triennially, the indexpacks will loose their individuality.

The problem can be resolved through twodifferent approaches:

(a) The items of the main entry part or the abs-tracts get unique tags. The cited items for eachcan be placed below the particularly entry usingminimum or individualising elements e.g. firstauthor's name, abbreviated journal title or ajournal code (or in case of a book a special codefor the book), volume, issue, page, the year (incase of books, publisher, edition, year, page, ifavailable). All these can be accommodated in ashort span. The citation index will give, underauthor's name, and a particular publication, the

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tag numbers of the main entry. In this approachcitations get repeated in some cases but the C.I.pack need not be tagged. Cumulation of indexparts do not require modification in individualis-ing problem. But the citing author or source in-dex pack can only refer to the original mainentry items and not to the cited author.

(b) Alternatively, both the citing author andcited author packs need individualising tags.That would be all right if one dealt with separateissues independently. But, unless cumulationsare allowed, the whole scheme fails. The onlypossible way out is to use arbitrary fractionalnotations as are used in bibliographic classifica-tions which allow interpolations. The key fea-ture of such notational device was provided byDewey and more completely developed byRanganathan.

NAMING THE TOOL

The main entries and indexes together as ske-tched above can provide for the files of a ma-chine readable bibliographic data base. With re-gular up-dating" and cumulations, the date base,independent of the hard copy secondary service,can very well act as a cheap, indigenous selectiveinformation disseminating and current awarenessservice. Generating the background algorithmfor developing computer programmes for suchmachine readable forms is not very difficult aswe may show elsewhere. The scope of such databases are enormous. We shall need, however, se-parate data bases in both hard copy and machinereadable forms for different levels or categoriesof S & T items viz., research publications, tech-nical reports; extension, mass media and popularitems; industrial; interfacial materials; etc.

As this data base (and service) incorporatesabstracts as well as both of forward and back-ward citations in indered formats, we like toname it ABSCINDEX.

DISCUSSIONS

1) Why such a system becomes capable of inde-pendent, efficiently viable bibliographic database for current awareness and S.D.I. service?

i) Most of the published items are never cited.The number of published items are growing al-

t,most exponentially with time. The more impor-

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tant items are cited more. These importantitems and their citational progenies are neededor demanded more freq uently by the clients orusers.

ii) If considered globally and subject-wise uni-versally during a specified period, the number ofnewly published items are much more than thenumber of the past items cited by those newitems. A legitimate corollary to this conclusionis that, if we take a subset of these newly pub-lished items (especially regionally) the bulk ofthe cited items remain almost the same as thecited pack of the whole set (unless we speciallyselect this subset or minimise the number tosuch an extent so as to become insignificant).

iii) The current items covered in the regionalsecondary services may not be important inthemselves for a user, but when coupled withor placed among the related items through ci-tation chains become very important by produc-ing clusters of significant information value to auser.

iv) In case, of global packages, cited items areless in number than the citing items, but in caseof regional ones, the opposite is true. Cited packis more voluminous than the citing pack. Thecoverage becomes also global in such a database. Thus through a coverage of regionalsource items one may organise a data base andcater information service of global coverage ofsuitable items. This question of suitability issignificant. Those items are more cited by LACauthors which are easily available and have morerelevance to indigenous working facilities.

From this, the users can know of more easilyavailable and relevant alternative foreign items.Document supply centres and data bases canplan their resource build-up on the basis ofthese packages.

2) How the system proposed can help createindigenous S & T traditions and closer R &D tieup among LAC's regionally?

i) The currently published regional TSS cannotcompete with global subject TSS and cannot satis-fy browsing or SDI function. So they are notused. Their small coverage and absence of explicitauthor links cannot generate any desire for inter-change of ideas or of establishing invisible colleges

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through exchange of reprints or preprints. In glo-bal secondary services, the local or regional au-thors get scattered among many others and be-come invisible with their addresses besides theirmore visible foreign colleagues. So, an LAC scien-tist attempts at entering an invisible college con-tacting a foreign author, even if there may besincere regional colleagues who could be of moreheld and comraderie.

ii) Citing foreign authors more for even less re-levant and less significant works than the regionalauthors of comparable merit is a typical featureof LAC authors.

iii) This is because they do not have suitabletools or system for knowing each other. Due tosuch dependence on ACs, indigenous R & Dschools and S & T traditions cannot grow. Assoon as the focus of attention and R & D activi-ties of peers, mentors and contacts in ACs shift,the LAC workers get busy in shelving their workswithout pursuing in complete independence andgo on I;hanging foci of their own R&. Dr. Youngerpeople. also muster around 'fashionable' problemareas and 'fashionable alias progressive' researchgroups in terms of R §( D interests far more visi-ble personalities or institutions in ACs.

Such a trend is quite natural when the LACworkers neither gain visibility nor know eachother regionally in absence of suitable tools. Onthe contrary, the AC authors are profited throughnumerous information tools generated in ACs.As a result Mathew effect sets is : rich gettingricher, poor becoming poorer.

'Absindex' is likely to overcome the defi-ciencies and lacunae discussed above to a greatextent and help create regional invisible collegesand indigenous S& T traditions.

3) Better SHOS function possible:

The proposed system has an objective aim atproviding second type of indicator function. Itdoes the archival function as much as any otherRTSS. We have shown elsewhere, when we getforward and backward maps together, we canhave better insight, more representative para-meters and direct possibilities of deriving di-fferent types of bibliographic clusters. Someexperiments which can show the effectivenessof bothway linkages have been affected by a teamincluding the present author.

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The indexes described in the preceding sec-tion -will facilitate indicator functions directly.Already in the existing CIS, potentialities ofSHOS purposes are well-established.

REFERENCES

1. Kochen M : Principles of information retrieval, Melvi-lle Pub., Los Angeles (1974).

CONCLUSION2. Garfield, E : Citation Indexing, Its theory and appli-

cations in science, technology and amanities. NewYork, John Wiley, 1929.

The system at its best can provide a holistic pic-ture of S & T scenario and its changes in an LACenvironment. The same system can be used and 3.extended to published and unpublished docu-ments in peripheral, marginal and interactionalS & T areas.

Price D De J Sona: A general thoery of bibliometricand other cumulative advantage process. J. Am. Soc.Inform. Sci. 1976.,27(5),177-191.

By exploiting the $ystern in say. three orfive years span, it will be possible to pinpoint theresource persons in various areas of activities aswell as the growth, decay, changing foci and fu-turological projections. Only a tool of this kindcan ensure indicator services of both types for anLAC region. It is felt that establishing such a sys- 5.tern is worth experimenting.

4. Sen, S K, Gan S K : A mathematical extension of theidea of bibliographic coupling and its applications.Annals Lib. Sci. Doc. 1983,30(2), 72-82.(This paper includes an exhaustive list of earlierworks).

Pal R : Unpublished report (private communication)& personal observations by the author.

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