engineering

Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System

Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System rather than just read about it. In short: Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System (abbreviated as PSH from the Czech Polytematický Strukturovaný Heslář) is a bilingual Czech–English controlled vocabulary of subject headings developed and maintained by the National Technical Library (the former State Technical Library) in Prague. It was designed for describing and searching information resources according to their subject.

Key takeaways

Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System (abbreviated as PSH from the Czech Polytematický Strukturovaný Heslář) is a bilingual Czech–English controlled vocabulary of subject headings developed and maintained by the National Technical Library (the former State Technical Library) in Prague. It was designed for describing and searching information resources according to their subject. PSH contains more than 13,900 terms, which cover the main fields of human knowledge.

Because of its release in SKOS, PSH can be used not only for describing documents in a library, but also for indexing web pages. Everyone can use PSH for free. PSH is a part of the Linked Open Data cloud diagram (LOD cloud diagram). The image of the LOD cloud diagram shows datasets that have been published in Linked Data format, by contributors to the Linked Open Data community project and other individuals and organisations.

History and development The PSH preparation project started in 1993, supported by several grants from the Czech Ministry of Culture and Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. Since 1995, PSH has been used for indexing the State Technical Library's documents. Starting 1997, PSH has been distributed to other libraries and companies, originally as a commercial, paid product; since 2009 for free. In 2000, the State Technical Library received a grant from the Ministry of Culture to translate PSH into English. The next milestone in its development was its releasing in the SKOS format, in 2009. The vast majority of new subject headings is suggested and approved by the indexing experts from the National Technical Library. However, the users and public can also make suggestions, using an online form, which are then assessed by the experts. The main decisions about the development and the future of PSH are done by the Committee for Coordination of Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System. The Committee consists of specialists from the National Technical Library and cooperating institutions, and representatives from the libraries and companies which use PSH. The Committee meets once a year in the National Technical Library; in the meantime, the members communicate using an electronic mailing list.

Browsing PSH PSH Browser was released in June 2009. It serves for browsing the PSH system and its distribution in SKOS format. This tool navigates users through PSH from general to specific terms. Users can also use the Search field. PSH manager tool was released in 2012. It serves as an indexing tool especially to catalogers. Catalogers can easy orient in its clear structure. All the terms in PSH manager contain link to the catalogue of NTK. There can be also viewed the record in MARC21 format.

Autoindexing In 2012 was released beta version of autoindexing application. It is accessible on Autoindexing. Users enter chosen text into indexing field and activate indexing. In few seconds the terms describing content are displayed.

PSH structure PSH is a tree structure with 44 thematic sections. Subject headings are included in a hierarchy of six (or seven) levels according to their semantic content and specificity. There are hierarchical, associative ("see also") and equivalence ("see") relations in PSH. Hierarchical relations are represented by broader and narrower terms (e.g. physical diagnostic methods is broader term to electrocardiography, and on the other hand, electrocardiography is narrower term to physical diagnostic methods). Equivalence relations link subject headings with their nonpreferred versions (e.g. electrocardiography and ECG). Moreover, associative relations are used to link related subject headings from different parts of PSH, regardless their affiliation to a section, (e.g. electrocardiography: see also cardiology). Every subject heading belongs to just one section, which has its own two-character abbreviation, assigned to every subject heading of the section. This enables users to recognize affiliation of subject headings from lower levels to the thematic sections. The 44 thematic sections have following root nodes:

PSH formats The main format for storage, maintenance and sharing PSH is the MARC 21 Format for Authority Data, which is implemented in library automated systems. PSH is also available in SKOS, using RDF/XML syntax, which is a version suitable for web distribution. Single headings can be accessed on the PSH website through URI links. Alternatively, the whole vocabulary can be downloaded in one file. It is possible to display tags from PSH (metadata snippets – Dublin Core and CommonTag), which can be embedded in an HTML document to provide its semantic description in a machine-readable way.

New subject headings New subject headings are primarily obtained through the log analysis in the National Technical Library's on-line catalogue of documents, which are the terms used by end-users when searching various documents. Google Analytics service is now used for gaining search queries used by users. Within the data analysis, users queries are divided into seven categories that contain the title of the document, person, subject, action, institution, geographical terms and others. Then the candidates for new preferred terms and non-preferred terms are identified in the subject category. Users can suggest preferred or non-preferred terms through the web form or via e-mail psh(@)techlib.cz.

PSH and Creative Commons PSH/SKOS has been available under the Creative Commons License CC BY 3.0 CZ (Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Czech Republic)since 2011. Users are free to copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works, but they must give the original author credit and if they alter, transform, or build upon this work, they have to distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one. Users can download all data in one zip file, which is continuously updated.

See also Thesaurus Library of Congress Subject Headings Information retrieval Semantic Web

References

External links PSH official web page Linking Open Data community project PSH browser zip file web form Autoindexing Archived 30 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine

Illustrations

PSH logo

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System

In research: Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Index (publishing), Knowledge representation, Library cataloging and classification, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System in simple terms?

Why does Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Polythematic Structured Subject Heading System.