Implications of Understanding Short Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by {\it
  Swift}
  In an effort to understand the puzzle of classifying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs),
we perform a systematic study of {\it Swift} GRBs and investigate several short
GRB issues. Though short GRBs have a short ($\lesssim2$ s) prompt duration as
monitored by the Burst Alert Telescope, the composite light curves including
both the prompt and afterglow emission suggest that most of the short GRBs have
a similar radiative feature to long GRBs. Further, some well-studied short GRBs
might also have an intrinsically long prompt duration, which renders them as a
type of short GRB imposters. Genuine short GRBs detected by {\it Swift} might
be rare that discriminating the observed short GRBs is, not surprisingly,
troublesome. In particular, the observational biases in the host identification
and redshift measurement of GRBs should be taken with great caution. The
redshift distribution which has been found to be different for long and short
GRBs might have been strongly affected by the measurement methods. We find that
the redshifts measured from the presumed host galaxies of long and short GRBs
appear to have a similar distribution.
