bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Book review: Computation of Language: An Essay on Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics in Natural Man-Machine Communication By Roland Hausser (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1989)
Authors: Kulas Jack
Published: January 2007

Computation of Language
is a self-styled
essay
that addresses issues in natural-language syntax, semantics, and pragmatics from the perspectives of natural-language processing (NLP), formal-language theory (FLT), and philosophy of language. Subtitling a 425-page book an "essay" is somewhat unusual, since an essay usually has the length of a journal article. Yet the word does seem to fit in the sense that an essay can be an "attempt," for the book attempts to provide a philosophical foundation, in terms of a comprehensive theory of natural-language communication, for the practical task of designing and constructing a natural-language-communicating robot (NLC-robot). Hausser fails, however, to connect satisfactorily his philosophical and practical discussions. The book is not a single essay at all: it's really three essays,
1
loosely related by their general concern with
language and computation,
yet without the sort of sustained unity one would expect for a project of the scope of Hausser's. Though the book as a whole lacks unity, it's not without other virtues. Hausser proposes an interesting delineation of the proper spheres of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and the book's parts are insightful and often novel in presentation, thus making them individually worthwhile.
PRODIGY
Authors: Carbonell Jaime , Etzioni Oren , Gil Yolanda , Joseph Robert , Knoblock Craig , Minton Steve , Veloso Manuela
Published: January 2007

Artificial intelligence has progressed to the point where multiple cognitive capabilities are being integrated into computational architectures, such as SOAR, PRODIGY, THEO, and ICARUS. This paper reports on the PRODIGY architecture, describing its planning and problem solving capabilities and touching upon its multiple learning methods. Learning in PRODIGY occurs at all decision points and integration in PRODIGY is at the knowledge level; the learning and reasoning modules produce mutually interpretable knowledge structures. Issues in architectural design are discussed, providing a context to examine the underlying tenets of the PRODIGY architecture.
Model-based integration of planning and learning
Authors: Collins Gregg , Birnbaum Lawrence , Krulwich Bruce , Freed Michael
Published: January 2007

The goal of our research is to construct an integrated model of planning and learning that can account for the acquisition of new planning knowledge. Our approach involves the use of model-based reasoning. In this approach, the system monitors its performance by comparing it with expectations derived from a model of the system's planning architecture. The arguments relating the system's expectations to its underlying model of the planning process are encoded in the form of explicit justification structures. When the system's actual performance diverges from its expectations, it traces back through these justification structures, looking to fault the setting of some controllable parameter of the planner. When such a controllable parameter is isolated, a repair is then effected, in the form of an adjustment to one of these parameters.
The entropy reduction engine
Authors: Drummond Mark , Bresina John , Kedar Smadar
Published: January 2007

This paper describes the Entropy Reduction Engine, an architecture for the integration of planning, scheduling, and control. The architecture is motivated, presented, and analyzed in terms of its different components; namely, problem reduction, temporal projection, and situated control rule execution. Experience with this architecture has motivated the recent integration of learning, and this paper also describes the learning methods and their impact on architecture performance.
Mental models, text interpretation, and knowledge acquisition
Authors: Goel Ashok K. , Eiselt Kurt P.
Published: January 2007

That which is commonly known as "human intelligence" is surely the result of the interaction of a great number of cognitive abilities such as motor control, vision, learning, problem solving, and language use, just to name a few. Yet most AI researchers study these component skills in isolation, without regard to how the individual components may use the knowledge or processes commonly associated with other different components. For example, much of the AI research on problem solving has focused on knowledge-based methods for solving complex problems without regard to the perceptual or linguistic processes involved. Similarly, work on natural language understanding typically views the language understander as an entity unto itself and ignores how language is used. We believe that the artificial separation between these cognitive components that pervades AI research has led to the development of underconstrained theories of intelligence.
A situated-automata approach to the design of embedded agents
Authors: Kaelbling Leslie Pack
Published: January 2007

This paper addresses Laird's issues concerning integrated intelligent architectures in the context of work done by the Situated Automata group at SRI International, CSLI, and Teleos Research. The first section contains a brief general introduction to the theory and programming methodologies of the situated-automata approach, the second section discusses some terminological difficulties; and the third section addresses the specific issues.
Architecture of an intelligent agent in SNePS
Authors: Kumar Deepak , Shapiro Stuart C.
Published: January 2007

This paper describes some accomplishments and ongoing work relating to a system called The SNePS Actor. Cognitive agents modeled using this system are capable of representing and reasoning about beliefs, acts, and plans. The architecture of the SNePS Actor being developed is based on our investigations of the relationships between beliefs, plans, effective acts, and sensory acts, and between reasoning and acting, in the context of a computational rational agent. The representations and reasoning mechanisms used are those of SNePS- an intensional, propositional, semantic network-based system.
An integrated architecture for planning and learning
Authors: Martin Charles E. , Firby R. James
Published: January 2007

We are developing an integrated system for planning and learning. The type of learning we are interested in is
advice-taking,
or learning by being told. Our model of planning is based on the Reactive Action Packages (RAPs) of Firby (1989). Our model of learning is based on the Direct Memory Access Parser (DMAP) of Martin (1990).
A framework for integrating perception, action, and trial-and-error learning
Authors: Whitehead Steven D.
Published: January 2007

Meliora is a system being developed at the University of Rochester that learns to assemble objects from random piles of blocks. It is a testbed for exploring issues in Integrated Architectures. It is based on a control architecture that is reactive, adaptive, has an active -but limited- sensory system, has a limited internal representation, and does not depend on
a priori
domain knowledge. In these working notes, we describe Meliora's control architecture, discuss its features and limitations, and describe how it can be integrated with more "intelligent" mechanisms that improve its performance. The notes are organized around the question set laid out by the Program Committee.
Integration of knowledge and method in real-world discovery
Authors: Żytkow Jan M.
Published: January 2007

An architecture which controls automated discovery of empirical knowledge must integrate a robotic component which interacts with the real world, knowledge network which accumulates knowledge, a discovery method, and the currently executed discovery tasks. We describe such an architecture implemented in the FAHRENHEIT system, concentrating on the integration and interaction between elements. The robotic component includes hardware connections to the external instruments and manipulators, operational procedures to control the hardware, and a process that controls outstanding requests for measurements and manipulations. Knowledge network describes the actual state of knowledge about the world, including all discoveries that have been made. The state of knowledge expands as the discovery process continues. Operational procedures are expanded and refined as a result of discoveries. Better procedures, in turn, allow FAHRENHEIT to collect better data and to improve its knowledge. The discovery method consists of a network of generic goals and plans for goal execution. Discovery goals require search, so most of the generic plans are solution schemes to search problems. All search problems are defined by the application of a uniform search template. Actual goals and plans executed at any given time form a recursive network of instances of generic goals and plans. The instances are selected based on the generic network of goals and plans, and the current state of knowledge. The selected plans are search instances. At any given time a number of search instances of various types may be in progress, each of them plan leading to new discoveries.
APL catches the bus
Authors: Jones Curtis A.
Published: January 2007

IBM's APL2/PC includes the AP488IBM and AP488NI auxiliary processors for the IEEE-488 General Purpose Interface Bus (GPIB) to control a wide variety of I/O devices, instruments and tools. Process control and measurement in the lab and on the production line through the GPIB can be efficiently implemented with APL2/PC.The manuals for the GPIB software are large, and the manuals for the instruments that connect to the bus can be even larger. The system does have many capabilities, but most situations can be handled with a few basic commands. This short introduction can't claim to provide all that's needed to use the GPIB, but it may be enough to start an application, and it purports to point out the pertinent parts of the paper pile.
Book review: Knowledge Systems Design by John K. Debenham (Prentice Hall, 1989)
Authors: Mittal Vibhu
Published: January 2007

The author introduces the book in the reface as one meant for people interested in building expert systems and deductive databases, and in particular for those interested in building maintainable expert systems. He states that the book is not meant for a beginner, but is "designed for the educated, knowledge processing specialist". The book is slanted towards working professionals, rather than academics, a stance which is indicated by his statement in the preface where he states that "[the book] should be of prime interest to those large corporations with a commitment to building a large, integrated, corporate knowledge base".
Knowledge-Based Systems for Management Decisions by Robert J. Mockler (Prentice Hall, 1989)
Authors: Ferrante Rich
Published: January 2007

This book has a fairly specific audience, it "is intended for anyone." It is an introductory book for managers, rather than a highly technical book for computer scientists. The author has succeeded in his goal of producing an introduction to Knowledge-Based systems accessible to a broad audience. Computer scientists will find no fundamental errors and managers should find it accessible. I would characterize it as a book your customers should read.
Book review: Analogical Modeling of Language by Royal Skousen (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989)
Authors: Goldman Robert
Published: January 2007

Royal Skousen's
Analogical Modeling of Language
is an ambitious attempt to define a new processing model of language use. According to this paradigm, the computation carried out when understanding and producing discourse is a process of comparing the current case/input with an entire corpus of previous cases and responding in the same way as in a randomly-chosen analogous case. This approach is in distinction to following rules (the conventional approach) or relying on associative memory (the connectionist approach).
IS personnel
Authors: Duliba Katherine A. , Baroudi Jack
Published: January 2007

The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which information system (IS) personnel form an occupational community. To this end, a model of an occupational community is developed. Occupational communities are hypothesized to form when people are highly involved in and identify with their work, when the work itself is inclusive, and when people are isolated (in terms of geography and/or time.) Data was obtained on the strength of the IS occupational community, and on the three antecedents of involvement, inclusivity, and isolation, through semi-structured interviews with IS personnel. The results show that IS personnel form a weak occupational community, if they can be said to form an occupational community at all.
Issues in conducting a field study of computerized work monitoring
Authors: Grant Rebecca A.
Published: January 2007

Computerized work monitoring is an important and increasingly popular area of business research. It is also a difficult topic to study, as conflicting and inconsistent results demonstrate. This paper discusses issues facing researchers who study the impact of these systems. The issues discussed fall into four categories: accepting a paradigm; choosing theory; defining constructs; and measuring constructs. A field study of computerized work monitoring illustrates typical decisions required in each category. The study is based on a determinist, variance paradigm concentrating on the individual's reactions to monitoring and using a thermostat model as an explanatory framework. This is contrasted to studies based on other paradigms and theories. The study develops a taxonomy of monitoring positions systems designs along a continuum of pervasiveness, making it possible to compare systems in numerous studies. Perceptual, rather than objective, measures of constructs are used. The study is contrasted to research which used objective measures, and the implications of choosing each type discussed.
The validation of a political model of information systems development cost estimating
Authors: Lederer Albert L. , Prasad Jayesh
Published: January 2007

Accurate estimation of information systems development costs is important to management. Political behavior may compromise the estimating process. This research sought to validate a political perspective of cost estimating. A survey of 116 information systems managers and analysts revealed that user management, user representatives, information systems managers, estimators, and developers had differing objectives with regard to the development of information systems. These differing objectives were linked with differing behaviors in the form of pressures to increase or decrease systems development cost estimates.
Who teaches management information systems?
Authors: Schell George P.
Published: January 2007

Does the AACSB common body of knowledge requirement for information systems (including applications) suggest that this discipline be included in course work in each business school discipline? Certainly information systems permeate all functional areas of business. Therefore, should information systems theory and practice be incorporated into the course work of all disciplines of the business school? If the answers to these questions are "yes" then it becomes very important to address how students learn information theory and applications.Most business schools have an information systems course as a core requirement. An introductory course to management information systems (MIS) provides the overview of the field. Many introductory MIS texts devote chapters and/or case studies to the application of information systems to different functional areas of businesses. Beyond this overview, course work in other disciplines utilizes computer software and applications.This article provides a discussion of the abilities of other disciplines to incorporate information system theory and practice into course work. It is supported by an example of an expert system that was introduced in a business policies course. The design and implementation of that expert system provided insights into the students' perceptions of expert systems and also into the abilities of non-MIS instructors to assimilate information systems concepts into their courses.
The development of a computer-based decision support system for use in evaluating candidates for the position of programmer-analyst
Authors: Chang Hae-Ching , McLeod Raymond
Published: January 2007

Human resource selection is an area where computer-based decision support holds great promise. A key component of the selection process is the face-to-face job interview. This paper describes an effort to develop a computer-based decision support system to assist the interviewer in evaluating job candidates. The described system uses
behavioral anchors
, descriptions of past behaviors that can provide useful references for evaluating different characteristics of a candidate. The portion of the development project that has been completed thus far includes the elicitation of the anchors from an expert interviewer and the refinement of the anchors so that they provide uniform support for all of the selection criteria. The remaining steps will include an experiment designed to understand the effects of these anchors on novice managers, and the development of a DSS based on the anchors. The purpose of describing the research at this point is to disseminate the knowledge concerning the system design with the hope of stimulating similar research in this important area of human resource management.
A functional approach to strategic planning information resources
Authors: McLeod Raymond
Published: January 2007

Much has been written about strategic planning for information resources, implying generally that such planning is the sole responsibility of the information systems (IS) function. This article explains why other functions, including human resources (HR), share this responsibility. The article describes how such planning might be done.
ADL
Authors: Buska Douglas E. , Wilkins Mark L.
Published: January 2007

A couple of years ago when the term "object-oriented" was less popular, we found that we needed a language that had some of the object-oriented capabilities of C++, KEE
TM
(b), and Smalltalk. The languages that were available at that time ran only on special purpose hardware and were not practical for our development because of lack of capabilities. The language we developed had to support a combination of the features in the above languages without giving up the standard 3GL features of flow control, arrays, and string manipulation. From these requirements, a programming language called ADL was born. The acronym ADL stands for "Algorithm Description Language" because ADL's original application was for development of models comprised of cost and transportation algorithms. As ADL was enhanced, it became apparent that ADL could be used for modeling general physical systems by representing the systems with "classes", and "instances".
Graph interpretation of methods
Authors: Choi Injun , Mannino Michael V.
Published: January 2007

We discuss two interpretations of methods and classes in object-oriented programming and demonstrate a type system based on the notion of methods as graphs. Definitionally, a class may be viewed as a data structure associated with either a collection of method interfaces or a collection of individual methods. In the former interpretation, a method represents a collection of functions that satisfy its interface known as a function space. In the latter interpretation, a method represents a set of input-output pairs of a specific function, called the function's graph. We informally describe and contrast these interpretations with particular emphasis on subtyping rules for methods --- an anti-monotonic rule for the function space interpretation and a monotonic rule for the graph interpretation. These rules have practical implications on type checking, method redefinition, assertions, dynamic binding, and completeness of subtype testing. We present a notation based on the latter interpretation and demonstrate several interesting features of our notation including abstract data types for encapsulation, four kinds of ad-hoc polymorphism (disjoint overloading, coercion, incremental overloading, and specialization), and type restrictions to precisely define the relationship among arguments in polymorphic methods.
Book review: Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction Ed. by Martin Helander (North-Holland, Amsterdam 1988)
Authors: Nielsen Jakob
Published: January 2007

My conclusion: If money grew on trees you should rush to the nearest bookstore to buy this book, after stopping to pick a good handful of the green stuff. Unfortunately, money does not grow on trees where I come from, so unless you are in more fortunate circumstances you will probably have to settle for looking at the handbook in some library. I do recommend the purchase of the handbook by libraries that cater to larger communities of usability professionals.
Book review: Speech Recognition by Machine by W. A. Ainsworth, (Peter Peregrines Ltd ., 1988)
Authors: Bradford James H.
Published: January 2007

Ainsworth has set himself the ambitious goal of describing the theory and technology that form the basis of modern speech recognition. His is a surprisingly short book (only 206 pages) for such a broad topic. Initially, I was concerned that any attempt to cover so much material in so few pages would result in technical descriptions too superficial to be useful. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find that Ainsworth has been able to achieve a good treatment of difficult topics with a minimum number of words. Although some very complex and important algorithms such as dynamic time warping and hidden Markov models could have benefited from a few more pages of description, Ainsworth has produced a brief and very useful survey of speech recognition technology.
What the user interface field thinks of the software copyright “look and feel” lawsuits (and what the law ought to do about it)
Authors: Samuelson Pamela , Glushko Robert F. J.
Published: January 2007

The software copyright look and feel lawsuits have created a climate of uncertainty in the user interface design field [3, 4]. Although individuals may have opinions about how these lawsuits should be decided, it is difficult for them to know how representative their views are. This column will report on a survey on the user interface field's perspective on these lawsuits which was conducted at the sixth ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI '89) on May 2, 1989. This forum was chosen because the annual CHI meeting is the largest gathering of user interface researchers, designers, and developers-the people who have the most to gain or lose by the outcome of the look and feel controversy. (An in-depth report on the survey findings, which includes detailed statistical analysis, is available [4]). The column will compare the results of this survey with a report jointly written by 10 intellectual property scholars[1] concerning copyright protection for look and feel and other aspects of user interfaces. The CHI survey results are, in general, consistent with the scholars' conclusions based on copyright principles.[4] The legal experts see a basis in copyright law for denying copyright protection to look and feel, which is what the user interface field thinks would be in the field's best interest.
Trip report
Authors: Nielson Jakob
Published: January 2007

CHI'90 was the largest CHI-conference yet with 2,300 participants.
1
As a matter of fact, the growth of
human-computer interaction as a profession
was an important theme in itself this year. SIGCHI has been the fastest growing ACM special interest group for several years and continues to retain this distinction.
Report of the working group on interface design decisions and representation
Authors: Hix Deborah , Casaday George
Published: January 2007

This is a report of working group discussion held during the "Taking Design Seriously" workshop at CHI'90 in Settle. The group participants were George Casaday, Tom Dayton, Deborah Hix, John Karat, John McGrew, and Antonio Siochi.
Report of the design methodologies subgroup
Authors: Braudes Bob
Published: January 2007

This report summarizes the work of the methodology subgroup from the "Taking Design Seriously" workshop held during the 1990 ACM SIGCHI Conference at Seattle, Washington. Due to the relatively short duration of the workshop, significant breakthroughs and discoveries were not anticipated; rather, the subgroup discussed issues which were considered important in design. There was common interest in the area of modelling tasks and task execution, and this became the major problem addressed by the subgroup. With this motivation, we looked at the various influences on determining the tasks and interaction sequences, and collectively evolved a design methodology (which is a subset of a larger development methodology not addressed by the subgroup), shown in Figure 1. Finally, we proceeded to focus in on one small part of that design methodology for detailed examination, displayed in Figure 2.
User interface programming survey
Authors: Myers Brad A. , Rosson Mary Beth
Published: January 2007

Are you tired of seeing papers start out with a line like "user interfaces are hard to build and take 28% to 75% of the development time" followed by a reference like (Sutton 78)? We are, and anecdotal evidence suggests that the percentage spent on the user interface is rising. Therefore, we are attempting to get more relevant and realistic data about the proportion of code and effort that is devoted to programming user interfaces in end-user applications. If you have experience with this aspect of application programming either in industry or research labs, we would very much appreciate your responses to the questions in this survey. If you have worked on an appropriate system but you do not feel qualified to answer this survey, please pass it along to someone who can answer the questions. Also, if you know someone who we might ask to participate, please send us his or her name and address. We will mail a copy of the resulting report to all who participate, and it will be published in an appropriate forum.
Users' errors and error handling
Authors: Frese Michael , Brodbeck Felix C. , Zapf Dieter , Prümper Jochen
Published: January 2007

Errors are usually studied in the laboratory. This is useful, but larger impact factors like organizational variables cannot be observed there. In our study, we observed computer users in their ordinary work situation in the office. Organizations have an impact on particular work settings by determining the concrete task structure and the social climate. Traditionally, the two most important task structure variables have been job complexity and job discretion.
Job complexity
of a particular work task influences which errors appear and how they are dealt with. A high level of
job discretion
implies that the workers can decide many issues at work, e.g. the timing, sequencing and the content of plans and goals at work (Frese, 1987).
Some symbolic computing links to the NAG numeric library
Authors: Broughan K. A. , Keady G. , Robb T. D. , Richardson M. G. , Dewar M. C.
Published: January 2007

This article is a semi-popular account intended to help readers compare the three products, SENAC, InterCall and IRENA. Each of the three is in the genre specified in the title of this paper. This article is
not
a review, as the authors are too closely associated with individual products. For technical detail, see the references below, which, however, treat individual products and generally provide no comparisons.
Examples of automatic asymptotic expansions
Authors: Salvy Bruno
Published: January 2007

We describe the current state of a Maple library,
gdev
, designed to perform asymptotic expansions for a large class of expressions. Many examples are provided, along with a short sketch of the underlying principles. At the time when this report is written, a striking feature of these examples is that none of them can be computed directly with any of today's most widespread symbolic computation systems (Macsyma, Mathematica, Maple or Scratchpad II).
Some simple ways to construct and to use formulas mechanically
Authors: Barnett Michael P.
Published: January 2007

This note describes a style of mechanical formula construction and several utilities that help to debug, document and monitor
Mathematica
procedures, that evolved from some recent work on the symbolic evaluation of molecular integrals of quantum chemistry. Objects called grules and crules are used to substitute from one equation into another, with easily controlled generality or specificity. Operations are performed
in situ
on subexpressions that are specified hierarchically. Interpretive and string manipulation techniques serve supporting roles.
Brief review: Stochastic Analysis of Computer and Communication Systems, Ed. by H. Takagi (Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. 1990)
Authors: Finkel David
Published: January 2007

This is the first volume in a series of books, designed to give an introduction to research-level topics in queueing theory applicable to performance evaluation. As such, it presumes as background a careful mathematical study of introductory queueing theory topics.
Composite theoretical performance
Authors: Ames D. , Gibson D. , Troy B.
Published: January 2007

Export controls require that computer systems, specifically Digital Central Processing units, be characterized as to performance. Absolute performance measurement is not required, rather a very wide range of CPUs, from micros to supercomputers, must be rank ordered. Ranking is based on a synthetic characterization and is influenced by the design details of the particular processor that make it useful for one or more strategic applications. This paper describes the strategic export control concerns, the rationale involved in the choice of a metric, the technical considerations, and the elements included in the CTP metric.
Amdahl's law and end of system design
Authors: Christianson Bruce
Published: January 2007

Gene Amdahl has persuasively argued that there are severe technology-independent limits on the performance gains which can be achieved by using massively parallel processing. This conclusion (popularly called
Amdahl's Law
) has been supported by a number of different arguments [1], advanced in the context of vector processing and also in the context of the hypercube architecture.
An overview of the WPI benchmark suite
Authors: Finkel David , Kinicki Robert E. , Lehmann Jonas A.
Published: January 2007

The November 1990 issue of Performance Evaluation Review included a number of articles and opinions on the merits of commercial bench-mark suites. In the spirit of continuing this discussion, we present here a brief introduction to the WPI Benchmark Suite.
Book review: Knowledge Representation: An Approach to Artificial Intelligence By T.J.M. Bench-Capon (Academic Press, London, 1990)
Authors: Launtsen Marc
Published: January 2007

Who needs yet another introductory text on artificial intelligence?
Software library construction from an IR perspective
Authors: Maarek Yoëlle S.
Published: January 2007

The two basic requirements for achieving software reuse are: (1) to provide a sufficient number of components over a spectrum of domains that can be reused as is (
black-box
reuse) or easily adapted (
white-box
reuse), and (2) to organize components such that code close to the users' needs is easy to locate. Many attempts have been made at addressing the first issue, (
e.g.
UNIX) however, as far as the second requirement is concerned very few library systems are available or attractive enough to make actual reuse faster than rewriting from scratch.With the increasing size of natural-language documentation in modern software component collections, there is a growing interest in applying IR techniques to the construction of software libraries. For instance recent tools such as INFoEXPLORER for the IBM RS/6000 series, or ANSWERBOOK for Sun Sparc workstations, provide standard IR techniques for searching on-line documentation. However, due to the nature of software documentation and of reuse requirements, some specific IR techniques can be devised to significantly enhance retrieval effectiveness.In this paper, we identify the necessary requirements to be met by the software collection in order to apply an IR approach, and we describe the specificity of reuse as compared to other applications. As an example, we describe GuRu, an information storage and retrieval system for reuse. This system is only briefly described as it has already presented elsewhere, and we rather concentrate on showing how GuRu satisfies the specific needs of reuse. GURU is currently used at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center by a growing pool of users. We also provide an experimental test collection with relevance judgments for the AIx 3 command set to be used as a starting ground for evaluating retrieval effectiveness in reuse applications. Finally, we compare GURU's indexing scheme to two other schemes using this test collection.
A cautionary tale
Authors: Korfhage Robert R. , Yang Jing-Jye
Published: January 2007

Recently we have been investigating various methods for improving the retrieval of documents. One frequently used context for such studies is to work with a known database and set of queries, where sufficient work has previously been done to establish an "official" set of relevant documents for each query. Working within such a context, we have discovered at least one instance wherein the combination of the document descriptions in the database, the query, and the set of documents deemed relevant foredooms our attempts at retrieval improvement to failure. This note is to caution other researchers against such possibilities, and to recommend that the database in question, that of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), as represented on Virginia Disk 1, be retired from use.
AUDITORY ICONS IN LARGE-SCALE COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENTS
Authors: Gaver William W. , Smith Randall B.
Published: January 2007

We discuss the potential for auditory icons to address several common problems in large-scale, multiprocessing, and collaborative systems. These problems include those of confirming user-initiated actions, providing information about ongoing processes or system states, providing adequate navigational information, and signalling the existence and activity of other users who may be working in a part of the system that is not visible. We provide several examples of useful auditory icons drawn from a large, shared, multitasking environment called SharedARK, and discuss their implications for other systems.
Simulation and information order as influences in the development of mental models
Authors: Augustine Matthew A. , Coovert Michael D.
Published: January 2007

Research in the area of mental models (Coovert, 1987; 1990; Coovert, LaLomia, & Salas, 1989) has suggested that training individuals about a procedural device can be enhanced by providing learners with a conceptual model of the device. A conceptual model conveys the underlying structure of the device, and aids the user in inferring the procedures necessary for its operation. Such models are intended to give the learner a better understanding of how the device functions, as well as assisting the learner formulate a more useful mental model. The end result is a more capable individual.
New user interface strategies for public telephones
Authors: Fast Lisa
Published: January 2007

BNR and Northern Telecom recently introduced a new public pay telephone. The Millennium telephone accepts cards or coins and as a public telephone, must cater to a wide variety of users, including the handicapped.
The design and maintenance of the Andrew help system
Authors: Ogura Ayami , Gillespie Terilyn
Published: January 2007

In developing the Andrew Help System, we considered the following design goals:• The Help System must access a very large set of information quickly and easily• The Help System must be flexible and accomodate all levels of usersThe system must be easy to use for beginnersThe system must be robust enough for experts• The Help System must display multiple document formats on different terminal types• The Help System must be hypermedia-based, with links, cross-references, and multiple windows, displaying both text and graphics
Claims, observations and inventions
Authors: Monk Andrew F. , Wright Peter C.
Published: January 2007

This paper describes the use of observation-invention pairs to illustrate important general points about the way that users interact with computers. The technique can be viewed as a form of artifact analysis.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE ON COMPUTER SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK (CSCW)
Authors: Mantei Marilyn M.
Published: January 2007

As it grows, the SIGCHI community spawns new technical areas. Although SIGCHI itself is a relative youngster, it has already seen the Hypertext, UIST and CSCW conferences come into being as offshoots of CHI. This issue of the
SIGCHI Bulletin
is devoted to the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work. The CSCW field has grown so quickly that it is experiencing the same problems the early CHI community faced. These include (1) widely scattered literature that is difficult to find, (2) different conflicting paradigms for approaching the CSCW subject area, (3) multiple approaches for building and studying groupware systems but no framework for how or where to use them, and (4) a lack of integration of the new CSCW approaches with current technology.
BOOK REVIEW: The Age of Electronic Messages by John G. Truxal (MIT Press 1990)
Authors: Hoetker Glenn P.
Published: January 2007

This book, based on a course offered since 1979 at SUNY Stony Brook, offers an introduction for college undergraduates to the technology of communications. As part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's New Liberal Arts Program it stems from a belief that "a liberal education...should involve undergraduate with meaningful experience with technology and with quantitative approaches to problem solving...Students should understand not only the fundamental concepts of technology...but also the scientific and cultural settings within which engineers work, and the impacts (positive and negative) of technology on individuals and society." (From the series forward.)
Use of a decision support system to evaluate candidates applying for programmer/analyst positions
Authors: Chang Hae-Ching , McLeod Raymond
Published: January 2007

This article describes a research project that is scheduled for completion during the latter part of 1991. The purpose of the research is to develop a decision support system (DSS) that can aid novice interviewers in their evaluation of candidates applying for programmer/analyst positions. As of this writing, the DSS has been developed, and only the validation remains.
Self-perceptions and job preferences of entry-level information systems professionals
Authors: McLean Ephraim R. , Tanner John R. , Smits Stanley J.
Published: January 2007

This study describes the self-perceptions and job preferences of 938 students majoring in information systems at 37 colleges and universities just prior to their graduation. Scores on a specially-devised Personal Characteristics Inventory (25 items) and Job Preference Inventory (20 items) were factor analyzed as a data reduction technique and treated as dependent variables. Five independent variables (career certainty, sex, type of degree, age, and overall grade point average) accounted for 38 significant differences in the dependent variables.Career certainty, sex, and age were strongly related to self-described work capacities, traits, and behaviors. Undergraduate versus graduate degree candidacy was the variable most strongly influencing the importance the students assigned to specific job characteristics.Based upon these findings, these entry-level IS professionals are profiled according to their characteristics, perceptions, and preferences; and these profiles are then discussed in terms of career development and career management.
Improving the performance of technologists and users on interdisciplinary teams
Authors: Trower Jonathan K. , Straub Detmar W.
Published: January 2007

As the technological dimension of society becomes more complex (Huber, 1984), the role played by technologists will become more important. And as this occurs, the question of motivating these individuals also becomes more important. Little prior empirical research has examined the impact of motivation on the performance of technologists--those workers who work primarily with technology in their job. Potential differences between technologists and nontechnologists in organizations which may effect the impact of motivation on performance include: (1) there tends to be a definable and measurable end-point to their tasks: (2) the work of the technologists will have a major impact on a major portion of the organization; and (3) they are preoccupied with things rather than organizational issues (von Heydebrand 1985, Medcof 1985).
INTEGRATING USABILITY AND MARKETING ACTIVITIES
Authors: Ritchie R. Jay , List Judith A.
Published: January 2007

Although the practice of user-centered design is advocated in many organizations, engineering management issues may prevent early focus on system usability. Within the usability engineering cycle, practitioners consider task analysis and customer needs assessment a high priority. Market research activities occur early in the process, but usability information is not collected or passed to system developers. To improve and to accelerate the design process and to validate user preference findings, task analysis and market research surveys were performed concurrently during the design validation phase of a data communications product. The basic process steps included: forming a multidisciplinary team, identifying data sources, collecting data via interviews and event record review, transforming data into task models and product opinion matrices, and using the models and matrices to design a sample product. A number of benefits were observed using this method: improved economies of research and analysis time, increased strength of product opinion data, early product improvements, increased customer understanding of the product, and an improved product engineering process.
A TASK ANALYTIC METHODOLOGY FOR PREDICTING EASE OF LEARNING OF INTERACTIVE COMPUTER SYSTEMS
Authors: Khalifa Mohamed
Published: January 2007

Predictive models, especially those that are based on sound theories of human behavior, represent powerful tools that can provide useful analyses of interface designs before any coding of software or empirical testing. In this research, a methodology for evaluating user interface designs in terms of ease of learning is developed and tested. The methodology represents an extension to the cognitive complexity theory of Kieras and Polson (1985). The application of this theory is well explained in (Bovair, Kieras and Polson, 1990). In the cognitive complexity models, ease of learning is measured by the learning time (or training time) which is predicted as a function of the number of new rules that must be learned. In this research, a different measure of ease of learning is proposed and different classes of rules are identified.
Interactive Posters
Authors: Cebulka Kathleen D. , Muller Michael J. , Ruston Lillian
Published: January 2007

Bellcore develops software products conforming to the OSCA
TM
architecture. Aimed at ensuring interoperability in a heterogeneous environment, the OSCA architecture
separates concerns
into three types of entities: data layer building blocks, user layer building blocks (ULBBs), and processing layer building blocks (PLBBs). In 1990, we undertook a project to refine the User Layer (UL) of the OSCA architecture. In this poster, we briefly describe the refined architecture and explore reasons for our success. To account for this, we have had to answer the question:
Who are the users of an architecture?
We found that acceptance of a
user centered architecture
(i.e., centered on the end user) is greatly enhanced by the use of a
user centered design process
of that architecture (i.e., centered on the development users of the architecture).
Interactive posters
Authors: Byrne Michael D.
Published: January 2007

Icons are a prevalent feature in current computer systems. Yet, little substantive research has been done on the benefits, drawbacks, ideal properties, and cognitive impact of icons. To some extent, it seems that it has just been assumed that icons are a generally better representation.
GESTURE CONSISTENCY FOR TEXT, SPREADSHEET, GRAPHIC AND FORM FILL EDITING
Authors: LaLomia Mary J. , Cohen Karen C.
Published: January 2007

Computer systems that simulate a paper and pen environment have been the focus of considerable development activity. One concern generated from this activity is whether a default set of hand-drawn gestures should be provided to the users. This paper examined whether individuals produced similar gestures for 32 editing functions across four application domains; text, spreadsheet, graphic, and form fill. The individuals (half computer novices and half computer-experienced) indicated gestures for each of the editing functions using each application domain. The results indicated that the consistency of hand-drawn gestures was not affected by the participant's computer experience, by the size and shape of the information to be modified or the application domain.
EMPOWERING INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS
Authors: Colgan L. , Gupta A. , Rankin P. J. , Spence R.
Published: January 2007

Industrial design is an important, but complex activity whose creative phases are poorly supported by computer aids. Numerical methods could assist the process of design innovation, but present many cognitive barriers to their exploitation. We describe an ambitious project aimed at bringing the power of one such method, optimisation, to analogue circuit engineers.
A TEXT COMPREHENSION MODEL OF HYPERTEXT
Authors: Foltz Peter W.
Published: January 2007

Hypertext presents a way to present text to readers that differs greatly from linear text. When text is presented linearly, there is a single order to read the text. However, in hypertext, information is represented in more of a semantic network and a reader may choose a path through the text that will be most relevant to his or her interests. While this permits added flexibility, it is not clear whether this flexibility is always an advantage to the reader. There have been strong claims of the superiority of hypertext over linear text, but research has often shown advantages for linear text over hypertext. Thus, it is not clear how, and with what features, a hypertext may be properly written.
TWO METHODS FOR PRODUCING DISCRIMINABLE COLOUR SETS FOR COMPUTER DISPLAYS
Authors: Van Laar Darren , Flavell Richard
Published: January 2007

One of the most important decisions facing designers of colour displays is how to choose a colour, or set of colours for a display when the possible number or combination of choices is often in the millions. One way of determining colours is on the basis of how different they look, with colours that are easily told apart being necessary for many tasks such as reading, search and identification.
THE DRUID USER INTERFACE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Authors: Vriezekolk Eelco
Published: January 2007

Druid is a user interface management system (UIMS) for building complex, highly interactive graphical user interfaces (UIs). Druid is based on three fundamental principles.
USABILITY ANALYSIS WITH ARTIFACTS ON PANELS
Authors: Hiraga Rumi , Lien Yeong-Chang
Published: January 2007

A practical user interface analysis method is proposed, to provide a rationale for user interface design. The approach has three aspects:1. To express a rationale by obtaining quantitative metrics from designers' artifacts2. To visualize the metrics3. To analyze designs interactively.