Metaform: updatable form screens and their application to the use of office metaphors in query language instruction

Abstract

A database interface language and system, called Metaform, which automatically generates multi-relational form screen interfaces for use by non-computer professionals has been developed. A form screen is a subset of the relational database, with a particular relation or combination of relations being represented. Through form screens, users can simultaneously query and update several relations in the database without having to know about its underlying structure. An overview of the Metaform system is presented and several examples of the use of the Metaform query language and update operators are described.

A series of ‘usability’ studies were conducted on a prototype of the Metaform system to examine the claims that the form concept aids computer-naive users in building complex database queries. These studies adopted the form screen concept to present six office paper work analogies to users to help them to understand the database retrieval concepts. The analogies of a file cabinet, a file folder, a stack of forms, a single form, a table of information on a form and a field of information were used in a two-staged training module.

At the end of each training sequence, users answered questions with the prototype and with paper and pencil which tapped their understanding of the database retrievals they were learning to perform. The results from these questionnaires were mixed. Users performed successful relational queries for simple retrievals and for those using existential quantifiers. They had difficulty with queries involving multiple steps and intermediate stages. Although users understood and used the analogies, they ran into difficulties with the ambiguities in the English statements of the queries, thus suggesting a need for another level of metaphors and/or problem representation tools not associated with the machine but with the user's comprehension of database retrieval problems.     

The use of natural language processing in computer-assisted language instruction

This article describes the natural language processing techniques used in two computer-assisted language instruction programs: VERBCON and PARSER. VERBCON is a template-type program which teaches students how to use English verb forms in written texts. In the exercises verbs have been put into the infinitive, and students are required to supply appropriate verb forms. PARSER is intended to help students learn English sentence structure. Using a lexicon and production rules, it generates sentences and asks students to identify their grammatical parts. The article contends that only by incorporating natural language processing techniques can these programs offer a substantial number of exercises and at the same time provide students with informative feedback. Alan Bailin is director of the Effective Writing Program at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. Philip Thomson is a programmer in the Faculty of Medecine, University of Western Ontario.     

The use of adjustable furniture: Evaluation of an instruction programme for office workers

A programme was designed in which instruction was given in the optimal adjustment of seat and desk height based on individually measured body dimensions. The programme was evaluated by means of measurement of seat and desk height before and after instruction to an experimental group in comparison with a control group to which no instruction was given. In the experimental group, prior to instruction, the mean deviation from the ideal sitting posture measured 71 mm for seat height and 70 mm for desk height. After instruction this deviation decreased by 11 mm for seat height and 18 mm for desk height. Although this is a statistically significant change, it is of limited practical importance since for seat height only 7% (3 of 41) and for desk height 13% (5 of 40) adjusted their furniture effectively as they were advised. The reasons for this meagre result are assumed to be the arbitrary concept of an ideal sitting posture, difficulties in obtaining extra adjustments in the form of footrests and desk elevation, the social acceptability of the advice given, and practical impediments that can occur while adopting an ideal sitting posture.     

Reading and skimming from computer screens and books: the paperless office revisited?

Past research has demonstrated that reading efficiency is lower from the standard computer displays of the 1980s than from paper. In the present experiments, subjects read or skimmed stories, sometimes from a high-quality CRT (cathode ray tube) and sometimes from a book. Skimming was 41% slower from the CRTs than from the book. Possible reasons for this finding are discussed. Reading speed and comprehension were equivalent for the high-quality CRTs and the book. The paperless office may be imminent after all.     

Towards a new approach to query search engines: the Search Tree visual language

In this paper, we describe theit Search Tree visual language. It is a novel methodology able to support users to build up complex queries to be run on given search engines. For using this visual language, neither parentheses nor precedence rules are needed, nor the specific ability to perform advanced search tasks. The language is proven to have the same expressive power as the expressions in Sum Of Product form. In order to prove the appropriateness of our proposal, we measured the usability of the proposed querying approach against the traditional Yahoo ^TM web search query language. Results show that, even if both the approaches fully support users in terms of efficacy, the Search Tree visual language significantly improves task efficiency, both in terms of the number of actions performed and the time requested with respect to the advanced search interface. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating the usability of natural language query languages and interfaces to Semantic Web knowledge bases

The need to make the contents of the Semantic Web accessible to end-users becomes increasingly pressing as the amount of information stored in ontology-based knowledge bases steadily increases. Natural language interfaces (NLIs) provide a familiar and convenient means of query access to Semantic Web data for casual end-users. While several studies have shown that NLIs can achieve high retrieval performance as well as domain independence, this paper focuses on usability and investigates if NLIs and natural language query languages are useful from an end-user's point of view. To that end, we introduce four interfaces each allowing a different query language and present a usability study benchmarking these interfaces. The results of the study reveal a clear preference for full natural language query sentences with a limited set of sentence beginnings over keywords or formal query languages. NLIs to ontology-based knowledge bases can, therefore, be considered to be useful for casual or occasional end-users. As such, the overarching contribution is one step towards the theoretical vision of the Semantic Web becoming reality.     

Estimation of stochastic context-free grammars and their use as language models

This paper is devoted to the estimation of stochastic context-free grammars (SCFGs) and their use as language models. Classical estimation algorithms, together with new ones that consider a certain subset of derivations in the estimation process, are presented in a unified framework. This set of derivations is chosen according to both structural and statistical criteria. The estimated SCFGs have been used in a new hybrid language model to combine both a word-based n-gram, which is used to capture the local relations between words, and a category-based SCFG together with a word distribution into categories, which is defined to represent the long-term relations between these categories. We describe methods for learning these stochastic models for complex tasks, and we present an algorithm for computing the word transition probability using this hybrid language model. Finally, experiments on the UPenn Treebank corpus show significant improvements in the test set perplexity with regard to the classical word trigram models.     

System to measure the use of the backrest in sitting-posture office tasks

This paper presents an inexpensive and simple system to measure the way of use of the backrest. The system can be also used in field studies. It is based on a set of electrodes which, attached to the subject's back and the backrest, allows the contact area to be measured. A laboratory test was performed to validate the system. In the test the spontaneous use of the backrest in standard office chairs and tasks was studied. Four different types of backrest use have been detected, and it has been shown that they determine the lumbar curvature and pelvic inclination angles, as well as postural mobility. The comfort levels observed in the four types of backrest use were also different. Consequently, the system can be used as an indicator of back posture and comfort.     

Graphical presentation of boolean expressions in a database query language: design notes and an ergonomic evaluation

Abstract

A new query language designed to improve ease-of-use and ease-of-learning for ‘naive’ users is presented. Its main interest is to avoid the explicit use of boolean operators for set operations by pointing on Venn diagrams. A human factors comparison with a more traditional design has been performed, using a query writing task. Results show that graphic representation of selected subsets allows less error-prone queries in a single relation database.     

Graphical presentation of boolean expressions in a database query language: design notes and an ergonomic evaluation

A new query language designed to improve ease-of-use and ease-of-learning for 'naive' users is presented. Its main interest is to avoid the explicit use of boolean operators for set operations by pointing on Venn diagrams. A human factors comparison with a more traditional design has been performed, using a query writing task. Results show that graphic representation of selected subsets allows less error-prone queries in a single relation database.     

腾讯通(RTX)在企业办公系统中的应用

着重研究了腾讯通（RTX）和传统办公系统的集成课题,彻底解决了传统办公系统实时性差、交互性弱的问题,基于RTX/SMS/P2P技术,构建了集团的统一消息平台,实现了基于IM消息/手机短彩信/网络音视频/离线数据/实时文件传输等多方式的实时消息协作与交互功能。     

A spoken query system for the agricultural commodity prices and weather information access in Kannada language

In this paper, a spoken query system is demonstrated which can be used to access the latest agricultural commodity prices and weather information in Kannada language using mobile phone. The spoken query system consists of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) models, Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) call flow, Agricultural Marketing Network (AGMARKNET) and India Meteorological Department (IMD) databases. The ASR models are developed by using the Kaldi speech recognition toolkit. The task specific speech data is collected from the different dialect regions of Karnataka (a state in India speaks Kannada language) to develop ASR models. The web crawler is used to get the commodity price and weather information from AGMARKNET and IMD websites. The postgresql database management system is used to manage the crawled data. The 80 and 20% of validated speech data is used for system training and testing respectively. The accuracy and Word Error Rate (WER) of ASR models are highlighted and end to end spoken query system is developed for Kannada language.     

Word邮件合并在办公中的应用

Word邮件合并功能在办公领域有着丰富应用。但实际情况是办公人员对邮件合并不能完全深入的理解,其功能没有完全发挥出来,本文主要从邮件合并的工作原理、主要应用领域、邮件合并基本过程、邮件合并技巧、邮件合并重点问题结合典型实例进行研究。希望起到抛砖引玉的作用,以提高办公人员的应用水平,进一步提升工作效率。     

New evidence on the effect of computerized individualized practice and instruction on language skills

This paper provides new evidence on the effect of computerized individualized practice and instruction on language skills, more specifically on spelling. An individually randomized experiment among 7th grade students in the Netherlands is developed to study the effect of an adaptive digital homework tool on spelling performance. Using an instrumental variable approach to control for actual use of the digital tool, we show that there are small positive effects of practicing with an adaptive digital tool for spelling for 7th grade students. Effects are largest for low‐performing students.     

Knowledge and the visual process: Content,form and use

A knowledge based system for the analysis of imagery clearly requires large amounts of domain specific knowledge and also requires a recognition control scheme that will manipulate this knowledge in order to interpret the imagery that represents various scenes of the domain. Many current systems indeed satisfy this statement. In addition, however, they all contain modules that access the actual image data and process this data. Typically, the methodologies for the image specific aspects and the domain specific aspects are separate yet interact, and the representational formalisms and control schemes for these two tasks are not related.This paper will attempt, by overviewing a current hypothesis of the kinds of knowledge required for general purpose vision and the current representational tools available, to reconcile the “low” and “high” levels of knowledge based vision systems and to propose a set of uniform representational tools. The discussion will be at the conceptual level and not at the implementational level. Pointers to current computer vision schemes that are relevant to the discussion will be given. Several good surveys and discussions of requirements of vision systems can be found in Nevatia,⁽¹⁾ Nagel,⁽²⁾ Hanson and Riseman,⁽³⁾ Barrow,⁽⁴⁾ Weszka,⁽⁵⁾ Reddy,⁽⁶⁾ and Kanade.⁽⁷⁾     

The use of problem solving skills in computer-aided instruction: an evaluation

Abstract When computer programs are designed to elicit problem solving skills by the user, this basic premise should be tested in an objective manner. The Health and Fitness Assessment program was evaluated as an interactive program with a substantial emphasis on the problem solving process. A method of analysis known as protocol analysis was used to demonstrate that 72% of the interpretive statements made by users verified the use of higher level mental functions to interact with the computer. Other evaluative data aided in improving the design of the program.     

Computer-based office work: stories of gender, design, and use

We use autobiographical stories to explore the boundaries between the design and use of computer-based office work systems in the US and Great Britain. Office automation systems were introduced in the 1970s and microcomputers and local networks in the early 1980s. In both periods, gender relations in the workplace were significant in the construction of boundaries between design and use.