Development of a Temporal Extension to Query Travel Behavior Time Paths Using an Object-Oriented GIS

An essential requirement to better understand activity-based travel behavior (ABTB) at the disaggregate level is the development of a spatio-temporal model able to support queries related to activities of individuals or groups of individuals. This paper describes the development and implementation of a temporal extension to a geographic information system (GIS) object-oriented model for the modeling of the time path and the retrieval of its event chaining. In this approach, time path is formulated as a totally time ordered set composed by activity events and trip events, themselves organized into time ordered sets. As sets, the time path and its components can be searched using their respective indexes. A series of methods were built that implement temporal predicates as an interface to temporally query the database. A set of positional operator methods were also designed that transform temporal topological queries into retrieval functions based on set ordering indices. Taken together, the temporal predicates and the positional operator methods define a temporal query extension that meets the retrieval needs of an ABTB database.     

An Empirical Analysis of Using Text-to-Speech Software to Revise First-Year College Students’ Essays

Traditionally, composition experts have suggested reading drafts aloud as a means of revising essays; however, the method of reading drafts aloud is severely limited by a single factor: student writers do not always read what is on the page (Hartwell, 1985). Text-to-speech (TTS) software allows students to have their essays read to them so that the limiting factor of reading their own drafts aloud becomes minimized. TTS programs read what is written on the computer screen, and the result is that the students can “hear” the problems of their essays as opposed to simply “seeing” them. Nevertheless, composition researchers have not conducted any empirical studies to determine whether or not TTS is beneficial for “local” and “global” revision, nor have any studies been conducted to determine if TTS is beneficial for students above the fifth grade. This article documents an experimental study conducted at a southwestern university in the United States with fifty-one students to determine whether or not TTS software is useful in the revision process. The results show that users of TTS were as likely as users in the control group to make proofreading changes but less inclined to make local or global changes in the revision process, indicating that TTS possibly works well for proofreading but not necessarily as well for higher-order revision. Further research is recommended to determine TTS's effectiveness during a longitudinal study as well as for auditory learners and ESL students.