A review of hypertext in a NASA project management context

The principles of data storage, the comparative strengths of data bases, and the evolution of hypertext within this context are discussed. A classification schema of indexing and of hypertext document structures is provided. Issues associated with hypertext implementation are also discussed and potential areas for further research are indicated

User Interface Management Systems: A Survey and a Proposed Design

The growth of interactive computing has resulted in increasingly more complex styles of interaction between user and computer. To facilitate the creation of highly interactive systems, the concept of the User Interface Management System (UIMS) has been developed. Following the definition of the term 'UIMS' and a consideration of the putative advantages of the UIMS approach, a number of User Interface Management Systems are examined. This examination focuses in turn on the run-time execution system, the specification notation and the design environment, with a view to establishing the features which an "ideal" UIMS should possess. On the basis of this examination, a proposal for the design of a new UIMS is presented, and progress reported towards the implementation of a prototype based on this design

UC: a language for the connection machine

n designing parallel languages, the concern for defining a simple virtual machine must be balanced against the need to efficiently map a program on a specific architecture. UC addresses this problem by separating the programming task from efficiency considerations. UC programs are designed using a small set of constructs that include reduction, parallel assignment, and fixed-point computation. The language also provides a map section that may optionally be used by a programmer to specify data mappings for the program. The authors describe the UC constructs and their implementation on the Connection Machine. They also present measurements of the compiler for simple benchmarks

Embodying conversational characteristics in a graphical user interface

In the history of Intelligent Tutoring Systems, SOPHIE (Brown, Burton, and Bell, 1974), now considered a classic, contained many important ideas and features. One of these was its natural language user interface. Today, the trend has moved away from natural language interfaces towards graphical ones although the argument in favour of natural language user interfaces, both from Human Computer Interaction and natural language researchers, still persist. Is this argument correct? This thesis explores this question by investigating how SOPHIE might be re-implemented with a graphical direct manipulation interface instead of a natural language one, with the goal of improving its standard of usability. It begins by analysing the features that seem to have been central to SOPHIE's usability. These, it argues, were not so much an ability to accept well formed complete English sentences, as an ability to accept and interpret correctly a wide range of abbreviated inputs. Two models of interaction, Circuit 1, a pilot, and Circuit II, a fairly full implementation of SOPHIE were implemented and tested. Both employ free-order syntax that allows users to specify the components of a full command in any order. The combination of deixis and free-order syntax supported allows completely general ellipsis which achieves, in extended interaction sequences, the same economy and naturalness that SOPHIE achieved through its use of anaphora and ellipsis. Whilst the free-order syntax. technique is little used at present in user interfaces, the results of observational studies conducted have shown that it saves users time and convenience. Thus, considering key linguistic features of a natural language user interface has shown how novel features can enhance the usability of direct manipulation interfaces. This thesis argues that user interfaces can be improved by employing structures found in natural language or at least conversation which can be constructed within direct manipulation interface styles. This approach was further expanded to support topic shifts between different circuit contexts. Circuit II, like SOPHIE, supports three different topics: normal circuit behaviour, a circuit with an unknown fault, and circuits with user-hypothesised faults. Drawing on Reichman's (1981) work, Circuit II uses natural language cue phrases of the type "by the way", re-implemented in the direct manipulation style, to facilitate shifts between topics in a smoother and more natural way than SOPHIE which , used clumsy explicit commands

Making Humanoid Robots More Acceptable Based on the Study of Robot Characters in Animation

In this paper we take an approach in Humanoid Robots are not considered as robots who resembles human beings in a realistic way of appearance and act but as robots who act and react like human that make them more believable by people. Regarding this approach we will study robot characters in animation movies and discuss what makes some of them to be accepted just like a moving body and what makes some other robot characters to be believable as a living human. The goal of this paper is to create a rule set that describes friendly, socially acceptable, kind, cute... robots and in this study we will review example robots in popular animated movies. The extracted rules and features can be used for making real robots more acceptable

The future of management and computer technology

The impact of computers in organizational management has been the subject of much literature. As such, one can note distinct variations as to impact on different levels of today\u27s management. A linear relation between the future of organizational management and advanced computer technology has been detailed. Parameters such as the human factor, integrated systems or networking, future computer aided manufacturing, and fifth generation com.puters were the key issues on revolutionizing this same management. It is predicted that human like robots and thinking machines slowly will eliminate management, wherein organizational structures will be redesigned to suit this revolution

Addressing hypertext design and conversion issues

Hypertext is a network of information units connected by relational links. A hypertext system is a configuration of hardware and software that presents a hypertext to users and allows them to manage and access the information that it contains. Hypertext is also a user interface concept that closely supports the ways that people use printed information. Hypertext concepts encourage modularity and the elimination of redundancy in data bases because information can be stored only once but viewed in any appropriate context. Hypertext is such a hot idea because it is an enabling technology in that workstations and personal computers finally provide enough local processing power for hypertext user interfaces