Data Collection Tasks Research Articles

The integrality of speech in multimodal interfaces

A framework of complementary behavior has been proposed which maintains that direct-manipulation and speech interfaces have reciprocal strengths and weaknesses. This suggests that user interface performance and acceptance may increase by adopting a multimodal approach that combines speech and direct manipulation. This effort examined the hypothesis that the speed, accuracy, and acceptance of multimodal speech and direct-manipulation interfaces will increase when the modalities match the perceptual structure of the input attributes. A software prototype that supported a typical biomedical data collection task was developed to test this hypothesis. A group of 20 clinical and veterinary pathologists evaluated the prototype in an experimental setting using repeated measures. The results of this experiment supported the hypothesis that the perceptual structure of an input task is an important consideration when designing a multimodal computer interface. Task completion time, the number of speech errors, and user acceptance improved when interface best matched the perceptual structure of the input attributes.

A Focus on Focus Groups

Focus groups provide users with valuable qualitative data not readily obtained with any other data-collection techniques. First developed for market researchers to determine the present or potential impact of a product or ser vice, focus groups also help administrators and developers gain information about programs, assess the effectiveness of healthcare and family-planning projects, design political campaigns, and evaluate graduate programs and research efforts, among other data-collection tasks. Business communication classes provide an excellent setting for learning about focus groups and putting such a process into practice.

Environmental Impact Assessment of Transporting Hazardous Waste Generated by Maquiladora Industry in U.S.-Mexico Border Region

Hazardous waste shipments from U.S.-owned industries in the northern part of Mexico near the border with the United States are a growing problem. Today, the Mexican Environmental Agency requires all U.S. industries to return the waste produced by their plants to the United States. Currently, there is no database on the amount of hazardous waste transported from these firms, the pattern of shipments (from what origins to what destinations), and the nature of the risks to the population and environment along the shipment routes. In addition, there is a growing need to develop a risk assessment model and framework to focus on the transport of hazardous waste in the United States–Mexico border region, given the anticipated changes resulting from implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Results of the data collection and analysis task and the risk assessment model formulation task are presented. The methodology is demonstrated in a case-study area of the United States–Mexico border region, namely, the Arizona-Sonora border area, and should be a valuable tool for evaluating various transport risk management scenarios of importance to the border area.

Characterization & Evaluation of Diastolic Heart Function Using the LabVIEW Signal Processing Environment

Advances in technology have enabled clinical engineers to greatly assist medical professionals in the performance of their clinical and research activities. Using the Langendorff isolated perfused rat heart preparation first discovered in 1895, heart performance can be evaluated using left ventricular pressure recordings. Although existing chart recordings are fairly useful in quantifying systolic indices such as dP/dtmax and dP/dtmin, they are largely unsuitable to assess diastolic indices, most notably the lusitropic time constant, x. This time constant is a measure of how well a heart relaxes, and it is estimated from the rate of pressure decay of the diastolic portion of the left ventricular pressure trace. The objective of this study was to develop a computerized laboratory system that would control, collect and analyze data from these experiments. Using the LabVIEW signal processing environment with a 12-bit data acquisition card, digital signal processing of left ventricular pressure data has made the difficult task of data collection and experimental control easy, and the next-to-impossible task of accurately estimating > from graphic left ventricular pressure tracings straightforward. Preliminary findings examining the effects of propofol on heart performance indicate that the curve fitting algorithm is excellent, achieving an average mean squared error of 0.81 mm Hg2 in 290 in 175 curve fitting experiments.

A three dimensional localiser for autonomous robot vehicles

SummaryA novel design of a three dimensional localiser intended for autonomous robot vehicles is presented. A prototype is implemented in air using ultrasonic beacons at known positions, and can be adapted to underwater environments where it has important applications, such as deep sea maintenance, data collection and reconnaissance tasks. The paper presents the hardware design, algorithms for position and orientation determination (six degrees of freedom), and performance results of a laboratory prototype. Two approaches are discussed for position and orientation determination – (i) fast single measurement set techniques and (ii) computationally slower Kalman filter based techniques. The Kalman filter approach allows the incorporation of robot motion information, more accurate beacon modelling and the capability of processing data from more than four beacons, the minimum number required for localisation.

On-Screen Keyboards: Which Arrangements Should be Used?

The purpose of the present study was to test and evaluate three onscreen keyboard arrangements with indirect input devices. Studies conducted for hard keyboard arrangements have considered various factors affecting typing; however, differences between the nature of the hard and on-screen keyboards tasks preclude extrapolation from hard keyboard studies to onscreen keyboard designs. In this study, Finger Placement and Non-Finger Placement typists provided data for Stimuli (Word vs. Non-Words), Devices (Mouse vs. Arrow Keys), and Keyboards (1-Row Alphabetical, 3-Row Alphabetical, and QWERTY arrangements). The primary data collection tasks were two movement tasks and a typing task. The typing task consisted of having the user type a given Stimulus utilizing one of the on-screen keyboard arrangements and input devices. The movement task served as a control for movement time in the typing task. At the conclusion of the study, users were asked to rank order their preference for keyboard arrangement and input device. The QWERTY keyboard resulted in the fastest overall input times, and was the most preferred arrangement overall. Interaction between Device and Keyboard showed that with the mouse, input times for the 1-Row Alphabetical were slower than the QWERTY; whereas, with the arrow keys, input times were equivalent. However, this change in relative performance under the 1-Row Alphabetical arrangement for the two devices can be simply attributed to movement time. After statistically removing the effects of movement time from the typing task, the 1-Row Alphabetical arrangement was equivalent to the QWERTY for both input devices. Conclusions suggest potential incompatibility between the mouse interface and the 1-Row Alphabetical arrangement used in this study.

Taking the “Task” Out of Task Analysis

Task analysis is a well-accepted component of user-centered design. It is often left out of the design process, however, due to a lack of practical methods, the difficulty in predicting the amount of resource required to perform it, and a short supply of people with the appropriate skills. A solution to these problems is a structured set of activities that compose a task analysis and relate to the overall design process. The general framework into which these activities fit has three phases: Data Collection, Data Analysis, and Design. During the Data Collection phase, user and task data are collected and validated. The Data Analysis phase requires analyzing the user and task data in a way that results in suggestions for information representation, navigation, terminology, and consistency. Finally, the Design phase requires translating the suggestions from the Data Analysis phase into a viable product. A prototype task analysis workbook was developed to assess the feasibility of the structured approach to task analysis. The workbook includes tools for data collection, data analysis, and design, as well as instructions for how to use the tools. Over a period of two years, the workbook was used in five different development projects. A representative from each group was interviewed to determine how the workbook was used and which parts were most useful. Results of the interviews indicate that the workbook approach has merit.

Video Image Processing For Traffic Analysis

In recent years the application of computer-based image processing techniques to a range of traffic data collection tasks has been successfully demonstrated. In a similar field of research carried out by the author at the University of Wales College of Cardiff, a system based on commercial image processing hardware, a 80486 IBM PC-AT and a video recorder was assembled. The main aim was to develop a system for automatic vehicle data measurement and to extend its application to the collection and analysis of pedestrian data. This paper will focus on the development of the system for vehicle detection and measurement. A direct segmentation technique on the video images was adopted as a standard method of vehicle identification. The identification of the presence of an individual vehicle based on brightness information at relatively few sample points within the images was possible. Double threshold values were applied to the area of interest for the conversion of the area into a binary form. To compensate for the ambient lighting changes, a method of updating threshold values sequentially was introduced. The suitability of the approach and detection algorithm was assessed by analysing a video tape containing a traffic scene for the measurement of vechicle movement. This tape is typical of tapes from which data have been extracted manually using event recorders. Although the performance of the implementation algorithms needs to be further assesed, the preliminary results have demonstrated the success of collecting data for vehicle counts, speeds and headways with reasonable accuracy.

Display Characteristics and Errors at a Complex Data Entry Task

Some of the most expensive data points ever collected, outside of satellite transmissions and particle accelerators, have come from clinical trials. In large clinical studies it is common to have complex treatment protocols, large samples, and multiple distributed data collection centers. For data to be useful the study's administrators must ensure that criteria, treatments, measurements, and reporting procedures remain uniform across a large number of geographically distributed data collection sites each with its own unique administrative structure and allocation of responsibilities for the data collection task. PoP is a software system developed over the past seven years at the Epidemiology Data Center (EDC) in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. PoP was designed to assist in the collection of data and to provide quality assurance for clinical trial data. Data is entered locally into microcomputers running PoP at each of the participating sites. Data entry screens are closely matched to the paper forms on which the data is collected in order to facilitate entry and reduce errors. To further reduce transcription errors, PoP requires an independent second “verification” entry of each item of the form before it can pass on to a sequence of logical checking procedures. After data has passed all local verifications it is electronically transferred to a computer at the EDC.

Developing organizational buying theory: A small sample perspective

The unfolding of our understanding of organizational buying behavior seems to lurch from one dissertation to the next. Many of the interesting in-depth studies in organizational buying behavior have been generated by students interested in organizational buying and fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have a chairman who shared this interest [3, 5, 11, 15, 16, 18, 20, 231. The enormous commitment of time and energy by the person doing the dissertation and his or her committee results in carefully conceived and executed studies. Also, students may be more willing or easily coerced into developing studies with complex and time-consuming data collection tasks. The enormous costs in time and resources to do major work in organizational buying behavior seems to limit studies to dissertation research as tenure track needs channel efforts into faster payoff research. Although dissertation research and work by other scholars have added to our general understanding of organizational buying behavior, there is still a lack of solid theory in this area. A major constraint on theory development has been the difficulty of doing largescale buyer studies. Dissertation studies have dealt in part with this problem, but since we cannot rely on dissertations to provide our major advances, we need a methodology for theory exploration and development that does not require major data collection. Data collection problems in buying centers have inhibited the scope and type of research that has been done. This paper suggests an approach to theory development that uses small-sample studies to generate propositions for testing in larger-sample studies. A perspective on theory is presented before several small sample methods of proposition development are reviewed. The paper concludes by illustrating the technique using recent studies.

Parent loss and childhood bereavement: some theoretical considerations

This paper attempts to review critically the major psychoanalytic positions on the impact of parent loss during childhood. An effort is made to review systematically the issues of the loss of a parent as a love object, the loss of a parent as a narcissistic injury, children's cognitive understanding of death, and the relationship between loss and trauma. Two questions are raised by our efforts to understand the impact of the loss of a parent through death on children under ten years of age. First, what psychological tasks do children confront and what modes of coping do they use to deal with such an event? And, second, does such an event invariably lead to some pathological result for the child, or may its effects be normalized in the course of time? Although these questions may be seen as empirical questions needing to be answered through the collection of data that would confirm or negate the hypotheses generated, the questions are always posed within the context of a theoretical framework that colors how data is collected and which data is collected. By reviewing the theoretical positions, we come to the conclusion that no single approach is sufficient to explain the complexity of the impact of the death of a parent on a child. We propose that since no integrated conceptual framework presently encompasses all that needs to be explained, it is necessary to use a multivariant approach. Such an approach may be helpful in generating hypotheses and in beginning the task of systematic data collection.

What Does One Say to a Naked Lady? Validity, Variability, and Data Collection: A Peruvian Example

Because of the nature of the ethnographic data collection task, tests of validity in anthropological research have been somewhat neglected. The development of tests of validity for the concepts used in the discipline enhance the confidence one can have in any given concept. This paper demonstrates the application of one approach to the determination of validity based upon the Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix developed by Campbell and Fisk for the evaluation of psychological tests. The procedure was applied to a data set collected in a squatter settlement in Peru. It was found that a modified application of the Multitrait Multimethod Matrix provided an acceptable tool to determine the validity of abstract concepts when the data was collected using ethnographic field research techniques.

The Making of International Agreements: a Reappraisal of Congressional Involvement

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1976 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois. The authors would like to thank the Ohio University Research Committee for a grant to support the original data collection; the Department of Political Science, Iowa State University, for computer time and clerical support; Leena S. Johnson, Carol Gertner, Alison Jessen, and Debbie Nellis for their painstaking care in handling an almost overwhelming data collection and coding task; Thomas L. Brewer and Jorgen S. Rasmussen for helpful criticism of an earlier draft; and, the Department of State, Office of Legal Advisor, for responding quickly and courteously to several information requests. Any errors in this study, however, are the sole responsibility of the authors.

Variation among Multidimensional Scaling Solutions: An Examination of the Effect of Data Collection Differences

During the last few years, marketing researchers have begun to use nonmetric multidimensional scaling for analyzing similarity judgments, preference statements, and attribute ratings. The major thrust for many of the more methodological studies [6, 7, 20, 21, 26] has been the comparison of various data collection tasks with regard to the similarity of solutions from one scaling algorithm. Some investigators have concentrated on comparing the solutions from a number of scaling algorithms for one set of data [3, 8, 19], whereas others have compared the algorithms on the basis of Monte Carlo simulations [23, 25] and empirical manipulations [17, 24] of the basic model parameters. Another set of studies [2, 4, 9, 22] has compared two scaling algorithms across two or more types of data. The results of the algorithm comparisons have indicated consistently that the scaling programs produce very similar solutions. The results of the data collection task comparisons, however, have not been so consistent. Methods for directly judging proximity have produced similar solutions, but when direct and derived measures have been compared, only one of three studies [4, 9, 20] found that the solutions from the two types of proximity measures had similar spatial configurations. The author's study extends the research on multidimensional scaling comparisons by examining the relative effect of six different data collection tasks on nonmetric multidimensional scaling solutions.

Implicit enumeration based algorithms for postoptimizing zero‐one programs

AbstractIt has been shown by G. Roodman that useful postoptimization capabilities for the 0‐1 integer programming problem can be obtained from an implicit enumeration algorithm modified to classify and collect all fathomed partial solutions. This paper extends the the approach as follows: 1) Improved parameter ranging formulas are obtained by higher resolution classification criteria. 2) Parameters may be changed so as to tighten the original problem, in addition to relaxing it. 3) An efficient storage structure is presented to cope with difficult data collection task implicit in this approach. 4) Finally, computer implementation is facilitated by the elaboration of a unified set of algorithms.

The International Purdue Workshop on Industrial Computer Systems and Its Work in Promoting Computer Control Guidelines and Standards

This short description is an attempt to show some of the extensive standards work now being carried out by the Purdue Workshop in the field of the applications of digital computers to plant data collection, monitoring, and other automatic control tasks. The continued success of this work will depend upon the cooperation with and acceptance of the overall results of these developments by the vendor and user company managements and the help of their personnel on the various committees involved.

A Generalized Symbolic Notation for Mechanisms

Revisions of the Denavit-Hartenberg symbolic notation are proposed which extend its use to the entire domain of rigid link mechanisms. The extended notation provides a clear separation of the pair variables and the invariant parameters of a mechanism and thus provides a framework in which higher pairs can be systematically modeled. The new symbolism can be used directly with the existing matrix methods of kinematic analysis, and a numerical scheme is presented to reduce the task of data collection for these methods.