Different Categories Of Users Research Articles

In Search of Terms: An Empirical Approach to Lexicography

In the framework of a more general research project on the place and role of terms (i.e. lexical items belonging to languages for special purposes) in general dictionaries, an empirical study was undertaken with different categories of users of such dictionaries - language experts, scientists and the general public. The purpose of the study was to investigate the use they make of documentary and dictionary resources to find the terms they need. This paper will present some of the results of the survey conducted and examine the impact that these results could have on the practice of lexicography.

REGARDING THE USERS OF FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND THEIR INFORMATION NEEDS

In order to satisfy the information needs of users from inside and outside the organizations, accounting elaborated a proper method of generalization and synthesizing of information it produces, which involved the development of some appropriate tools, known as financial statements. For users outside the company, these are often the only source of information available directly from the organization. The knowledge of the interests of different categories of users has an important role in trying to improve the quality of financial statements, which should allow taking correct decisions based on the financial position, the results of economic and financial activity and the changes in the financial position of the company.

Consumer Perception about the Services of State Road Transport Corporation:With Special Reference to Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC)

In the transport generating organization or even in other service generating organizations, it is pertinent that the users are given due weightage. The different categories of users use the services with different motives. The general users like safe, time-honoured and economic services and like this, the industrial or organizational users also prefer quality and fast services even if they are asked to pay more. In India both public and private sectors have been found offering transportation services to the general and industrial users. Road transportation is the second largest after railway and in India the State Road Transport Corporations are providing road transportation services. They have gone far reaching changes after independence and both public and private management are engaged in the transportation of man and material. SRTCs have challenges from the private players. The present study is an attempt to understand the services rendered by State Road Transport Corporation and evaluate the performance of these services as perceived by the passengers.

Development of an academic information system for effective education management

This paper presents the development of an Academic Information System (AIS) and its deployment for effective education management. The objectives of AIS include providing detailed analysis and summarised information to academic managers to enable them to make appropriate decisions. The need to develop such decision support systems indigenously, depending on specific institutional requirements, is emphasised. Several common aspects of typical university functional environments ? the nature of diversified data items, continuous growth of data, different categories of users, demand for access, user expectations and huge quantities of information, etc. ? are considered for the design and development process. The importance of using standard database products is discussed. The advantages of using licence-free technologies are also presented. The approach suggested in this paper combines the strengths of a commercial database product and open licence technologies. The role and the end use of AIS in the automation of education management processes are illustrated.

Vertical and Horizontal Economies in the Electric Utility Industry: An Integrated Approach

The empirical literature on the cost structure of the electric utility industry traditionally focused on the measurement of specific technological properties: i) scale economies in generation or distribution; ii) multi-product (or horizontal) economies of scope at the downstream stage; iii) multi-stage (or vertical) economies of scope between generation, transmission and distribution. This paper extends the results of previous studies by adopting an integrated approach, which simultaneously considers both horizontal and vertical aspects of the technology. The methodology is based on the estimation of a Composite cost function model (Pulley and Braunstein, 1992), which has been proven to be particularly apt for the analysis of cost properties of multi-output firms. The econometric evidence for a sample of 25 Italian electric utilities, operating in generation and distribution and serving different categories of users, highlights the presence of both vertical integration gains and scope economies at the downstream stage. In the light of recent regulatory changes in Europe, our findings have important policy implications for the optimal reorganization of the electric markets. Finally, our methodology can be usefully applied to the study of other network utilities involved in vertical and horizontal expansion processes, such as gas, water and telecommunications.

Marketing of library services: a case study of selected university libraries in Kenya

Regardless of the type, libraries are under pressure to justify their existence and funding through provision of customer‐ or market‐oriented services. This requires a shift from product or service orientation to customer or need orientation. Different marketing concepts provide libraries with the tools for collecting and analysing useful data about information needs of customers, which assists in designing, developing and delivering appropriate services. This paper examines the methods used by university libraries in Kenya to market their services to different categories of users and the problems experienced therein. It concludes that, although efforts have been made to achieve this, more emphasis must be put on promotion of the already existing services and therefore on the need for university libraries in Kenya to adapt more systematic techniques in collecting data on their user needs, if they are to design and deliver services that fit user requirements.

Using & Re-using Archive Information for Multimedia Applications: The Virtual Museum of Italian Computer Science History

The quality of content is a key attribute for assessing the globalquality of a museum application. Unfortunately, producing good content,especially in multimedia digital form, is expensive and time-consuming.One way to reduce the costs without sacrificing quality is to exploitthe concept of information reuse. The idea is to use (portions of) thesame multimedia material in different applications, possibly adapting itfor different contexts, for different categories of users, and fordifferent delivery channels (e.g., on-line and off-line). Informationreuse does not come free. To be effective, it requires a well-organizedenvironment in which information can be easily stored, inspected,retrieved, and adapted for different purposes. This paper describes theapproach adopted in the project ``The Virtual Museum of Italian ComputerScience History'', funded by the Italian National Council of Research(CNR). In this project, all the digital material (documents, images,video interviews, etc.) is stored in a digital archive based on amultimedia database with a WWW front-end. The archive is designed forspecialists only: members of the editorial board of the project;researchers in the history of science; application developers (whoare looking for interesting content to include in their CD-ROMs or Websites). Each research group involved in the project extracted andadapted from the digital archive the multimedia material needed to builda different hypermedia application in two ``versions'' – WWW andCD-ROM. These applications, both on-line and off-line, strongly reuse(portions of) the digital archive content, but organize and present itwith a totally different style, to address the needs of non-specialists(e.g., people who have some interest, or curiosity, in the history ofItalian computer science).

Adaptive bandwidth balancing mechanisms for DQDB networks

To improve fairness in distributed queue dual bus (DQDB) metropolitan area networks a mechanism known as bandwidth balancing (BWB) has been introduced in the final version of the IEEE 802.6 standard document. Since then several changes to the basic mechanism, attempting to adhere to different interpretations of the fairness concept and to match the needs of different categories of users, have been proposed. In this paper attention is focused on the adaptive class of fairness control mechanisms and two solutions are analysed and compared. In order to do this, analytical models suited to the study of DQDB networks under overload conditions are introduced. The models are also amenable to the evaluation of the transient behaviour of DQDB networks, thus enabling a thorough investigation of the performance that can be obtained by adopting different fairness control mechanisms. The analytical models have been validated through the use of a software simulator. Numerical indices measuring the performance of the balancing mechanisms mentioned above are also given.

Delivering environmental decision support systems: software tools and techniques

A suite of “ desirable features” for Environmental Decision Support Systems (EDSS) is proposed by identifying the general attributes of environmental systems which are of importance to modelling and simulation, and the different categories of users of EDSSs. With these features as a guide, a review and discussion of the approaches to delivering Environmental Decision Support Systems is presented. The two most efficient approaches are: (i) the use of modelling and simulation software tools, and (ii) the use of model integration and re-use techniques. A review of the currently available software tools for environmental modelling and simulation is therefore presented, and an overview of the current research activities in model integration and re-use is provided. Numerous existing EDSS are used as examples of the different approaches throughout the review. The review highlights the advantages and disadvantages of the two main approaches to EDSS delivery, and subsequently discusses the role emerging information technologies may play in the future delivery of EDSS. The paper concludes that while the available software for modelling and simulation is very advanced, some of the desirable features of EDSS (such as representation of spatial data and provision of expert help) cannot be easily delivered using such software. While the research activities in model integration and re-use are making real advances, especially in delivering those features which cannot currently be provided using modelling and simulation software, this is not occurring in any coordinated or synergistic manner. The ultimate goal should be to provide a fully general EDSS development platform which would allow system analysts to develop EDSS for any environmental domain complete with all desirable features. This is still considered to be very much a long-term ambition.

Instruments économiques et gestion de l'eau d'irrigation en France

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeIn spite of abundant reserves in France, imbalances between water needs and resources, conflicts between different categories of users are likely to appear during low river flow periods. In these situations, as water becomes a scarce resource, it can not be considered any longer as a free good but as an economic good.In a context of a limited water resource, community tries to induce, farmers to minimise their water consumption by developing and implementing economic instruments such as water markets, rationing procedures (quota) or appropriate water pricing.However, market mechanisms can not function efficiently without an appropriate legislative framework. In France, the laws of 1964 and 1962 and the European regulation define the principles of water management.The water law of 1992 insists on the uniqueness of water resource, imposes measuring devices and defines negotiation areas. The implementation of this law renew the interest for incentive economic instruments, the conditions required for their implementation and their limitations.In France, water pricing and quota are implemented. These instruments are not incompatible and are likely to complement each other.One manager (Compagnie du Bas-Rhône-Languedoc) particularly takes into account water demand, another (Compagnie d'Aménagement des Coteaux de Gascogne) applies a system combining quota and water pricing, the last (Société du Canal de Provence) uses marginal cost pricing.

Intensive Task Analysis and Evaluation for Interfaces Design in Large-Scale Systems

Increasing complexity of man- machine systems and requirements to their safety, quality, enviromental compatibility and job-acceptance by all categories of users interacting with the system via man-machine interfaces lead to broad implementation of user-centered approaches to integrated automation and extensive task analysis for adequate modelling of users’ behaviour, technical system functioning and of their interaction. Practical implementation of the most popular techniques, such as, e.g., hierarchical task analysis for different categories of users of large-scale systems is extremely time- and labour-consuming. This paper is focused on formalising new intensive strategies for task-analysis and -evaluation during design of adaptive interfaces for large-scale systems with several categories of users (e.g., engineers, operators etc.). Practical example of task analysis at the biggest in Europe cement plant in Aalborg is discussed.

Bibliographic records for users: from disordered superabundance to cost‐effective satisfaction

At present bibliographic records are being produced for many of the same books by publishers, commercial companies and libraries, in spite of the cost of producing them, and their inadequacy for subject access. Analysis of needs of different categories of users suggests that if adequate records can be produced at the first (publisher) stage, they can be used all through. There are several ways of achieving decent subject access without too much extra expense, e.g. by putting the effort saved by reducing bibliographic description into subject access; by instituting an all‐through system and so avoiding duplication; by providing keyword access to titles and contents pages; and by developing a profitable market for subject access to books. To achieve an all‐through system, a basic file of adequate records from publishers and a commercial subject file would be needed, as well as a National Bibliographic Agency to oversee the system.

Saw filter technology in support of mobile communications at ESA

AbstractSevere RF spectrum limitations imposed by international regulations make filtering, and principally channel filtering, a key parameter of the mobile satellite service. About 30 MHz is available at L‐band for maritime, aeronautical and land mobile users, and must be shared between all potential service providers! Furthermore, this band must also accommodate signals with characteristics as dissimilar as: data at low and high bit rates, digital and analogue voice. Even worse, the transmissions are to be done with different categories of users, having terminals with G/T in the range of −4 to −24 dB/K.If the satellite payload provides a global earth coverage the RF spectrum will have to be channelized so that the various types of signals can be efficiently handled. This is what happens in the return transponder of the INMARSAT second‐generation satellite.If, as anticipated for future mobile satellite systems, spot beams are implemented, further channelization becomes necessary to provide the maximum of flexibility in the channel to beam allocation.In either case, a minimum of bandwidth can be wasted in the guardbands, while at the same time hardly any distortion is to be tolerated in the useful passband.The present article will illustrate, with two examples, how these drastic filtering requirements can be best fulfilled with surface acoustic wave technology.

Accurate and Reliable Long-range Dynamic Radiolocation using GPS and DGPS—Geoloc Hybridization

Present and future marine navigation requirements have been analysed recently for different categories of users. This paper relates to those navigation applications which need very high real-time accuracy, high availability and reliability of navigation information. This domain is mainly influenced by marine surveying and navigation community needs such as oil and mineral prospecting, hydrography and future prospecting of maritime economic zones, which are usually of high strategic or economic importance. The majority of identified needs for this limited community of users call for real-time accuracy and repeatability of instantaneous positioning ranging from 2 to 10 m, distances from shore up to 1500 km (water depth 300–1000 m), update rate of position information of a few seconds, and availability and reliability of position information data of 99 per cent or more. To reach such stringent requirements none of the existing means and even new satellites or Earth-based acoustic or radio aids individually can solve the problem. This leads to the necessity of combination or hybridization of several means which together may approach the solution.

Computer-User Training: For whom, How and to What End?

User-training is receiving increasingly more attention in the Netherlands. In November 1982, the User-training working party of the Netherlands Society for Informatics published a report entitled: COMPUTER USER-TRAINING, HOW AND TO WHAT END? In this report, the “HOW” question is approached practically as well as theoretically, and the “TO WHAT END” question is treated especially thoroughly. Both cognitive and affective instructional objectives are methodically arranged for the 24 different categories of users, with the help of a list of more than 100 elements of knowledge. The resulting instructional objectives in detail with the aim of clarifying the often confusing discussions about the material to be treated.This article gives a short summary of the report (approximately 300 pages long).

Experience with an extensible language

An operational extensible language system is described. The system and its base language are appraised with respect to efficiency, flexibility, and utility for different categories of users.