Increasing Use Of Computers Research Articles

Ethics and the Computer: Children's Development of Moral Reasoning about Computer and Internet Use

With increasing computer use in classrooms, there has been a growing concern of the resulting moral dilemmas that may emanate from their use. Though theorists have conducted extensive research on children's moral development, there has been little attempt to situate this within the digital domain. It is the purpose of this article to examine children's moral reasoning in relation to their use of computers and the Internet. This study reports on interviews conducted with 48 third-grade and fifth-grade students about moral dilemmas involving computer and Internet use. Scenarios involving computer use were developed and compared to Damon's dilemmas which involved moral reasoning about everyday situations. The results indicated that children's moral understandings fell into the expected developmental levels. Significant differences were found between children's moral reasoning in everyday situations compared to those involving computer and Internet use. However, gender differences were not consistently detected for all computer and Internet scenarios. These findings are discussed in light of Turiel's (1983) postulated domain dependence of moral reasoning and the gender differences found so prevalent in children's computer use. We conclude with considerations for school's policies regulating Internet use and potential training programs.

Should We Use Computers to Manage Hypertension

The increasing use of computers in primary care offers the opportunity to provide management guidelines on a timely basis. These British investigators

Computer Use and the Demand for Female Workers

Using data from the March and October CPS, the author investigates the effect of computers on the demand for female workers. One model suggests that computers, by changing skill requirements and the conditions of work--de-emphasizing physical skill--should favor women even if women have no advantage over men in using computers or in acquiring computer skills. Decompositions of the growth in women's employment and cross-industry-occupation regressions indicate that increases in computer use can account for over half of the growth in demand for female workers. Consistent with the hypothesis that differences in the physical requirements of jobs are responsible for these effects, increases in computer use have the greatest effect among skilled blue-collar workers and workers with less than a college education. The increase in computer use may contribute to an apparent substitutability between highly skilled women and less skilled men found in other research.

Computer Use and the Demand for Female Workers

Using data from the March and October CPS, the author investigates the effect of computers on the demand for female workers. A model illustrates that computers, by changing skill requirements and the conditions of work—de-emphasizing physical skill—should favor women even if women have no advantage over men in using computers or in acquiring computer skills. Decompositions of the growth in women's employment and cross-industry-occupation regressions indicate that increases in computer use can account for over half of the growth in demand for female workers. Consistent with the hypothesis that differences in the physical requirements of jobs are responsible for these effects, increases in computer use have the greatest effect among skilled blue-collar workers and workers with less than a college education. The increase in computer use may contribute to an apparent substitutability between highly skilled women and less skilled men found in other research.

Changes in Attitudes Toward Computers and Use of Computers by University Faculty

This article examines two components related to faculty adoption of computers on university campuses: the change in use patterns and the change in attitudes and opinions. Faculty members’ attitudes and use patterns are evaluated using data compiled from the first year of a longitudinal study. The results of our study show that use and attitudes are multidimensional constructs. In addition, changes happen at different rates for different categories of use. Also, the changes in attitudes are more significant for specific components of use. These findings suggest that faculty members, with their increased computer use and altering attitudes, need adequate computer training and infrastructural support to sustain use.

Object oriented paradigms for integrated structural engineering

The increase in use of computers in many aspects of engineering constructed facilities has been enormous during the past few decades. Computers are used for analyses of structures, design checks and optimization, cost estimation, construction planning, etc. Using proven algorithms, many of the individual tasks are now highly automated and tools such as neural networks, expert systems, genetic algorithms, and hybrid systems have shown promise for automation for some of the previously unapproachable problems. However, an important issue facing efficient use of computers in engineering today involves integration of many of these tasks and a productive structural engineering system must be an integrated software system. The fundamental interface to the resources in a computer system that engineers need to face in developing an integrated engineering system are a programming paradigm and a data model to represent engineering information in the database. Object oriented concepts and paradigms have been used successfully to develop large systems. After a brief review of integrated structural engineering systems, this paper presents an object oriented data model that can effectively represent engineering information in the central database of an integrated structural engineering system. The model treats classes as objects and message sending is the only mechanism necessary for communication among data objects, database users and database administrators. This results in a model that is simple and uniform.

The diffusion of quantitative methods into marketing management

Investigates the extent to which various quantitative techniques are employed in marketing across Europe. Marketing practitioners, marketing services providers and marketing educators were all surveyed in a pan‐European study aimed at uncovering the extent of diffusion into practice of quantitative methods. Finds that, despite the increased use of computers, and the wider availability of modelling software, the most popular quantitative techniques are still the most basic data summary and presentation methods. Marketing students receive only a limited exposure to advanced quantitative methods and practitioners typically find little use for the more sophisticated techniques.

Computer Loss Experience and Predictions

The types of losses organizations must anticipate have become more difficult to predict because of the eclectic nature of computers and the data communications and the decrease in news media reporting of computer-related losses as they become commonplace. Total business crime is conjectured to be decreasing in frequency and increasing in loss per case as a result of increasing computer use. Computer crimes are probably increasing, however, as their share of the decreasing business crime rate grows. Ultimately all business crime will involve computers in some way, and we could see a decline of both together. The important information security measures in high-loss business crime generally concern controls over authorized people engaged in unauthorized activities. Such controls include authentication of users, analysis of detailed audit records, unannounced audits, segregation of development and production systems and duties, shielding the viewing of screens, and security awareness and motivation controls in high-value transaction areas. Computer crimes that involve highly publicized intriguing computer misuse methods, such as privacy violations, radio frequency emanations eavesdropping, and computer viruses, have been reported in waves that periodically have saturated the news media during the past 20 years. We must be able to anticipate such highly publicized crimes and reduce the impact and embarrassment they cause. On the basis of our most recent experience, I propose nine new types of computer crime to be aware of: computer larceny (theft and burglary of small computers), automated hacking (use of computer programs to intrude), electronic data interchange fraud (business transaction fraud), Trojan bomb extortion and sabotage (code security inserted into others' systems that can be triggered to cause damage), LANarchy (unknown equipment in use), desktop forgery (computerized forgery and counterfeiting of documents), information anarchy (indiscriminate use of crypto without control), Internet abuse (antisocial use of data communications), and international industrial espionage (governments stealing business secrets). A wide variety of safeguards are necessary to deal with these new crimes. The most powerful controls include (1) carefully controlled use of cryptography and digital signatures with good key management and overriding business and government decryption capability and (2) use of tokens such as smart cards to increase the strength of secret passwords for authentication of computer users. Jewelry-type security for small computers--including registration of serial numbers and security inventorying of equipment, software, and connectivity--will be necessary. Other safeguards include automatic monitoring of computer use and detection of unusual activities, segmentation and filtering of networks, special paper and ink for documents, and reduction of paper documents. Finally, international cooperation of governments to create trusted environments for business is essential.

Medical students' and housestaff's opinions of computerized order-writing.

Greater use of computers has been touted as one way in which health care quality can be enhanced while reducing costs. The authors assessed factors associated with acceptance of computerized order-writing. From April 1990 through October 1991 a survey was administered to 275 medical students and housestaff who used computer workstations to write all their orders on the general medicine wards at Wishard Memorial Hospital. The survey assessed computer literacy, ease of workstation use, effects on practice and time management, and usefulness of information provided. A total of 212 (77%) of the computer-workstation users responded. Opinions were generally positive. Those of junior students were the most positive, with opinions declining progressively for senior students, interns, and residents. The housestaff were most critical of time spent using the workstations, although they required less time to write orders than the students did. The favorableness of the respondents' opinions declined as the level of training increased, a trend that was independent of computer literacy. Hence, increasing computer use by physicians will probably require modification of the educational and socialization process rather than mere reliance on increasing computer literacy.

An analysis of computer-related articles in occupational therapy periodicals.

The introduction of personal computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s has affected occupational therapy. Nine journals, three trade newspapers, and one series book published over an 11-year period by four English-speaking countries were catalogued for articles pertaining to computer use in occupational therapy. This investigation yielded 174 articles that were categorized by information type, application of computers covered, sophistication of technology, computer brand, and country of publication. Most articles provided general information, described clinical training applications, used an Apple computer, and were from an American publication. Few articles were reports of research. The percentage of computer-related articles has substantially increased in the observed 11-year period. These findings indicate increased computer use in occupational therapy.

Computers in the teaching of library and information studies in the United Kingdom

Computers came early into the library world, and their use is extensive both in libraries and in library and information studies (LIS) education. Paradoxically, there is little use of CAL, partly because LIS education forms too small a market, but mainly because LIS educators believe that it is their duty to introduce their students to real-world software. However, there are prospects for increased computer use in the following categories: (i) training in basic computing skills; (ii) training of students of all subjects in information skills and library use; (iii) training of LIS students in real-life library and information systems, by using simulations and tutorials; (iv) use of the academic network for distance learning, especially by part-time students.

Computer misuse and the law

In parallel with increases in computer use for all kinds of functions in business and commerce, there has been an increase in computer crime. While the Law Commission's recent working paper on computer misuse addressed several important issues, it came to the conclusion that existing laws were sufficient to deal with rising crime in this area. This paper examines the Commission's main arguments and reveals some of the conundrums which they had to deal with because of the new technology. The authors argue that the new technology does challenge the effectiveness of current laws, several of which were drafted before computing became prevalent, and that victims of computer misuse should receive additional protection under the law.

Opportunities for using computers in speech and language therapy: A study of one language unit

Whilst the use of information technology is increasing in importance as an aid to speech and language therapy, its introduction has so far been unsystematic. Systems analysis methodologies for assessing how information technology can best be employed have been developed for use in the business world. The present study used one such methodology--Checkland's soft systems--to investigate which aspects of the activities of one language unit were most likely to be improved or helped by the introduction of new technology. Such an approach was found to yield useful insights and several opportunities for increased computer use were revealed. However, it was also concluded that, to take maximum advantage of new technology, changes would need to be introduced and resources made available at a higher organisational level than that of the individual unit or department.

History and Computing: Expansion and Achievements

Increasingly cheap and user-friendly computing has brought a massive increase in computer use by historians in the past 10 years. The formation of the Association for History and Computing in 1987 and the publication of its journal, History and Com puting, in 1989 has provided a focus for this activity. The creation of several large databases is beginning to bring substantial increases in historical understanding, in family, urban, political, medieval and many other areas of history. Text analysis and graphical databases promise further advances for historians. This activity receives necessary and increasing support from data archive work and computer-based teaching in history Keywords: Association for History and Computing, historical databases, text analysis, graphical databases, teaching and computers, data archives.

Computers and computing in psychology: Twenty years of progress and still a bright future

Computers and technology in psychology can be a cornucopia or a Pandora’s box. During the 20 years of its existence, the Society for Computers in Psychology has been an important focus for the appropriate and beneficial application of computing technology in psychology. Although the increase of computer use is unmistakable, cyclic trends in computer applications also can be identified and, together with current technological developments, lead to predictions, concerns, and challenges for the future.

The Queue Inference Engine

The transactional data of a queueing system are the recorded times of service commencement and service completion for each customer served. With increasing use of computers to aid or even perform s...

Psychology of Computer Use: VII. Measuring Technostress: Computer-Related Stress

The Computer Technology Hassles Scale was developed to measure technostress or computer-related stress. The Computer Technology Hassles Scale was based on the idea that certain interactions with computer technology are perceived by people to be stressful or a “hassle.” Subjects rated a list of 65 “hassles” as to severity, using a graded response. To ascertain the relation of the Computer Technology Hassles Scale to other measures, the subjects were given the Perceived Stress Scale, a measure of global stress. Subjects were also given a measure of computer attitudes, the Computer Attitude Scale. Demographic data on each subject were also collected. The correlational analyses showed that scores on the Computer Technology Hassles Scale were significantly correlated with scores on the Perceived Stress Scale and the number of hours of computer use but not with attitudes toward computers. These results suggest that the Computer Technology Hassles Scale taps a dimension of psychological stress and that increased computer use for some people leads to increased computer-related stress.

Computer Use and Organizational Effectiveness

We explored the relationship between computer use and computer literacy, communication competence, and organizational effectiveness. Four different types of effectiveness were considered. Increased computer use generally increases computer literacy, with a corresponding gain in organizational effectiveness. Increased use also leads to a decrease in communication competence and a corresponding loss in effectiveness. The relationship between computer use and effectiveness is curvilinear. Managers are devoting increasing attention to computer technology. They may assume that only benefits will accrue from increased computer use without recognizing the organizational costs. The authors contend that adoption of one or more of the newer technologies should be approached in a systematic fashion.

History of the Glass Industry Committee

THE IEEE Glass Industry Committee history parallels the glass industry developments of the past quarter century. During this period, process improvements, increased computer use, and sophisticated control developments, documented by IEEE papers, led the industry to its present position. The stimulation of glass industry electrical engineers by IEEE participation, encouraged by individual corporate management, resulted in the improvement of the industry capabilities far exceeding the time and effort expended for such activities. This paper records some of the events of this past quarter century in the IEEE Glass Industry Committee history.

International computer crime: Where terrorism and transborder data flow meet

International computer use is growing rapidly. With this growth has come: 1. 1. Increased computer use in critical areas; 2. 2. Increased security problems; and 3. 3. Increased vulnerability to a variety of international computer crimes. The experience from selected jurisdictions indicates that the international community is unduly vulnerable to computer crime. Each country with computers needs to take the first step to reduce international computer crime vulnerability. In addition, there are vehicles for international cooperation which can be adapted for use against international computer crime.