February 1990 - Vol. 33 No. 2
Features
Investigating the effects of color
A laboratory experiment studies the effects of color on a decision maker's ability to extract information from different graphical and tabular presentations. Results indicate color improves time performance for tables, pie charts and bar graphs, and accuracy performance for pie charts and line graphs.
Comparing representations with relational and EER models
The diffusion of technology to end users who can now develop their own information systems raises issues concerning the cost, quality, efficiency, and accuracy of such systems.
Polychannel systems for mass digital communications
A new type of distributed computer system looks toward the time when computers will be used by everyone everywhere.
Smart game board and go explorer: a study in software and knowledge engineering
Software engineering is an established discipline that has accumulated and codified more than two decades worth of know-how. Knowledge engineering, on the other hand, is an emerging discipline with lots of issues but, at least so far, little structure. Despite its lack of maturity the practice of knowledge engineering promises to have a noticeable impact on software engineering doctrine. The experimental nature of knowledge engineering goes hand-in-hand with a style of software development best characterized as ‘exploratory,’ which has not been much studied in traditional software engineering.
Identity authentication based on keystroke latencies
The variables that help make a handwritten signature a unique human identifier also provide a unique digital signature in the form of a stream of latency periods between keystrokes. This article describes a method of verifying the identity of a user based on such a digital signature, and reports results from trial usage of the system.
Dynamic file migration in distributed computer systems
The importance of file migration is increasing because of its potential to improve the performance of distributed office, manufacturing and hospital information systems. To encourage research in the file migration problem, the authors summarize accomplishments of researchers of the problem, provide a detailed comparison of file migration and dynamic file allocation problems, and identify important areas of research to support the development of effective file migration policies.
Post implementation evaluation of computer-based information systems: current practices
Contrary to the widely-held view that post implementation evaluations are performed to assess and improve the information system and the system development practices, this study suggests that in practice, the primary reason for such evaluations seems to be project closure and not project improvement.
SNA and OSI: three strategies for interconnection
The rise of the Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model (OSI) in the past five years is forcing IBM to rethink its plans for its proprietary network standard Systems Network Architecture (SNA). This article reviews three interconnection strategies to be considered.
N-Fold inspection: a requirements analysis technique
N-fold inspection uses traditional inspections of the user requirements document (URD) but replicates the inspection activities using N independent teams. A pilot study was conducted to explore the usefulness of N-fold inspection during requirements analysis. A comparison of N-fold inspection with other development techniques reveals that N-fold inspection is a cost-effective method for finding faults in the URD and may be a valid technique in the development of mission-critical software systems.
