Search results

This article reviews some of the more unconventional text retrieval systems, emphasising those which have been commercialised. These sophisticated systems improve on conventional retrieval by using either innovative software or hardware to increase retrieval speed or functionality, precision or recall. The software systems reviewed are: AIDA, CLARIT, Metamorph, SIMPR, STATUS/IQ, TCS, TINA and TOPIC. The hardware systems reviewed are: CAFS‐ISP, the Connection Machine, GESCAN,HSTS,MPP, TEXTRACT, TRW‐FDF and URSA.

Outlines a qualitative methodology for researching in entrepreneurial small firms and through an application of this methodology to a group of five entrepreneurs, illustrates its appropriateness in explaining how such firms manage and develop their personal contact networks over the life cycle of an enterprise. Draws on the relevant literature to provide a contextual setting for the research. The research approach adopted is largely inductive and it resulted in the emergence of a theoretical model of network evolution for owner‐managed entrepreneurial small firms.

Notes that, over the past decade, a number of computer programs have been designed to assist researchers in the analysis of qualitative data. Acknowledges that all programs will help to take some of the tedium out of the clerical tasks associated with qualitative data analysis and some programs can assist researchers in developing emerging concepts and theory. Explains briefly how programs can be employed in the coding process and discusses the benefits and drawbacks of using them. Where relevant, also draws on the small but growing literature in this field.

In the third paragraph, the author states that ‘Conventional text retrieval systems suffer from a number of problems. First, indexing terms and / or classificators have normally to be assigned manually, which is a very time‐consuming process and can lead to severe problems with regard to inter‐indexer consistency.’ To what types of systems does this refer? From a content perspective it would appear to be addressing the problems of a keyword system, also referred to as a document coding system. Yet, they are referred to as ‘conventional text retrieval systems.’ Manual indexing is not a component of today's text retrieval system, elementary or advanced.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate technologies improving image quality and understanding in life‐science microscopy.

The new technique of high‐content analysis is described, along with the equipment available from various manufacturers. Advances in fluorescence imaging and confocal microscopy are then addressed. The paper concludes by reporting a powerful 3D visualisation package, and equipment for networked viewing of high‐resolution microscopy images.

High‐content analysis has developed rapidly in the last four or five years, due largely to improvements in the software interface. Automation and powerful software acquire and manage vast quantities of data, allowing scientists experiment afresh on archived images. Improvements in laser scanning techniques and the emergence of microLED arrays assist microscopy imaging of live cells, whilst techniques giving high‐spectral discrimination improve image understanding.

The paper describes how image‐processing technologies are assisting the work of cell biologists. Stresses the importance of software and hardware design to user uptake, which is relevant for all engineers.

Conventionally, various levels of decisions with regard to production are made in a number of sequential stages such as system design, production/process planning, production scheduling, system reconfiguration and system restructure. This paper aims to present an integrated approach for modelling, restructuring and simulating manufacturing systems to suit changing manufacturing situations as quickly as possible.

An agent‐based approach is employed where each manufacturing resource is represented by an agent. Simply speaking, the approach enables the machines in a manufacturing system to manage themselves efficiently and effectively.

The agent‐based modelling and interaction approach enables manufacturing resources to be allocated dynamically in an optimal manner. The modelling approach also enables alternative system configurations to be identified and evaluated using distributed discrete event simulation system. Resource allocation and manufacturing system control can take place simultaneously with simulation.

This paper presents a successful integration of agent‐based modelling, process planning, scheduling, control, identification of alternative system configurations, simulation and analysis of the configurations and PLC reprogramming within a coherent framework for improved manufacturing responsiveness.

There is a huge amount of information and data stored in publicly available online databases that consist of large text files accessed by Boolean search techniques. It is widely held that less use is made of these databases than could or should be the case, and that one reason for this is that potential users find it difficult to identify which databases to search, to use the various command languages of the hosts and to construct the Boolean search statements required. This reasoning has stimulated a considerable amount of exploration and development work on the construction of search interfaces, to aid the inexperienced user to gain effective access to these databases. The aim of our paper is to review aspects of the design of such interfaces: to indicate the requirements that must be met if maximum aid is to be offered to the inexperienced searcher; to spell out the knowledge that must be incorporated in an interface if such aid is to be given; to describe some of the solutions that have been implemented in experimental and operational interfaces; and to discuss some of the problems encountered. The paper closes with an extensive bibliography of references relevant to online search aids, going well beyond the items explicitly mentioned in the text. An index to software appears after the bibliography at the end of the paper.

A major function of personnel management is to help individuals and organisations cope with change. Managerial career development provides a practical example of this concern as effective action requires an understanding of how individuals and organisations initiate and are affected by change. These changes can also be considered from the more theoretical viewpoints of organisational mobility. The practical concerns of the personnel manager and the theoretical models of the student of organisational mobility should both benefit from the two‐way flow of insights, and some of these potential links are explored in this article.