The development of a highly interactive searching technique for morphs—Minicomputer operated retrieval (partially heuristic) system

The basic structure of MORPHS was described at the Fifth Cranfield Conference when emphasis was placed on the automatic root finding/role applying procedures based on linguistic principles. This skeleton remains, but it has since been clothed with relatively complex, iterative search strategies. The major strategy employs the normal Boolean operators either in the form of strings without bracketing or in the form of marked steps. The latter enables back-tracking to be carried out. Recycling of search strategies is only limited by the number of tracks available for storing searches on the disc unit before over-writing takes place. Printing-out does not interfere with searching. A second strategy treats a string of keywords as a compound word; if it fails to find it the compound is then decomposed into its elements, which are then automatically treated as a string connected by AND logic; incidentally this technique also acts as a bracketing technique, but without the inconvenience of physical brackets. SDI procedures have been evolved as a by-product.Ultimately it is hoped that it may be possible to develop a degree of question answering ability: this could be achieved in several ways. The simplest (based on the modifying effect of certain interrogatory elements, e.g. WHO) has been evaluated and works. With the exception of the SDI system which employs 16k, all of the above systems were developed and originally operated in 12k of core with 16 bit words on a minicomputer. Nevertheless, despite this severe restriction on space it has been possible to implement searching strategies for dedicated on-line searching which are at least as good and in many ways better (e.g. automatic synonym substitution) than many employed in the large time-sharing systems currently available.     

An empirical study of formal procedure specification

Programming a computer is a problem-solving activity which can be categorized as formal procedure specification.It is a useful vehicle for the study of this aspect of problem-solving because the procedures can be automatically tested for correctness.The reported study focuses on the incidence and severity of errors committed during program development by novice programmers.The observations are summarized in tabular form, to permit insights into the sorts of errors virtually untrained students make when specifying procedures, and the problems they have eliminating them.     

Individual differences in cognitive synthesis: An M-capacity analysis

Individual differences in children's propensity to demonstrate cognitive synthesis were evaluated using an artificial reading task. Six-year-olds were asked to demonstrate the meaning of various sentences constructed of logographs, or whole-word symbols, which were arranged in either a meaningful (i.e., grammatical) or scrambled (i.e., ungrammatical) order. Some children demonstrated the sentences in a synthesized mode (expressing a single idea unit), while others used a nonsynthesized mode (expressing the meanings of individual logographs). Overall, synthesizers had a larger attentional reserve, or M-capacity, than nonsynthesizers. The two groups did not differ significantly in age, intellectual level, or reading achievement. As predicted by their larger M-capacity, synthesizers demonstrated from memory significantly more items from meaningful sentences than nonsynthesizers. However, when synthesizers attempted to integrate the scrambled sentences, the excessive operative schemes needed to reorganize the items reduced their recall performance to the level of nonsynthesizers.     

Book Reviews

Indexing from A to Z Second edition by Hans H. Wellisch, New York and Dublin: H.W. Wilson, 1996, 569 pp, $45, ISBN 0 8242 0882 X Winning the Publications Game by Tim Albert, Oxford and New York: Radcliffe Medical Press, 1997 100pp £15, ISBN 1-85775 183 3     

Cognitive ability and everyday functioning in women with Turner syndrome

This paper presents results from an assessment of cognitive ability and everyday functioning in a group of adult women with Turner syndrome (TUS). Twenty-three TUS women were compared with 23 matched controls with constitutional short stature (CSS). A subgroup of 10 TUS women were compared with their nondisabled female siblings. On the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test-Revised (Wechsler, 1981), no significant group differences were found in Verbal IQ. There were significant group differences for Performance IQ and Full Scale IQ, largely due to specific deficits in the area of spatial and mathematical ability. These difficulties were also evident on the Benton Visual Retention Test-Revised (Benton, 1974). TUS individuals had significantly lower educational attainment than CSS controls but did not differ from their siblings. TUS individuals had significantly lower occupational attainment than the women in both comparison groups.