From the point of view of reference service, the crucial fact about my desert island is that I am its sole human resident: I am therefore the sole potential recipient of any…
Abstract
From the point of view of reference service, the crucial fact about my desert island is that I am its sole human resident: I am therefore the sole potential recipient of any service I may manage to create, hence the sole subject of whatever user study seems called for. One finding of the latter being, by the way, that I can meet my life‐survival needs simply by exploiting, thoughtlessly and effortlessly, my island's resources. Its climate is mild, it harbors nothing immediately or remotely dangerous to me, and it offers me a never failing and perfectly balanced diet.
This issue's Special Feature is a discourse on the factors that influence the design and use of reference service areas. Robert Pierson identifies 13 characteristics every…
Abstract
This issue's Special Feature is a discourse on the factors that influence the design and use of reference service areas. Robert Pierson identifies 13 characteristics every reference service area should have, and proposes specific design techniques by which these desired features can be obtained. The text is augmented by illustrations.
All seventeen had graciously agreed to my proposal to gather for a small conference to seek consensus. A generous grant from the Pierian Press Foundation would cover all of our…
Abstract
All seventeen had graciously agreed to my proposal to gather for a small conference to seek consensus. A generous grant from the Pierian Press Foundation would cover all of our expenses for a long weekend at a resort hotel; the only condition of the grant was that we offer our results to Reference Services Review for first publication. Over the past five years each of the seventeen had in turn accepted my challenge to answer the following question:
From the point of view of reference service, the crucial fact about my desert island is that I am its sole human resident: I am therefore the sole potential recipient of any…
Abstract
From the point of view of reference service, the crucial fact about my desert island is that I am its sole human resident: I am therefore the sole potential recipient of any service I may manage to create, hence the sole subject of whatever user study seems called for. One Finding of the latter being, by the way, that I can meet my life‐survival needs simply by exploiting, thoughtlessly and effortlessly, my island's resources. Its climate is mild, it harbors nothing immediately or remotely dangerous to me, and it offers me a never failing and perfectly balanced diet.
Are we living in an age of sensitivity, with an increased awareness of how words contribute to happy and unhappy feelings? Or are we living in an age of anxiety, in response to…
Abstract
Are we living in an age of sensitivity, with an increased awareness of how words contribute to happy and unhappy feelings? Or are we living in an age of anxiety, in response to pathological prickliness? Or, are we living in an age of both? Regardless of what we name our historical context, we cannot fail to realize that epithets which are perceived as offensive‐by those who use them, by those to whom they are applied, or by third parties‐can give rise to all sorts of unpleasantness. And regardless of our individual feelings and opinions about groups likely to take offense at some epithets used to refer to them, we surely want to know how our language may be received. If we are to offend, let it be knowingly!
Surely an article whose author is also part of its subject will seem at best odd to some and at worst self‐serving to others. Perhaps a bit of explanation of this article's…
Abstract
Surely an article whose author is also part of its subject will seem at best odd to some and at worst self‐serving to others. Perhaps a bit of explanation of this article's genesis will moderate those reactions.
This index accompanies the index that appeared in Reference Services Review 16:4 (1988). As noted in the introduction to that index, the articles in RSR that deal with specific…
Abstract
This index accompanies the index that appeared in Reference Services Review 16:4 (1988). As noted in the introduction to that index, the articles in RSR that deal with specific reference titles can be grouped into two categories: those that review specific titles (to a maximum of three) and those that review titles pertinent to a specific subject or discipline. The index in RSR 16:4 covered the first category; it indexed, by title, all titles that had been reviewed in the “Reference Serials” and the “Landmarks of Reference” columns, as well as selected titles from the “Indexes and Indexers,” “Government Publications,” and “Special Feature” columns of the journal.
Antônio Tadeu A. Gomes, Artur Ziviani, Bruno F. Bastos and Luciana S. Lima
Although wireless grids have been originally thought of as isolated processing clusters, the possibility of their approaching – and connecting to – a fixed network allows for a…
Abstract
Purpose
Although wireless grids have been originally thought of as isolated processing clusters, the possibility of their approaching – and connecting to – a fixed network allows for a huge expansion of their processing power, due to the resources available in wired grids potentially accessible through such a network. The interoperation of mobile ad hoc grids and resources available in wired grids is, however, a problem still to be tackled in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to tackle this problem.
Design/methodology/approach
A prototype is developed to demonstrate the feasibility of the interoperation between wireless and wired grids, thus providing a basis for the development of novel applications that can build on this interoperation.
Findings
The outcome of the paper comprises the analysis of the necessary requirements for the interoperation between wireless and wired grids, the proposal of two different interoperation approaches, and the provision of a qualitative assessment of the implications of these approaches.
Research limitations/implications
There are many points that the authors intend to address as future work. First, they are aware of the need for performing some quantitative analyses of their proxy implementations. Second, they intend to investigate the possibility of mobile ad hoc grids to process tasks coming from wired grids. Third, they are interested in allowing the submission of tasks that present interdependencies (workflows) from mobile devices in the mobile ad hoc grid.
Practical implications
The paper investigates the interoperation of wireless and wired grids. Such an interoperation may open new perspectives of practical use of wireless devices in scenarios such as emergency response networks and field research systems, to name a few.
Originality/value
The paper provides a first step into the interoperation of wireless and wired grids, thus yielding a basis for the development of novel applications that can build upon this interoperation. This is believed to be of interest to both the grid and mobile computing communities.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to present a component framework for building visual interfaces for pervasive computing systems.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a component framework for building visual interfaces for pervasive computing systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed framework enables end‐users to build visual interfaces for their systems by using document‐editing manner.
Findings
The building and operating visual interfaces are useful for managing pervasive computing systems.
Research limitations/implications
The framework is designed based on Java but programming language‐independent version is needed.
Practical implications
A component framework was implemented for building visual interfaces for pervasive computing.
Originality/value
A framework for visual interfaces for pervasive computing is unique.
Details
Keywords
Rabab Hayek, Guillaume Raschia, Patrick Valduriez and Noureddine Mouaddib
The goal of this paper is to contribute to the development of both data localization and description techniques in P2P systems.
Abstract
Purpose
The goal of this paper is to contribute to the development of both data localization and description techniques in P2P systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach consists of introducing a novel indexing technique that relies on linguistic data summarization into the context of P2P systems.
Findings
The cost model of the approach, as well as the simulation results have shown that the approach allows the efficient maintenance of data summaries, without incurring high traffic overhead. In addition, the cost of query routing is significantly reduced in the context of summaries.
Research limitations/implications
The paper has considered a summary service defined on the APPA's architecture. Future works have to study the extension of this work in order to be generally applicable to any P2P data management system.
Practical implications
This paper has mainly studied the quantitative gain that could be obtained in query processing from exploiting data summaries. Future works aim to implement this technique on real data (not synthetic) in order to study the qualitative gain that can be obtained from approximately answering a query.
Originality/value
The novelty of the approach shown in the paper relies on the double exploitation of the summaries in P2P systems: data summaries allow for a semantic‐based query routing, and also for an approximate query answering, using their intentional descriptions.