Steve Wade - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Steve Wade
2020 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)
The development of applications in collaborative production environments poses problems relating ... more The development of applications in collaborative production environments poses problems relating to teamwork, control and communication. Global software development (GSD) has increasingly identified agile techniques that require regular contact and selforganization between remote sites to mitigate challenges. The main aim of this paper is to present an analysis of the challenges in GSD using Scrum practices. This study discusses the Scrum practices in GSD from existing database libraries from 2009 to 2020. It is found that there is relatively quite wide activity in the area of GSD and it may be difficult to apply Scrum in GSD but it provides solutions to the issues people face in this area.
中华劳动卫生职业病杂志, May 20, 2002
To detect the DNA damage of the nurses occupationally exposed to anticancer drugs and to assess t... more To detect the DNA damage of the nurses occupationally exposed to anticancer drugs and to assess the exposure level using Comet assay. Sixteen nurses occupationally exposed to anticancer drugs were selected as exposure group, the average exposure period was 5.6 years, and the average exposure dose was to prepare 7.8 portions of anticancer drugs daily. Meanwhile, sixteen nurse students were selected as control group. The DNA migration of the peripheral lymphocytes of both groups was detected using comet assay. The comet length was 46.27 microns in exposure group, which was significantly higher than that of control group (26.78 microns, P < 0.01). Also the percentage of long tailed nucleus (LTN) of exposure group was 64.83%, which was significantly higher than that of control group (4.87%, P < 0.01). There was DNA damage in the nurses occupationally exposed to antineoplastic drugs.
This paper aims to assess undergraduate students’ satisfaction within the Arab International Univ... more This paper aims to assess undergraduate students’ satisfaction within the Arab International University (AIU). The results were addressed by conducting a questionnaire to a total of 228 of the undergraduate students of AIU, and by undertaken 8 interviews with the librarians involved to understand users’ expectations and requirements of the AIU. The findings showed: a) a statistical significance of students’ ability to find and use the information; b) a relationship between students' expectations and received materials; c) students were satisfied with library services’ quality in terms of accessibility; d) a relationship between providing the newest and valuable collections and students’ satisfaction; e) the most difficulties facing students were a lack of time and the ability to visit libraries; and f) the main services for students were borrowing books and references services. Furthermore, the findings illustrate statistically important differentiations on the satisfaction leve...
This paper presents and compares the SSDDD "Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework&q... more This paper presents and compares the SSDDD "Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework" to DDD "Domain Driven Design Framework" as a soft system approach of information systems development. The framework use SSM as a guiding methodology within which we have embedded a sequence of design tasks based on the UML leading to the implementation of a software system using the Naked Objects framework. This framework has been used in action research projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of business processes using object-oriented domain models and the implementation of software systems based on those domain models. Within this framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to develop the domain model using UML for the given business domain. The framework is proposed and evaluated in our previous works, a comparison between SSDDD and DDD is presented in this paper, to show how SSDDD ...
This Standardized DCP has been adopted as a Standardized DCP by the Steering Committee of the UPn... more This Standardized DCP has been adopted as a Standardized DCP by the Steering Committee of the UPnP Forum, pursuant to Section 2.1(c)(ii) of the UPnP Forum Membership Agreement. UPnP Forum Members have rights and licenses defined by Section 3 of the UPnP Forum Membership Agreement to use and reproduce the Standardized DCP in UPnP Compliant Devices. All such use is subject to all of the provisions of the UPnP Forum Membership Agreement.
Transnational Higher Education in Computing Courses
This chapter discusses strategies we have developed for teaching information systems design to mu... more This chapter discusses strategies we have developed for teaching information systems design to multinational groups of students. The focus is on a particular branch of information systems development-database design-which the authors had been teaching for a number of years in their respective institutions. We discuss the way in which we adapted the course content in response to the diverse experiences of a multinational group of students. Database design can be seen as an exercise in modelling a real-world situation. The structure of a database therefore represents the knowledge acquired by its designers through their discussions with various stakeholders. Importantly, the situation under investigation might be perceived differently by individual stakeholders particularly if these have different cultural backgrounds and expectations. The cultural background of the designers themselves may also be of great significance. For these reasons, we take the view that culture is an asset which should be utilised in our teaching. This has led us to an approach based on guided learning within a simulation of a real-world development project. This involves organising students into diverse groups and using a case study that places database design into a sociological and multicultural context. The case study we have developed is based on the services offered by an academic library. There is a great deal of room for discussion in a diverse group about precisely what services students feel an academic library should offer and what their individual experiences have been of libraries they have used prior to joining our course. Some of these discussions relate to the role the library has in the type of teaching and learning strategies employed in the UK which may be different from strategies that the students have encountered before. We report on the way we have used the library case study with a number of multinational groups of students to explore the way in which systems development is a social exercise as well as a technical one.
This paper presents an application of a “Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework” as a sof... more This paper presents an application of a “Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework” as a soft systems approach to domain-driven design of information systems development. The framework use SSM as a guiding methodology within which we have embedded a sequence of design tasks based on the UML leading to the implementation of a software system using the Naked Objects framework. This framework have been used in action research projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of business processes using object-oriented domain models and the implementation of software systems based on those domain models. Within this framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to develop the domain model using UML for the given business domain. The framework is proposed and evaluated in our previous works, and a real case study “Information Retrieval System for academic research” is used, in this paper, to show further pra...
This paper introduces the reader to the approach we are taking to develop an ontology that could ... more This paper introduces the reader to the approach we are taking to develop an ontology that could be used to represent the knowledge inherent in filmed materials. Such an ontology could be used as the semantic basis for multimedia retrieval systems. The proposed approach to ontology development is informed by the earlier work of researchers into folksonomy development and facet analysis. A brief survey of this earlier work is presented before our approach is described.
Abstract—This paper proposes a “soft systems ” approach to domain-driven design of computer-based... more Abstract—This paper proposes a “soft systems ” approach to domain-driven design of computer-based information systems. We propose a systemic framework combining techniques from Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), the Unified Modelling Language (UML), and an implementation pattern known as “Naked Objects”. We have used this framework in action research projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of business processes using object-oriented domain models and the implementation of software systems based on those domain models. Within the proposed framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to generate a ubiquitous language (soft language) which can be used as the basis for developing an object-oriented domain model. The domain model is further developed using techniques based on the UML and is implemented in software following the “Naked Objects” implementation pattern. We argue that there are advantages fro...
Ontology, usually, build upon Taxonomy, which is considered as the backbone of it. The problem is... more Ontology, usually, build upon Taxonomy, which is considered as the backbone of it. The problem is that Taxonomy entirely depends on controlled vocabulary which has many drawbacks, particularly in the environments that depend on social networking, which shaped and formed generally from contribution of nun-specialist communities. On the other side, Folksonomy found as a way to deal with free tagging systems. Although it has a many weaknesses, it could be very Useful in dealing with the requirements of the beneficiaries within those social networking environments. This article discusses part of recent work on developing an ontology that can be used to represent the knowledge inherent in filmed materials. The ontology is intended to be used as the semantic basis for a retrieval system. The focus of the paper is on the method used to develop the ontology. The method is influenced by success that has been achieved in developing Folksonomies.
This paper aims to identify the barriers to the adoption of ICT in Quality of Engineering Researc... more This paper aims to identify the barriers to the adoption of ICT in Quality of Engineering Research, and how to bridge the “Digital Divide” at Tripoli University through effective ICT implementation. The authors study the global digital divide with emphasis on the disparities in Information Technology between developed countries and Libya. It is obvious that effective ICT implementation should focus on understanding individual faculty needs. Then a thorough investigation is conducted in relation to the importance of implementing electronic education at Libyan universities, and of including faculty members in every step of the planning and implementation of up-to-date technologies, as well as the challenges and solutions of ICT implementation. This paper presents the factors that affect Internet use by staff members; how the Internet affects research and teaching; what the main purposes are for using Internet resources, and the level of Libyan research into IT development and implemen...
Higher Education Computer Science
The subject of Information Systems Modelling (ISM) grew out of computer science to fill a gap cre... more The subject of Information Systems Modelling (ISM) grew out of computer science to fill a gap created by the difficulties programmers had in understanding and solving user problems. The intention behind ISM is to facilitate communication between technologists (many of whom have no idea of the complexity of organisations) and end-users and their managers (many of whom are unable to translate their problems into feasible demands upon technology). “Best practices” in information system development might therefore be considered to be those practices which contribute in some way to improving communication between these two parties. The work described here is primarily focussed on documenting practices that address the issues associated with the seamless transition from a requirements model seamlessly to a technology based system that satisfies those requirements. This has involved reflection on lessons learned during thirty years’ experience of teaching Information Systems Modelling in the context of higher education.
This report discusses progress on the development of IR_Framework an extensible class library for... more This report discusses progress on the development of IR_Framework an extensible class library for information retrieval currently under development at the University of Huddersfield. When completed, IR_Framework will include the data structures and methods required to support the development of any information retrieval system in which it is necessary to store, automatically index and retrieve objects on the basis of their text content. The types of system falling into this category are very diverse ranging from bibliographic retrieval systems through electronic office filing systems to multimedia educational software (where images and video sequences can be retrieved via associated textual descriptions) and geographic information systems. A primary objective of the research is to make the class library as extensible as possible so that the information retrieval functionality can be extended to the specific requirements of a wide range of applications. We are therefore fully exploit...
Background: the methodology of historical research depends on a commitment to reporting and recor... more Background: the methodology of historical research depends on a commitment to reporting and record keeping based on investigation of primary and secondary sources. This dependence on finding and assessing the reliability of information sources presents particular challenges to designers of information retrieval software intended to support historical research. Aim: this paper reports the results of a questionnaire distributed as the first phase of a research project intended to assess the information needs of historians working with original and/or digitised primary resources. We have been particularly interested in the work of “local” historians working with archives of local newspapers and with image collections that are in the process of being digitised. The primary aim at this stage was to discover whether these historians have a preference between original or digitised resources and to understand the reasons behind any preferences. In the longer term we aim to apply what we hav...
The subject of Information Systems Modelling (ISM) grew out of computer science to fill a gap cre... more The subject of Information Systems Modelling (ISM) grew out of computer science to fill a gap created by the difficulties programmers had in understanding and solving user problems. The intention behind ISM is to facilitate communication between technologists (many of whom have no idea of the complexity of organisations) and end-users and their managers (many of whom are unable to translate their problems into feasible demands upon technology). “Best practices” in information system development might therefore be considered to be those practices which contribute in some way to improving communication between these two parties. The work described here is primarily focussed on documenting practices that address the issues associated with the seamless transition from a requirements model seamlessly to a technology based system that satisfies those requirements. This has involved reflection on lessons learned during thirty years’ experience of teaching Information Systems Modelling in t...
This paper describes the results of a preliminary attempt to use a genetic algorithm to divide an... more This paper describes the results of a preliminary attempt to use a genetic algorithm to divide an inverted file into a specified number of partitions such that the total number of documents indexed by a particular partition is approximately equal to the total number of documents indexed by each of the other partitions. The purpose of identifying such equifrequent partitions is to assist in the generation of text signature representations of documents which are more discriminating than those created using more traditional techniques. The paper is divided into six sections. Following the introduction, the second of these describes the main idea behind the signature approach The third section introduces the idea of genetic algorithms and briefly reviews earlier work on the application of this technique to information retrieval problems. The fourth section describes how we have used a genetic algorithm to partition a section of the inverted file used to index the LISA document test coll...
Purpose- The purpose of this project is to measure end-users’ satisfaction with information resou... more Purpose- The purpose of this project is to measure end-users’ satisfaction with information resources (IRs) provided in the Arab International University Library (AIUL) in Syria. It attempts to investigate to what extent the provision of IRs can affect the end-user satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach- This study was conducted using a printed questionnaire for undergraduate students, and a Smart-Survey for academic staff. Findings- Results reflected that the end-users were satisfied with the IRs provided. Furthermore, the results showed that providing sufficient quality and quantity of the IRs increases the satisfactory level. In addition, a relationship between the end-users’ satisfaction and demographic variables is articulated. Limitations- This study limited to one private academic library in Syria which is the AIUL. This paper concentrates on a part of results collected in terms of understanding end-users’ needs. The emphasis was made to assess the satisfaction of undergra...
The key aim of the research discussed in this paper has been to investigate ways of integrating t... more The key aim of the research discussed in this paper has been to investigate ways of integrating techniques from SSM (Soft Systems Methodology) into the requirements elicitation stage of an agile system development method based on the UML (Unified Modelling Language). We argue that used alone UML models can encourage early design decisions before opportunities for improvement have been agreed and that SSM lacks the detailed information required by programmers. This leads to the conclusion that there could be some advantage in using the techniques together. In developing an integrated method we have been influenced by the recent trend towards agile systems development. This represents a move away from seeing software development methods as codified practices focusing on specific artefacts within a prescribed lifecycle. Instead emphasis is placed on the provision of a framework of development activities, products and workflows together with guidance for applying these to a particular a...
2020 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)
The development of applications in collaborative production environments poses problems relating ... more The development of applications in collaborative production environments poses problems relating to teamwork, control and communication. Global software development (GSD) has increasingly identified agile techniques that require regular contact and selforganization between remote sites to mitigate challenges. The main aim of this paper is to present an analysis of the challenges in GSD using Scrum practices. This study discusses the Scrum practices in GSD from existing database libraries from 2009 to 2020. It is found that there is relatively quite wide activity in the area of GSD and it may be difficult to apply Scrum in GSD but it provides solutions to the issues people face in this area.
中华劳动卫生职业病杂志, May 20, 2002
To detect the DNA damage of the nurses occupationally exposed to anticancer drugs and to assess t... more To detect the DNA damage of the nurses occupationally exposed to anticancer drugs and to assess the exposure level using Comet assay. Sixteen nurses occupationally exposed to anticancer drugs were selected as exposure group, the average exposure period was 5.6 years, and the average exposure dose was to prepare 7.8 portions of anticancer drugs daily. Meanwhile, sixteen nurse students were selected as control group. The DNA migration of the peripheral lymphocytes of both groups was detected using comet assay. The comet length was 46.27 microns in exposure group, which was significantly higher than that of control group (26.78 microns, P < 0.01). Also the percentage of long tailed nucleus (LTN) of exposure group was 64.83%, which was significantly higher than that of control group (4.87%, P < 0.01). There was DNA damage in the nurses occupationally exposed to antineoplastic drugs.
This paper aims to assess undergraduate students’ satisfaction within the Arab International Univ... more This paper aims to assess undergraduate students’ satisfaction within the Arab International University (AIU). The results were addressed by conducting a questionnaire to a total of 228 of the undergraduate students of AIU, and by undertaken 8 interviews with the librarians involved to understand users’ expectations and requirements of the AIU. The findings showed: a) a statistical significance of students’ ability to find and use the information; b) a relationship between students' expectations and received materials; c) students were satisfied with library services’ quality in terms of accessibility; d) a relationship between providing the newest and valuable collections and students’ satisfaction; e) the most difficulties facing students were a lack of time and the ability to visit libraries; and f) the main services for students were borrowing books and references services. Furthermore, the findings illustrate statistically important differentiations on the satisfaction leve...
This paper presents and compares the SSDDD "Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework&q... more This paper presents and compares the SSDDD "Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework" to DDD "Domain Driven Design Framework" as a soft system approach of information systems development. The framework use SSM as a guiding methodology within which we have embedded a sequence of design tasks based on the UML leading to the implementation of a software system using the Naked Objects framework. This framework has been used in action research projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of business processes using object-oriented domain models and the implementation of software systems based on those domain models. Within this framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to develop the domain model using UML for the given business domain. The framework is proposed and evaluated in our previous works, a comparison between SSDDD and DDD is presented in this paper, to show how SSDDD ...
This Standardized DCP has been adopted as a Standardized DCP by the Steering Committee of the UPn... more This Standardized DCP has been adopted as a Standardized DCP by the Steering Committee of the UPnP Forum, pursuant to Section 2.1(c)(ii) of the UPnP Forum Membership Agreement. UPnP Forum Members have rights and licenses defined by Section 3 of the UPnP Forum Membership Agreement to use and reproduce the Standardized DCP in UPnP Compliant Devices. All such use is subject to all of the provisions of the UPnP Forum Membership Agreement.
Transnational Higher Education in Computing Courses
This chapter discusses strategies we have developed for teaching information systems design to mu... more This chapter discusses strategies we have developed for teaching information systems design to multinational groups of students. The focus is on a particular branch of information systems development-database design-which the authors had been teaching for a number of years in their respective institutions. We discuss the way in which we adapted the course content in response to the diverse experiences of a multinational group of students. Database design can be seen as an exercise in modelling a real-world situation. The structure of a database therefore represents the knowledge acquired by its designers through their discussions with various stakeholders. Importantly, the situation under investigation might be perceived differently by individual stakeholders particularly if these have different cultural backgrounds and expectations. The cultural background of the designers themselves may also be of great significance. For these reasons, we take the view that culture is an asset which should be utilised in our teaching. This has led us to an approach based on guided learning within a simulation of a real-world development project. This involves organising students into diverse groups and using a case study that places database design into a sociological and multicultural context. The case study we have developed is based on the services offered by an academic library. There is a great deal of room for discussion in a diverse group about precisely what services students feel an academic library should offer and what their individual experiences have been of libraries they have used prior to joining our course. Some of these discussions relate to the role the library has in the type of teaching and learning strategies employed in the UK which may be different from strategies that the students have encountered before. We report on the way we have used the library case study with a number of multinational groups of students to explore the way in which systems development is a social exercise as well as a technical one.
This paper presents an application of a “Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework” as a sof... more This paper presents an application of a “Systematic Soft Domain Driven Design Framework” as a soft systems approach to domain-driven design of information systems development. The framework use SSM as a guiding methodology within which we have embedded a sequence of design tasks based on the UML leading to the implementation of a software system using the Naked Objects framework. This framework have been used in action research projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of business processes using object-oriented domain models and the implementation of software systems based on those domain models. Within this framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to develop the domain model using UML for the given business domain. The framework is proposed and evaluated in our previous works, and a real case study “Information Retrieval System for academic research” is used, in this paper, to show further pra...
This paper introduces the reader to the approach we are taking to develop an ontology that could ... more This paper introduces the reader to the approach we are taking to develop an ontology that could be used to represent the knowledge inherent in filmed materials. Such an ontology could be used as the semantic basis for multimedia retrieval systems. The proposed approach to ontology development is informed by the earlier work of researchers into folksonomy development and facet analysis. A brief survey of this earlier work is presented before our approach is described.
Abstract—This paper proposes a “soft systems ” approach to domain-driven design of computer-based... more Abstract—This paper proposes a “soft systems ” approach to domain-driven design of computer-based information systems. We propose a systemic framework combining techniques from Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), the Unified Modelling Language (UML), and an implementation pattern known as “Naked Objects”. We have used this framework in action research projects that have involved the investigation and modelling of business processes using object-oriented domain models and the implementation of software systems based on those domain models. Within the proposed framework, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is used as a guiding methodology to explore the problem situation and to generate a ubiquitous language (soft language) which can be used as the basis for developing an object-oriented domain model. The domain model is further developed using techniques based on the UML and is implemented in software following the “Naked Objects” implementation pattern. We argue that there are advantages fro...
Ontology, usually, build upon Taxonomy, which is considered as the backbone of it. The problem is... more Ontology, usually, build upon Taxonomy, which is considered as the backbone of it. The problem is that Taxonomy entirely depends on controlled vocabulary which has many drawbacks, particularly in the environments that depend on social networking, which shaped and formed generally from contribution of nun-specialist communities. On the other side, Folksonomy found as a way to deal with free tagging systems. Although it has a many weaknesses, it could be very Useful in dealing with the requirements of the beneficiaries within those social networking environments. This article discusses part of recent work on developing an ontology that can be used to represent the knowledge inherent in filmed materials. The ontology is intended to be used as the semantic basis for a retrieval system. The focus of the paper is on the method used to develop the ontology. The method is influenced by success that has been achieved in developing Folksonomies.
This paper aims to identify the barriers to the adoption of ICT in Quality of Engineering Researc... more This paper aims to identify the barriers to the adoption of ICT in Quality of Engineering Research, and how to bridge the “Digital Divide” at Tripoli University through effective ICT implementation. The authors study the global digital divide with emphasis on the disparities in Information Technology between developed countries and Libya. It is obvious that effective ICT implementation should focus on understanding individual faculty needs. Then a thorough investigation is conducted in relation to the importance of implementing electronic education at Libyan universities, and of including faculty members in every step of the planning and implementation of up-to-date technologies, as well as the challenges and solutions of ICT implementation. This paper presents the factors that affect Internet use by staff members; how the Internet affects research and teaching; what the main purposes are for using Internet resources, and the level of Libyan research into IT development and implemen...
Higher Education Computer Science
The subject of Information Systems Modelling (ISM) grew out of computer science to fill a gap cre... more The subject of Information Systems Modelling (ISM) grew out of computer science to fill a gap created by the difficulties programmers had in understanding and solving user problems. The intention behind ISM is to facilitate communication between technologists (many of whom have no idea of the complexity of organisations) and end-users and their managers (many of whom are unable to translate their problems into feasible demands upon technology). “Best practices” in information system development might therefore be considered to be those practices which contribute in some way to improving communication between these two parties. The work described here is primarily focussed on documenting practices that address the issues associated with the seamless transition from a requirements model seamlessly to a technology based system that satisfies those requirements. This has involved reflection on lessons learned during thirty years’ experience of teaching Information Systems Modelling in the context of higher education.
This report discusses progress on the development of IR_Framework an extensible class library for... more This report discusses progress on the development of IR_Framework an extensible class library for information retrieval currently under development at the University of Huddersfield. When completed, IR_Framework will include the data structures and methods required to support the development of any information retrieval system in which it is necessary to store, automatically index and retrieve objects on the basis of their text content. The types of system falling into this category are very diverse ranging from bibliographic retrieval systems through electronic office filing systems to multimedia educational software (where images and video sequences can be retrieved via associated textual descriptions) and geographic information systems. A primary objective of the research is to make the class library as extensible as possible so that the information retrieval functionality can be extended to the specific requirements of a wide range of applications. We are therefore fully exploit...
Background: the methodology of historical research depends on a commitment to reporting and recor... more Background: the methodology of historical research depends on a commitment to reporting and record keeping based on investigation of primary and secondary sources. This dependence on finding and assessing the reliability of information sources presents particular challenges to designers of information retrieval software intended to support historical research. Aim: this paper reports the results of a questionnaire distributed as the first phase of a research project intended to assess the information needs of historians working with original and/or digitised primary resources. We have been particularly interested in the work of “local” historians working with archives of local newspapers and with image collections that are in the process of being digitised. The primary aim at this stage was to discover whether these historians have a preference between original or digitised resources and to understand the reasons behind any preferences. In the longer term we aim to apply what we hav...
The subject of Information Systems Modelling (ISM) grew out of computer science to fill a gap cre... more The subject of Information Systems Modelling (ISM) grew out of computer science to fill a gap created by the difficulties programmers had in understanding and solving user problems. The intention behind ISM is to facilitate communication between technologists (many of whom have no idea of the complexity of organisations) and end-users and their managers (many of whom are unable to translate their problems into feasible demands upon technology). “Best practices” in information system development might therefore be considered to be those practices which contribute in some way to improving communication between these two parties. The work described here is primarily focussed on documenting practices that address the issues associated with the seamless transition from a requirements model seamlessly to a technology based system that satisfies those requirements. This has involved reflection on lessons learned during thirty years’ experience of teaching Information Systems Modelling in t...
This paper describes the results of a preliminary attempt to use a genetic algorithm to divide an... more This paper describes the results of a preliminary attempt to use a genetic algorithm to divide an inverted file into a specified number of partitions such that the total number of documents indexed by a particular partition is approximately equal to the total number of documents indexed by each of the other partitions. The purpose of identifying such equifrequent partitions is to assist in the generation of text signature representations of documents which are more discriminating than those created using more traditional techniques. The paper is divided into six sections. Following the introduction, the second of these describes the main idea behind the signature approach The third section introduces the idea of genetic algorithms and briefly reviews earlier work on the application of this technique to information retrieval problems. The fourth section describes how we have used a genetic algorithm to partition a section of the inverted file used to index the LISA document test coll...
Purpose- The purpose of this project is to measure end-users’ satisfaction with information resou... more Purpose- The purpose of this project is to measure end-users’ satisfaction with information resources (IRs) provided in the Arab International University Library (AIUL) in Syria. It attempts to investigate to what extent the provision of IRs can affect the end-user satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach- This study was conducted using a printed questionnaire for undergraduate students, and a Smart-Survey for academic staff. Findings- Results reflected that the end-users were satisfied with the IRs provided. Furthermore, the results showed that providing sufficient quality and quantity of the IRs increases the satisfactory level. In addition, a relationship between the end-users’ satisfaction and demographic variables is articulated. Limitations- This study limited to one private academic library in Syria which is the AIUL. This paper concentrates on a part of results collected in terms of understanding end-users’ needs. The emphasis was made to assess the satisfaction of undergra...
The key aim of the research discussed in this paper has been to investigate ways of integrating t... more The key aim of the research discussed in this paper has been to investigate ways of integrating techniques from SSM (Soft Systems Methodology) into the requirements elicitation stage of an agile system development method based on the UML (Unified Modelling Language). We argue that used alone UML models can encourage early design decisions before opportunities for improvement have been agreed and that SSM lacks the detailed information required by programmers. This leads to the conclusion that there could be some advantage in using the techniques together. In developing an integrated method we have been influenced by the recent trend towards agile systems development. This represents a move away from seeing software development methods as codified practices focusing on specific artefacts within a prescribed lifecycle. Instead emphasis is placed on the provision of a framework of development activities, products and workflows together with guidance for applying these to a particular a...