The purpose of this study was to address the question why computing technical professionals such as programmers and systems analysts appear to have low motivation for adapting to changes in job skill demands resulting from technological change. The question was addressed by examining existing research that might reveal answers to the issues relevant to the problem. The problem is indicated by the symptoms resistance to change, technical obsolescence, and career stagnation of midcareer computing technical professionals. This condition is detrimental to the careers of the affected individuals, to their professions, and to the organizations which employ them. Many interrelated underlying factors contribute to these symptoms. Some of the roots, such as personality and motivational characteristics of the population, are long-term issues, and others, such as rapid technological change in the computing industry and profound changes in organizational structures and jobs, have developed more recently. Attitudes associated with the midcareer stage and with midlife are also involved. The research methodology was meta-analysis of studies that have addressed underlying issues of the problem within the target population and in referent occupational groups, such as engineers. In addition to personality, motivation, and career development issues, these studies have examined such constructs as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational climate as they relate to technical obsolescence. Specific procedures were to state criteria for including studies in the meta-analysis, identify and locate all studies that met the criteria, code substantive and methodological data from the selected studies, apply meta-analytic techniques, analyze the results, and state conclusions, implications, and recommendations. Studies that met the selection criteria had employed survey and qualitative methods, therefore traditional quantitative meta-analysis techniques were found not to be applicable. An exploratory, inductive approach was then adopted. The analysis revealed consistency in what is known about the personalities and motivation of computing technical professionals. More importantly, major gaps in research for this population were revealed. The study concluded research focusing on the target population is needed in the areas resistance to change, technical obsolescence, career stages, career plateaus, job involvement, organizational climate, and joint individual and organizational responsibility for technical updating.

The Library and staff at the University of Texas-Pan American was undergoing a period of great change. The number of students increased by 8% in 1989-90 and 16.40% in 1988-89. A new integrated computer system was being planned and installed. Purchases of books and other material rose to $703,000 and fell back to $466,000 during a three year period. The number of staff increased slightly during this time. Four clerks were added to the staff in 1989-90 after the number of staff had remained about the same for ten years. The number of work-study students declined by 50%. The central issue of the study was developing a good fit between the library activities and its environment undergoing turbulent change. The development of a workable strategic plan for the University of Texas-Pan American Library was the purpose of the study in 1989-90. Strategic issues instead of objectives and goals were created from the information obtained by a WOTS-UP analysis. The issues were projected five years into the future to create a Vision of the Future. The librarians wrote yearly strategies to reach the Vision of the Future. Research The literature review revealed the Bryson model for strategic planning in a public organization. This model gave the alternate of strategic issues instead of goals and objectives and was used for the project. Project Development The project called for assessment of the need for development of a strategic plan: assessment of the planning knowledge of the librarians: determination of the internal and external validity of the plan: and further development of the model for producing the plan. The determination of the mission statement, library mandates, stakeholders of the library, assessment of the external technological, economic, demographic, political, market, competitor, and public environments was made. The human resources, operational information, and economics of the internal environment were assessed. A WOTS-UP analysis resulted in strategic issues that were joined to form a Vision of the Future. Results In a pretest and posttest librarians approved strategic planning’s importance by 99.72%. They approved by 90% in the pretest and 77.7% in the posttest the staff benefitting from learning strategic planning. The librarians scored higher on the posttest if their knowledge of strategic planning by a mean increase of 38.44%. Incorrect answers declined by 44.32%. Seventy-five percent of the administrators, librarians, three library administrators, and three experts, who examined the model, wrote that the model had positive internal and external validity. The librarians produced 53 WOTS-UP statements that contained 16 threats, 22 weaknesses, 20 opportunities, and two strengths. The temporary Vision of the Future contained seventeen statements about what the future services of the library should be. The present services were rated but not to the detail to reveal areas that needed to be eliminated. Five complete strategy pages were written. The librarians agreed there was a need for strategic planning in the library and that the library would be helped by a plan. The librarians also increased their understanding of the strategic process. The internal and external validity of the model was approved by seventy-five percent of the people asked for an opinion. General observations made by library staff and David Mizener are the following: stakeholder analysis should yield the same results as marketing research: the mandates should be gathered by an administrator; library services should be integrated into the work of the University; the budget has only increased by inflation not by increased allocations; and there were an increasing number of students attending UTPA and they were not prepared for the use of the library. Additional observations are the following: productivity standards should be set for each area of the library; WOTS-UP analysis should be expanded to all areas of the library; additional surveys of the library environment should be done at greater depth; library performance measures should be expanded to all areas; the Vision of the Future should be constructed by trend-impact analysis; the strategy pages met the criteria proposed by Tillis in the literature; and the creation of a strategic plan should continue at greater depth until all areas of the mission statement have been covered.

Financial misstatements have plagued the financial world for several decades. However they have increased in frequency and affected more stockholders and stakeholders in recent years. This intensity of occurrence has prompted the need for more fraud detecting methods from auditors and government regulators alike. Traditionally, statistical models have been utilized in detecting financial misstatements. However, these statistical models are based on assumptions, such as a log-linear relation among the independent variables, which are not applicable to financial data. Artificial neural networks are not bounded by the limitations affecting statistical models, and have been found to give robust results when applied to classification problems. The purpose of study was to compare unsupervised neural networks, the Nonlinear Principal Component Analysis (NLPCA) network and the Kohonen Self-Organizing Map (SOM), in detecting financial misstatements. As a performance benchmark, the results from the NLPCA and SOM networks were compared to the traditional statistical method, the logit model. The dataset used in this study consisted of firms who issued financial statements for the period 1990 to 2005. The dataset was limited to firms from the computer-technology industry and financial services sectors, and whose annual financial statements were publicly available. Using the matched-pair approach, each fraud firm was paired with a similar non-fraud firm based on industry, time period and size. Unlike the Logit model, the NLPCA and SOM models required the determination of several parameters. The configurations for the NLPCA and SOM models were found experimentally. In order to attain a true comparison between the NLPCA, SOM and Logit models, both training and testing for the models were done with the same samples. Using different metrics for comparison it was found that the NLPCA and SOM models were effective in detecting financial misstatements. It was also determined that these unsupervised neural networks produced better classification accuracies than the Logit model. Additionally, the NLPCA model, which is based on correlational learning, marginally outperformed the SOM model, which is based on competitive learning. The results from this study support future use of NLPCA and SOM as assessment tools in detecting financial misstatements.

The research described in this document represents work performed in the area of software development methodologies as it applied to quality software development in a scheduling department. It addressed traditional methods in software development, current trends in software development, in addition to quality and software development at various companies. The literature suggested a correlation between using a software development methodology and quality software. However, there was limited literature that measured quantitatively the correlation between the effectiveness of the software development methodology and quality software. A software development methodology was developed for the scheduling department of a government contractor company in Aiken, South Carolina based on its needs and emerging technologies. An instrument was utilized to measure the effectiveness of the developed methodology. The methodology was compared with two other methodologies: a standard methodology from the literature and the current method of software development in the scheduling department. A population of computer professionals was divided into three equal groups. Each group was asked to apply the methodology to the case study. Individuals in each group were asked to review the case study and software development methodology. Then using the instrument, the individuals were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the software development methodology, thereby providing a means for evaluated effectiveness, without conducting years of testing. The responses of the three groups were compared to one another. The results indicated a significantly higher level of approval for those methodologies that guided the development activities, standardized the development process, and identified the development phases and deliverables. It was concluded that utilizing a software development methodology that guides, standardizes, and defines the development phases and deliverables will result in an improved software development process and software quality. Further investigation could validate the findings of this research. The results actually achieved from utilizing the methodology developed for the scheduling department compared with the results achieved from utilizing some other methodology could further validate these research findings. Additional research could examine, over an extended time period, the success of the software development process and software quality of those projects utilizing the methodology described in this dissertation.

For very-large-scale integrated circuit (VLSI) layout planning using rectangular dissections to represent a hierarchy of conceptualization and modular refinement, the writer has defined a mathematical formalization called a hierarchy. Using Szepieniec's and Otten's (1980) restricting of the usual dissecting partitioning only to vertical and horizontal slicing as progressive restrictions of Flemming's (1977, 1978) T-plan and Kundu's and Singh's (1 987; Kundu, technical report #86-021) T*-plan, the writer adds his null-partitioning for flexibility in using the s-hierarchy. The illustrated use of lexicographic ordering of the hierarchal levels offers additional flexibility. For the case where intermediate hierarchal-level information is given by the weak dual graph of the level's partial dissection, the writer develops the n-fillable path as an aid in identifying wall and wall-dominance structure, using the assumption that the weak dual has a 4-completion (Kozminski & Kinnen, 1984). Upon this path concept he builds the more elaborate structures of the single-wall laminate, the multiple-wall shell, and the subrectangle-defining 3-booth. A principal result of the paper is the 3-booth's defining a subregion node in the dissection tree. Being considered as an isolated rectangle, this sub region can be subjected to dualization techniques developed by Kinnen and Kozminsky (1984, 1985, 1988; cr. Kozminski, 1985). The writer gives a rather extensive introduction to the theory of rectangular dissections and their dual (adjacency) graphs, as well as numerous citations in the literature pertaining to the development of rectangular dissection theory.

The American long-term care industry is being challenged to care for increasing numbers of more acutely ill patients. To meet that challenge, health care providers must possess adequate skills and knowledge related to geriatric patients. Physical therapists may provide care to geriatric patients, but professional training programs may lack adequate course work in geriatric evaluation and treatment procedures. Additionally, manpower limitations may prevent physical therapists from leaving a caregiving role to attend continuing educational programs for needed geriatric knowledge. This study investigated the use of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) for physical therapists working in geriatric treatment facilities owned by Manor Health Care, Inc. A hypertext CAI program on wound physiology / care was developed. Using an equivalent group, posttest only study design, fourteen randomly assigned physical therapists received experimental treatment (CAI). While 19 other therapists served as controls. Both groups were administered a posttest instrument; the experimental group also completed an opinionnaire. The experimental group mean score was significantly higher (p<.004) than the control group mean score on the posttest. In addition, experimental group subjects reported strong agreement to statements regarding continued CAI development. The researcher concluded that hypertext CAl was available and acceptable method of disseminating geriatric physical therapy knowledge to Manor Health Care Inc. physical therapists.

This study investigated the possible correlation between Advanced Placement Computer Science Examination scores and secondary teacher certification in computer science, prompted by the low scores for South Carolina students and the lack of such certification in South Carolina. A survey was sent to the chief education official in each of the United States of America, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, the Department of Defense Dependent Schools, and selected technically oriented foreign countries, to determine the current status of the recognition of computer science as a certification area. Scores for the 1990 Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science Examinations were secured from the College Board for statistical analysis. Of the agencies sent surveys, 52 had AP computer science test scores and became the agencies used for statistical analysis. These agencies included the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Both the average test score and the percentage of students passing each of the two AP Computer Science Examinations were arranged into descending order. The number of certifying agencies were counted in each quartile. The number of expected and observed certifying agencies were analyzed using a chi square test for two-way classification to determine if the recognition of computer science as a certification field correlated with student success, as measured by average score and percent passing . The results of the survey showed that the number of agencies offering computer science certification had markedly increased since previous studies were undertaken in 1983 and 1986. Beginning in 1991, 24 of the 50 states will offer such certification, while only five offered computer science certification in 1983 and 11 offered such in 1985. In addition, the District of Columbia, Department of Defense Dependent Schools, and Guam have some type of computer science certification. Results for foreign agencies replies are presented for information, since few participate in the Advanced Placement Program. The chi-square analysis failed to establish a correlation between the adoption of computer science certification and student success on either of the Advanced Placement Computer Science Examinations. While no correlation was found between teacher certification and student success, an apparent trend of more and more states recognizing computer science as an area of teacher certification was verified. Further investigation into student success on the Advanced Placement examinations should be continued, as should the continuation of the investigation of computer science certification.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between multimedia instruction and critical thinking as measured by the five subscales of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Analysis (WGCTA). A high school student population totaling 121 ninth grade, language arts students participated in the research. Since the multimedia experience is an enhancement on traditional course presentation, it was hypothesized that the experimental group, those students participating in multimedia, would achieve higher scores on the WGCT A. There was also interest in a possible relationship between students included in the group determined, "at-risk" and critical thinking. Those in the at-risk group were identified by a set of criteria indicating poor academic performance, and there was interest in whether the multimedia instruction would also benefit this subgroup. Data analysis indicated that the use of multimedia resulted in a consistent improvement in critical thinking. The multimedia group achieved higher scores than the control group for all of the subscales of the WGCTA except in the subscale, assumptions. The at-risk students generally scored lower than non at risk students, however, this population received greater benefit from the intervention in the interpretation subscale. Implications for further research are discussed.

This study was designed to establish a baseline of data relative to the current training practices used by the United States and Canadian Steel Service Center Institute (SSCI) member distribution companies. Results are shown for single location companies compared with multiple location companies. Specific focus of this study was on the successful or unsuccessful training of the employees who are geographically located in widely dispersed small groups. Of special interest was identifying how current distance learning technologies were being used. The survey identified dollars spent on training, training practices, cost and benefits of training, logistical problems with training delivery, and the problems associated with training employees who are in widely dispersed locations from the source of the training. Training employees who are in widely dispersed small groups is a significant problem for 71 % of the multiple location company respondents.

This dissertation examines, defines, and presents a viable software architecture that can be used as the structural foundation for a large distributed information system. The software architecture presented is based upon a unique concept envisioned by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). This concept envisions that certain characteristics and capabilities exist within the system in order to provide the type of support deemed necessary to meet the needs of the DOD. In order to provide the types of capabilities desired, the software architecture needs to be sound and proven, based on definitive solutions that provide continuity and cohesiveness throughout the systems development and implementation. For these reasons, the software architecture is based on the pattern language paradigm. The pattern language paradigm successfully demonstrates how a particular design decision consisting of diverse computational environments can be effectively used to form the structural foundation necessary to fulfill the architectural requirements established by the DOD.