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Based on Thesis--Harvard University. / "Abstract" (3 p.) inserted.

A persistent problem among researchers in office automation has been the absence of a comprehensive theory of office information systems. Commercial software such as spreadsheet and financial packages provide only limited support for tasks such as developing balance sheets and income statements. It also supports only limited software integration, usually at the interface and data levels. A model of an office is proposed as a basis for developing integrated office systems. Prior approaches to this problem have been mostly limited to only one or two aspects of the office with the exclusion of others. These approaches have been characterized as forms, data, information, procedural, functional, communication, and decision oriented. The integrated model synthesizes these different views of the office. The proposed model consists of macroscopic and microscopic components. The macroscopic structure is modelled with a semantic network which describes how "functions" of the office are related to one another. The lower level component of the model consists of "procedures" which support the functions described by the functional structure. These procedures use utilities and tools at a lower level of accomplishing standard operations. Thus support for functions is provided through procedures which rely on utilities at a lower level. The model is operationalized with a knowledge base/database containing the necessary knowledge/data for accomplishing the functions and procedures. Detailed designs of the components of the architecture are presented. A prototype based on the design has been implemented in Prolog. The contribution of the dissertation has five dimensions: these are the literature review, the office study, the conceptual model, and a prototype office system. The literature review provides a clarification of concepts and identification of research problems. The office study contributes to a better understanding of analyzing offices from the point of view of modelling. The conceptual model is a good starting point for designing and developing integrated office systems. The prototype system demonstrates the feasibility of the model for developing an integrated office system.

Memory is a complex cognitive process which has been widely researched within the field of neuropsychology. In clinical studies of adults, the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) is widely used. At this time there is no comparable clinical tool within the child literature pertaining to memory. There are studies which have extended the age limits of the WMS, but the youngest sample ranged from 10 to 14 years of age. The present research was conducted in two studies. The first study concerns the development of a memory scale for use with children aged six to twelve. This scale, Wilson's Adapted Memory Scale for Children (WAMS-C), was constructed utilizing the basic structure and subtests of the WMS. The scale was administered to 33 normal children, ranging in age from 6 to 12 years. It was hypothesized that the scale would reflect the developmental nature of memory as well as the relationship between memory and intelligence. The second study compared the memory skills of a learning disabled (LD) sample of children to those of a sample of normal learning (NL) children. A specific profile of academic achievement was used to define the LD children who participated in this study. (Reading and Spelling impaired, and relatively better Arithmetic skills). Research conducted by Rourke and his associates identified this subtype of LD children and provided predictions pertaining to their differential performance on verbal and visual tasks. The WAMS-C contains both verbal and visual memory tasks. It was predicted that these children would (1) do less well than NL children on the memory scale and (2) that these LD children would be impaired on the verbal memory portion of the WAMS-C, compared to NL children, but would exhibit equivalent performance on the visual memory tasks. The results of the studies showed the WAMS-C to reflect the developmental nature of memory and the relationship with intelligence. Also, LD children had significantly lower scores on the WAMS-C. However, neither the verbal or visual subtests differentiated between groups. Rather, subtests which may reflect short-term memory deficits and/or attentional problems appeared responsible for the differences found.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of comparing a learning systems approach to a lecture-demonstration-rotation approach of teaching the manipulative skills of office machines.