Institute for Systems Research Technical Reports

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/4376

This archive contains a collection of reports generated by the faculty and students of the Institute for Systems Research (ISR), a permanent, interdisciplinary research unit in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. ISR-based projects are conducted through partnerships with industry and government, bringing together faculty and students from multiple academic departments and colleges across the university.

Browse

Author: search.filters.author.Plaisant, CatherineSubject: search.filters.subject.Systems Integration

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Image Browsers: Taxonomy, Guidelines, and Informal Specifications
    (1994) Plaisant, Catherine; Carr, David A.; Shneiderman, Ben; ISR; CSHCN
    Image browsing is necessary in numerous applications. Designers have merely used two one-dimensional scroll bars or they have made ad hoc designs for a two-dimensional scroll bar. However, the complexity of two-dimensional browsing suggests that more careful analysis, design, and evaluation might lead to significant improvements. We present a task taxonomy for image browsing, suggest design features and guidelines, assess existing strategies, and introduce an informal specification
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Next Generation Network Management Technology
    (1994) Atallah, George C.; Ball, Michael O.; Baras, John S.; Goli, Shravan K.; Karne, Ramesh K.; Kelley, Stephen; Kumar, Harsha P.; Plaisant, Catherine; Roussopoulos, Nick; Shneiderman, Ben; Srinivasarao, Mulugu; Stathatos, Kostas; Teittinen, Marko; Whitefield, David; ISR; CSHCN
    Today's telecommunications networks are becoming increasingly large, complex, mission critical and heterogeneous in several dimensions. For example, the underlying physical transmission facilities of a given network may be ﲭixed media (copper, fiber- optic, radio, and satellite); the sub networks may be acquired from different vendors due to economic, performance, or general availability reasons; the information being transmitted over the network may be ﲭultimedia (video, data, voice, and images) and, finally, varying performance criteria may be imposed e.g. data transfer may require high throughput while the others, whose concern is voice communications, may require low call blocking probability. For these reasons, future telecommunications networks are expected to be highly complex in their services and operations. Due to this growing complexity and the disparity among management systems for individual sub networks, efficient network management systems have become critical to the current and future success of telecommunications companies. This paper addresses a research and development effort which focuses on prototyping configuration management, since that is the central process of network management and all other network management functions must be built upon it. Our prototype incorporates ergonomically designed graphical user interfaces tailored to the network configuration management subsystem and to the proposed advanced object-oriented database structure. The resulting design concept follows open standards such as Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) and incorporates object oriented programming methodology to associate data with functions, permit customization, and provide an open architecture environment.
      A revised version of this technical report has been published in
      The 12th Symposium on Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion/Commercialization, pp. 75-82, Albuquerque, NM, January 8-12, 1995.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    When an Intermediate View Matters a 2D-browser Experiment
    (1992) Plaisant, Catherine; Carr, David A.; Hasegawa, Hiroaki; ISR
    The browsing of two dimensional images can be found in a large number of application. When the image to be viewed is much larger than the screen available, a two dimensional browser has to be provided to allow users to access all parts of the image. We show the diversity of tasks and systems available and the need for 2D browser design guidelines. In the context of a microscope image browser, we investigate one common technique consisting of a global view of the whole image, coupled to a detailed, magnified view of part of the image. In particular we look at the benefits of providing an intermediate view when the detail- to-overview ratio over 20:1. Our experience is also a good example of a real world application for which added features and added hardware need to be justified.