direct the book towards electrical, mechanical and control engineers in their .... practical application to today's system-design decisions'. A rather pretentious ...
ling are carried out with the aid of computers. As computing is a comparatively young industry, it lacks traditional stereotypes; it already employs many women, and not just for data preparation. Furthermore, it lends itself to part-time work and to work at home on a terminal or microcomputer. In forward looking companies such as ICL and F. International (a leading UK computer software house with a countrywide workforce and branches in Denmark and the Netherlands) these trends are already apparent and will have an increasing influence on the employment patterns of the future.
6
References
1 'No Barriers Here? A guide to career development issues in the employment of women'. Training Services Division, Manpower Services Commission, 1981 2 'Employee potential - Issues in the development of women'. Ashridge Management College Research Unit, Institute of Personnel Management, 1980 3 'Women scientists in Industry and Government: How much progress in the 1970's?' National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, Interim report to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, 1980 4 MACKENZIE, S.: 'Women and the City', Hum. & Environ. Studies J., 1981, Issue 1 5 CLEVERDEN, J., and BABBELEY, J.: 'Women in management onwards and upwards? A survey outlining the position of women in management today' (Industrial Society, 1980) 6 'Women in Industry'. Department of Industry, 1979 7 'Engineering our future'. Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Engineering Profession (HMSO, 1980)
7
Appendix: Professional opportunities in management
(a) Is your management experience: (i) in the past (ii) current (iii) in the future, hopefully (if (iii) skip to question (/)) (b) Is your management experience: (i) of a product (ii) nonexecutive (iii) of a department (c) In charge of how many?
(d) Are you a manager in n (i) a small firm < 10 employees (ii) a medium sized firm ° D (iii) a large firm > 250 employees (e) How many years management experience? D (i) less than 5 years D (ii) 5 or more years (/) On leaving school did you intend to make your career in management? Yes a
No n
(g) Have you received any training specifically in management? Yes a No • (h) How did you get your opportunity (i) hard work n (ii) fortunate chance • (iii) family influence (e.g. inherited company) • (iv) other (please specify)
(0 How do you rate your position:
(i) reached the top • D (ii) in middle management (iii) on the lower rungs a How do you rate your chances of promotion D (i) poor D (ii) moderate (iii) good a (*) Do you think your progress would have been easier had you been a man? YesD No° Yes o Non (0 Are you married Does this, or do you think it would, (i) hinder your progress • D (ii) make no difference D (iii) help you If not (ii), why? (m) Have you any children Does this, or do you think it would, (i) hinder your progress (ii) make no difference (iii) help you (n) Further comments
No • D
• D
Book reviews Handbook of measurement science P.H. Sydenham (Ed.)
John Wiley & Son, Vol. 1, 1982, 654 pp. ISBN: 0471100-374
Measurement is fundamental to all branches of science and engineering; and yet, as a coherent set of scientific principles and practice, it has received scant attention, both in terms of learned journals and text books. For this reason, in particular, the first volume of the 'Handbook of measurement science', dealing with the theoretical foundations of the subject, is to be welcomed. It is perhaps surprising that such a text has not appeared before. The book comprises a total of fourteen chapters, presented in what the editor describes as the logical sequence in which measurement is conceived, designed, installed and maintained. . A total of eighteen authors were involved in the production of the text; all, but Chapter 7, being by a single author. Chapter 7 which deals with pattern recognition has six co-authors. In looking at the structure overall, I feel that it fails to IEEPROC, Vol. 130, Pt. A, No. 2, MARCH 1983
specifically include two major areas of increasing importance in the field of measurement. The first of these is measurement related to biology and medicine, and the second to measurements specifically connected with analytical chemistry (now often called analytical science). In fairness, the publishers do direct the book towards electrical, mechanical and control engineers in their brief description on the cover. Measurement science is, however, far broader than this. In both areas mentioned above, much of the material presented in the book is applicable, but there are specific problems attached to measurements in medicine and biology, and also analytical science, that make it essential to address them directly in a text that aims for near-complete coverage. No doubt one answer to my charge of omission is the length (653 pp.) of the present text. However, I would respond to that by observing that certain material is of questionable direct relevance in what I take to be a 'bench book'. Certainly some chapters could be trimmed substantially, without much loss in terms of the practising measurement scientist's requirements. 103
As with almost all handbooks, most of the material is freely available in the published literature. It is, nevertheless, worthwhile to have collected together in this fashion. The book suffers from the usual drawbacks of a multiauthor text: those of differences in style, format, symbols and quality between chapters. There is also considerable repetition. One example of this is that, on pages 156, 246 and 599, tables of Laplace transforms of varying degrees of usefulness appear. A carefully planned set of appendixes could have avoided this. The subject of the Laplace transform and its many ramifications plays an important part in measurement which is, by its nature, concerned with dynamic processes. In at least two chapters (Chapters 4 and 14) some tabulated information on the relationships between system type, number and response to inputs, such as the unit step, is provided. In both cases, however, the diagrams are too small to be of practical use. Again, the use of an appendix would have enabled the data to appear once only, but at a useful size. As indicated above, the quality of chapters is variable. Some, such as Chapter 4, 'Signals and systems in the time and frequency domains', and Chapter 7, 'Pattern recognition', are of outstanding quality. In a text concerned with measurement, one area that needs to be dealt with well is that of measurement errors. Thus I have looked at Chapter 6, 'Measurement errors, probability and information theory', in some depth. Unfortunately, this chapter contains a number of misleading statements, together with other errors such as figures used, but not referred to, and symbols which are not defined. My overall impression is that the book is well worth the obviously massive effort that has been made by the authors. This effort is matched by the editor who tries to pull the chapters together with useful brief introductions to each one. It will appeal to the specialist in this area most of all, simply because it covers so much of the subject area of measurement science in one text. The more practical side of the topic is left to Volume 2, which is not yet published, and this may have a much wider appeal. P.A. PAYNE
Human performance engineering: a guide for systems designers
R.W. Bailey Prentice-Hal I, 1982, 656 pp., £28.80 ISBN: 13445320-4
The book is a product of Bell Telephone Laboratories, where (as the author observes) the study of the relationship between people and machines has been going on for many years. To quote from the Preface its primary purpose is: 'to provide designers, particularly those with limited background in psychology, with some knowledge of how people sense, process information, and respond; as well as to introduce data, principles and methods that are useful in eliciting an acceptable level of human performance in systems' (p. 21). A bit clumsily put perhaps, but a fair statement of what it intends to do. 'Somebody', says the author, 'does something, some place', and this simple and obvious statement forms the basis for the three main sections of the book. The first section about that 'somebody' is a run down of basic human psychology. Although more or less up to date, in most places, in trying to cover all the ground in 140 pages or so, it is necessarily rather superficial. Section 2 on 'something' switches from the user to the designer. After a brief look at the design activity the author turns to the interface between people and machines
104
followed by design to get the best performance from the user, or, as he calls it, facilitator design. This section is rather disappointing. Much of the material is either rather trivial (such as the appearance and layout of controls and displays) or specialised (dealing largely with the interface of the telephone or the computer terminal). The facilitator section is an admission that little can be done to get the best out of people by machine design alone,, for the author relies on off-machine techniques such as choosing the right people, writing good machine instructions and providing appropriate training. No doubt necessary and part of the overall system, but it would have been good to see some new material on how the hardware can be designed to get the best out of people rather than having to choose and train the people to get the best out of a given design. The third section of the book on 'some place', or the environmental context in which human/machine confrontation takes place, is very short and primarily concerned with the basic physical requirements of noise, light, temperature etc. The closing chapters of the book focus on the testing of performance; data collection, statistical methods and the like. Again the criticism of superficiality can be applied here, for anyone attempting to prepare and conduct tests would want to go somewhat deeper into it all. Moreover, his idiot's guide to statistics raises the question of what kind of person he has in mind to conduct these tests. If the tester is well versed in his art then this approach to statistics will be too simple to bother with. On the other hand, if the tester's level of statistical understanding is so low that ah1 this is new and necessary, then one wonders whether the person is really competent to undertake the job. I am never quite sure with this type of book, which attempts to span two disciplines, whether it is all worth the effort. Certainly, anyone wanting a run down on human psychology as an aid to design could easily find a more comprehensive and detailed study elsewhere. The book would have earned greater approval had the psychology and design parts been better married; as it is they stand apart, poorly related with probably as much 'psychology' in the design part of the book as the average designer feels he needs anyway. To have gone into more detail with a cheek-by-jowl mix of psychology and design would have shown the clear relationship between the two and, maybe, have persuaded the designer to think more deeply about these aspects than he is normally inclined. There are minor criticisms one could make, such as the use of f.p.s., c.g.s. and SI units (on one occasion even in the same table!) and, for the British reader, the almost exclusively US references. On the credit side here the book is well referenced, certainly within the chapters. I also find the whole approach to this man-machine stuff far too mechanistic, but that is probably a fault in the state and nature of the art, rather than a criticism of this particular text. The write-up on the back cover claims that the book 'closes the gap between fundamental pyschological research and its practical application to today's system-design decisions'. A rather pretentious claim and one I find difficult to support on reading the book. Nevertheless, it could be useful to the computer hardware designer looking for a way into the mass of psychological literature, or the undergraduate trying to gain a broader perspective of his chosen craft. A useful addition to the systems analysis and decision-making theory field perhaps, but we must continue to wait to find a text which can truly claim to have closed the psychology-design gapJ.F. GAMLIN
IEEPROC, Vol 130, Pt. A, No. 2, MARCH 1983
