Reviews

The Hutchinson Electronic Encyclopedia, First Electronic Version, Oxford, Random Century and Attica Cybernetics, 1991. ISBN: 1–873472–00–5. Price £99

Intelligent approaches to performance support

Electronic performance support systems provide an important method of meeting on‐demand educational and training requirements. They also provide efficient and effective ways of enabling the knowledge and expertise within an organization to be shared. This paper discusses the design of a distributed electronic performance support system and the ways in which ‘intelligent agents’ based on expert systems and neural networks can be used to locate and share distributed expertise. A case study illustrating our approach to the implementation and use of intelligent agents is presented

A paleo-perspective on the AMOC as a tipping element

Ocean circulation within the Atlantic is capable of changing rapidly, with important consequences for global climate. Evidence from various climate archives suggests that abrupt transitions in the past were preceded by systematic behavior that could have provided early warning indicators

Approaches and constraints to the reconstruction of palaeoproductivity from Cape Basin abyssal benthic foraminifera (South Atlantic)

The characteristics of benthic foraminiferal assemblages from well-oxygenated deep-sea settings have been used to reconstruct past productivity conditions. None of the different approaches that have been developed is without complications or applies in all settings. In this study we assess the use of benthic foraminifera (accumulation rates and assemblages composition) as proxies for palaeoproductivity changes during the last glacial period (25 – 95 ka) in an abyssal core located in the south of Cape Basin (41.1 °S, 7.8 °E, 4981 m water depth). Assemblage characteristics indicate a generally food-limited environment receiving episodic inputs of labile organic carbon of variable strength. High seasonality in the delivery of organic material to the seafloor in the form of phytodetritus influences the assemblage characteristics because the corresponding response does not involve the whole community. Benefiting from this occasionally high organic input is the opportunistic species Epistominella exigua (Brady) that reproduces rapidly to build up large populations. In general, the rest of the species (i.e. less opportunistic compared to E. exigua) show only subtle variations in their population densities and fauna composition. Under those circumstances benthic foraminiferal accumulation rates seem to be independent of the amount of organic flux arriving at the sediment surface and respond instead to the strength of phytoplankton blooms

Reviews

Computers and Typography edited by Rosemary Sassoon, Oxford, Intellect, 1993. ISBN: 1–871516–23–4

Reviews

Successful Instructional Diagrams by Ric Lowe, London, Kogan Page, 1993. ISBN: 0–7494–0711–5

Reviews

Technology‐based Learning Environments: Psychological and Educational Foundations edited by S. Vosniadou, E. De Corte and H. Mandl, volume 137 in NATO ASI Series F (Computer and Systems Sciences), Berlin, Springer‐Verlag, ISBN: 0–387–58253–3, 1994