Citizen’s Helper for chemical information

The overall effect is to allow a user to pursue his/her interests as they arise. A list of chemicals stored at a nearby facility might prompt either a request for a list of other facilities storing a particular chemical or a request for information about the health effects of one of the chemicals. Changes in the user s interests are to be expected as an information-gathering session progresses. The Citizen s Helper stack anticipates this need for flexibility by... 

Speed in carrying out the searches is a serious issue, given the size of some of the CAMEO stacks, in spite of the efficient search algorithms embedded in HyperCard a clever human looking for "xylene" in a 2674-page encyclopedia would start at the back of the book, but HyperCard always starts from the beginning of the stack. The Citizen s Helper makes use, wherever possible, of unique identifying numbers for cards in stacks. We created index tables of chemicals by health effect these make it possible to find the health information about xylene more rapidly than even the clever human could. 

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