PLASE is a project supported by the Sze Associates Ltd. It is a web based search engine providing free service to pension professionals to facilitate their research related to selected pension legal documents. Currently, PLASE covers 24 legal documents. Pending public response, more legal documents may be included in the future. In addition to providing efficient search by Key Words or Specific Phrase, PLASE is capable of providing side-by-side comparison of sections of selected documents. It is also capable of providing detailed contrast of different versions of the same document with different effective dates, by listing sections with changes, as well as highlighting specific changes. The three basic funtions are described in the following.
Search Specific Document:
This operation is used to search a single document.
When the user clicks the desired document, the table of contents of the document is displayed. The user may click on any section title to display the entire section. If the document contains footnotes, the numbers of the footnotes will be displayed in the text of the document. If the user moves the cursor to the number, a drop box will appear containing the footnote.
If the user wants to search in sections containing certain key words, the user will type the key words in the box, and click New Search. The table of contents will appear. The user may choose one of three operations. The buttons for these operations are given on the tool bar at the top of the screen:
* List. When this button is clicked, the titles of all the sections containing the keywords will be displayed with a check box in front of each section title. Clicking on any section will display the entire section. Alternatively, the user can check up to four sections and click on the Submit button. The system will show side-by-side comparison of the sections chosen. The keywords will be highlighted in blue.
* Context. When this button is clicked, all paragraphs containing the key words are displayed. Each paragraph is headed by the title of the section containing the paragraph. The keywords are highlighted in blue.
* Section. When this button is clicked, all sections containing the keywords are fully displayed. The keywords are highlighted in blue. But this will entail many pages of content.
Compare Different Documents:
This operation provides side-by-side comparison of selected sections of the different documents containing the keywords.
When user entered keywords under the Compare Different Documents and clicks the Search button, a list of short titles of all documents is displayed. Each document short title is preceded by a check box, and followed by the number of times the keywords appear in the document.
The user may choose up to four documents to compare by checking the respective check boxes and clicking the Submit button. The system will list all section titles in each document which contain the keywords. The user may choose one section from each document to compare by checking the section and clicking the Submit button. The system will display the selected sections side-by-side for comparison. The keywords are highlighted in blue with underline.
Contrast Different Versions (of the Same Document):
This operation is particularly useful to uncover the exact wording changes in an update of a legal document. This feature of the system is currently only at a demonstration stage, because we have not found appropriate updates of one pension legal document for practical application.
We have included the following files in our data base:
* Pension Protection Correction Act of 2008 (H.R.6382)
* Pension Protection Correction Act of 2007 (H.R.3361)
* America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R.3200)
* America's Affordable Health Choices Act (Amendment)
To activate this feature, the user clicks the Document Contrast button. The lists containing the old and new versions of documents will be listed. When an old version and a new version are highlighted and the button Submit is clicked, all section titles (that are different) in each version are displayed. The user may highlight a section in each version of the document, and click the Submit button. The system displays side-by-side the sections requested. The paragraphs containing the changes are highlighted in blue. The words that have been changed are underlined.
|
