bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How shall we evaluate prototype natural language processors?
Authors: Ballard Bruce W.
Published: April 2007

Recent years have seen important advances in computational linguistics and artificial intelligence. Although many problems remain, the goal of providing limited English-processing facilities for non-technical computer users is within sight. By the end of the decade, numerous systems providing limited coverage of "natural language" will be available for business and home use. Several systems (e.g. TQA [16]) have already become operational. One system (ROBOT [7]) has been supporting natural language inputs in a dozen or so different commercial database applications for at least three years. Many other systems have been developed to the prototype stage and will soon be able to be transferred, with varying degrees of effort, from a research to a production environment. Each system tends to provide special features of its own, and the future prospects for database, office, instructional, and other environments are quite exciting.
The need for quantitative measurement of on-line user behavior
Authors: Penniman W. David
Published: April 2007

An argument is made for the systematic collection and analysis of data regarding user-computer interaction in an on-line setting. A suggested approach involving preliminary data collection/analysis, development of a conceptual framework or model, and validation of the model is described. The case for this approach is supported by presentation of some preliminary results from a study of monitor data collected from the National Library of Medicine's ELHILL transaction file. Follow-on steps are proposed including comparison of research results to other studies of the same system or studies using similar techniques.
A statistical user interface for the Relational Model of data
Authors: Teitel Robert F.
Published: April 2007

In the decade since the introduction of the Relational Model as a user view of large stored data bases, a variety of user languages have been proposed and a number of experimental systems have been implemented. The current computer science literature is replete with papers on the theoretical and practical aspects of the Relational Model and its implementation, as are most recent texts on data management systems.Implicit in the design of the user languages of most database systems, including those based on the Relational Model, are assumptions regarding the patterns of access to and the usage of the content of the database. Somewhat oversimplified, the assumed pattern of access is to search for a particular occurrence (case, observation) in the database which satisfies a given condition, and then to display the values of all attributes (fields, variables) of that one occurrence. The languages are designed to permit users to pose queries such as, for example, "what widgets do we buy from ABC industries?" or "display Jones' employment history". Queries of this type are termed
informational
queries; and systems supporting such queries with appropriate user languages and internal data storage techniques and access methods are
information systems
.A
statistical
query, similarly oversimplified, specifies a pattern of access to most, if not all, of the occurrences in a database, and a usage pattern of at most a few of the attributes. Examples of statistical queries are "what is the average size of our purchase orders?" and "display the number of employees by race, sex, and job category". Current
statistical systems
have limited capability for performing analysis over large and complex data collections, and their user languages reflects this limitation. A statistical query, as defined here, need not involve sophisticated mathematical analysis; the distinction between informational and statistical is derived from the antithetical patterns of access to and usage of the data content of a database. Most work on access languages for relationally based data systems has been on information query languages; very little work has been done on statistical query languages.This paper, then, discusses some elements of a language for statistical queries for a data system employing the Relational Model as the user view of large stored data bases.
Keyboard entry - can it be simplified?
Authors: Land Richard I.
Published: April 2007

The present keyboard arrangement cannot be defended as comfortable, logically arranged, or optimized for human efficiency. Information theory based experiments suggest measures for alternative arrangements. Character sets used in different tasks can be expected to yield different optimal key locations. New tasks are introducing new characters and changing the frequency of selected old ones. Numerous alternative arrangements for alphanumeric fingered entry have been designed, but none are supported by conclusive testing. The amateur keyboard user far outnumbers the professional. Computer entry and word-processors are overtaking the simple typewriter as common alphanumeric stroke entry devices. Compromise and selection of a simplified keyboard that is compatible with present mechanical and electronic designs is advocated.
User consulting in three forms of network-based organization
Authors: Roistacher Richard C.
Published: April 2007

The utility of computer networking to organizal tasks is discussed. Three forms of network organization are described, and some examples given. Problems of user consulting in each form of organization are discussed.
Building and accessing an REL database
Authors: Gadol Steve D. , Loebner Egon E.
Published: April 2007

This paper discusses the construction of an experimental database at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories using the REL ENGLISH software provided by Frederick and Bozena Thompson of the California Institute of Technology. Of special interest is the quasi-natural interface and its ability to tolerate ambiguities. This provides a support mechanism for multiple user views of the same data in which disambiguation is accomplished during semantic processing.
The coming world of “what you see is what you get” (abstract only)
Authors: Hatfield Don
Published: April 2007

The term 'what you see is what you get' has been used to refer to the editing of fully formatted documents so that every edit change causes the text to be updated immediately to show the document as it would appear when printed, thus eliminating the immediate step of (periodically) invoking a formatter explicitly. This mode of working is generally agreed to result in more and better results with less effort, both because the real-world simulation of a document is easier to use than a mixture of format command statements and unformatted text, and because many errors show up more immediately in a real-world situation than in a complicated abstraction.What happens if we extend this notion throughout the interface between the user and the computer? We enter a world of constrained objects and functional (applicative) actions. If the constraints are algebraic, the result is VISICALC-Iike. If the constraints are formats, the result is format programs which are also (unfilled) documents and can be created and edited as document images. If the constraints are actions themselves, the result is islands of action-programs in a sea of constraints.We propose, as the user interface, a general constraints language for documents. The documents are also "templates" or "forms", and have a robustness that makes them hard to injure. Anything may be represented as a document, from a memo to a database to a protein molecule. The commands for applying constraints all take no arguments other than the thing the user is pointing at when the command is given. The user's world is then like a large Tinkertoy environment, for constructing active and passive things.Examples of working in this world, in black and white and in color, will be given covering traditional text operations, the construction and use of document templates, the equivalent of programming as we know it, the equivalent of programming as we don't know it, and finally a John Milton template to test the relation between Paradise Lost and the fundamental theorem of the calculus.
Issues for Ease of Use in personal computing (abstract only)
Authors: Tennant Harry
Published: April 2007

It has been demonstrated that interactive natural language dialog is remarkably unruly, with many misspellings and grammatical errors. Although progress has been made in getting computers to process pristine English text, the day when computers will be able to process unlimited interactive natural language dialog is still very far off.The vast majority of the effort that has gone into designing interactive natural language systems has concentrated on the computer half of the human-computer dyad. Our approach concentrates on the human half. Specifically, the goal of our research is to define a human engineered subset of natural language that retains all of the user-oriented benefits of unrestricted natural language dialog, while greatly reducing the processing burden that true natural language interaction places on the computer. This paper is a preliminary examination of the possibility that these criteria may be satisfied by simply asking usres to be concise.
An editor-based programming support environment (abstract only)
Authors: Hansen W. J.
Published: April 2007

Users of interactive systems typically must deal with numerous interactive interfaces, including especially the text editor and the system command interpreter. Unfortunately, the various interfaces too often have differing and even conflicting conventions. This paper suggests that an enhanced text editor can serve as the interactive interface for most purposes. For example, consider the file directory instead of choosing among half a dozen or more system commands to view and modify it, the user can edit an image that represents the directory. Deletion, renaming, and movement to another directory are easily accomplished with ordinary editor commands. Other system commands can he supplanted by a mechanism of "creation sequences" for files. Rather than execute the creation sequence, the user simply asks to view the file resulting from it.To facilitate this form of interaction, the text editor must include some novel features. It must permit structured files; where the structure can be a field structure within records or a hierarchical structure between records. A suitable editor is sketched.
A contribution towards the measurement of user behavior (abstract only)
Authors: Wilke Helmut
Published: April 2007

A prerequisite for the design of better systems - in terms of human interface- is knowledge of its users, their problems and behavior. Within the context of a larger project comparing several large statistical program packages, attempts have been made to attack the problem of "knowing the user'. Among traditional methods like surveys, different ways of automatic data collection have been tried and their strengths and weaknesses can be discussed. A particularly powerful tool proved to be a logfile which is automatically updated each time certain software is used. It contains individual level data about size of job and data set, control cards and -statistical procedures used, types of errors and more. This gives valuable insights about:--the structure of the user community.--styles of package use,--weak points of packages.In my paper I will discuss some general problems of recording and analyzing user information, and will present data fre~ the logfile described. This should he considered as an example in the methodological discussion as well as a substantive contribution to the analysis of SPSS-use and -users.
A plea for tolerance in the evaluation of numerical methods and mathematical software
Authors: Krogh Fred T.
Published: April 2007

It is a trite observation that experts have difficulty in agreeing on anything, except on matters where they are not expert. My concern here is the effect this characteristic of experts has on the evaluation of numerical methods and mathematical software. I believe that careful evaluations of numerical methods and mathematical software is an important obligation of numerical analysts to the scientific community. My plea is that evaluations be carried out in such a way that people with different points of view have sufficient information to reach conclusions. This tolerance for a diversity of opinion may mean extra work for the evaluator, but without this extra work it will be impossible for some people to interpret the results.
Stiff ordinary differential equation test problems
Authors: Curtis A. R.
Published: April 2007

Many practical methods for integrating stiff systems of ordinary differential equations are based on underlying theory whose validity is only beyond doubt where the eigenvector system of the Jacobian matrix is constant. Realisation of this fact led the author to develop a range of simple linear test problems, which are described in this note, and which have been found to set severe tasks for a program based on Gear's method [1], but improved by the author.
Improving the efficiency of portable software for linear algebra
Authors: Hanson R. J. , Krogh F. T. , Lawson C. L.
Published: April 2007

In algorithms for linear algebraic computations there are a fairly small number of basic operations which are generally responsible for a significant percentage of the total execution time. We mention particularly the dot product operation, ω := x
T
y, the elementary vector operation, y :=αx+y, and the euclidean vector norm, η = (x
T
x)
1/2
.
A syntax for solving linear equations
Authors: Lawson C. L.
Published: April 2007

There are a number of well known reasons to prefer solving a system of linear equations, Ax = b, directly rather than first computing C = A
-1
and then computing x = Cb. Nevertheless some programming languages provide a special operator for matrix inversion but no equally convenient way to request the direct solution of Ax = b. This situation probably has the effect of reinforcing in the user the unfortunate idea that since x = A
-1
b is a convenient mathematical notation for the solution of Ax = b it is also the appropriate operational prescription.
Opinions on matters connected with the evaluation of programs and methods for integrating ordinary differential equations
Authors: Krogh Fred T.
Published: April 2007

Eighty-seven items which might be considered in the evaluation of programs for solving differential equations are listed, and ten experts in the field give their opinions on the importance of each item.
A proposed classification scheme for computer program libraries
Authors: Bolstad John
Published: April 2007

Most computer installations maintain a subroutine library to support the needs of their users. As these libraries grow larger, it becomes increasingly evident that some sort of organization of them is needed--even more than a library of books. One aid in organizing software inventories is a classification scheme, and the most widely used such system is the "old" SHARE system. However, this system has several major defects. A new scheme is proposed which attempts to remedy these defects, and which maintains some degree of compatibility with the present scheme.
Note on "the design of a user interface to large Fortran subroutine packages under IBM 360/370 OS"
Authors: Boyle James M.
Published: April 2007

The article by Tweedale and Chan in the Jan. 75 SIGNUM Newsletter mentions the control program supplied with EISPACK without giving a suitable reference. Unfortunately, they seem not to be aware that its design and operation, and the philosophy behind them, are thoroughly documented in [1]. In particular, [1] discusses programming techniques which simplify the interpretation of the arguments and the selection of subroutines to perform the computation.
Numerical methods for nonlinear stress wave propagation (abstract)
Authors: Bertholf Larry D.
Published: April 2007

The partial differential equations characterizing stress wave propagation problems include conservation of volume, mass, momentum, and energy plus the constitutive relations for the materials involved. Generally these constitutive relations are nonlinear and numerical methods are required for solutions in various coordinate systems and spatial dimensions. The philosophy of stress wave propagation code development and application at Sandia Laboratories is given in this paper. The way different methods are developed, utilized, and tested is illustrated by many examples in which code solutions are compared to analytic solutions, experiments, and solutions from other codes.
The method of lines for the numerical solution of partial differential equations (abstract)
Authors: Madsen Niel K.
Published: April 2007

The numerical solution of time dependent nonlinear partial differential equations is a complicated and nontrivial process. Generally speaking, the solution of slightly different types of partial differential equations has required the development of separate and different computer programs. This situation for partial differential equations is in direct contrast to that for ordinary differential equations. Recently, sophisticated and reliable computer programs for the automatic solution of nonlinear systems of ordinary differential equations have become available. The use of the method of lines approach for solving partial differential equations is an attempt to take advantage of these recent significant developments for ordinary differential equations. In this presentation we will compare the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. We will describe how the method of lines approach for solving PDE's allows one to be able to develope very general purpose computer software for solving broad classes of problems. The structure and use of this software will be described. Finally, numerical results obtained with this general purpose software will be presented and discussed.
The AFWL hull code codes for large problems
Authors: Matuska Daniel A. , Needham Charles E. , Durrett Richard E.
Published: April 2007

The Air Force Weapons Laboratory (AFWL) has maintained a strong interest in large scale fluid dynamics problems since its establishment some ten years ago. Typically, these problems have a spatial extent which changes by several orders of magnitude between the initial conditions and the solution of interest. Time variations of orders of magnitude are also possible. In any case the large scale fluid dynamics problems solved by AFWL may be defined as those in which the smallest lineal resolution desired is less than one percent of the total dimension of interest. A large number of problems fit into this category in two and three dimensions. The AFWL has developed a system of solution for such problems which is easy to use, adaptable to many different problems and computers, and, most importantly, extremely accurate. This system is represented by the HULL code. The basic part of the code is a second order accurate, multi-dimensional Eulerian hydrodynamic code. The differencing method was developed by Capt D. Matuska at AFWL and is itself unique.
ENEP
Authors: Sundström Arne , Westerling Lars
Published: April 2007

ENEP is a one-dimensional finite-difference Lagrangian code for calculating transient motion of various types of continua, including elastic-plastic media, high explosives, gases, and inviscid fluids. The program is interactive and written in Fortran at the Swedish National Defence Research Institute (FOA) for a PDP-10 (DEC System 10) computer with a TEKTRONIX 4012 Graphic Terminal. The program can only treat problems in one space coordinate, including however both plane, cylindrical, and spherical symmetry. The region of integration can be composed of up to 10 sub-regions with materials of different types, and the physical boundary conditions available are free or fixed boundary, a prescribed boundary velocity or a prescribed boundary pressure. Initially, each material may have a prescribed velocity or be at rest.
A letter to the editor concerning draft proposed ANS FORTRAN
Authors: Knight William R.
Published: April 2007

Last week a colleague in the compiler area showed me his copy of "SIGPLAN Notices" for 1976 March (vol. 11, #3). The issue is entitled "Draft proposed ANS FORTRAN" and is devoted to a proposed new Fortran Standard. There is a development therein which I think ought to be of concern to people doing numeric computing in Fortran: A limited introduction of array operations is proposed.
Code available for boundary-value problems
Authors: Daniel James W. , Martin Andrew J.
Published: April 2007

In a series of well-known papers, Victor Pereyra and colleagues have developed the deferred-correction of divided-difference methods for the numerical solution of two-point boundary-value problems both for first-order systems and for second-order scalar equations. As a first step on the road similarly to developing deferred-correction of collocation methods, we have studied Pereyra's code IDCBVP for the second-order case in detail; since most of Pereyra's effort has been directed toward first-order systems, it is not surprising that we were able to improve IDCBVP considerably. Such effort seems worthwhile since experience indicates that for efficiency one should solve second-order problems as second-order problems rather than as first-order systems. Our resulting code NUMIDC is efficient, accurate, reliable, and seems to compare favorably with competing codes on appropriate problems.
Some data and observations on research publication in the areas of numerical computation and programming languages and systems
Authors: Rice J. R.
Published: April 2007

This report contains extensive data on the level of research publications in refereed journals for two areas in Computer Science: Numerical Computation and Programming Languages and Systems. It is concluded that the research output in Numerical Computation is about 5 times that in Programming Languages and Systems (as measured by refereed research articles). Some less complete data on the number of conferences is also presented which suggests the number of conferences in numerical computations substantially exceeds that of Programming Languages and Systems. Some comparisons are made with data derived from Computing Reviews. The data is for 1973 and 1974.
Supplementary terminology for nonlinear iterative methods
Authors: Dennis J. E. , Tapia R. A.
Published: April 2007

The purpose of this note is to suggest a supplement to the terminology of [7] and [9] for nonlinear iterative methods for solving F(x) = 0. We feel such a supplement is needed because it is now clear that the so-called quasi-Newton [1], or variable metric [2], or modification [7] methods are here to stay. Furthermore, the current working terminology for these methods is separate, non-standard and not sufficiently suggestive of their proper place in an overview of nonlinear iterative methods. This is borne out by the comments one always encounters when explaining the subject to the uninitiated. One explanation for this dilemma could be that these methods have essentially arrived after the last systematic attempt to standardize nomenclature [7].
Algorithmic progress in solving partial differential equations
Authors: Rice John R.
Published: April 2007

This is an attempt to document the progress that has been made over the past 30 years in computational methods for solving partial differential equations. Hopefully the assumptions made in this study are clear, but they may well be disputed. Some computational efforts are quickly estimated here, but others are taken from the literature without an independent check that the same definition of effort is used. There are probably some computational methods which I have overlooked which should be included. Note that this study shows up some obscure methods as being very attractive, which suggests that there are other lesser known methods which are also attractive.
The nag library "machine"
Authors: Ford Brian , Bentley Janet
Published: April 2007

Since its inception the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) Project has pursued four aims:(i) To create a balanced, general purpose numerical algorithms library to meet the mathematical and statistical requirements of computer users.(ii) To support the Library with documentation giving advice on problem identification and algorithm selection, and on the use of each routine.(iii) To provide a test program library for certification of the Library.(iv) To implement the Library as widely as user demand required.
Some experiments with computing the complex absolute value
Authors: Wisniewski John A.
Published: April 2007

Portability for the numerical analyst not only includes writing codes which will compile and execute on a variety of machines, but also writing codes which are robust and accurate as well. This is particularly important for the computation of the complex absolute value. This computation, the computation of the 2-norm of a 2-vector, also occurs in the formation of Givens transformations [3] which are used in the solution of the symmetric eigenvalue problem, the computation of the singular value decomposition, and in the solution of linear least squares problems.
PORT
Authors: Fox Phyllis A.
Published: April 2007

PORT is a structured library of Fortran subprograms for numerical computation. The library has been under development at Bell Laboratories for three years and is now in its second edition. One of the most important aspects of the project has been the emphasis on the portability of the library. This note outlines the techniques used to make the library portable, and also discusses the error handling and scratch storage allocation in the library. The report concludes with an overview of the structure and contents of the library.
The evaluation of periodic functions with large input arguments
Authors: Wang J. Y.
Published: April 2007

The argument reduction scheme plays an important role in the evaluation of periodic functions. In this report we discuss the criteria for determining the domain of computer routines that evaluate periodic functions, and apply the results to the widely used sine and cosine functions.
Extending reliability (Extended Abstract>
Authors: Boyle James M.
Published: April 2007

Over the past decade, mathematical software libraries have matured from small, usually locally-assembled, collections of subroutines to large, commercially-provided libraries which are approaching the status of standards [Aird; Du Croz; Fox]**. Despite the high quality of such libraries and the obvious economic advantages of using routines whose development cost has been shared with many other users, applications programmers, when asked: “Why don't you use routine XYZ from IMSL, or from NAC, or from PORT?” frequently reply that library routines are too general, that they need a routine which takes advantage of special features of their problem, and that since they could not use a library routine without modifying it, they might as well write their own routine from scratch.

In many, if not most, instances, the latter assertion could be easily refuted by a simple competition on selected test problems. However, the need for a routine adapted, or tailored, to a particular problem is more difficult to dismiss. It usually arises from considerations of efficiency, which may range from the perceived inefficiency of the presence of unused options in a routine to the practical impossibility of using a routine whose data representation is utterly incompatible with that needed in the rest of the applications program.
Fortran tools
Authors: Presser Leon
Published: April 2007

This paper outlines an integrated set of Fortran tools that are commercially available. The basic purpose of various tools is summarized and their economic impact highlighted. The areas addressed by these tools include: code auditing, error detection, program portability, program instrumentation, documentation, clerical aids and quality assurance.
Using tools for verification, documentation and testing
Authors: Osterweil Loen J.
Published: April 2007

There has been considerable interest lately in methodologies for the production of high quality computer software. Work in this area has been carried out by researchers in a wide variety of disciplines and covers an impressive spectrum of approaches. Some of the more active current lines of research include: software management techniques [1, 2]; creation of error resistant programming techniques [3, 4, 5]; and design of error resistant programming languages [6, 7].

There has also been considerable activity in the creation of program testing, verification and documentation tools. The work in this area has been directed primarily towards two different but related goals—the detection and examination of errors present in a program, and the determination that a given program has no errors of some particular type. Among the diverse activities in this area, this paper shall focus on four of the major approaches—namely dynamic testing, symbolic execution, formal verification and static analysis. In this paper, the different patterns of strengths, weaknesses and applications of these approaches will be shown. It will, moreover, be demonstrated that these patterns are in many ways complementary, offering the hope that they can be coordinated and unified into a single comprehensive program testing and verification system capable of performing a diverse and useful variety of error detection, verification and documentation functions.
New languages for numerical software
Authors: Coughran Bill , Grosse Eric
Published: April 2007

Existing languages for numerical software are not altogether satisfactory. Fortran, even preprocessed, has troublesome limitations. Unfortunately, proposed replacements have been discouragingly large, or omit essential features like variably dimensioned arrays and Fortran compatibility.

A new language has been designed to include such crucial features, but otherwise be as small as possible. This language, called T, includes: indention to indicate block structure, novel loop syntax, and engineering format for real constants. By preprocessing into PL/I, implementation cost was kept low.

But this language can only be regarded as a stopgap. The next step is to deal with more fundamental issues, by more fully exploiting arrays, by making pointers available in a controlled way, and by arranging for better declaration and syntax for using subroutine libraries.
Design principles of the PORT library
Authors: Fox Phyllis
Published: April 2007

The Bell Laboratories Mathematical Subroutine Library, PORT, has been under development at Bell Laboratories for the past few years. The design of PORT stemmed from the basic principles of portability and ease of use. The attributes and mechanisms used in the library to support this philosophy include the use of a portable subset of Fortran, and the use of (machine-dependent) functions to supply the necessary environment parameters. Abbreviated calling sequences are made possible by a simplified error-handling technique, and by the use of a portable stack allocator for temporary workspace. Our experience to date with these approaches, and our plans for the future are reviewed here.
Transportability in practice - recent experience with the NAG Library
Authors: Du Croz J. J.
Published: April 2007

Two guiding principles for the development of the NAG Library are:

the algorithms must be
adaptable
to the characteristic of the computer on which they are being run;

the software must be
transportable

(These concepts have been discussed in detail elsewhere.)

The purpose of this talk is to discuss how these principles have stood the test of practice over the past two years and how NAG's approach to library development has been refined in the light of experience.

The adaptability of algorithms is achieved with the aid of machine-dependent parameters, available through calls of library functions. The initial set of parameters was concerned only with the arithmetic properties of the computer. A new parameter is now being introduced, concerned with storage organizations: it will enable algorithms for certain operations of linear algebra to adapt, when run on a paged machine, to the approximate amount of real store available, and hence to achieve a dramatic reduction in page-thrashing.

The transportability of the software is proven by the fact that the NAG Library has now been implemented on 25 different computer systems - including several minicomputers, which required no fundamental change of approach. The talk will discuss various interesting problems which have arisen in the course of implementation. Frequently it has been deficiencies in the compiler and associated software that have caused the problems, rather than defects in the NAG routines. NAG's test software (though not always ideally suited to the task) has proved remarkably effective at detecting these problems before the Library is released to sites. This justifies NAG's policy of always distributing a tested compiled library (in addition to the source-text).
Using Pascal for numerical analysis
Authors: Volper Dennis
Published: April 2007

The data structures and control structures of Pascal enhance the coding ability of the programmer. Recent proposed extensions to the language further increase its usefulness in writing numeric programs and support packages for numeric programs.
Desirable floating-point arithmetic and elementary functions for numerical computation
Authors: Hull D. E.
Published: April 2007

The purpose of this talk is to summarize proposed specifications for floating-point arithmetic and elementary functions. The topics considered are: the base of the number system, precision control, number representation, arithmetic operations, other basic operations, elementary functions, and exception handling. The possibility of doing with-out fixed-point arithmetic is also mentioned.

The specifications are intended to be entirely at the level of a programming language such as Fortran. The emphasis is on convenience and simplicity from the user's point of view. Conforming to such specifications would have obvious beneficial implications for the portability of numerical software, and for proving programs correct, as well as attempting to provide facilities which are most suitable for the user. The specifications are not complete in every detail, but it is intended that they be complete “in spirit” - some further details, especially syntactic details, would have to be provided, but the proposals are otherwise relatively complete.
Handling of floating point exceptions
Authors: Eggers Thomas W. , Leonard Judson S. , Payne Mary H.
Published: April 2007

An IEEE subcommittee on the standardization of microprocessor floating point arithmetic has a proposal under discussion. Part of that proposal concerns overflow and underflow exceptions.

The proposal calls for a “gradual” underflow implemented with demoralized numbers. For a sequence of addition/subtraction operations, the gradual underflow works very well: it almost has the effect of a machine with infinite range numbers. But if an addition/subtraction sequence is interrupted by a multiply or divide, things don't work nearly as well, and a fallback to symbolic information is likely. The proposal helps overflow hardly at all.
Factored, a-stable, linear multistep methods
Authors: Warming R. F. , Beam Richard M.
Published: April 2007

Historically, the development and analysis of methods for ordinary differential equations (ODEs) have been more advanced than those for partial differential equations (PDEs). The present state of numerical methods is no exception; therefore, it behooves the numerical analyst to exploit sophisticated ODE methods for the numerical solution of PDEs.
Functions for manipulating floating-point numbers
Authors: Reid John
Published: April 2007

Floating-point arithmetic is used for most scientific and engineering calculations and needs frequently arise for determining the precision of a given floating-point number, for detailed access to its component parts and for reconstructing it from its parts, much as for complex numbers. We give detailed definitions of three suitable functions in the hope that their wide use will enhance portability. They are first given without reference to any particular language and then made specific to Fortran.This note has been discussed by IFIP WG 2.5 on Numerical Software and has been approved by the working group, but does not constitute an official IFIP document.
A proposed standard for binary floating point arthmetic
Authors: Coonen Jerome , Kahan William , Palmer John , Pittman Tom , Stevenson David
Published: April 2007

This standard is a product of the Floating Point Working Group of the Microprocessor Standards Subcommittee of the IEEE Computer Society Computer Standards Committee. It is intended that the standard embody the essence of "Specifications For a Proposed Standard for Floating Point Arithmetic" by Jerome Coonen.
Proposal to eliminate denormalized numbers
Authors: Fraley Bob , Walther Steve
Published: April 2007

While the denormalized numbers extend the effective range of a floating point format for a given number format, we feel that the benefits do not justify the expense. This expense can be seen not only in the implementation of floating point but in the use of the resulting system. We feel that they further increase the difficulty of understanding the standard and its implications. Specifically:a. The feature increases the complexity of implementing the standard.b. The cost of producing high-quality software will increase because of this feature.c. Unexpected errors may be introduced into results due to denormalized numbers.d. The added effective range is quite small, especially in Double Format.e. Denormalized numbers may be added at a later time if desired, losing little of the proposed facility.
Impact of the proposed IEEE floating point standard on numerical software
Authors: Cody W. J.
Published: April 2007

The proposed IEEE Floating Point Standard, which is being prepared with unprecedented reliance on the advice of experienced numerical analysts, appears to be the answer to long-standing pleas for sensible floating-point arithmetic systems. The committee drafting the standard has not settled some of the details, but it has agreed that the standard is intended to encourage high-quality numerical programming. To this end the committee agrees on basic arithmetic operations that round correctly and are otherwise clean and free of anomalies. Many of us applaud that accomplishment and eagerly await the appearance of standard-conforming machines. Our frustrations with arithmetic systems in which multiplication is not commutative, in which X+X differs from 2.0×X by a decimal place or more, and in which the least significant half of a double precision number underflows and flushes to zero independent of the most significant half thus abruptly dropping the computation to single precision (without warning, of course) are almost over. The new machines will have none of these or the even more exotic mathematical atrocities existing in our current machines. But our joy at the dream we see materializing before our eyes must be tempered by the realization that the new machines will not solve all of our problems immediately and may even introduce a few new ones.
Numerical linear algebra
Authors: Ward Robert C. , Golub Gene H.
Published: April 2007

This paper presents an overview of the major computational problems in numerical linear algebra and indicates their connection to the "mission-oriented" projects of the Department of Energy. A nontechnical introduction section outlines the topic and presents the major considerations in developing tools for solving these problems. The remaining sections present detailed discussions of the four major areas comprising numerical linear algebra: systems of linear equations, eigenvalue problems, least squares and generalized inverses, and matrix functions. The current state-of-the-art is briefly assessed and the major research challenges with priorities are presented for each area.
Solution of large Hermitian eigenproblems on virtual and cache memory computers
Authors: Streit Roy L.
Published: April 2007

The impact of cache and virtual memories on the performance of state-of-the-art software has not yet been fully explored. This letter documents the truth of this statement by presenting the results of a computational experiment performed on the VAX 11/780 (a computer possessing both these features) with well established and documented FORTRAN subroutines designed for high accuracy numerical solution of the ordinary Hermitian eigenproblem Az = λ z. Easily implemented changes in the storage allocation of the complex matrix A resulted in roughly half an order of magnitude improvement in both elapsed CPU and wall clock time, as well as in significantly improved overall system throughput. These changes do not affect the numerical algorithm in any way.
An example concerning quasi-Newton estimation of a sparse hessian
Authors: Sorensen Danny C.
Published: April 2007

An example is given which shows that certain quasi-Newton methods for sparse optimization problems can be unstable.
Enhanced arithmetic for Fortran
Authors: Corbett Robert Paul
Published: April 2007

The 1978 Fortran standard[1] permits mixed-mode expressions, that is, expressions with operands of differing data types. Expressions containing floating point operands of differing precisions pose special problems of interpretation. Consider the statement
Performance of various computers using standard linear equations software in a Fortran environment
Authors: Dongarra Jack J.
Published: April 2007

In this note we compare a number of different computer systems for solving dense systems of linear equations using the LINPACK software in a Fortran environment. There are about 50 computers compared, ranging from a Cray X-MP to the 68000 based systems such as the Apollo and SUN workstations.
Interval arithmetic implementations
Authors: Clemmesen Michael
Published: April 2007

This paper presents some algorithms implementing interval arithmetic using floating point arithmetic. The algorithms apply to almost any digital computer supporting normalized floating point arithmetic and provide better performance than conventional interval arithmetic program libraries. For reasons of generality and machine independence, algorithms are presented in a high-level language. They are intended to be used as an implementation guide for interval arithmetic. This paper outlines the requirements for the algorithms, presents the employed techniques and some of the algorithms, and reports on various performance experiments. A detailled description can be found in a seperate document (Clemmesen [1982]) available at the above address.
Issues relating to extension of the Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms
Authors: Dodson David S. , Lewis John G.
Published: April 2007

The goal of this paper is to stimulate thought, discussion, and comment on the proposed extensions /2,3/ to the Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (BLAS) /4/. The authors' views are Lased on their implementation of the BLAS in highly-efficient assembly language for the Cray-1 and Cray X-MP, and use of the BLAS and some of the proposed extensions in a variety of application areas.
Moving boundary problems in phase change models current research questions
Authors: Solomon A. D. , Alexiades V. , Wilson D. G.
Published: April 2007

We present a brief picture of current research questions and activities on moving boundary problems.
Some issues in implementing a sequential quadratic programming algorithm
Authors: Gill Philip E. , Murray Walter , Saunders Michael A. , Wright Margaret H.
Published: April 2007

In this note, we consider two of the major issues that have arisen in implementing a sequential quadratic programming (SQP) method for nonlinearly constrained optimization problems (the code NPSOL; Gill
et al.
, 1983). The problem of concern is assumed to be of the form[EQUATION]where
F(x)
is a smooth nonlinear function, A
L
is a constant matrix, and
c(x)
is a vector of smooth nonlinear constraint functions. The matrix

A
L

and the vector
c(x)
may be empty. Note that
upper and lower bounds are specified for all the variables and for all the constraints.
This from allows full generality in constraint specification. In particular, the
i
-th constraint may be defined as an
equality
by setting

l
i

=

u
i

. If certain bounds are not present, the associated elements of
l
or
u
can be set to special values that will be treated as - ∞ or +∞.
Distribution of mathematical software via electronic mail
Authors: Dongarra Jack J. , Grosse Eric
Published: April 2007

A large collection of public domain mathematical software is now available via electronic mail. Messages sent to "netlib@anl-mcs" (on the Arpanet/CSNET) or to "researchlnetlib" (on the UNIX network) wake up a server that distributes items from the collection. For example the one-line message, "send index" gets a library catalog by return mail. We describe how to use the service and some of the issues in its implementation.
Proposal for the transfer of floating point data
Authors: Payne Mary H.
Published: April 2007

First, I thank my colleague, Ned Anderson, for his help in refining a number of the details in the specifications below.
A comparison of sequential and parallel elimination methods for tridiagonal matrices
Authors: Evans D. J.
Published: April 2007

In this paper, parallel forms of the Gaussian and Jordan Elimination schemes for solving the tridiagonal linear systems which occur frequently in Computational Mathematics are developed and compared with the existing sequential algorithms.
Libraries and machine-readable data
Authors: Rowe Judith
Published: April 2007

Wednesday evening, July 10th, 8:30-10:30 is the time scheduled for a panel discussion: "Government Publications in Machine-Readable Form: A New Tool for the Reference Librarian." A part of the American Library Association's 1974 New York Conference, the meeting is co-sponsored by the Government Documents Round Table's (GODORT) Machine-Readable Data Files Committee, the Federal Librarians Round Table (FLIRT), the RASD Information Retrieval Committee and the RASD/RTSD/ASLA Public Documents Committee.
BMDP programs
Authors: Engelman Laszlo
Published: April 2007

I read with interest the overviews of SOUPAC, WIT, and OSIRIS packaged programs in the Fall, 1973 SIGSOC Bulletin. The fact that one of the authors compared these programs to the BMD package is a compliment, but it should be noted that the BMD programs were developed, packaged and sealed over ten years ago.
ECPRESS
Authors: Baker Clark M. , Baker Edward R. , Green Teresa O.
Published: April 2007

Two years ago, Project DELTA, a computing facility studying computational learning activity in pre-college education, became interested in Dartmouth's IMPRESS as a means of motivating computer use in social studies classes. IMPRESS is most attractive because it is interactive, and it is written in BASIC. Being interactive is important because our users are remote and prefer the time-sharing mode of computing. The project selected a PDP-11 with RSTS, because a very high level BASIC is their only time-sharing language. However, we innocently underestimated the task of adapting the larger program to a mini-computer. We met with Ed Meyers, Director of Project IMPRESS at Dartmouth, to define the scope of the task. I will describe briefly the procedures, problems, solutions, and expectations which were identified as important to achieving the objectives of creating a mini-IMPRESS. I will assume that the reader is familiar with the IMPRESS system and has some knowledge of DEC's RSTS and RSTS/E with BASIC-PLUS.
Information access at the data file level
Authors: Nielsen Per
Published: April 2007

In the mid-sixties, political and social science was theory-rich and data-poor. [1] In the decade following this statement, the ever-increasing holdings of machine-readable datasets in a growing chain of data repositories throughout the world have made the social science community much more wealthy. But, the vast scientific potential buried in data repositories is being transformed only at a slow pace. In the mid-seventies, quantitative data generated by empirical political and social science research are still heavily underexploited.