bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A mechanistic study of the carbocation route from tetrahydrodicyclopentadiene to the adamantane ring
Authors: Kirchen Roger P. , Sorensen Ted S. , Whitworth Steven M.
Published: May 2006

The energy profile for the transformation of the endo-tetrahydrodicyclopentadienyl cation A into the 1-adamantyl cation R has been probed by means of six separate experiments employing superacid techniques. Of the approximately 14 cations between A and R, required as intermediates for the above transformation, it can be shown that only one of these is capable of direct observation. This cation, the tricyclo[5.2.1.03.8]dec-3-yl (homobrendyl) cation J, is characterized in detail in one of the six experiments. The rate of the rearrangement of J into the 1-adamantyl cation has been measured. Cation J also undergoes a degenerate rearrangement, the dynamics of which can be probed using NMR line-broadening and selective inversion–recovery experiments. The relationship between the exo and endo tetrahydrodicyclopentadienyl cations D and A has been studied. Only A is directly observable, even though in some experiments direct precursors of D were used as cation sources. Several experimental probes were made in an attempt to detect the presence of a small equilibrium concentration of D, without success, and a rationale is provided for the much greater stability of A vs. D. The remaining four experiments involved the addition of neutral precursors to superacid solutions, but the initially formed (expected) cations could not be observed, only cations A, J, or R being observed instead. These "partitioning"-type experiments prove whether the corresponding left-hand or right-hand transition-state barriers are the lower in energy. In the case of starting with transient cation intermediate E, only observable cation J is obtained, showing that the barrier between B and E is the high point on the overall carbocation reaction profile.
Non-stoichiometric chloride salts of dioxotetrakis(imidazole)rhenium(V) cations
Authors: Lebuis Anne-Marie , Young Jim M.C. , Beauchamp André L.
Published: May 2006

Orange [ReO2L4]Cl salts were prepared with L = imidazole and 2-methylimidazole. The presence of a strong Re = O stretching band in the infrared spectra near 785 cm−1 is consistent with a trans-dioxo octahedral structure. With 1,2-dimethylimidazole, red-violet solids were obtained, which were studied by X-ray diffraction. Form I (from methanol): cubic, [Formula: see text]a = 25.205 Å, R = 0.032, 986 observed reflections; form II (from ethanol-dichloromethane): cubic, [Formula: see text]a = 25.520 Å, R = 0.056, 766 observed reflections. Both materials are non-stoichiometric, containing trans-[ReO2L4]+ and protonated trans-[ReO(OH)L4]2+ in an approximate ratio of 3:1 for 1 and 2:1 for II. In both cases, the unit cell contains 1 "normal" Cl− ion and 2/3 H2O per complex. In form I, the additional charge of [ReO(OH)L4]2+ is balanced by an extra Cl− ion partly occupying the unit cell origin, where it is replaced by disordered methanol the rest of the time. In form II, ReO4− and CH2Cl2 play the corresponding roles. In the infrared spectra, besides the characteristic band for the dioxo species, both forms show an extra peak at ~932 cm−1 originating from the protonated species, whereas form II shows an additional band at 907 cm−1 for uncoordinated ReO4−. The 1H and 13C NMR spectra of both forms in D2O are identical to those of the pure [ReO2L4]+ salt, indicating that the protonated species is strongly acidic.
Structural studies of organoboron compounds LIX. Reaction of two sterically hindered N,N′-dihydroxyaminals with phenylboronic acid, and the crystal and molecular structures of the resulting 1,3,5-trioxa-6,8-diaza-2,4-diboracyclooctanes and one of the adducts
Authors: Kliegel Wolfgang , Lubkowitz Gottfried , Rettig Steven J. , Trotter James
Published: May 2006

The syntheses of the sterically hindered N,N′-dihydroxyaminals; N,N′-bis(1-ethoxycarbonyl-1-methylethyl)-N,N′-dihydroxymethanediamine, 1b, and N,N′-bis(1,1-dimethylethyl)-N,N′-dihydroxymethanediamine, 1c, and their reactions with phenylboronic acid to yield the 1,3,5-trioxa-6,8-diaza-2,4-diboracyclooctanes 3 and 4, respectively, are described. Crystals of 1b are tetragonal, a = 18.413(1), c = 9.867(2) Å, Z = 8, space group I41; those of 3 are monoclinic, a = 20.420(4), b = 8.272(4), c = 17.851(5) Å, β = 117.34(1)°, Z = 4, space group C2/c; and those of 4 are monoclinic, a = 9.493(4), b = 16.202(4), c = 14.783(3) Å, β = 101.90(2)°, Z = 4, space group P21/c. The structures were solved by direct methods and were refined by full-matrix least-squares procedures to R = 0.034, 0.039, and 0.040 (Rw = 0.035, 0.034, and 0.036) for 1550, 1438, and 2187 reflections with I ≥ 3σ(F2), respectively. In the solid state, both 3 and 4 exhibit transannular [Formula: see text] interactions. In 3 there are two identical (by symmetry) interactions with [Formula: see text] Å that have estimated bond orders of 0.06, while the single transannular interaction in 4 has N—B = 1.953(3) Å and a bond order of about 0.3. The intermediate-strength transannular interaction in 4 is the first to be reported for this type of molecule.
Topological investigations of aniline and substituted anilines in binary solutions containing methylene bromide
Authors: Sharma V.K. , Singh Prem Paul , Maken Sanjeev , Singh B.
Published: May 2006

Molar excess volumes and molar excess enthalpies for various (i + j) binary methylene bromide (i) + aniline or N-methyl aniline and + N,N-dimethyl aniline (j) mixtures have been determined as a function of composition at 308.15 K. The data have been analysed in terms of the graph-theoretical approach and Sanchez and Lacombe theory. The graph-theoretical analyses of VE data suggest that aniline, N-methyl aniline, and N,N-dimethyl aniline exist as equilibrium mixtures of monomer and dimer and that these mixtures contain 1:1 molecular complexes. The IR studies lend further credence to the nature and extent of interaction along with support for the proposed structure of molecular species in these mixtures.
Separation of metal-cyanide complexes by reversed-phase ion-interaction high-performance liquid chromatography
Authors: Giroux Louis , Barkley Dwight J.
Published: May 2006

Reversed-phase ion-interaction chromatography has been used to study the separation of Cu(I), Ag(I), Ni(II), Au(I), Co(III), Fe(III), and Fe(II) cyano complexes on silica and carbon-based reversed-phases with UV detection at 215 nm. Separation of the metal-cyanide complexes was affected by a number of experimental factors including the nature and concentration of the organic modifier, nature and concentration of the ion-pairing reagent, pH, and ionic strength of the mobile phase. Differences between the elution order of metallo-cyanides observed in the present work and in other investigations under similar experimental conditions are explained by a difference in the ionic strength of the mobile phase. Finally, this technique is used to analyze metal-cyanide complexes in a gold mill solution.
Electrolytic dissociation of sodium tetraphenylborate in 2-methoxyethanol/water binary solvent mixtures
Authors: Corradini Fulvio , Marchetti Andrea , Tagliazucchi Mara , Tassi Lorenzo , Tosi Giuseppe
Published: May 2006

Thermodynamic properties from conductance data are reported for the NaBPh4 electrolytic solutions in 2-methoxyethanol (component 1)/water (component 2) binary solvent mixtures, working at 19 temperatures ranging from −10 to +80 °C and for 6 mixtures covering the 0.1865 ≤ x1 ≤ 1 composition range. Experimental conductivity data were analysed using the Fuoss–Hsia equation, and the chosen salt was found to associate to a certain extent in these solvent mixtures. The resulting dissociation constants (K) of the ion-pair have been used to test some empirical equations K = K(T), K = K(x1), and K = K(T, x1). Furthermore, the present findings have been compared with our previously reported results from working with picric acid in the same mixtures and experimental conditions.
13C NMR spectroscopic studies of C-nitroso compounds. The orientation of the nitroso group in substituted nitrosobenzenes
Authors: Gowenlock Brian G. , Cameron Mailer , Boyd Alan S.F. , Al-Tahou Baheeja M. , McKenna Paul
Published: May 2006

The carbon-13 chemical shifts of several substituted nitrosobenzenes are reported. It is shown that the NO group can be orientated to lie in the plane of the ring when constrained either by a bulky ortho substituent or in the solid state. In the presence of 2,6-di-tert-butyl substituents the NO group is twisted into orthogonality with the ring. The changes in the 13C chemical shifts are larger for the NO group than for other functional groups. It is suggested that these effects are a consequence of the electronic character of the NO group and that the nitrogen lone pair of electrons is of fundamental importance in producing these unique effects. The dimeric nitroso functional group does not display these properties.
Molecules in strong laser fields: vibrational inversion and harmonic generation
Authors: Aubanel Eric E. , Bandrauk André D.
Published: May 2006

We examine two consequences of the unique behaviour of molecules in strong fields. First, by time gating of laser-induced avoided crossings with femtosecond laser pulses, one can obtain efficient vibrational inversion into a narrow distribution of vibrational levels of a molecular ion. We demonstrate this by numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for [Formula: see text] Second, we show results of numerical calculation with vibrationally excited [Formula: see text] of harmonic generation up to the 11th order of an intense 1064- nm laser. We predict that competition of photodissociation can be minimized by trapping the molecule in high-field-induced potential wells, thus enhancing the high-order harmonic generation process. Furthermore, the harmonic spectrum can serve as a measure of the structure of these laser-induced potentials.
Microtube flowing coulometry
Authors: Chen Lifeng , Colyer Christa L. , Kamau Muthoni G. , Myland Jan C. , Oldham Keith B. , Symons Peter G.
Published: May 2006

An aqueous solution containing supporting electrolyte and a small concentration of an electroactive analyte is allowed to flow, under a gravitational head, through a polarized platinum tube. The tube is narrow enough that, during their few seconds of residence time within the tube, virtually all the analyte molecules are able to diffuse to the tube wall and be electrolytically destroyed. The analyte concentration is accurately calculable, when the applied voltage and head are optimized, from the measured flow rate of the solution and the steady-state electric current, the latter being background-corrected by subtracting the current under no-flow conditions. Though the detailed theory is complicated, the principles of the method and its experimental realization are straightforward.
Asymmetric synthesis using reactions with modest group selectivity
Authors: Ward Dale E. , Liu Yadong , Rhee Chung K.
Published: May 2006

The isomeric purity of products from certain group-selective reactions can be significantly amplified when reactions can occur sequentially. The theoretical basis for a strategy that exploits reactions with modest enantiotopic group selectivity for asymmetric synthesis is described. The relationships between conversion, yield, and isomeric purity for such a process are calculated using a simple kinetic model. A simple method for selecting candidate group-selective reactions from known face-selective reactions is presented. Application of the strategy is illustrated with the reduction of D-glucose and D-galactose derived dialdehydes with B-isopinocampheyl-9-borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane (Alpine-Borane®).
An interview with Thelma Estrin
Authors: Estrin Thelma , Nebeker Frederik
Published: May 2006

I am delighted that Dr. Thelma Estrin, Professor Emerita in Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, has agreed to share some of her experiences with you by means of this interview. Thelma and I work together on the IEEE History Committee and I felt it was important that SIGCSEites learn a part of her successful career. Thelma is a pioneer in biomedical engineering and was one of the first to use computer technology to solve problems in medical research. She helped design Israel's first computer, the WEIZAC, and was the first woman elected to national office as vice president of IEEE. Thelma has received the Achievement Award from the Society of Women Engineers and she is a model of excellence for women entering the field of engineering or computing.The dialogue that follows is a verbatim re-presentation of excerpts from an interview conducted over a dozen years ago. I do apologize, but due to content balance and space constraints, only parts of the interview appear. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks, Thelma.
Industry certification
Authors: Hitchcock Leo
Published: May 2006

Industry certification is a veritable juggernaut driven by several dynamics: candidates seeking to boost knowledge, skills, status, and remuneration; the industry and professional associations seeking to set minimum standards, and raise the bar of competency levels; employers seeking ways to better qualify job candidates; consumers demanding knowledgeable and skilled professionals; and product vendors demanding highly competent technicians implement and support their products. Academic institutions are integrating industry certification in their curricula. A certification for the SoDIS (Software Development Impact Statements) methodology of ethics-based risk assessment has been mooted.
Teaching graph algorithms using online java package IAPPGA
Authors: Wu Mingshen
Published: May 2006

Teaching and learning graph algorithms is a great challenge to both instructors and students. Instructors are seeking software that is specifically designed to demonstrate the algorithms and for students to learn these algorithms efficiently. The software program should be readily available and provide an environment so that students are able to review the algorithm, solve a practical problem, and intuitively study the working process via a graphical display all together. This paper presents an "Internet Accessible Program Package for Graph Algorithms" (IAPPGA) developed by the author. This package can be accessed via an Internet browser at any time, anywhere without downloading or installing any software.
Constructing a core literature for computing education research
Authors: Pears Arnold , Seidman Stephen , Eney Crystal , Kinnunen Päivi , Malmi Lauri
Published: May 2006

After four decades of research on a broad range of topics, computing education has now emerged as a mature research community, with its own journals, conferences, and monographs. Despite this success, the computing education research community still lacks a commonly recognized core literature. A core literature can help a research community to develop a common orientation and make it easier for new researchers to enter the community. This paper proposes an approach to constructing and maintaining a core literature for computing education research. It includes a model for classifying research contributions and a methodology for determining whether they should be included in the core. The model and methodology have been applied to produce an initial list of core papers. An annotated list of these papers is given in appendix A.
Algol 68 as an extensible language
Authors: Mailloux Barry J. , Peck John E. L.
Published: May 2006

Most programming languages have one or more features which may be considered as extensions of the language. The most common such feature is the procedure, as it exists in Algol 60 or in PL/I, or the subroutine in Fortran. By means of this device it is possible for the programmer to give a name to a portion of his algorithm and to invoke this portion one or more times simply by using that name. Algol 68 has, of course, such familiar features, but it has others which may not be so familiar. It is our intention to describe, by means of an example, some of the newer language extension features of Algol 68.
Some aspects of Basel, the base language for an extensible language facility
Authors: Jorrand Philippe
Published: May 2006

Basel has been designed as the base language component for an extensible language facility called Elf. Elf will have several components: one for syntactic extension, one for the definition of communications with a given kind of environment, and some others. All these components will be able to perform modifications, additions, and deletions to Basel.
Transformations
Authors: Bell James R.
Published: May 2006

This paper describes one aspect of Proteus, a minimal expandable computer language. "Expandable" means capable of accepting users' augmentation of the language's built-in set of constructs. "Minimal" refers to the absence of redundancy within the built-in set of constructs.
Macro processing in EPS
Authors: MacLaren M. Donald
Published: May 2006

Since giving this talk, I have extensively revised the treatment of identifier binding. The revised treatment is described in a paper "Integrated Macro Processing in Procedural Languages," preprints of which may be obtained from me. The paper contains a general discussion of the sort of macro facilities illustrated in the talk and a detailed definition of a programming language containing the facilities. This is an illustrative language created only for the paper and is quite different from EPS. The status of EPS is uncertain. I may only implement a compiler for a rather low-level language with the macro facilities.
PL/I compile time extensibility
Authors: Nicholls John
Published: May 2006

Instead of presenting PL/I as an example of a fully-fledged extensible system, I should like to do two things. Firstly, I should like to point out the relevance of PL/I, as a major programming language, to the topic of extensibility. Secondly, I should like to indicate those parts of PL/I which have extensional powers. As I shall try to show, these include not only the compile-time facilities of PL/I, but also certain other features not normally regarded as being related to extensibility. As will be apparent later in the talk, I'm not presenting any specific proposals or designs for a system, but rather giving some personal views on this important subject.
Some compiler-compiler techniques for use in extensible languages
Authors: Standish Thomas A.
Published: May 2006

This short note aims at introducing the use of some syntax-directed compiler-compiler techniques in extensible languages. At first, it attempts to do this independently of any particular extensible language. In the last section, an example of the use of the technique in PPL is presented.
The contour model of block structured processes
Authors: Johnston John B.
Published: May 2006

There appears to be a need for an intuitive implementable cell-based model of the semantics of algorithm execution. It is contended that for block structured processes, such a model must be based on the concepts of nested blocks, access environments, labels, and cell retention. A model so based, the contour model, is introduced by illustrating the execution of an ALGOL 60 program in terms of the model. The model is informally specified and some of its major features are pointed out. A companion paper by D. M. Berry shows that semantically powerful languages can be directly implemented in terms of the model.
Modelling of storage properties of higher level languages
Authors: Walk Kurt
Published: May 2006

The role of storage in the characterization of higher level programming languages is discussed. Assignment, in particular, has significantly different meaning in different languages, which can hardly be understood without reference to an underlying model of storage. A general storage model is sketched which can be specialized to a model of ALGOL 68 or of PL/I storage. The same model is used to discuss language features allowing highly flexible data structures.
Representation and manipulation of data structures in APL
Authors: Katzan Harry
Published: May 2006

Methods for the representation of complex data structures in APL, a programming language based on rectangular arrays and a multiplicity of functions, are presented. Data structures considered are: strings and sets, stacks and queues, tables, linked lists, and LISP-like structures. The material provides insight into the nature of data structures and should aid in establishing future requirements for primal and base languages.
More about multi-adic functions
Authors: Rose A. J.
Published: May 2006

Algorithm 37 (vol. 2, No. 4) by Raymond J. D. Reeves showed a method of passing an arbitrary number of arguments to a function. Until such time that APL functions can truly accommodate more than two arguments, such schemes will be useful, and in that spirit I spent some time investigating alternate solutions to the problem.
APL-FIOS; APL-FIDOS
Authors: Korn Karl , Rose John
Published: May 2006

This powerful package harnesses the major technological advancements which have been discovered since IBM's issuance of the APL Terminat System for time sharing. The resutt is totally feasible use of APL Language for straight Data Processing", i.e., for the type of computer programs which are run many times over, and which must be efficient in all respects, since they are "in producation". The way is now paved for the so-called commercial user to enjoy the benefits of IBM's new, and probably final, general purpose computer language, namely APL. The package was developed by John Rose.
A core viewing system for APL
Authors: Freiden Alan
Published: May 2006

This report describes a package of APL functions for producing three dimensional wire frame images on passive graphics devices such as DVST's, plotters, or daisy-wheel printers. The package implements the basic viewing system concepts embodied in the 1977 report of the ACM-SIGGRAPH Graphics Standards Planning Committee. The standard, called the Core Graphics System, is described in a recent issue of Computing Surveys. APL is an interactive language; the function package is intended for interactive programming but not for interactive programs. This distinction is clear to APL users who should find the package flexible and utilitarian. In terms of the Core System, only level I capabilities are provided. The contents of the package are described here following a brief discussion of some design considerations.
Device-independent intermediate display files
Authors: Warner Jim
Published: May 2006

A need exists for a standard definition of a device-independent intermediate display file. Such a file, often referred to as a 'metafile', 'pseudo display file', or device-independent 'plot-file', would be used to communicate pictures between users (either at the same site or at different sites), would act as an audit trail of picture development during a graphics session, or would allow users to make hardcopies of some or all pictures designed during an interactive graphics session.Several organizations have made initial passes at defining such a file. Each organization has had specific motives in preparing its definition.This paper reviews four existing, and assumed to be working, proposals for a device-independent meta-file (henceforth, referred to as 'metafile'). The design concepts that underly metafile definition are addressed individually. Each of the four proposals is discussed as it relates to each of the design concepts. An analysis follows each discussion.The basic metafile concepts have derived from the common points of the four proposals and the principles laid out in the GSPC 'CORE' report.
Post-compilation optimization for multiple gains with pattern matching
Authors: Kumar Rajeev , Gupta Amit , Pankaj B. S. , Ghosh Mrinmoy , Chakrabarti P. P.
Published: May 2006

Many existing retargetable compilers for ASIPs and domain-specific processors generate low quality code since the compiler is not able to fully utilize the intricacies of ISA of these processors. Hence, there is a need to further optimize the code produced by these compilers. In this paper, we introduce a new post-compilation optimization technique which is based on finding repeating instruction patterns in generated code and replacing them with their
optimized
equivalents. The instruction patterns to be found are represented by finite state machines which allow encapsulation of multiple patterns in just one representation, and instructions in a pattern to be not necessarily lexically adjacent. We also present a conflict resolution algorithm to select an optimization whenever a set of instructions fall under two or more different patterns of which only one can be applied on the basis of code size, cycle count or switching activity improvement. We tested this technique on the compiled binaries of ARM and Intel processors for code size improvement. We discuss the possible applications of this strategy in design space exploration (DSE) of embedded processors.
Hidden in Plain Sight
Authors: Cantrill Bryan
Published: May 2006

In December 1997, Sun Microsystems had just announced its new flagship machine: a 64-processor symmetric multiprocessor supporting up to 64 gigabytes of memory and thousands of I/O devices. As with any new machine launch, Sun was working feverishly on benchmarks to prove the machine’s performance. While the benchmarks were generally impressive, there was one in particular that was exhibiting unexpectedly low performance. The benchmark machine would occasionally become mysteriously distracted: Benchmark activity would practically cease, but the operating system kernel remained furiously busy. After some number of minutes spent on unknown work, the operating system would suddenly right itself: Benchmark activity would resume at full throttle and run to completion. Those running the benchmark could see that the machine was on course to break the world record, but these minutes-long periods of unknown kernel activity were enough to be the difference between first and worst.
Performance Anti-Patterns
Authors: Smaalders Bart
Published: May 2006

Performance pathologies can be found in almost any software, from user to kernel, applications, drivers, etc. At Sun we’ve spent the last several years applying state-of-the-art tools to a Unix kernel, system libraries, and user applications, and have found that many apparently disparate performance problems in fact have the same underlying causes. Since software patterns are considered abstractions of positive experience, we can talk about the various approaches that led to these performance problems as anti-patterns: something to be avoided rather than emulated.
ERP II
Authors: Beatty Robert C. , Williams Craig D.
Published: May 2006

An ERP upgrade is deceptively complex and can be daunting---especially for organizations ignorant of the massive effort required to do it correctly.
Europe's computer scientists take fate into their own hands
Authors: Meyer Bertrand , Zwaenepoel Willy
Published: May 2006

CS chairs from universities throughout Europe and beyond came together for a momentous meeting to examine the fate and the future of the field.
A bisimulation-based semantic theory of Safe Ambients
Authors: Merro Massimo , Hennessy Matthew
Published: May 2006

We develop a semantics theory for SAP, a variant of Levi and Sangiorgi's Safe Ambients, SA.The dynamics of SA relies upon
capabilities
(and
co-capabilities
) exercised by
mobile agents
, called
ambients
, to interact with each other. These capabilities contain references, the names of ambients with which they wish to interact. In SAP we generalize the notion of capability: in order to interact with an ambient
n
, an ambient
m
must exercise a capability indicating both
n
and a password
h
to access
n
; the interaction between
n
and
m
takes place only if
n
is willing to perform a corresponding co-capability with the same password
h
. The name
h
can also be looked upon as a
port
to
access ambient n via port h
.In SAP, by managing passwords/ports, for example generating new ones and distributing them selectively, an ambient may now program who may migrate into its computation space, and when. Moreover in SAP, an ambient may provide different services/resources depending on the port accessed by the incoming clients. Then we give an
lts
-based operational semantics for SAP and a labelled
bisimulation
equivalence, which is proved to coincide with
reduction barbed congruence
.We use our notion of bisimulation to prove a set of algebraic laws that are subsequently exploited to prove more significant examples.
Face recognition based on polar frequency features
Authors: Zana Yossi , Cesar Roberto M.
Published: May 2006

A novel biologically motivated face-recognition algorithm based on polar frequency is presented. Polar frequency descriptors are extracted from face images by Fourier--Bessel transform (FBT). Next, the Euclidean distance between all images is computed and each image is now represented by its dissimilarity to the other images. A pseudo-Fisher linear discriminant was built on this dissimilarity space. The performance of discrete Fourier transform (DFT) descriptors and a combination of both feature types was also evaluated. The algorithms were tested on a 40- and 1196-subjects face database (ORL and FERET, respectively). With five images per subject in the training and test datasets, error rate on the ORL database was 3.8, 1.25, and 0.2% for the FBT, DFT, and the combined classifier, respectively, as compared to 2.6% achieved by the best previous algorithm. The most informative polar frequency features were concentrated at low-to-medium angular frequencies coupled to low radial frequencies. On the FERET database, where an affine normalization preprocessing was applied, the FBT algorithm outperformed only the PCA in a rank recognition test. However, it achieved performance comparable to state-of-the-art methods when evaluated by verification tests. These results indicate the high informative value of the polar frequency content of face images in relation to recognition and verification tasks and that the Cartesian frequency content can complement information about the subjects' identity, but possibly only when the images are not prenormalized. Possible implications for human face recognition are discussed.
From the chair
Authors: Sipior Janice C. , Lending Diane , Amoroso Donald L. , Shayo Conrad , Vowels Susan
Published: May 2006

Thanks to all of our members and their guests who attended the "Fifth Annual ACM-SIGMIS Reception," held as an ACM-SIGMIS event on Saturday, December 10, 2005, prior to the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS2005) in Las Vegas, NV USA. Check out the photos on ACM-SIGMIS' website at: http://www.acm.org/sigmis. It was great fun to see everyone. Please plan to attend next year's reception, scheduled for Saturday, December 9, 2006, from 5:30-7:00pm, prior to ICIS2006 to be held in Milwaukee, WI USA, December 10-13, 2006.Please plan to attend this year's CPR conference:

Conference:
ACM-SIGMIS Computer Personnel Research 2006 (CPR2006) Conference

Theme:
"Forty Four Years of Computer Personnel Research: Achievements, Challenges and the Future"

When & Where:
April 13-15, 2006, Claremont, California USA

Website:
http://139.182.189.122/sigmiscpr2006

Next year, CPR2007 will be held in St. Louis, Missouri USA. Please consider sending a submission by the October 2006 deadline. For more information, contact the Conference Co-Chairs, Fred Niederman, St. Louis University, niederfa@slu.edu and Mary Sumner, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, msumner@siue.edu, or the Program Co-Chairs, Diane Lending, James Madison University, lendindc@jmu.edu and Chelley Vician, cvician@mtu.edu, Michigan Tech University. Your participation is welcome and encouraged!Finally, I encourage you to attend the upcoming conferences this year with which we are in-cooperation: Business Information Systems (BIS) 2006, http://bis.kie.ae.poznan.pl; International Conference on e-Business (ICE-B) 2006, http://www.ice-b.org; and 25th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER2006), http://adrg.eller.arizona.edu/ER2006.Thanks for your continued interest in SIGMIS. Feel free to contact any one of us with questions, suggestions, or other input.
The web designer's dilemma
Authors: Weiss Aaron
Published: May 2006

There's more than one way to weave a Web page. And as any Web designer knows all too well, there's no shortage of ideas about which is the right way. Evolving standards, variations in browser behavior, and the urgings of design gurus seem to pull at Web designers from every direction. Taken together, they can sound like a dozen strident voices each shouting in maddening contradiction, sometimes divorced from reality, always adding anxiety to meeting a deliverable deadline.
Politics and the technology of file formats
Authors: Treese Win
Published: May 2006

Does it matter how a computer program stores its data? If there is only one program that manipulates that data, and the files are never shared with anyone else, the answer is "no." But such exclusive use is rare, at least for the files we use every day. Typically we want to share our files---photos, spreadsheets, you name it---with others. This means that the data must be interpreted properly by the applications used by others. And sometimes the way data is stored becomes a political battle.
Statewide databases of registered voters
Authors: CACM Staff
Published: May 2006

A study of accuracy, privacy, usability, security, and reliability issues.
Thinking about computer systems to support design synthesis
Authors: Vidal Rosario , Mulet Elena
Published: May 2006

What should the CAD systems of the future be like?
Supporting insight-based information exploration in intelligence analysis
Authors: Gersh John , Lewis Bessie , Montemayor Jaime , Piatko Christine , Turner Russell
Published: May 2006

Capturing the exploratory search process can help represent analytical insight.
Micro-views, or on how to protect privacy while enhancing data usability
Authors: Byun Ji-Won , Bertino Elisa
Published: May 2006

The large availability of repositories storing various types of information about individuals has raised serious privacy concerns over the past decade. Nonetheless, database technology is far from providing adequate solutions to this problem that requires a delicate balance between an individual's privacy and convenience and data usability by enterprises and organizations - a database which is rigid and over-protective may render data of little value. Though these goals may seem odd, we argue that the development of solutions able to reconcile them will be an important challenge to be addressed in the next few years. We believe that the next wave of database technology will be represented by a DBMS that provides high-assurance privacy and security. In this paper, we elaborate on such challenges. In particular, we argue that we need to provide different views of data at a very fine level of granularity; conventional view technology is able to select only up to a single attribute value for a single tuple. We need to go even beyond this level. That is, we need a mechanism by which even a single value inside a tuple's attribute may have different views; we refer them as micro-views. We believe that such a mechanism can be an important building block, together with other mechanisms and tools, of the next wave of database technology.
Report on the 10th International Symposium on Database Programming Languages
Authors: Bierman Gavin , Koch Christoph
Published: May 2006

DBPL 2005 was held on August 28-29, 2005, in the charming surroundings of Trondheim, Norway, and was one of the eleven meetings that were co-located with VLDB. DBPL meets every two years and presents the very best work at the intersection of database and programming language research. DBPL 2005 is the tenth symposium in the series.
Rendering biological iridescences with RGB-based renderers
Authors: Sun Yinlong
Published: May 2006

Brilliant iridescent colors occur on many biological objects. Current RGB-based graphics renderers are not sufficient to simulate such phenomena. This is because biological iridescences are caused by interference or diffraction, which requires wavelength information to describe. In this article, we propose an iridescent shading process that allows to render biological iridescences with RGB-based renderers. The key ideas are to construct spectra from colors and to use a wavelength-dependent model to describe iridescences. A novel model for iridescent illumination due to multilayer interference is developed based on analytic calculation and numerical simulation, and is simplified for practical rendering. The iridescent shading process is implemented using RenderMan embedded in Maya. Iridescent Morpho butterflies and ground beetles are rendered as examples to test the proposed techniques.
A Conversation with Steve Ross-Talbot
Authors: O'Hanlon Charlene
Published: May 2006

Academics theorizing in their ivory towers; programmers at "Initech" toiling away in their corporate cubicles. While this might be a somewhat naïve characterization, the fact remains that both academics and practitioners could do a better job of sharing their ideas and innovations with each other. As a result, cutting-edge research often fails to find practical application in the marketplace.
Word-length optimization for differentiable nonlinear systems
Authors: Constantinides George A.
Published: May 2006

This article introduces an automatic design procedure for determining the sensitivity of outputs in a digital signal processing design to small errors introduced by rounding or truncation of internal variables. The proposed approach can be applied to both linear and nonlinear designs. By analyzing the resulting sensitivity values, the proposed procedure is able to determine an appropriate distinct word-length for each internal variable in a fixed-point hardware implementation. In addition, the power-optimizing capabilities of word-length optimization are studied. Application of the proposed procedure to adaptive filters and polynomial evaluation circuits realized in a Xilinx Virtex FPGA has resulted in area reductions of up to 80% (mean 66%) combined with power reductions of up to 98% (mean 87%) and speed-up of up to 36%(mean 20%) over common alternative design strategies.
Design and implementation of the Web-enabled NIST design repository
Authors: Szykman Simon , Sriram Ram D.
Published: May 2006

This article describes the design and development of a design repository software system. This system is a prototype implementation intended to demonstrate the role of design repositories as part of a vision for the next generation of product development software systems. This research involves not only the creation of a prototype software system, but is part of a broader effort that also includes the development of a core product knowledge representation and that seeks to address terminological and semantic issues associated with computer-aided product development. This article focuses on the interfaces that have been developed to support authoring and navigation of the product models stored in design repositories as well as the software architecture and associated rationale that provide the framework on which the system is built.
Is information systems a reference discipline?
Authors: Katerattanakul Pairin , Han Bernard , Rea Alan
Published: May 2006

The frequent citations to IS research suggest its role in advancing science.
Private lives
Authors: Shannon Meg McGinity
Published: May 2006

Laws governing surveillance must keep pace with technology.
Beyond the algorithmization of the sciences
Authors: Easton Thomas A.
Published: May 2006

Algorithmic thinking is transforming both the descriptive sciences and the humanities, bringing them all closer to the mathematical core of computer science.
Auditing sum-queries to make a statistical database secure
Authors: Malvestuto Francesco M. , Mezzini Mauro , Moscarini Marina
Published: May 2006

In response to queries asked to a statistical database, the query system should avoid releasing summary statistics that could lead to the disclosure of confidential individual data. Attacks to the security of a statistical database may be direct or indirect and, in order to repel them, the query system should audit queries by controlling the amount of information released by their responses. This paper focuses on sum-queries with a response variable of nonnegative real type and proposes a compact representation of answered sum-queries, called an information model in “normal form,” which allows the query system to decide whether the value of a new sum-query can or cannot be safely answered. If it cannot, then the query system will issue the range of feasible values of the new sum-query consistent with previously answered sum-queries. Both the management of the information model and the answering procedure require solving linear-programming problems and, since standard linear-programming algorithms are not polynomially bounded (despite their good performances in practice), effective procedures that make a parsimonious use of them are stated for the general case. Moreover, in the special case that the information model is “graphical.” It is shown that the answering procedure can be implemented in polynomial time.
ASM
Authors: Moffie Micha , Kaeli David
Published: May 2006

Our
Application Security Monitor
(ASM) is a run-time monitor that dynamically collects execution-related data. ASM is part of a security framework that will allow us to explore different security policies aimed at identifying malicious behavior such as Trojan horses and backdoors
.
In this paper, we show what type of data ASM can collect and illustrate how this data can be used to enforce a security policy. Using ASM we are able to explore different tradeoffs between security and performance
.
Transparent debugging of dynamically instrumented programs
Authors: Kumar Naveen , Peri Ramesh
Published: May 2006

Dynamic instrumentation systems, used for program analysis, bug isolation, software security and simulations, are becoming increasingly popular. There exists a need to debug dynamically instrumented programs while keeping the presence of dynamic instrumentation system hidden from debug users. Existing debuggers use debug information in program binaries that have been generated by a compiler at static compile time, to provide their debug support. Since dynamic instrumentation systems generate program code at run-time, existing debuggers are not able to provide the same kind of debug support. The most comprehensive existing debug techniques that satisfy this need, used by Tdb, require modification of existing debuggers. This paper provides an OS level approach that silently intercepts the communication between a debugger and the OS and uses a set of debug specifications to provide Tdb's transparent debugging. As a result, any existing debugger can be used to debug dynamically instrumented programs. The proposed techniques have been implemented on x86/Linux platform for the dynamic instrumentation system Pin.
Practical analysis of stripped binary code
Authors: Harris Laune C. , Miller Barton P.
Published: May 2006

Executable binary code is the authoritative source of information about program content and behavior. The compile, link, and optimize steps can cause a program's detailed execution behavior to differ substantially from its source code. Binary code analysis is used to provide information about a program's content and structure, and is therefore a foundation of many applications, including binary modification[3,12,22,31], binary translation[5,29], binary matching[30], performance profiling[13,16,18], debugging, extraction of parameters for performance modeling, computer security[7,8] and forensics[23,26]. Ideally, binary analysis should produce information about the content of the program's code (instructions, basic blocks, functions, and modules), structure (control and data flow), and data structures (global and stack variables). The quality and availability of this information affects applications that rely on binary analysis.
Internet nuggets
Authors: Thorson Mark
Published: May 2006

This column consists of selected traffic from the
comp.arch
newsgroup, a forum for discussion of computer architecture on the Internet---an international computer network.
Kode Vicious Bugs Out
Authors: Neville-Neil George
Published: May 2006

This month Kode Vicious serves up a mixed bag, including tackling the uncertainties of heisenbugs -- a nasty type of bug that’s been known to drive coders certifiably insane. He also gives us his list of must-reads. Are any of your favorites on the list? Read on to find out!
Preliminary design of JML
Authors: Leavens Gary T. , Baker Albert L. , Ruby Clyde
Published: May 2006

JML is a behavioral interface specification language tailored to Java(TM). Besides pre- and postconditions, it also allows assertions to be intermixed with Java code; these aid verification and debugging. JML is designed to be used by working software engineers; to do this it follows Eiffel in using Java expressions in assertions. JML combines this idea from Eiffel with the model-based approach to specifications, typified by VDM and Larch, which results in greater expressiveness. Other expressiveness advantages over Eiffel include quantifiers, specification-only variables, and frame conditions.This paper discusses the goals of JML, the overall approach, and describes the basic features of the language through examples. It is intended for readers who have some familiarity with both Java and behavioral specification using pre- and postconditions.
STCIM
Authors: Wang Zhong-Jie , Zhan De-Chen , Xu Xiao-Fei
Published: May 2006

Among recent developments in the field of software reuse has been the increasing reuse of coarse-grained components, and it has been proved that granularity has great impact on component's reuse performance. However, previous studies have ignored rigorous and effective methods to support coarse-grained component identification and design, particularly granularity optimization design. In this paper, a stability-based component identification method, STCIM, is presented to resolve this problem. First a feature-oriented component model and the corresponding component granularity metrics are briefly presented. By establishing mappings between business model space and component space, component design process may be regarded as the process of decomposition, abstraction and composition of business model elements, with four different mapping strategies discussed to obtain dynamic component granularities. Furthermore, it is thought that component granularity is closely correlative to the stability of business models: the more stable the business model, the larger the corresponding component granularity may be. A metrics for model stability with three factors, i.e., number of isomers, stability entropy and isomer similarity, is presented, and the corresponding component identification algorithm based on
Most Stable Set
is discussed in details. Finally a practical case is described to validate the method in this paper.
A word from the editor
Authors: Lee Newton
Published: May 2006

Welcome to ACM Computers in Entertainment, a premier online magazine featuring video interviews with leading professionals and interesting articles on entertainment technology and its applications.
2nd annual casual game evolution challenge
Authors: Lee Newton
Published: May 2006

Game Trust
, the leading infrastructure provider for premium online casual games, today announced that AOL Games is partnering with Game Trust in hosting the highly anticipated Second Annual "
Casual Game Evolution Challenge
." Launched last year at the Game Developer Conference (GDC), the Second Annual Casual Game Evolution Challenge seeks to identify the best Java web games for online, tournament and download play.