bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Graphical animation of object-oriented software designs (abstract)
Authors: Heikkinen Marko , Pulli Petri
Published: January 2007

We have built an extension to a prototype CASE tool called
ESPEX, that makes it possible to execute graphically Wassermans
Object-Oriented Structured Design (OOSD) notation. The tool itself
is implemented in the Smalltalk 80 programming environment. The
tool contains a window-based menu-driven graph editor and an
integrated graph simulator with animation support. Animation means
that the movements of data items and messages between objects are
visualized on a workstation display.

We have implemented simulation for object instances. We are
using moving tokens with data values attached on top of them.
Tokens flow from objects to other objects, carrying the essential
data with them. The moving tokens indicate clearly the active parts
of the model, while the data values also make it possible to
visualize the actual computations that take place in the objects.
Another advantage of moving tokens is that it is possible to attach
time stamps to tokens. With the help of the time stamps it is
possible to simulate experimenting with animation techniques for
dynamic creation and deletion of objects.

We model objects hierarchically, so that an object can be
composed of other lower level objects. At the lowest level objects
are described with predicate/transition Petri nets, and the
computations with IPTBS Meta-IV, Smalltalk-80, or C.

The work presented demonstrates that it is possible and feasible
to animate object-oriented design notation using a token moving
approach. However, there is still much work to be done on the
animation of dynamic instantiations and deletion of objects. We
believe that graphical animation tools are the enabling technology
for teamwork and for conceptual communication in the future
concurrent engineering working environments.

The work presented in this demo was carried out in the IPTES
project. IPTBS is partially funded by the European Communities
under the ESPRIT programme.
Object-oriented engineering of distributed applications (abstract)
Authors: Muhlhauser Max , Heuser Lutz
Published: January 2007

The Universities of Kaiserlautern and Karlsruhe are
cooperating with the CEC Karlsruhe, a research center of Digital
Equipment CmbH, in the area of software engineering for distributed
applications.

This demonstration will showcase DOCASE, a software engineering
environment for distributed applications, using object-oriented
technology. The demonstration will provide insight into the
methods, languages, tools and environments used in the life-cycle
of distributed applications. With the term distributed
applications, we put an emphasis on structured parallelism (which
comes more or less naturally with the logical structure and
inherent parallelism and distribution of an application), not so
much on the fine-grained parallelism exploited by applications such
as image processing etc.

With more and more complex (dynamic, multiparty, cooperative)
distributed applications to be developed in computer integrated
manufacturing, office automation, CSCW, and other domains, we think
that this topic is both very much up to date and a topic which is
not sufficiently taught.

The live demonstration will show a distributed application which
will allow researchers of arbitrary disciplines to coordinate their
work with other members of a research team. The underlying meta
model is generic and instantiated by developing a set of concrete
object types together with a GUI.
Verification and testing in an object-oriented CS2 course
Authors: Collins William J.
Published: January 2007

A model for verification and testing in an object-oriented CS2 course is presented. The model has four stages—two for verification and two for testing—at which student progress is evaluated. Students thereby see verification and testing as integral parts of the programming process, rather than as addenda. The impact of this model on students' programming behavior is discussed.
Some heuristics for playing Mastermind
Authors: Yue K
Published: January 2007

Several articles have appeared in SIGART Newsletter on the game of Mastermind during the recent three to four years (1 - 8). In particular, P. Norvig described a heuristic for obtaining an approximation to the optimal solution(1). In this article, several simple heuristics to play Mastermind are analyzed.
Model-driven reasoning for diagnosis
Authors: Yan J
Published: January 2007

We introduce the "model-driven reasoning" as an approach to diagnosing. Lucidness and explicitness of knowledge representation are emphasized. Good partitioning of diagnosis knowledge in the structure results in the attention focusing of interpretation and gives efficient reasoning power. The approach has been used in the design of a knowledge-based system for identifying paleo-depositional environments in oil prospecting.
Firmware engineering and microprogramming research at Colorado State University
Authors: Mueller Bob
Published: January 2007

Most of the firmware engineering research currently under investigation at CSU is focused on methods of automated microcode generation and compaction, particularly retargetable methods. We have developed a prototype for a retargetable microcode compiler, which is depicted in Figure 1. Ideally, the system shown is retargeted by supplying a
flow graph machine model
for the target machine, and the remainder of the system is invariant.
MICROTEC mcASM, Version 1.1-Structured microcode assembler
Authors: Denniston Brad
Published: January 2007

mcASM is a second generation Structured Microcode Assembler that is a, product of a joint effort between Advanced Micro Devices and Microtec Research. Years of bit-slice and microcode assembler experience by both companies has been combined with the latest in software technology to produce this advanced implementation of a relocatable microcode assembler. New features make mcASM faster and easier to use than conventional microcode assemblers so that the assembler package does more of the detail work. This allows the programmer to concentrate on the target system algorithm thereby achieving a more intelligent and more competeitve target system sooner.
Implementation as a means of reducing simulation costs
Authors: Comfort John C
Published: January 2007

The high cost of simulation has been well documented, and is a significant problem in many applications. In this paper, several existing methods for cost control and reduction are mentioned, and a modest proposal for drastically reducing simulation cost is presented.
An APL system for experimentation with spectral methods in fault detection
Authors: Gullichsen Eric
Published: January 2007

An ability to detect faults in digital circuitry is of increasing importance as a result of the current trend towards ever-greater levels of circuit complexity in VLSI design. This paper describes a system of APL routines that permits the interactive specification of combinational circuits and the discovery of spectra for lines of the (fault-free) circuits. The system can also simulate the spectral behavior of a specified circuit under the condition of "stuck-at" faults on any combination of circuit lines, or under the condition of some internal line considered as if it were another circuit input.
Continuous systems simulation using GPSS/H
Authors: Kalisz Eugenia
Published: January 2007

Simulation models of continuous systems are in fact discrete computational models. This is the result of applying numerical methods for integrating the differential equations generally used as mathematical models of continuous systems. Under such conditions the values of all variables in the simulation model are computed for discrete values of the independent variable
time
, separated by a fixed or variable
step
, according to the integration method used. Each value of the independent variable
time
for which the simulation model state changes can be considered as the time point when an
event
takes place. Such point of view leads to an obvious conclusion: continuous systems simulation can be performed using a discrete event simulator. This approach is very important in those cases when the considered system has a combined (discrete event and continuous) model and the available simulation tool does not provide for continuous systems modeling.
The object in perspective
Authors: Power June
Published: January 2007

From the Conclusions

The philosophy of language has indicated that there are serious omissions in the Cartesian theory of categorisation; notably, that members of a category are related by family resemblances and not necessarily by shared properties between members of categories. As observed by Lakoff, these findings are also in conflict with other popular positions held in the Artificial Intelligence community which view human reason as completely abstract, as well as assuming that every cognitive process is algorithmic in nature; that thought is purely a matter of symbol manipulation [9]. The former of these does not agree with findings of categorisation phenomena which imply that basic level concepts are characterised by basic-level perception and imaging capacities. The problem for the latter position is that the only way it can make sense of the understanding of two different conceptual systems is by means of the translation of one into another, or the translation of both into a third system. Understanding in terms of experience does not eliminate such organisational differences, so this is a problem which needs to be addressed.

Self-organising activity will involve, minimally, the management of information, its representation both within a given organisation as well as across organisations and the effect of system evolution on the object. The object model, as currently based on the Cartesian view of categorisation, may not be sufficient for these requirements. Instead, it may need to accommodate what have been termed the holistic aspects of knowledge representation and categorisation. In any event, in order to define a set of requirements for self-organising architectures, we will need to bear in mind not only the object, but also what is implied by the object.
Education is the future of APL
Authors: Peelle Howard A. , Skomorokhov Alexandr
Published: January 2007

A critical challenge confronts the APL community: How to ensure a positive future for APL. While problems persist and effective actions remain to be taken, solutions can be found in education.Besides APL's acknowledged strengths and potential for growth (well-known to this audience), various deterrents are reviewed. Important educational issues are identified, and a summary report is given of the
"APL in Education"
workshop (held during APL92) where issues were discussed, goals clarified, strategies proposed, and action plans generated. The APL community is charged with carrying out the plans and disseminating results both internally (via APL Quote Quad, Vector, APL News, etc.) as well as internationally to prospective APL users.
Array morphology
Authors: Bernecky Robert
Published: January 2007

Array morphology
is the study of the form, structure, and evolution of arrays. An
array annotation
for a program written in an applicative array language is an abstract syntax tree for the program, amended with information about the arrays created by that program. Array notations are useful in the production of efficient compiled code for applicative array programs. Array morphology is shown to be an effective compiler writer's tool. Examples of an array annotator in action are presented, showing its value in array morphology. Array morphology is shown to provide methods for static detection of certain classes of programming errors.
Assertions
are a generalization of declarations that offer significant benefits to application writers as well as compiler writers. Although assertions are executable code, they can often be evaluated at compilation time. Assertions, and therefore declarations, may be represented as conjunctions, and are, therefore, conforming extensions to ISO Standard APL. A
domain conjunction
is offered as an example of how assertions might be defined in APL or J.
Extending the APL character set
Authors: Brown James A. , Hawks Brent , Trimble Ray
Published: January 2007

APL is often presented as a notation that is independent of national language because of its symbolic nature. Paradoxically its unique character set has led to APL being treated as if it were itself a national language. This has meant, in many practical situations, that the APL character set is incompatible with national language character sets.IBM's APL2 attempted to avoid these problems by defining a set of extended (31 bit) characters, and this has indeed been helpful in handling Asian languages such as Kanji. But the character mappings adopted have not been adequate to support all European and Middle Eastern language characters, nor have they been consistent across platforms.With the advent of international standards for character assignment, there is an opportunity to create APL systems that handle the character sets of the world in an efficient and elegant manner. While at first the solution appears to require only a recitation of code point assignments, an analysis of the problem leads to interesting and disturbing questions about a number of APL system functions, system variables, commands, and file facilities. This paper explores problems with internal conversions, external representations, migration, compatibility, and interplatform portability.
SCARFS, an efficient polynomial zero-finder system
Authors: Chen Tien Chi
Published: January 2007

Programs in SCARFS makes a top-down search for zeros which are leaves in a polynomial tree, in which internal nodes represent clusters of high symmetry. Using new schemes for multiplicity estimation and iterate repositioning upon local rebounds by clusters, zeros are found one at a time with deflation in between. For arbitrary polynomials, a zero usually is found in fewer than 10 complex arithmetic iterations, showing significant gain in accuracy and speed over prior methods.
Transfinite nesting in array-theoretic figures, changes, rigs, and arms. Part I
Authors: More Trenchard
Published: January 2007

Nesting and stemming (infinite successive singling) of arrays of nestings and stemmings result in forms. Forms of 0th-, 1st-, 2nd-, or 3rd-order, array-theoretic, totally defined functions are again such functions, called, respectively, figures, changes, rigs, and arms. One arms a rig before rigging a change before changing a figure. Part I lays the foundation for a new approach to a theory of arrays. This Part considers the analogy between array-theoretic and Euclidean figures, analyzes form separately from substance, introduces
N
th-order functions, presents the beginnings of a syntax for the theory, and constructs a formal system to deduce the first few consequences of the first two primitive operations.
Trace driven analysis of write caching policies for disks
Authors: Biswas Prabuddha , Ramakrishnan K. K. , Towsley Don
Published: January 2007

The I/O subsystem in a computer system is becoming the bottleneck as a result of recent dramatic improvements in processor speeds. Disk caches have been effective in closing this gap but the benefit is restricted to the read operations as the write I/Os are usually committed to disk to maintain consistency and to allow for crash recovery. As a result, write I/O traffic is becoming dominant and solutions to alleviate this problem are becoming increasingly important. A simple solution which can easily work with existing tile systems is to use non-volatile disk caches together with a write-behind strategy. In this study, we look at the issues around managing such a cache using a detailed trace driven simulation. Traces from three different commercial sites are used in the analysis of various policies for managing the write cache.We observe that even a simple write-behind policy for the write cache is effective in reducing the total number of writes by over 50%. We further observe that the use of hysteresis in the policy to purge the write cache, with two thresholds, yields substantial improvement over a single threshold scheme. The inclusion of a mechanism to piggyback blocks from the write cache with read miss I/Os further reduces the number of writes to only about 15% of the original total number of write operations. We compare two piggybacking options and also study the impact of varying the write cache size. We briefly looked at the case of a single non-volatile disk cache to estimate the performance impact of statically partitioning the cache for reads and writes.
The influence of random delays on parallel execution times
Authors: Adve Vikram S. , Vernon Mary K.
Published: January 2007

Stochastic models are widely used for the performance evaluation of parallel programs and systems. The stochastic assumptions in such models exe intended to represent non-deterministic processing requirements as well as random delays due to inter-process communication end resource contention. In this paper, we provide compelling analytical and experimental evidence that in current and foreseeable shared-memory programs, communication delays introduce negligible variance into the execution time between synchronization points. Furthermore, we show using direct measurements of variance that other sources of randomness, particularly non-deterministic computational requirements, also do not introduce significant variance in many programs. We then use two examples to demonstrate the implications of these results for parallel program performance prediction models, as well as for general stochastic models of parallel systems.
SIGCHI annual report, 1992–1993
Authors: Henderson Austin
Published: January 2007

SIGCHI has had, as usual, a busy year. The membership has continued to grow slowly despite the economic climate, something we are very pleased with. At the close it has dropped slightly, something to be watched. The volunteer structure has been adequate to the programs we have undertaken; those involved are very enthusiastic. Debate on the future of the organization is continual, reflecting healthy involvement and concern. Our relations with other SIGs, the ACM volunteer structure, and the ACM professional staff has been very rewarding. In short, while not without difficulties and challenges, SIGCHI is a thriving organization.
Visual interaction design special interest area
Authors: Wadlow Maria G.
Published: January 2007

Many of us weren't able to attend this year's conference in Amsterdam, myself included. So, for this column, Andy Cargile has volunteered to act as our INTERCHI '93 correspondent and give us a feel for this year's conference from a visual designer's perspective. Andy has done a fabulous job of blending facts and impressions to help recreate for us something of the experience that was INTERCHI '93.
Computer-generated art, music, and literature
Authors: Fulda Joseph S.
Published: January 2007

What exactly is the meaning of "meaning"? Until Frege's seminal paper in 1892, "Über Sinn und Bedeutung"---"On Sense and Reference"
1
---philosophers groped for an answer without much success. Frege's theory answered this question by observing that "H.G. Wells" has two sorts of meanings:
reference,
the man referred to, i.e., H.G. Wells himself, and
sense,
the meaning that H.G. Wells has for us, e.g., "The author of
The War of the Worlds"
and "The first true science fiction author." To Frege, every proper name has both a reference, also termed denotation, and one or more senses, also termed connotations. Various philosophical difficulties and paradoxes arise from the dichotomy of sense and reference, because neither aspect of meaning captures the other. Thus, reference does not capture the sense (one can know H.G. Wells without knowing that he authored
The War of the Worlds),
nor does sense capture reference (one can know that someone must have authored
The War of the Worlds
without knowing who), nor does one sense capture another (one can know that Wells wrote
The War of the Worlds
without knowing that many consider him the first true science fiction author). One paradox is that the substitutivity of identity fails. Thus it may be the case that Wells and the author of
The War of the Worlds
are identical, yet one can believe that the author of
The War of the Worlds
is the first true science fiction author without believing that Wells is the first true science fiction author, even though all that has been done is the substitution of identicals. There are also difficulties---not necessarily paradoxical---inherent in Frege's theory. For example, what is the reference for a fictional character in a play or novel? The philosophical literature on meaning, sense, and reference is vast, and we have but opened the door.
Several unsolved problems in large-scale discrete event simulations
Authors: Lubachevsky Boris D.
Published: January 2007

Several mathematical and algorithmic problems that have arisen in discrete event simulations of large systems are described. The simulated systems belong to the areas of computational physics, queueing networks, and econometric models.
Parallel simulation of communicating finite state machines
Authors: Tropper Carl , Boukerche Azzedine
Published: January 2007

We describe, in this paper, a synchronization/deadlock resolution mechanism for a network of communicating finite state machines implemented on a parallel machine. As it is message-based, it is appropriate for distributed memory machines.

The technique was inspired by a project at the Jet Propulsion laboratories whose goal is the specification and verification of the software used to control the interplanetary spacecraft operated by the laboratory.

The network of communicating finite state machines makes use of write messages to alter the value of the variables describing the finite state machines and read messages to determine the state of the variables. Since a blocking protocol is employed, it is possible for deadlocks to occur. Consequently, we describe deadlock resolution algorithms.

Our algorithms were implemented on an iPSC/2 hypercube, demonstrating good performance on a queueing network model.
Performance of a riskfree Time Warp operating system
Authors: Bellenot Steven
Published: January 2007

Optimistic methods of synchronizing parallel discrete event simulations can be risky by sending (positive) messages (events) before they have been committed. Risky methods often use anti-messages (negative messages) to cancel incorrectly sent positive messages. Riskfree methods are more conservative, they do not send messages until they are known to be correct. The Time Warp Operating System (TWOS) uses anti-messages. Riskfree TWOS is implemented and tested on the standard TWOS benchmarks. Performance of the riskfree TWOS is dependent on the amount of lookahead in the simulation. Good lookahead was required for even reasonable performance. Tracker, a simulation of the riskfree simulation, is used to give idealized best case riskfree performance. BeRisky is an example simulation which has a speedup of
n
for Time Warp, but only a speedup of 2 for riskfree methods.
A new hashing function
Authors: Tian Zhiyu , Tong Shibai , Yang Shiyuan
Published: January 2007

Existing hashing functions have various limitations. In this paper a new hashing function is proposed, which divides the range of the key-values into some equal segments, and maps the key-values in each segment linearly into the whole range of the address. The paper analyzes the statistical behavior of the function, and points out that, theoretically, by increasing the number of segments, the distribution of the resulting hash values can always approach uniform, if the key-values can be regarded as continuous. Two methods for obtaining the number of segments, the deterministic and the probabilistic, along with the algorithm, are also proposed.
The KIM query system
Authors: Ferrara Fabrizio Massimo
Published: January 2007

In this paper we present the iconic query system of the KIM environment, providing the user with a homogeneous access to distributed, heterogeneous and multimedia databases through a modality independent of the specific underlying environments (i.e. DBMS and physical installations).A prototype of this system is being designed and implemented by a European Consortium under the KIM project, within the European ESPRIT programme. The characteristics of the query system have been identified on the basis of several research contributions, integrated and refined with the actual discussion and validation with a significant number of users in real working environments. Now, a significant nucleus of the prototype is operating and is being experimented with real databases at several pilot sites in Europe, and mainly at the European Space Agency in Frascati (Italy).The basic assumption underlying the KIM approach, is that conceptual (graphical) models can represent a suitable and integrated method to permit the user to access information from distributed, heterogeneous databases without needing to know the actual organisation, models and physical products.Different requirements and classes of users can be envisaged for a generic query system. An analysis of these categories is provided, discussing the most effective interfacing modalities for the individual cases.On the basis of the depicted considerations, the system provides both iconic and diagrammatic interfaces. The adoption of mixed interface (including both icons and ER diagrams) is quite innovative in this field, both as concerns the research activities and its actual implementation in industrial environments.
Design as a Way of Life
Authors: Wadlow Maria G.
Published: January 2007

I've been giving a lot of thought to the concept of Design. Just what is Design anyway? In our field, Design might mean system design, interface design, industrial design, or graphic design. We read books like "Designing the User Interface," "The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design," and "The Design of Everyday Things." We talk about the process of design and some of us think of ourselves as designers. But what do we really mean by Design?
Usability foresight: strategic usability planning
Authors: Happ Alan J.
Published: January 2007

This is the report of a Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting on Usability Foresight held at CHI'92. The discussion focused on how to set meaningful priorities for human factors/ usability research into human-computer interactions. This report describes the method presented and summarizes the results of a hands-on activity completed during the meeting.
Computer-aided adaptation of user interfaces
Authors: Benyon David , Kühme Thomas , Malinowsi Uwe , Sukaviriya Piyawadee Noi
Published: January 2007

The application of knowledge-based techniques to human-computer interaction is now a well-defined research area. Many experimental systems have been developed and there are a growing number of commercial applications. During the discussion at the INTERCHI '93 Research Symposium, it was speculated that intelligent interfaces would be emerging onto the market by 1996. The issue which concerned us and those attending the INTERCHI workshop on the topic was not 'should we have intelligent and adaptive interfaces?', nor was it 'how can we make a system adapt to people?' Based on the outcome of an earlier workshop on adaptive interfaces [1], we realized that more important issues lie in making users accept and understand adaptivity.
HCI '93: people and computers VIII
Authors: Day Donald
Published: January 2007

Three days of persistent rain and wind did not deter more than 160 industry and academic HCI specialists from attending HCI '93 at Loughborough University of Technology. Nearly one-third of registrants were from industry, two-thirds from academia. One-fifth were from abroad.
Book review: Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence by Todd C. Moody (Prentice Hall, 1993)
Authors: Causey Robert L.
Published: January 2007

This book presents philosophical issues related to the aims and methods of artificial intelligence (AI) research. Although it is introductory and assumes virtually no background knowledge of either philosophy or AI, it introduces and analyzes important foundational issues of AI. It is a text-book, but is suitable for a broad audience of readers who are interested in these foundational issues. Since most of these issues also pertain to the foundations of cognitive science, the book will be useful to readers interested in this interdisciplinary field. I will assume that the readers of this journal have general familiarity with the main topics covered in the book, including the Turing Test and John Searle's "Chinese Room Argument."
Book review: Generating Referring Expressions Constructing Descriptions in a Domain of Objects and Processes by Robert Dale (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992)
Authors: Kantrowitz Mark
Published: January 2007

This book is an updated version of Dale's 1988 PhD thesis at the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Cognitive Science. It will be of interest to all natural language generation researchers because it serves as a practical guide to the theory and methods of generating referring expressions. The key contributions of this work are the ontology and the algorithms for generating referring expressions.
Alternative perspectives of user participation
Authors: Saleem Naveed
Published: January 2007

A number of theories have been advanced in the information systems literature to rationalize the merits of user participation as a strategy for successful introduction of information systems in organizations. Importantly, while these theories contain some common elements, they also comprise significant differences. Understanding these commonalities and differences can facilitate effective implementation of user participation and thereby can make a difference in the ultimate failure or success of a system. This paper analyzes the major user participation theories; derives, as well as integrates, their implications for system users, user managers, and system designers; and infers respective applicability of these theories to specific system introduction contexts.
“Excellent” systems analysts
Authors: Hunter M. Gordon
Published: January 2007

Within the context of the desire to address the concerns of the software crisis, a research project was initiated to identify the skills and personal characteristics of "excellent" systems analysts. The project included 53 participants from 2 companies representing 5 groups or Audiences of individuals who interact with systems analysts. The data, gathered using Kelly's RepGrid technique, represent Audience perceptions of what constitutes an "excellent" systems analyst. Overall, the more important aspects, or Themes, which emerged from the data include communicate, attitude, knowledge, investigate, and experience. These common themes are referred to as "universals". The detailed interpretations of these aspects, as determined from the research data, varied amongst the Audiences and seem to reflect Audience objectives. For instance, User Audiences emphasized content related aspects, such as knowledge. Systems analyst and their supervisors, however, tended to differentiate on process related aspects, such as investigate. Each Audience and each corporation involved in this project had its own interpretation of the relative importance of what constitutes an "excellent" systems analyst. Thus, the importance of each "universal" has a "local" relative value.
A technique for tracing memory leaks in C++
Authors: Beaty Steven J.
Published: January 2007

Dynamic memory usage in C++ can lead to unrecovered allocations. A method of overloading the builtin new and delete functions is introduced that can ameliorate this problem.
Suggestion for a parametrized class model
Authors: de Oliveira Guimarães José
Published: January 2007

This paper discusses several features of parametrized classes, such as categories of its parameters, operations allowed and modes of instanciation. It also discusses the difficulties in describing the semantics of a class when it is used as a parameter for a parametrized class. The paper proposes a model unifying all parametrized class features discussed and presents suggestions for enhancing the use of these classes.
An experience of representing knowledge and data in mechanical design using Smalltalk-80
Authors: Xue Deyi
Published: January 2007

The experience of representing design knowledge and data in developing an intelligent design system for mechanical devices using the object oriented programming language --- Smalltalk-80 is summarized in this paper. Many object oriented programming techniques, especially the representation of inheritance and class-instance relations, are used for representing the design knowledge and data within the system. The characteristics of Smalltalk-80, including its rapid prototyping and large library properties, make it an excellent tool for this application. It is concluded from this work that object oriented programming language is a good tool for modeling design objects and for representing design knowledge.
Book review: Goal-Based Decision Making: An Interpersonal Model by Stephen Slade (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates)
Authors: Tuggle Francis D.
Published: January 2007

This is a mesmerizing book, containing many interesting and provocative ideas about decision making as a general process as well as decision making in both a private and a public group context. Specifically, it concerns the decision making process of individual members of Congress in the United States House of Representatives as they decide to vote for or against a particular piece of legislation. Members of Congress must make their decisions subject to conflicting pressures from constituents, lobbyists, other Washington, D. C. actors (e.g., how will the Supreme Court view the constitutionality of this legislation? what does the President of the United States want done? what actions will Senators from my state take?), all under intense media scrutiny while needing to explain, to influence, to justify, and to seek re-election. While Slade's book does not (necessarily!) treat all facets of the problem, he has made a valuable first step in explicating the process used.
Time in neural networks
Authors: Chappelier J.-C. , Grumbach A.
Published: January 2007

After the revival of interest in connectionism in the eighties and its successful application to pattern recognition problems, the time has come to consider its role in the field of temporal processing. We present here a general overview of the field of temporal neural networks. In order to give a broad framework to this presentation, we first present general properties of time that are used by AI models. This sets out the properties of time: - on its own, - with respect to a problem, - with respect to a model. We then present a short summary of time processing in symbolic AI. The main part of this article, a classification of temporal neural models, is introduced by a short presentation of basic connectionist models. This classification is then made and several relevant examples are presented. We conclude the article with underlining the difference between temporal reasoning and neural temporal processing, and give an introduction to the following papers of this Sigart special section.
Book review: Analogy Making as Perception by Melanie Mitchell (MIT Press)
Authors: Van Dyke Parunak H.
Published: January 2007

This adaptation of Mitchell's 1990 University of Michigan dissertation under Douglas Hofstadter reports the architecture and behavior of Copycat, a distributed system with stochastic decision making and emergent behavior that models basic hypotheses about human analogical reasoning, using test cases in the domain of letter sequence puzzles.
Three proposals for object orientation
Authors: Figoli Franklin
Published: January 2007

People can reason in comprehension as well as in extension. The paper defines extension and comprehension reasoning through models, interprets Contemporary OO (COO) concepts in extension and in comprehension, shows that COO was developed in extension and uses the comprehension approach to define relative entities.Our intuitive comprehension reasoning focus the reasoning on relative entities, which are the "objects" of OO. Then, this reasoning uses an OO approach. As a result, OO can be developed with day to day concepts in a friendly, simple and meaningful way. The paper shows which is the everyday concept that corresponds to each one of the main concepts of COO. This allows to simplify COO and leads to make OO our natural way of dealing with the computer.The paper proposes the utilization of the "OO technology" of our intuitive comprehension reasoning as a base for OO developments. This leads to use the logic of this reasoning (which is not logic-mathematics) as the logic of OO, and leads to use Artificial Intelligence criteria as a basis for OO developments.The paper is one of the results a research, done by the author, in the logic of comprehension reasoning and in the computer methodologies and systems that follow from this logic.
CLAP: an object-oriented programming system for distributed memory parallel machines
Authors: Desbiens Jocelyn , Lavoie Martin , Pouzyreff Stéphane , Raymond Pierre , Tamazouzt Tahar , Toulouse Michel
Published: January 2007

The Agha and Hewitt Actor model [
1,3,4
] is a natural extension of the object paradigm as we know it to the field of parallel programming. The model respects the primary principles of object-oriented programming, i.e. abstraction of data and encapsulation, making object-oriented programming a good tool for the programming of parallel computers. We describes one Actor model implementation on a distributed memory parallel machine: the CLAP actor language. We explain why the Actor model can express, on distributed memory parallel machines, the natural parallelism of applications and offer other properties useful for programming this type of machine. We then discuss the implementation, currently in its final phase, of the Actor model on a distributed memory parallel machine.
Book review: Information Retrieval Data Structures & Algorithms by William B. Frakes (Software Engineering Guild), Ricardo Baeza-Yates (University of Chile). Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1992, 504 pp., $50.00 (Retail Price), ISBN 0-13-463837-9.
Authors: Can Fazli
Published: January 2007

This is an extremely welcome addition to the Information Retrieval (IR) literature. Because of its technical approach it is much different from most of the available books on IR. The book consists of five sections containing eighteen chapters. The chapters are written by different authors.
SIGIR '93: school of library and information science, Univ. of Pittsburgh
Authors: Koshman Sherry
Published: January 2007

The Sixteenth Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval was held in Pittsburgh from June 27 to July 1. This conference, with its focus on research, is the premier venue for the discussion of theoretical and practical elements of information retrieval (IR).
Sparse polynomials and linear logic
Authors: Baker Henry G.
Published: January 2007

The Gabriel
FRPOLY
benchmark was rewritten in a "linear" fragment of Common Lisp and is competitive with the standard FRPOLY benchmark code. This linear FRPOLY is considerably more perspicuous than the standard code, while its running time is only 6% longer than that of the standard FRPOLY code. Linear FRPOLY recovers
all
of its garbage, and its "high water mark" space requirement is very probably smaller than that of the standard code. In the expansion of (x+y+z+1)
15
, the standard FRPOLY does 48,892 new conses, while the linear FRPOLY does only 4821 new conses---i.e., it does only about 10% of the consing of the standard FRPOLY code.We also tested versions of FRPOLY in which squarings were
not
used for exponentiation. This non-linear FRPOLY does 38,780 conses, and takes only 59% of the time of the non-linear squaring FRPOLY. The linear non-squaring FRPOLY takes only 62% of the time of the linear squaring FRPOLY, and cuts the new consing to 3988 cells. A slightly slower version cuts the new consing to 2590 cells---only 567 cells (28%) more than are used in the result.
What is a solution of an ODE?
Authors: Corless Robert M.
Published: January 2007

This article will introduce a nonstandard definition of the 'solution' of an ordinary differential equation (ODE). I hope that this article will start some discussion; further, I hope that this article will have some effect on the ambitious European CATHODE project, which is attempting to provide tools in computer algebra for handling ordinary differential equations.
Report on the HISC workshop
Authors: Heck André
Published: January 2007

The Research Institute for Applications of Computer Algebra (RIACA) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, organized on March 10-11, 1994, an international workshop entitled
Human Interaction for Symbolic Computation.
The main goal of the HISC workshop, which was held at CWI in Amsterdam and had over fifty participants, was to investigate new paradigms to improve human interaction with symbolic computation software.
Use of application characteristics and limited preemption for run-to-completion parallel processor scheduling policies
Authors: Chiang Su-Hui , Mansharamani Rajesh K. , Vernon Mary K.
Published: January 2007

The performance potential of run-to-completion (RTC) parallel processor scheduling policies is investigated by examining whether (1) application execution rate characteristics such as
average parallelism (avg)
and
processor working set (PWS)
and/or (2) limited preemption can be used to improve the performance of these policies. We address the first question by comparing policies (previous as well as new) that differ only in whether or not they use execution rate characteristics and by examining a wider range of the workload parameter space than previous studies. We address the second question by comparing a simple two-level queueing policy with RTC scheduling in the second level queue against RTC policies that don't allow any preemption and against dynamic equiallocation(EQ).

Using simulation to estimate mean response times we find that for promising RTC policies such as adaptive static partitioning (ASP) and shortest demand first (SDF), a maximum allocation constraint that is for all practical purposes independent of
avg
and
pws
provides greater and more consistent improvement in policy performance than using
avg
or
pws
. Also, under the assumption that job demand information is unavailable to the scheduler we show that the ASP-max policy outperforms all previous high performance RTC policies for workloads with coefficient of variation in processing requirement greater than one. Furthermore, a two-level queue that allows at most one preemption per job outperforms ASP-max but is not competitive with EQ.
SynRGen: an extensible file reference generator
Authors: Ebling Maria R. , Satyanarayanan M.
Published: January 2007

SynRGen, a synthetic file reference generator operating at the system call level, is capable of modeling a wide variety of usage environments. It achieves realism through trace-inspired
micromodels
and flexibility by combining these micromodels stochastically. A micromodel is a parameterized piece of code that captures the distinctive signature of an application. We have used SynRGen extensively for stress testing the Coda File System. We have also performed a controlled experiment that demonstrates SynRGen's ability to closely emulate real users—within 20% of many key system variables. In this paper we present the rationale, detailed design, and evaluation of SynRGen, and mention its applicability to broader uses such as performance evaluation.
Modeling RPC performance
Authors: Rolia J. A. , Starkey M. , Boersma G.
Published: January 2007

Distributed computing applications are collections of processes allocated across a network that cooperate to accomplish common goals. The applications require the support of a distributed computing runtime environment that provides services to help manage process concurrency and interprocess communication. This support helps to hide much of the inherent complexity of distributed environments via industry standard interfaces and permits developers to create more portable applications. The resource requirements of the runtime services can be significant and may impact application performance and system throughput. This paper describes work done to study the potential benefits of redesigning some aspects of the DCE RPC and its current implementation on a specific platform.
A practical approach to the evaluation of microcode systems
Authors: Skibbe R. E.
Published: January 2007

This paper describes a microcode-evaluation methodology. The supporting test tools were developed by the IBM General Products Division in Tucson, Arizona, to allow effective and comprehensive evaluations of microcode systems. The methodology has been used successfully by the Tucson Test Laboratory (TTL) during the past several years.

The evaluation methodology is characterized by an integrated application of static and dynamic analysis techniques. These two modes of analysis are complementary and they allow a level of automation that can significantly enhance the productivity of a testing organization through the systematic application of automated testing techniques. The methodology also establishes a discipline for the microcode-testing process that promotes a formal program of defect removal. Of course, improving the process of removing defects produces a corresponding enhancement in product quality.
The architecture of the hardware unification unit and an implementation
Authors: Woo N. S.
Published: January 2007

This paper describes the architecture and the current implementation of the hardware unification unit (HUU). The HUU performs the literal unification operation in Prolog processing. It is designed as a coprocessor to a host system that handles other operations of Prolog processing such as bookkeeping and sequencing. After the host system provides input values to the HUU and activates it, the HUU works independently from the host system; when it finishes its operation it reports the result to the host system. The HUU contains local memory that stores the variable binding information. The microinstructions and a sample microprogram of the HUU are described. Performance measures obtained from the HUU simulator are presented and discussed.
Critical issues regarding HPS, a high performance microarchitecture
Authors: Patt Y. N. , Melvin S. W. , Hwu W. M. , Shebanow M. C.
Published: January 2007

HPS is a new model for a high performance microarchitecture which is targeted for implementing very dissimilar ISP architectures. It derives its performance from executing the operations within a restricted window of a program out-of-order, asynchronously, and concurrently whenever possible. Before the model can be reduced to an effective working implementation of a particular target architecture, several issues need to be resolved. This paper discusses these issues, both in general and in the context of architectures with specific characteristics.
Use of APL in Japan
Authors: Saigusa Kyosuke
Published: January 2007

This is a historical account of the use of APL, in Japan from the personal observation of the author. This is not intended to be scientific nor objective or based on studies or surveys of any sort. The description is mostly about IBM APL, because the author was employed by IBM for a significant part of his active years with APL. But the author also believes himself to be amongst the most informed persons in the area of the use of APL in Japan regardless of interpreter's manufacturers by being an open and independent APL consultant for 10 years now with wide contacts with various individuals in the world of APL.