bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Designing considerate systems (abstract only)
Authors: Anderson Ronald E.
Published: April 2007

Ease of Use can be thought of as consisting of two components: Ease of Learning and Ease of Doing. In the past, most of the attention in discussions of Ease of Use has focused on Ease of Learning. This is the motivation behind consideration for the "naive" or "casual" user. The most common approach has been to allow trading computing functionality for Ease of Learning. This makes the most commonly performed tasks very simple to perform, but prevents a wide range of other tasks from being performed at all. This affects Ease of Doing.Ease of Doing is a concept that has been primarily associated with expert users of computing systems. A task is only Easy to Do on a computer if the proper tools have been provided for doing it. Since there is an enormous range of tasks to apply systems to, there must also be a large collection of tools. A great variety of software tools that are finely tuned to particular applications should be made available to users. In addition, the system should be extensible to allow for ready customization.We feel that a sophisticated personal computing environment must provide a quick path for casual users to be able to operate parts of the system, and yet allow more habitual users a path to gain mastery over the more esoteric components of the system with time.
Concise natural language interaction (abstract only)
Authors: Michaelis Paul Roller , Hendler James A.
Published: April 2007

Advances in both hardware and software continue to make it possible to design user oriented systems more easily. Because we have not had a language for describing the user orientation of computer systems, a variety of interpersonal metaphors have been used to aid in the comparative evaluations of systems. Recent cultural history has shaped the semantics of computer systems. Out of the turbulent, liberal strains of the 1960s emerged the movement to humanize computer systems. During the self-centered backlash of the 1970s the term friendly became a computer household word. During the 1980s we need to grow beyond a concern for friendliness alone and build systems that are considerate.Consideration supercedes friendliness in at least three major ways, First, it goes beyond satisfaction by focusing upon attempts to help and assist others. Secondly, it requires that a person take the role of another and take the other's needs into account. Thirdly, to be considerate is to be courteous and, most importantly, respectful. In these respects, the metaphor of the considerate system points to the essence of user orientation wltbout sacrificing other critical system features such as productivity. In fact, truly considerate systems will facilitate productivity because of improved communication clarity, greater tolerance for user errors and idiosyncrasies, and increased availability of options, i.e., user-directed socio-computer interaction.Designing and developing considerate systems is not easy and requires considerable time and effort. Representative users must he involved in the selection of system features and in the process (formative) evaluation as well as the outcome (summative) evaluation. Consequently, there is a very necessary and essential role for the social scientist in the development of present day socio-computer systems.
A study of entity-based database interfaces (abstract only)
Authors: Mantei M. M. , Cattell R. G.G.
Published: April 2007

A study is presented of a database system interface in which an entity (a concept) and the relationships in which it is involved are displayed to the user: the user is permitted to move about in the database by selecting entities related to the current one displayed. The database system is intended as a personalized database (PDB) for a scientist, student, manager, or anyone who has a need for a fast mechanism for storing and organizing a wide variety of information. The study is exploratory recording baseline times and types of behavior for a variety of personal information management tasks performed by one individual. Data entry, information retrieval, and browsing behavior are examined and contrasted to behavior with more conventional storage media.
What makes computer games fun? (abstract only)
Authors: Malone Thomas
Published: April 2007

One can't deny the effectiveness of video arcade games in reachipg users! Just loop at the number of quarters pushed into the slots, the time spent by people of widely differing abilities, and the number of repeat encounters with the systems. At least part of the success is due to the ease of getting started (the first play of the game gets one comfortable with the procedures), the high degree of visualization of controls and results, and the responsiveness overall. Other factors will be taken up by the panelists.Review of the home computer market shows what can be accomplished by an easy-to-use accounting aid through advertising store demonstrations, and word of mouth. Visicalc has sold over a million dollars! Attendees will have an opportunity to try some of these impressive applications before and after the session.
Direct manipulation
Authors: Shneiderman Ben
Published: April 2007

Direct manipulation is a style of interaction which has been used by implementers of widely varying systems. Direct manipulation permits novice users access to powerful facilities without the burden of learning to use a complex syntax and lengthy list of commands. Display editors use direct manipulation more than line editors. Form-fill-in is more direct than tag fields and delimiters. Spatial data management is more direct than query-by-example, which is more direct than SEQUEL. Computer arcade games and Visicalc are further examples.Direct manipulation involves three interrelated techniques:1. Provide a physically direct way of moving a cursor or manipulating the objects of interest.2. Present a concrete visual representation of the objects of interest and immediately change the view to reflect operations.3. Avoid using a command language and depend? on operations applied to the cognitive model which is shown on the display.
What can be learned from arcade games and home computer applications? (A Panel Discussion)
Authors: Zinn Karl L.
Published: April 2007

The presentation deals with two questions:1) What makes games so captivating?2) How can the same features (that make computer games captivating) be used to make other user interfaces more interesting and enjoyable to use?First, three empirical studies are described. These studies analyze which features of several computer games are most important in making the games enjoyable. Then a set of heuristics for incorporating these features in other user interfaces will be outlined. The heuristics are organized in three categories: challenge, fantasy and curiosity.
In memoriam: Hirondo Kuki
Authors: Kahan W.
Published: April 2007

Computer professionals everywhere will have occasion to share with Hirondo's family and friends that sense of grievous loss evoked by his premature death. Almost all of us who do scientific calculations on IBM equipment benefit unknowingly from his craftsmanship, unknowingly because Hirondo was too self-effacing to secure the public recognition his work deserves. Let us mark his passing by acknowledging how much we owe him.
Signum 1971 nonacademic numerical mathematics survey
Authors: Fritsch F. N.
Published: April 2007

During the months of July and August 1971 a questionnaire was sent by SIGNUM to 447 nonacademic institutions in North America. (Of these, 16 were in Canada, 4 in Mexico.) These institutions were selected as known employers of mathematicians or users of large-scale scientific computers. According to the cover letter, the purpose of this survey was "to determine where numerical mathematicians are employed in the nonacademic world, how many there are, and what they are doing." This report is a brief summary of the responses to that survey. Complete details are given in reference [1].
On hardware for scientific computation
Authors: Dunham Charles B.
Published: April 2007

W. J. Cody (SIGNUM Newsletter, January 1971, pp. 16--31) and others have been working on finding desirable characteristics of hardware for scientific computation. The author is somewhat skeptical of the value of this, in view of the following facts. First, manufacturers have a large investment in software for their current machines and are, therefore, reluctant to make any change which would require a major change to the software. Secondly, machines are used for many other purposes and manufacturers may feel that there will be more payoff in making improvements in other areas. Thirdly, numerical analysts are rarely consulted in the acquisition of new machines. It seems to the author that much more would be gained by the following two steps. First, a rating scheme might be developed which rates the ability of a given machine to do scientific computation. If this rating scheme is widely used in the acquisition of machines, incentive will be given to the manufacturers to improve their products. Secondly, it would be useful to have papers given by users of a given machine which list problems in use of the machine, bad points of the machine, tricks in getting around problems or bad points, good points of the machine, tricks for improving efficiency at the assembly language or FORTRAN level, and desirable modifications to that machines hardware. In particular, the problem of efficiently multiply or dividing by a power of the base is of interest: it should be noted that on some machines multiplying by a power of the base does not always give the true answer. In case the base is 2, special methods for halving a number are also of interest. By far the best study of machines to date is W. J. Cody's "The Influence of Machine Design on Numerical Algorithms", (Spring Joint Computer Conference, 1967, 305-309).
Is the fast Givens transformation really fast?
Authors: Hanson Richard J.
Published: April 2007

During the Eigensystem Workshop at Argonne National Laboratory, June 23-29, 1973, several attendees (including the author) listened to instruction regarding the use of the eigenvalue software product of NATS. [EISPACK. User's Information, from Argonne National Laboratory.]
On the design of a user interface to large Fortran subroutine packages under IBM 360/370 OS
Authors: Tweedale A. , Chan C.
Published: April 2007

An often encountered inconvenience when one uses a large subroutine package (e.g. IBMSSP) is that one faces the problem of selecting the proper subroutines in the proper sequence to execute the proper computation. This at times is difficult if not prohibitive because the algorithms employed by the subroutines are sophisticated and beyond the comprehension of the user. When this happens, the subroutine package becomes a frustration as much as a useful tool to the user. It is therefore desirable to split up such large subroutine packages into chapters of subroutines according to their functions and create control routines for each chapter. The purpose of these control routines is to interpret the arguments supplied by the user and then invoke the proper subroutines in the proper sequence for the computational solution.
CHAMP code calculations of surface and subsurface explosions (abstract)
Authors: Edwards L. L. , Hickman R. B. , Hobson J. K. , Michels T. C.
Published: April 2007

The CHAMP (Coupled HEMP and Multifluid Eulerian Program) computer code package solves complex radiation diffusion and hydrodynamics problems. We discuss the structure of the code package and its applications to high-energy explosions on the ground surface and at shallow depths of burial.
The splitting concept applied to the OIL family of codes (abstract)
Authors: Johnson W. E.
Published: April 2007

The genesis of the OIL code is the original Particle-in-Cell code written by Dr. Francis Harlow at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (Ref. 1). The OIL code (Ref. 2) was then developed by replacing the discrete particle mass transport by a continuum, resulting in a near infinite particle representation. The TOIL code (Ref. 3) was then developed by extending the technique to two materials.
Software for computers with parallel or pipeline architecture (abstract)
Authors: Lomax H. , Stevens K.
Published: April 2007

This paper is addressed to those computer users who have the following interests in common. First, they are engaged in the numerical study of a discipline at a level where they wish to write or to understand critical portions of a computer code written in some high-level or scientific language. Second, the amount of numerical manipulations required in their study is large enough to require highly efficient use of the hardware of a major computer facility in order to prevent a calculation from becoming prohibitively costly. Finally, they are willing to accept the responsibility for making the code efficient, but they wish to minimize the amount of their time spent in doing so. At present it is usually difficult to realize the third of these interests in light of the first two. Big problems point to computers with special architectures, and these are usually difficult to program efficiently without devoting a sizable effort to data storage and data management. This paper explores some strategies that can be useful in reducing this difficulty. All of our examples will involve the solution of partial differential equations in three-dimensions by means of numerical algorithms requiring meshes with rectangular topologies. In all cases these "big problems" are defined to have data bases that are too large to fit in core.
Numerical software for minicomputers
Authors: Nash J. C.
Published: April 2007

Largely by accident, the author has found himself developing numerical software for small (about 7K byte) computers. In response to a mention of this field by the Editor of SIGNUM Newsletter, in the October 1974 issue, it seems appropriate to mention some of the experience accumulated at Agriculture Canada in the past 18 months.
A new class of multistep methods for systems of first order differential equations with exponential adaptation
Authors: Strehmel Karl
Published: April 2007

Consider an initial value problem for a system of n simultaneous differential equations in vector notation
"A conjecture in numerical linear algebra"
Authors: Farkas I.
Published: April 2007

In [1] and [2] we proposed a conjecture in numerical linear algebra and here we would like to clarify an implicit assumption in our note. Throughout we meant by a matrix always a dense matrix. It was clear to us that for real symmetric band matrices the "chasing" strategy proposed by Rutishauser [3] is superior to the unmodified form of tridiagonalization. It has also been pointed out [4] that for very sparse matrices the Givens' method can take more advantage of the sparsity than Householder's method. At present intensive research is being done in the field of very large matrix problems [5] and here new approach is necessary. In spite of the development of a fast Givens transformation [6], [7], we still feel that our conjecture may hold true for dense matrices, because we request minimum of operations and optimal numerical properties.
Note on the pre-conditioning of matrices
Authors: Huang C. P.
Published: April 2007

In [1] Osborne presents and proves the convergence of an iterative process for pre-conditioning an irreducible matrix A or order n. The process involves the construction of the non-singular diagonal matrix D(k), and the formation of the similarity transformations
Further decomposition of the pseudoinverse and eigensystem of a Hermitian persymmetric matrix
Authors: Goldstein Marvin J.
Published: April 2007

It is known that the computation of the pseudoinverse or eigensystem of a Hermitian persymmetric matrix decomposes into the corresponding computation for a real symmetric matrix of the same order. Herein it is shown that the decomposition proceeds further if the real symmetric matrix is of special form.
Parameterization of the environment for transportable numerical software
Authors: Ford Brian
Published: April 2007

An early draft of this note was used as a discussion document during the first meeting of the IFIP Working Group on Numerical Software (WG 2.5) in Oxford in January 1975. The meeting requested a precise specification of the purpose of the note and suggested a number of other improvements which led to a second draft. Written comment led to further changes. A third draft was discussed during a workshop on transportable numerical software in the Applied Mathematics Division of the Argonne National Laboratory in August 1975. A fourth draft was written in January 1976 and distributed widely for comment and criticism. Discussion at the NSF/ERDA workshop on portability of numerical software and at the second meeting of the IFIP WG 2.5 (both in June 1976), together with correspondence from other parties led to the preparation of the present document. Although some of the comment was contradictory, it is our belief that this final document represents a consensus view.
Report on discussions held by the IFIP Working Group 2.5 on Numerical Software
Authors: Lawson Charles L.
Published: April 2007

This paper is one of three to be presented at a joint meeting of SIGNUM and the ANSI X3J3 Fortran Committee October 18, 1978, for the purpose of communicating suggestions arising in the mathematical software community to the X3J3 Committee. A summary is given of language problem areas and possible solutions that have been discussed by the IFIP Working Group 2.5 on Numerical Software. Also included are some thoughts on control structures due to the author.
Environment parameters and basic functions for floating-point computation
Authors: Brown W. S. , Feldman S. I.
Published: April 2007

This paper presents a language-independent proposal for environment parameters and basic functions for floating-point computation, and suggests a specific representation in terms of generic functions for Fortran 77. The environment parameters were originally introduced in 1967 by Forsythe and Moler [1], who attributed the essentials of their theory to Wilkinson [2]. These parameters are also used in the PORT mathematical subroutine library [3], with precise definitions in terms of a more recent model of floating-point computation [4], and a similar set has been proposed by the IFIP Working on Numerical Software [5]. Three of the basic functions are taken from a proposal by Ford, Reid, and Smith [6], but redefined in terms of the parameters and the model to provide a firm theoretical foundation. The other three basic functions can be expressed in terms of these, but we feel they should be provided separately for convenience.

The stated purpose of the model is to capture the fundamental concepts of floating-point computation in a small set of parameters and a small set of axioms. In this paper we extend the earlier work by proposing basic functions to analyze, synthesize, and scale floating-point numbers, and to provide sharp measures of roundoff error.
The AUGMENT precompiler as a tool for the development of special purpose arithmetic packages
Authors: Crary F. D. , Yohe J. M.
Published: April 2007

We discuss the use of a FORTRAN precompiler in the development of packages for nonstandard arithmetics. In particular, the use of the FORTRAN precompiler, AUGMENT, renders the source code more lucid, reduces the number of lines of code in a nonstandard arithmetic package, facilitates modification, and ameliorates the problems of transporting such a package to another host system.
Programmable formatting of program text
Authors: Dritz Kenneth W.
Published: April 2007

The TAMPR System originated as an approach to the problem of automating the routine modifications of Fortran source programs required to adapt them to a variety of uses or environments [1]**. Overall, the system accomplishes such modifications by applying transformations to Fortran programs at the source level. But the process differs markedly, in detail, from string-based editing or macro expansion. Three steps are involved:

(1) A Fortran source program is processed by the TAMPR Recognizer, yielding essentially a parse tree called the abstract form.

(2) The Transformation Interpreter applies IGT's (Intragrammatical Transformations) to the abstract form as tree operations [2].

(3) The abstract form is then reconverted to source program form by the Formatter.

By ensuring that the transformations are applied only to the correct syntactic entities and only in the intended contexts, the use of the abstract form greatly simplifies establishing the reliability of the overall process.
The programming language EFL
Authors: Feldman S. I.
Published: April 2007

EFL is a comprehensive language designed to make it easy to write portable, understandable programs. It provides a rich set of data types and structures, a convenient operator set, and good control flow forms. The lexical form is easy to type and to read.

EFL was originated by A. D. Hall. The current author completed the design of the language and wrote the current compiler. Whenever possible, EFL uses the same forms that Ratfor [1] does; in this sense EFL may be viewed as a superset of Ratfor. EFL is a well-defined language; this distinguishes it from most “Fortran preprocessors” which only add simple flow of control constructs to Fortran.
The IMSL environment for software development
Authors: Aird T. J. , Kainer D. G.
Published: April 2007

IMSL has developed a set of macros and a file naming convention that automates the subroutine development and testing process over ten computer types. The IMSL software development system is implemented on a Data General Eclipse C330 computer with 256K bytes of central memory and 192M bytes of disk storage using the AOS Operating System. RJE activity is handled by a Data 100 communications computer. The system allows the programmer to work with basis decks. Distribution decks are generated, by the IMSL Fortran converter, as they are needed for testing and whenever the basis deck has been modified.
Activities of the DOE Advanced Computing Committee Language Working Group
Authors: Jones Rondall E.
Published: April 2007

The Language Working Group is a technical arm of the DOE Advanced Computing Committee. The purpose of the Group is to work toward providing a compatible Fortran environment at the ACC sites. A brief history of the efforts of the Group is given, and the general features of the language the group will recommend are discussed. This language is a multi-level Fortran with Fortran 77 as the core.
Comments on the IFIP working group 2.5 proposal on "parameterization of the environment for transportable numerical software"
Authors: Feldman S. I.
Published: April 2007

IFIP Working Group 2.5 has proposed a set of parameters for describing the computing environment. This proposal appeared in the SIGNUM Newsletter [1], and simultaneously in several other journals. It is unfortunate that this paper is presented as a consensus view, when no reference is made to earlier published work on similar parametrizations (see especially [2] and [3]). There certainly is a clear need for a way to parametrize details of the computing environment. At present, each large numerical project uses its own set of parameters. A generally used and available set of such quantities is certainly long overdue. The numerical community should certainly propose and even adopt a set of its own, and it is laudable that the IFIP Working Group 2.5 has taken this task upon itself. However, I disagree with many of the details of the proposal.
Draft proposal for a binary normalized floating point standard
Authors: Payne Mary , Strecker William
Published: April 2007

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by Digital Equipment Corporation. Digital Equipment Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors which may appear in this document.
Error control in the numerical inversion of the eigenvector matrix
Authors: Francis M. D.
Published: April 2007

The numerical inversion of the eigenvector matrix is an essential mathematical operation in various branches of mathematics, science and engineering. There is no single method which yields an exact inverse of any given matrix. There are several applications where we are free to rearrange the columns of the eigenvector matrix in any order we like provided the eigen values are also shifted accordingly and the matrix with the best column arrangement (which reduces the errors in the inverse) can be used for inversion.
Band arrays in Fortran
Authors: Eisenstat S. C. , Lewis J. W.
Published: April 2007

By breaking the usual linkage between the two functions of an array declaration -- storage allocation and element access -- a particularly elegant and readable FORTRAN representation for band matrices is obtained. Mathematical software using this representation involves simpler index expressions, is easier to read, and may produce more efficient code.
Survey on programming language facilities for numerical computation
Authors: Rice John R.
Published: April 2007

New programming languages are still appearing and old ones are being modernized. Even in the numerical areas there is little information to guide the language designer as to what the users like or need. This survey is collect some such information. Facilities are described in functional terms and there is no intention to describe syntax or even the details of semantics. There is little discussion of "general purpose" language facilities unless there is some special aspect of this facility relevant to numerical computation. It is recognized that there are normally many ways to provide a given capability within a particular programming language design.
Sparse matrix test problems
Authors: Duff Iain , Grimes Roger , Lewis John , Poole Bill
Published: April 2007

The development, analysis and production of algorithms in sparse linear algebra often requires the use of test problems to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the algorithms. Many algorithms have been developed in the context of specific application areas and have been tested in the context of sets of test problems collected by the developers. Comparisons of algorithms across application areas and comparisons between algorithms has often been incomplete, due to the lack of a comprehensive set of test problems. Additionally we believe that a comprehensive set of test problems will lead to a better understanding of the range of structures in sparse matrix problems and thence to better classification and development of algorithms. We have agreed to sponsor and maintain a general library of sparse matrix test problems, available on request to anyone for a nominal fee to cover postal charges. Contributors to the library will, of course, receive a free copy.
Radian reduction for trigonometric functions
Authors: Payne Mary H. , Hanek Robert N.
Published: April 2007

An accurate reduction poses little difficulty for arguments of a few radians. However for, say, a CRAY1, H format on the VAX, or double extended in the proposed IEEE standard, the maximum argument which might be presented for reduction is of the order of 2^16000 radians. Accurate reduction of such an argument would require storage of π (or its reciprocal) to over 16,000 bits. Direct reduction by division (or multiplication) then requires generation of a somewhat larger number of bits in the result in order to guarantee the accuracy of the reduction. Of these bits only the low few bits of the integer part of the quotient (product) and enough bits to correctly round the remainder are relevant; the rest will be discarded.
A new release of SPARSPAK
Authors: George Alan , Ng Esmond
Published: April 2007

Large sparse matrix problems arise frequently in many scientific and engineering computations. In order to solve these problems efficiently, both in terms of execution time and storage requirement, complicated storage management and data structures are usually required. However, if solving a sparse matrix problem is the prime objective, it is undesirable to have to understand the sophisticated techniques employed before the problem can be solved. Thus it is important to have software packages for solving large sparse matrix problems that provide a set of interface subroutines which insulate the users from the complicated internal structures.
NEXUS
Authors: Gaffney P. W. , Addison C. A. , Andersen B. , Bjørnestad S. , England R. E. , Hanson P. M. , Pickering R. , Thomason M. G.
Published: April 2007

This paper gives a brief historical perspective on the first author's use of information systems in mathematical consulting. Experience in this area has led to the conclusion that numerical analysts must look beyond conventional expert systems if they are to be successful in reaching the general scientific user community. With the increasing use of personal workstations it is necessary to give information and advice to a user while at the computer terminal. In the opinion of the authors the ideal way of doing this is through a programming environment that offers interaction with a user in order to actually solve the user's problem.Such an environment has come to be called a Problem Solving Environment or PSE. (For an excellent discussion of PSEs see Ford and Iles, 1985.) This paper describes a project that is aimed at providing a PSE for scientific computing. The project, which is called NEXUS, can be viewed conveniently in two parts, namely, the development of a
set of software modules
for constructing and accessing information in a knowledge base and the production of a
set of knowledge bases
for a particular application area namely,
mathematical software.
The paper briefly describes the set of modules and knowledge bases that are under development for the first release of NEXUS. For a more complete description the reader is referred to the companion report by Gaffney
et al.
, (1986a).
Numerical methods disguised
Authors: Fulda Joseph S.
Published: April 2007

Our first course in Computer Science is supposed to be a gentle introduction to both the world of computing and to computer programming. It is a core course, which when I taught it had a preponderance of communications arts and psychology majors enrolled for what is euphemistically known as a "mathematics substitute."
An update notice on the level 3 BLAS
Authors: Dongarra Jack , Duff Iain , DuCroz Jeremy , Hammarling Sven
Published: April 2007

In April 1987 we published a proposal for a set of Level 3 BLAS [1]. Since then the proposal has been presented and discussed at various meetings, comments have been received, and experience gained in using the Level 3 BLAS to code block-structured algorithms in Linear Algebra. As a result we have decided to make the following changes to the original proposal.
A C program for solving banded, symetric, positive definite systems
Authors: Branham Richard L.
Published: April 2007

Banded, symmetric, positive definite systems occur frequently. Although they can be solved by any program that incorporates Cholesky decomposition, or even LU decomposition, for greatest efficiency account should taken of the specialized nature of banded, symmetric, positive definite systems: elements outside the band need not be stored; because of symmetry nearly half of the non-null elements are superfluous and likewise need not be stored; positive definiteness obviates row and column interchanging. A C program, employing square root-free Cholesky decomposition, is given for solving such systems. For sparse matrix processing C offers advantages over FORTRAN: when the two-dimensional array is represented by a vector, C's conditional operator permits a compact way to index elements in the vector; the vector itself may be allocated dynamically and stores no null elements; divisions by powers of two may be replaced by bit shifts to the right; and preprocessor macros, substituting in-line code for subroutine calls, implement functions. An example, a 40 x 40 pentadiagonal system, illustrates use of the program. In this example the C code for banded, symmetric, positive definite systems is four hundred times faster than code for general Cholesky decomposition. Although accumulation of matrix inner products to high precision is usually not required for banded systems, a function subroutine is nevertheless presented to sum floating-point numbers with cascaded accumulators.
A multidimensional extension of Pascal's triangle
Authors: Eaton Edward A.
Published: April 2007

I read with interest Thomas Byrne's article: "An Extension of Pascal's Triangle and Work concerning Binomial Expansion Coefficients" in the February 1990 issue. On page 28 Mr. Byrne states: "I was seeking a mechanism to generate multinomial expansion coefficients but this doesn't do it . . . Maybe a three dimensional extension will prove useful."
The national science foundation and support for social science computing
Authors: Anderson Ronald E.
Published: April 2007

Nearly two years ago, I spent several months working as a Professional Assistant in the Office of Computing Activities at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. Although my assignment was to develop a concept for a program on "Computer Impact on Society", I had opportunity to become familiar with some of the projects supported in the area of computer applications for the social sciences. Actually I was already familiar with most of the projects that had been supported. However, the work assignment enabled me to have an expanded and slightly different perspective on these projects.
A view of people-oriented systems
Authors: Smith Hugh
Published: April 2007

My object is to discuss what is meant by the notion of a "person-oriented computer system". Typically, we talk about desirable systems being "comfortable" and "responsive" in some way. It seems to me that there are three general conceptual ideas which must underlie responsiveness and comfortableness:In some way the user has an understanding of the system, its purpose, and its behavior.The system has a model of the user that relates to his/her purposes and behavior.That during the process of communication they both modify their behavior towards each other.
The use of empirical observations in the development of formal models
Authors: Miller Lawrence H.
Published: April 2007

The Xerox 800 is a very simple word processing machine. At Xerox, however, we are finding that a large number of people are calling up their service representative and saying, "Take this machine out - I don't want it." This, of course, causes a great deal of concern. The main reason for recalls of this machine is not because it breaks down, not because it produces results that are unsatisfactory, but because it is virtually impossible to use, and to learn to use! One of the reasons this problem occurs is that, for the type of people who are using these very low level, simple kinds of computer systems, there is an extremely high turnover rate in the offices. In the Los Angeles area, the turnover rates for secretaries in law offices (for example) can be anywhere from 50 per cent to 200 per cent per year; that means that a person stays for an average of six months or less. Most of the people who are using these kinds of systems and who only stay around for a short period of time can be described as naive or inexperienced users of the system. If they are having this kind of trouble with a very simple system like the 800 typing system, I think we can imagine the kinds of problems that we can expect in much more complex systems, such as fully automated text editors, graphics packages, forms handlers, data base inquiry systems, management information systems, etc.
A review of OSIRIS IV
Authors: Roistacher Richard C.
Published: April 2007

The Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research has begun the dissemination of OSIRIS IV, the latest version in Michigan's series of statistical systems. OSIRIS IV is designed to be an eventual replacement for the OSIRIS III system. OSIRIS has long been the ugly duckling of statistical systems. Data analysts find its six volumes of documentation forbidding and unintelligible, and dislike the cross-tabulation program's control syntax and lack of category labels. As a result, most data managers have remained unaware of OSIRIS III's unequalled power at managing sequential data files.
The social organization of computing
Authors: Sonquist John , Sim Frank
Published: April 2007

The following material is extracted from a paper presented at the meetings of the American Sociological Association, Montreal, August, 1974. We have concentrated on giving a survey of the positive proposals, and the discussion of problems involved in them, contained in the full paper. Parenthetic comments show where material has been deleted that is not a continuation of the preceding text. Copies of the full paper are available from the authors; it is a working draft, and they earnestly solicit reactions. The general purpose is to stimulate discussion of effective organization of computing for social and behavioral scientists in colleges and universities, and to provide some useful aids for presentation of the case for better computational support to administrative personnel. It may have some wider relevance, both for other settings and for substantive analysis.
Using a computerized conferencing system as a laboratory tool
Authors: Hiltz Starr Roxanne , Turoff Murray , Johnson Kenneth , Aronovitch Charles
Published: April 2007

Computerized Conferencing Systems are a new communications medium which offer an opportunity for geographically dispersed groups of persons to communicate regularly and to interact and make decisions as a group. They also include an embedded language which makes it possible to program and conduct fully automated experiments on group communication processes. The system thereby becomes a "laboratory without walls" which can be transported to the subjects.This paper reviews the methodological aspects of the first of a series of controlled "laboratory" experiments on the effects of the medium on small group communication processes. It focusses on the potentials for use of such systems as a tool for conducting communication experiments. The findings of the experiment itself will be reported more fully elsewhere.
Studies of the behavior of recursion for the pooling problem
Authors: Haverly C. A.
Published: April 2007

A study of the behavior of LP models is a badly neglected area. By model behavior I mean the way the answers of an LP model vary as the input data is varied. In some cases, we find the model behaves much like the system being modeled. But in other cases it has quite different properties. Some of the erratic behavior can be compensated for by better formulation. Some must be taken into account by the LP analyst.
Some advances related to nonlinear programming
Authors: Pfeiffer F. W.
Published: April 2007

The purpose of this communication is to inform members of the mathematical programming (MP) community of some advances -- past, present, and future -- which should have a noticeable impact upon applications involving nonlinear programming (NLP). These advances have not been in the theoretical area, as is usually the case, but rather they have come in the area of computer software and hardware designed with nonlinear programming in mind.
GRG2
Authors: Lasdon Leon S. , Waren Allan D.
Published: April 2007

GRG2 solves nonlinear optimization problems in which the objective and constraint functions can have nonlinearities of any form but should be differentiable. Both single and double precision versions are available for computers of all major vendors.
Head-and-shoulder-branching in integer programming
Authors: Müller-Merbach H.
Published: April 2007

A combination of the branching procedures suggested for integer programming by Land and Doig (1960) and Dakin (1965) is presented. It consists of a controlled number of "head branches" setting a variable equal to integers, and two "shoulder branches" which restrict the value of this variable by a lower bound and by an upper bound, respectively. This branching procedure combines the advantages of both parents techniques.
Matrix storage schemes in linear programming
Authors: Darby-Dowman K. , Mitra G.
Published: April 2007

This report investigates alternative methods of compactly storing the coefficient matrix of a linear programming problem. Details of the data to be stored, including column headers, are given together with descriptions of sparse and super-sparse schemes of storage. Particular emphasis is given to the concept of machine independence in the implementation of these schemes with a view to the development of all-in-core LP systems. Ten representative problems of widely varying sizes and a selection of computers with different word and character lengths are used to compare the efficiency of the storage schemes. It is shown that the methods based on super-sparsity usually lead to large savings in storage requirements.
Nonlinear programming
Authors: Kuhn Harold W.
Published: April 2007

A historical survey of the origins of nonlinear programming is presented with emphasis placed on necessary conditions for optimality. The mathematical sources for the work of Karush, John, Kuhn, and Tucker are traced and compared. Their results are illustrated by duality theorems for nonlinear programs that antedate the modern development of the subject.
Core inverse versus basis inverse
Authors: Müller-Merbach Heiner
Published: April 2007

Most revised simplex techniques, the majority of their presentations in the textbooks, and almost all EDP codes in LP are based on the "Basis Inverse". This is an asymmetric concept and includes an identity matrix. The algorithms and the organisation of data are column oriented. The appropriate representation of the inverse is the product form.
User evaluation of MPSX/370
Authors: Falk Patrick G. , Tumbusch James J.
Published: April 2007

Provide the Management Systems Division of Procter & Gamble with a Mathematical Programming System, MPS, evaluation and ultimately selection compatible with existing and proposed company hardware and software environment. (see Exhibit I and II for background on MP Software).
Type-based publish/subscribe
Authors: Eugster Patrick
Published: April 2007

A continuously increasing number of interconnected computer devices makes the requirement for programming abstractions for remote one-to-many interaction yet more stringent. The publish/subscribe paradigm has been advocated as a candidate abstraction for such one-to-many interaction at large scale. Common practices in publish/subscribe, however, include low-level abstractions which hardly leverage type safety, and provide only poor support for object encapsulation. This tends to put additional burden on software developers; guarantees such as the aforementioned type safety and object encapsulation become of increasing importance with an accrued number of software components, which modern applications also involve, besides an increasing number of hardware components.
Type-based
publish/subscribe (TPS) is a high-level variant of the publish/subscribe paradigm which aims precisely at providing guarantees such as type safety and encapsulation. We present the rationale and principles underlying TPS, as well as two implementations in Java: the first based on a specific extension of the Java language, and a second novel implementation making use of recent general-purpose features of Java, such as generics and behavioral reflection. We compare the two approaches, thereby evaluating the aforementioned features---as well as additional features which have been included in the most recent Java 1.5 release---in the context of distributed and concurrent programming. We discuss the benefits of alternative programming languages and features for implementing TPS. By revisiting alternative abstractions for distributed programming, including “classic” and recent ones, we extend our investigations to programming language support for distributed programming in general, pointing out that overall, the support in current mainstream programming languages is still insufficient.
A system of interaction and structure
Authors: Guglielmi Alessio
Published: April 2007

This article introduces a logical system, called BV, which extends multiplicative linear logic by a noncommutative self-dual logical operator. This extension is particularly challenging for the sequent calculus, and so far, it is not achieved therein. It becomes very natural in a new formalism, called the
calculus of structures
, which is the main contribution of this work. Structures are formulas subject to certain equational laws typical of sequents. The calculus of structures is obtained by generalizing the sequent calculus in such a way that a new top-down symmetry of derivations is observed, and it employs inference rules that rewrite inside structures at any depth. These properties, in addition to allowing the design of BV, yield a modular proof of cut elimination.
Results on the quantitative μ-calculus
qM
μ
Authors: McIver Annabelle , Morgan Carroll
Published: April 2007

The μ-calculus is a powerful tool for specifying and verifying transition systems, including those with both demonic (universal) and angelic (existential) choice; its
quantitative
generalization
qM
μ extends to include
probabilistic
choice.We make two major contributions to the theory of such systems. The first is to show that for a finite-state system, the
logical
interpretation of
qM
μ, via fixed points in a domain of real-valued functions into [0, 1], is equivalent to an
operational
interpretation given as a turn-based gambling game between two players.The second contribution is to show that each player in the gambling game has an optimal memoryless strategy---that is, a strategy which is independent of the game's history, and with which a player can achieve his optimal expected reward however his opponent chooses to play. Moreover, since
qM
μ is expressive enough to encode
stochastic parity games
, our result implies the existence of memoryless strategies in that framework, as well.As an additional feature, we include an extensive case study demonstrating the aforementioned duality between games and logic. Among other things, it shows that the use of algorithmic verification techniques is mathematically justified in the practical computation of probabilistic system properties.
On compositionality and its limitations
Authors: Rabinovich Alexander
Published: April 2007

The aim of this article is to examine the applicability of a compositional method developed for a generalized product construction by Feferman and Vaught to the field of program verification.We suggest an instance of the generalized product construction and prove an appropriate composition theorem for modal logic. We illustrate the usefulness of this generalized product by showing that many “parallel composition” operations are special cases of this generalized product.We obtain positive results (the compositional method works) for basic propositional modal logic, and negative results (the compositional method fails) for more expressive logics which can express EGp---“there is a path such that all the nodes of the path have the propertyp.”Applications of the composition theorem to the model-checking problem and to the parametric model-checking problem are provided.
Internet content filtering using isotonic separation on content category ratings
Authors: Jacob Varghese S. , Krishnan Ramayya , Ryu Young U.
Published: April 2007

The World Wide Web has enabled anybody with a low cost Internet connection to access vast information repositories. Some of these repositories contain information (e.g., hate speech and pornography) that is considered objectionable, especially for children to view. Several efforts---legal and technical---are underway to protect children and the generic public from accessing this type of content. We propose a technical approach utilizing a recently proposed technique called isotonic separation for filtering with content metadata if they satisfy monotone conditions. We illustrate this approach using a category rating method of PICS. In essence, we formulate the Internet content filtering problem as a classification problem on content metadata and report on experiments we conducted with the isotonic separation technique.