bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Profiling your customers using Bayesian networks
Authors: Sebastiani Paola , Ramoni Marco , Crea Alexander
Published: January 2007

This report describes a complete Knowledge Discovery session using Bayesware Discoverer, a program for the induction of Bayesian networks from incomplete data. We build two causal models to help an American Charitable Organization understand the characteristics of respondents to direct mail fund raising campaigns. The first model is a Bayesian network induced from the database of 96,376 Lapsed donors to the June '97 renewal mailing. The network describes the dependency of the probability of response to the renewal mail on a subset of the variables in the database. The second model is a Bayesian network representing the dependency of the dollar amount of the gift on the variables in the same reduced database. This model is induced from the 5% of cases in the database corresponding to the respondents to the renewal campaign. The two models are used for both predicting the expected gift of a donor and understanding the characteristics of donors. These two uses can help the charitable organization to maximize the profit.
Discovering geographic knowledge in data rich environments
Authors: Miller Harvey J. , Han Jiawei
Published: January 2007

On 18--20 March 1999, a Specialist Meeting on "Discovering geographic knowledge in data-rich environments" was convened under the auspices of the Varenius Project of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). This, workshop brought together a diverse group of researchers and practitioners with interests in developing and applying new techniques for exploring large and diverse geographic datasets. The interaction prior to, during and after the three-day workshop resulted in the identification of research priorities and directions for continued development of "geographic knowledge discovery" (GKD) theory techniques.
Macaroni is better than spaghetti
Authors: Steele Guy Lewis
Published: January 2007

We present a stack implementation of multiple environments similar in principle to that of Bobrow and Wegbreit, but based on a model which provides both static and dynamic scoping. We note some of the pragmatic consequences of this choice of models; one is that no unnecessary control stack is retained for certain important constructions such as “upward funargs” and coroutines. We also discuss the correct treatment of exit functions, and the need for “entry functions” if dynamic switching of control contexts is to be consistent.
What the nature of natural language tells us about how to make natural-language-like programming languages more natural
Authors: Hobbs Jerry R.
Published: January 2007

When a student is learning an algorithm from a textbook, his first approach is frequently through an English description. This is normally easier to understand than raw code, and sometimes easier than a flow chart, in spite of the fact that programming languages are designed for algorithm specification while English is only pressed into its service. If the English is easier to understand, it is likely that it has many features that would ease programming itself. This paper investigates some of these features.
CSSA
Authors: Böhm H. P. , Fischer H. L. , Raulefs P.
Published: January 2007

CSSA (Computing System for Societies of Actors) is an experimental programming language that originated from an attempt to design a language combining various new ideas having evolved from the fields of semantics of programming languages, artificial intelligence, programming methodology, and language design in recent years: (1)
Abstraction semantics
improving denotational semantics by describing the semantics of programming language constructs uniformly in terms of
operational abstractions
[1,2]. (2) Some features of CSSA have been inspired by the
actor concept
of PLASMA [3].(3) Programming in terms of control and data abstractions. (4) Heirarchical control structures (dynamic generation and manipulation of actor nets). (5) Definable access operations and access control to shared data [4]. (6) Data driven and goal directed computation.
Program manipulation via an efficient production system
Authors: Kibler D. F. , Neighbors J. M. , Standish T. A.
Published: January 2007

Systems for program transformation have been suggested by many authors [Knuth, Wegbreit, Loveman, Balzer, Standish2, Burstall & Darlington]. Several of these authors note that such transformation systems could be used to transform lucid, high-level, but possibly inefficient program descriptions into efficient but possibly less legible underlying concrete realizations. One problem, mentioned by Loveman [Loveman] is that of chaining together many low-level simple transformations to achieve high-level goals. For example, we may wish to chain together low-level transformations such as constant propagation, performing arithmetic at transformation time, dead variable elimination, empty statement removal and the like, to achieve the high-level goal of program simplification. This paper shows one technique for organizing sequences of low-level program transformations within an interactive programming medium to achieve nearly automatic global program improvements with low search times and minimal human intervention and guidance.
DiST
Authors: Girbal Sylvain , Mouchard Gilles , Cohen Albert , Temam Olivier
Published: January 2007

While architecture simulation is often treated as a methodology issue, it is at the core of most processor architecture research works, and simulation speed is often the bottleneck of the typical trial-and-error research process. To speedup simulation during this research process and get trends faster, researchers usually reduce the trace size. More sophisticated techniques like trace sampling or distributed simulation are scarcely used because they are considered unreliable and complex due to their impact on accuracy and the associated warm-up issues.In this article, we present DiST, a practical distributed simulation scheme where, unlike in other simulation techniques that trade accuracy for speed, the user is relieved from most accuracy issues thanks to an automatic and dynamic mechanism for adjusting the warm-up interval size. Moreover, the mechanism is designed so as to always privilege accuracy over speedup. The speedup scales with the amount of available computing resources, bringing an average 7.35 speedup on 10 machines with an average IPC error of 1.81% and a maximum IPC error of 5.06%.Besides proposing a solution to the warm-up issues in distributed simulation, we experimentally show that our technique is significantly more accurate than trace size reduction or trace sampling for identical speedups. We also show that not only the error always remains small for IPC and other metrics, but that a researcher can reliably base research decisions on DiST simulation results. Finally, we explain how the DiST tool is designed to be easily pluggable into existing architecture simulators with very few modifications.
Fluid models and solutions for large-scale IP networks
Authors: Liu Yong , Lo Presti Francesco , Misra Vishal , Towsley Don , Gu Yu
Published: January 2007

In this paper we present a scalable model of a network of Active Queue Management (AQM) routers serving a large population of TCP flows. We present efficient solution techniques that allow one to obtain the transient behavior of the average queue lengths, packet loss probabilities, and average end-to-end latencies. We model different versions of TCP as well as different versions of RED, the most popular AQM scheme currently in use. Comparisons between our models and ns simulation show our models to be quite accurate while at the same time requiring substantially less time to solve, especially when workloads and bandwidths are high.
Measuring the effects of internet path faults on reactive routing
Authors: Feamster Nick , Andersen David G. , Balakrishnan Hari , Kaashoek M. Frans
Published: January 2007

Empirical evidence suggests that reactive routing systems improve resilience to Internet path failures. They detect and route around faulty paths based on measurements of path performance. This paper seeks to understand
why
and under
what circumstances
these techniques are effective.To do so, this paper correlates end-to-end active probing experiments, loss-triggered traceroutes of Internet paths, and BGP routing messages. These correlations shed light on three questions about Internet path failures: (1) Where do failures appear? (2) How long do they last? (3) How do they correlate with BGP routing instability?Data collected over 13 months from an Internet testbed of 31 topologically diverse hosts suggests that most path failures last less than fifteen minutes. Failures that appear in the network core correlate better with BGP instability than failures that appear close to end hosts. On average, most failures precede BGP messages by about four minutes, but there is often increased BGP traffic both before and after failures. Our findings suggest that reactive routing is most effective between hosts that have multiple connections to the Internet. The data set also suggests that passive observations of BGP routing messages could be used to predict about 20% of impending failures, allowing re-routing systems to react more quickly to failures.
Classifying scheduling policies with respect to unfairness in an M/GI/1
Authors: Wierman Adam , Harchol-Balter Mor
Published: January 2007

It is common to evaluate scheduling policies based on their mean response times. Another important, but sometimes opposing, performance metric is a scheduling policy's fairness. For example, a policy that biases towards small job sizes so as to minimize mean response time may end up being unfair to large job sizes. In this paper we define three types of unfairness and demonstrate large classes of scheduling policies that fall into each type. We end with a discussion on which jobs are the ones being treated unfairly.
Effect of node size on the performance of cache-conscious B
+
-trees
Authors: Hankins Richard A. , Patel Jignesh M.
Published: January 2007

In main-memory databases, the number of processor cache misses has a critical impact on the performance of the system. Cache-conscious indices are designed to improve performance by reducing the number of processor cache misses that are incurred during a search operation. Conventional wisdom suggests that the index's node size should be equal to the cache line size in order to minimize the number of cache misses and improve performance. As we show in this paper, this design choice ignores additional effects, such as the number of instructions executed and the number of TLB misses, which play a significant role in determining the overall performance. To capture the impact of node size on the performance of a cache-conscious B+ tree (CSB+-tree), we first develop an analytical model based on the fundamental components of the search process. This model is then validated with an actual implementation, demonstrating that the model is accurate. Both the analytical model and experiments confirm that using node sizes much larger than the cache line size can result in better search performance for the CSB+-tree.
An empirical evaluation of wide-area internet bottlenecks
Authors: Akella Aditya , Seshan Srinivasan , Shaikh Anees
Published: January 2007

Performance limitations in the current Internet are thought to lie at the edges of the network --
i.e
last mile connectivity to users, or access links of stub ASes. As these links are upgraded, however, it is important to consider where new bottlenecks and hot-spots are likely to arise. Through an extensive measurement study, we discover, classify and characterize non-access bottleneck links in terms of their location, latency and available capacity. We find that nearly half of the paths explored have a non-access bottleneck with available capacity less than 50 Mbps. The bottlenecks identified are roughly equally split between intra-ISP links and links between ISPs. These results have implications on issues such as the choice of access providers and route optimization.
Using SimPoint for accurate and efficient simulation
Authors: Perelman Erez , Hamerly Greg , Van Biesbrouck Michael , Sherwood Timothy , Calder Brad
Published: January 2007

Modern architecture research relies heavily on detailed pipeline simulation. Simulating the full execution of a single industry standard benchmark at this level of detail takes on the order of months to complete. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that to properly perform an architectural evaluation requires multiple benchmarks to be evaluated across many separate runs. To address this issue we recently created a tool called SimPoint that automatically finds a small set of Simulation Points to represent the complete execution of a program for efficient and accurate simulation. In this paper we describe how to use the SimPoint tool, and introduce an improved SimPoint algorithm designed to significantly reduce the simulation time required when the simulation environment relies upon fast-forwarding.
Spectroscopy of DNS update traffic
Authors: Broido Andre , Nemeth Evi , Claffy K. C.
Published: January 2007

We study attempts to dynamically update DNS records for private (RFC1918) addresses, by analyzing the frequency spectrum of updates observed at an authoritative nameserver for these addresses. Using a discrete autocorrelation algorithm we found that updates series have periods of 60 or 75 minutes, which we identified as default settings of out-of-the-box Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP DNS software.
Performance of estimated traffic matrices in traffic engineering
Authors: Roughan Matthew , Thorup Mikkel , Zhang Yin
Published: January 2007

We consider the performance of estimated traffic matrices in traffic engineering. More precisely, we first optimize the routing in an IP backbone to minimize congestion with the estimated traffic matrix. We then test the performance of the resulting routing on the real traffic matrix.
Performance analysis and enhancement for the current and future IEEE 802.11 MAC protocols
Authors: Xiao Yang , Rosdahl Jon
Published: January 2007

The IEEE 802.11 specifications provide up to 54 Mbps data rates, respectively. The industry is seeking Higher Data Rates (HDR's) over 100Mbps for IEEE 802.11a extension. However, the medium access control (MAC), which they are based upon, is the same. In this paper, we explore the overhead of HDR's to find out whether the MAC is good enough for the increasing data rates and what to expect as the industry seeks higher data rates. We prove that a theoretical throughput upper limit and a theoretical delay lower limit exist for IEEE 802.11 protocols. The existence of such limits indicates that the overhead must be reduced to get good performance for HDR's. Otherwise, the enhanced performance of HDR's is limited and bounded even when the data rate becomes infinitely high. Both reducing overhead and pursuing HDR's are therefore necessary and important. In order to reduce overhead, we propose a burst transmission and acknowledgement (BTA) mechanism, in which, instead of acknowledging each frame, a burst of frames is received first, and then the whole burst is acknowledged one time. Our study shows that with the BTA mechanism, overhead has been greatly reduced and performance has been greatly improved.
OOHDM-Web
Authors: Schwabe Daniel , de Almeida Pontes Rita , Moura Isbela
Published: January 2007

This paper shows an environment, OOHDM-Web, that allows template driven website for applications designed using, OOHDM.. We show how this environment allows direct mapping of navigation and interface constructs of OOHDM into a library of functions in the CGI scripting environment CGI-LUA, extended with the DB-LUA package. OOHDM-Web allows implementation of hypermedia applications as CGI scripts that produce dynamically generated pages, whose contents are fed from a database and integrated with pre-defined templates. The paper presents the advantages of combining the two techniques, template-driven implementations and design methods, reaping benefits of their respective stregths.
Recent talks at Stanford University on AIM
Authors: Kuipers Ben
Published: January 2007

By analyzing a verbatim protocol of an expert's explanation we can derive constraints on the conceptual framework used by human experts for causal reasoning in medicine. We use these constraints, along with textbook descriptions of physiological mechanisms and the computational requirements of successful performance, to propose a model of qualitative causal reasoning. One important design decision in the model is the selection of the "envisionment" version of causal reasoning rather than a version based on "causal links." The envisionment process performs a qualitative simulation, starting with a description of the structure of a mechanism and predicting its behavior. The qualitative causal reasoning algorithm is a step toward second-generation medical diagnosis programs that understand how the mechanisms of the body work. The protocol analysis method is a knowledge acquisition technique for determining the conceptual framework of new types of knowledge in an expert system, prior to acquiring large amounts of domain-specific knowledge. The qualitative causal reasoning algorithm has been implemented and tested on medical and non-medical examples. It will be the core of RENAL, a new expert system for diagnosis in nephrology, that we are now developing.
FOL
Authors: Claybrook Billy G.
Published: January 2007

FOL is a language for implementing file organizations. It is implemented in LPL, a list processing language that is an extension of PL/1. FOL presents the user with a convenient means for declaring the structure of records in a file. Either tree structured or graph structured files can be created and manipulated. The language treats records in a file as nodes in a list. The paper describes other file manipulation languages like APL and IDS. The data organization of FOL and the procedural language for declaring record structures and data manipulation commands are given.
A vocational experiment in computer programming for quadriplegics
Authors: Anderson A. K. , Miller K. H. , Pilgrim R. C.
Published: January 2007

This paper describes an experimental vocational course for Richard (Rick) Pilgrim, a homebound quadriplegic. The goal of this program was to develop training techniques which might prepare Rick for a profession as a computer programmer. This paper relates how the training was performed using a voice-operated terminal, the successes and problems encountered, and how the course led to Rick's status as an entry-level computer programmer.
A computer terminal for a quadriplegic
Authors: Hagelbarger David , Anderson Robert , Kubik Peter
Published: January 2007

A computer terminal has been modified for use by a quadriplegic with no limb control; all operations are done with a mouth stick. A new keyboard was built and logic circuits were added to permit using the "shift" and "control" functions with only one "finger".
"MICRO-ED" an educational support system for the disabled child
Authors: Cartwright A. G.
Published: January 2007

A major characteristic of any support equipment for the young developing child should be flexibility, particularly in the educational sphere where the needs of a given child are constantly changing as his intellect develops. The MicroEd system described creates such flexibility by exploiting the microprocessor as a control unit. An infinitely expandable library of user programmes is made accessible, via a common transmission line, to a variety of displays and switch inputs situated around the school. A phototype display unit consisting of a matrix of lamps so controlled has just begun clinical use and applications to the areas of communication, assessment, education and recreation are immediately apparent.
Bone-marrow post-transplant care application of data mining organisation
Authors: Bichindaritz Isabelle
Published: January 2007

Our project is to build and evaluate a knowledge-based computerized decision-support system for bonemarrow post-transplant care on the WWW. Its main reasoning methodologies are case-based reasoning and rule-based reasoning. Data mining is used in this project in synergy with machine learning to automatically update the knowledge-base (learn new rules, refine existing rules) and to predict the evolution of a patient's state in an adaptive way.
Drug design, protein secondary structure prediction and functional genomics
Authors: King Ross D.
Published: January 2007

Inductive Logic Programming (ILP), Model Based Reasoning, Evolutionary computing, Artificial neural networks, Multivariate statistics. Drug Design, Protein Secondary Structure Prediction, Functional Genomics, Spectral interpretation for process monitoring, titre improvement, and organism identification.
Geographic medicine and clinical microbiology
Authors: Berger Stephen A.
Published: January 2007

Development of a computer program for simulation, diagnosis and informatics in Geographic Medicine and Clinical Microbiology. The GIDEON (Global Infectious Diseases and EpidemiOgy Network) software follows the status of all infectious diseases and pathogens in all countries; in addition to the pharmacology and use of all antiinfective agents and vaccines in the field.
Information extraction from Medline
Authors: Craven Mark
Published: January 2007

The goal of our project is to develop methods for extracting information from on-line, scientific text Sources (such as Medline), and mapping this information into a structured format (i.e. a knowledge base) so that it can be used for query answering and problem solving. We are developing novel machine-learning methods for inducing such information-extraction routines from training data. The first application of our technology is being used to support genomics research in the field of gastroenterology.
Prediction and knowledge mining with in vitro fertilization data
Authors: Jurisica I.
Published: January 2007

TA3 is a case-based reasoning system with knowledge discovery (KD) capabilities.TA3 uses efficient and flexible variable context similarity-based retrieval.KD component is used for 3 main tasks:1. TA3 optimization: locating descriptors relevant for a given context & task; and organizing case base into context-based clusters2. Case base and domain knowledge evolution: adding descriptors to assist case discrimination during prediction and classification; removing redundant cases and descriptors; creating hierarchies of descriptors and their values; finding associations3. Evidence-based medicine: analyzing created clusters, hierarchies and associations to identify underlying principles in the domain
Weak instability in stochastic and fluid queueing networks
Authors: Gamarnik David , Hasenbein John
Published: January 2007

The fluid model has proven to be one of the most effective tools for the analysis of stochastic queueing networks, specifically for the analysis of stability. It is known that stability of a fluid model implies positive (Harris) recurrence (stability) of a corresponding stochastic queueing network, and weak stability implies rate stability of a corresponding stochastic network. These results have been established both for cases of specific scheduling policies and for the class of all work conserving policies.However, only partial converse results have been established and in certain cases converse statements do not hold. In this paper we close one of the existing gaps. For the case of networks with two stations we prove that if the fluid model is not weakly stable under the class of all work conserving policies, then any corresponding queueing network is not rate stable under the class of all work conserving policies. We establish the result by building a particular work conserving scheduling policy which makes any corresponding stochastic process transient. An important corollary of our result is that the condition of the form ρ* < 1, which was proven in [7) to be the exact condition for global weak stability of the fluid model, is also the exact global rate stability condition for any corresponding queueing network. Here ρ* is a certain computable parameter of the network involving virtual station and push start conditions.
An interactive integrated system to design and use data bases
Authors: Albano Antonio , Orsini Renzo
Published: January 2007

Recent works on languages for modeling complex data base application environments show overlapping issues with other research areas such as Artificial Intelligence and Programming Languages. Moreover, a lot of attention is nowadays given to another important field, the overall data base design process, which, as it will be shown, furthermore extends the above connections.
Data abstraction for designing database-intensive applications
Authors: Brodie Michael L.
Published: January 2007

There is a growing exchange of ideas amongst Artificial Intelligence (AI), Database (DB) and Programming Language (PL) researchers concerning conceptual modelling of complex, object-oriented applications. The complexity of these applications arises from complicated structural and behavioral properties which change through time; concurrent, interactive access by users with different processing needs over a shared database; information locality (i.e., DB views, PL data abstractions, AI perspectives); and primarily update-oriented transactions. Two main problems raised by these applications are:

managing the intellectual complexity of their design, development and evolution, and

defining and ensuring semantic integrity.
Integrating a network-structured database into an object-oriented programming language
Authors: Goldstein Ira
Published: January 2007

Smalltalk is an object-oriented language (Ingalls78, KayGoldberg77, Hewitt73). PIE is a subsystem that extends Smalltalk's descriptive power by supporting the creation, storage, retrieval and manipulation of network structures (GoldsteinBobrow80a,b,c; BobrowGoldstein80). These networks have been employed to represent software, documentation, electronic mail, calendars, people, addresses, bibliographic references and other items that together comprise the personal information space of a user of an office information system. By employing a common network representation, PIE supports an integrated environment for software development and office-related tasks. PIE has been developed collaboratively with Dan Bobrow, and is presently being used on an experimental basis by a small community at Xerox PARC.

Smalltalk represents entities in the external world as objects. An object has a state—i.e. an assignment of values to a set of state variables—and a class. The class of an object defines the behavior of the object in terms of a set of methods. Thus the class is a generic description of a collection of objects, while the objects associated with a class provide a particular description of the state of individual instances.
A logical view of types
Authors: Hayes Patrick J. , Hendrix Gary G.
Published: January 2007

People working in the areas of data abstraction, databases, and conceptual modeling have argued at considerable length over the meanings of such terms as “abstraction” and “type.”* Rather than add to this debate by offering yet another set of definitions, in the paragraphs below we shall attempt to show how ordinary predicate calculus can be used to talk about most (perhaps all) the notions for which the terms “abstraction” and “type” are currently being used in various quarters of computer science. We do not intend to argue that predicate calculus is a suitable tool for implementing types, but rather that it provides a well-understood, uniform conceptual framework and notation for describing and precisely comparing various ideas on typing—and that special notations developed for this purpose are therefore unnecessary.
Mediating the views of databases and database users
Authors: Hendrix Gary G.
Published: January 2007

The Natural-Language/Deduction group at SRI International has undertaken several large projects integrating knowledge representation, the modeling and use of distributed conventional databases, logical deduction, and natural-language processing. One of the largest projects, LADDER [2], involved accessing data distributed over a computer network by using queries expressed in English. Work with LADDER (and several similar systems) has revealed that:

(1) Users wish to talk about data in terms of the enterprise in which the data are to be used. Users do not confine their questions to concepts and terminology covered by the database per se.

(2) Users are seldom satisfied with access only to the data in a database. They need to know the KIND of data available (i.e., they want to ask questions about the DB schema), and they expect systems to include information that can be computed from “common knowledge” and information stored explicitly in the database (e.g., if a database records where two ships are, users expect the system to know the distance between them).

(3) Users are not satisfied with access to an existing database. They want to tell the system new facts. Some of these are not suitable for storage in conventional databases (e.g., statements involving quantification), and some involve counter factuals (e.g., “Suppose the ship were 100 miles south of its current location...”).

(4) Given natural-language access to a DBMS, users expect to interact in natural language with other types of software, too. Moreover, they expect the various underlying software packages to understand one another's results (e.g., User: “Who is the commander of the ship?” System: “Admiral Brown.” User: “Send him a copy of Smith's memo.” The mailer is expected to understand the output from the database).
A data abstraction approach to database modelling
Authors: Leavenworth B.
Published: January 2007

Attempts have been made for some time to reconcile the notions of data base modelling and data abstraction. Considering the overlapping concepts of information hiding and encapsulation from the data abstraction world, and data independence from the database world, it should not be necessary to design yet another programming language as others have done, specialized to a particular data model. Instead, the starting point for our work has been the proposition that an extant general purpose language providing data abstractions should be able to accommodate the popular data models by serving both as a data definition and manipulation language. The criticism has been made that while abstract data types hide the representation details, they also suppress the semantic structure of the data. While this may be true for “programming in the small” [2], it is not the case for “programming in the large” [2]. We will briefly indicate how a CLU-like language [4] (hereafter called XPLS) with minor extensions, plus its supporting module interconnection language (hereafter called the External Structure) can be used as a data-base definition and manipulation language. XPLS has been designed as a front end to PL/I and is supported by a preprocessor to the PL/I compiler. It turns out that XPLS plus External Structure supports and meshes more smoothly with a semantic data model (for example: [1], [3],[5], [6]) than with the older data models. Our work differs from a number of recent specialized languages which exploit data abstractions and strong type checking but which are based on the relation as a primitive data type. Our approach is not based on any particular data model.
Are data types universal modelling concepts for data base systems?
Authors: Weber Herbert
Published: January 2007

Modelling encompasses two intellectual tasks: (1) the perception of some reality and (2) the representation of the perceived reality in accordance to a given model (obviously is a representation once again some kind of reality and hence subject to another representation in accordance to another model or notation). Because of human beings limited capabilities to perceive and completely and correctly represent reality any representation is an abstraction of the reality.

A representation in accordance to a given model is of course constrained by that model. Any facet of reality not representable with the model cannot be represented at all. Moreover any model constrains at the very same time the perception capabilities as well. Experience verifies that knowledge of a model tends to force the modeller to model according to this model even though it may not result in the most accurate representation. These two facts speak against an universal model but makes for a variety of models for different purposes. It is common practice for the representation of the reality in data bases to apply different models for the conceptual description of data bases or to apply different kinds of models for the physical description of data bases, etc.
Promoting universal usability with multi-layer interface design
Authors: Shneiderman Ben
Published: January 2007

Increased interest in universal usability is causing some researchers to study advanced strategies for satisfying first-time as well as intermittent and expert users. This paper promotes the idea of multi-layer interface designs that enable first-time and novice users to begin with a limited set of features at layer 1. They can remain at layer 1, then move up to higher layers when needed or when they have time to learn further features. The arguments for and against multi-layer interfaces are presented with two example systems: a word processor with 8 layers and an interactive map with 3 layers. New research methods and directions are proposed.
Toward achieving universal usability for older adults through multimodal feedback
Authors: Emery V. Kathlene , Edwards Paula J. , Jacko Julie A. , Moloney Kevin P. , Barnard Leon , Kongnakorn Thitima , Sainfort François , Scott Ingrid U.
Published: January 2007

This experiment examines the effect of combinations of feedback (auditory, haptic, and/or visual) on the performance of older adults completing a drag-and-drop computer task. Participants completed a series of drag-and-drop tasks under each of seven feedback conditions (3 unimodal, 3 bimodal, 1 trimodal). Performance was assessed using measures of efficiency and accuracy. For analyses of results, participants were grouped based on their level of computer experience. All users performed well under auditory-haptic bimodal feedback and experienced users responded well to all multimodal feedback. Based on performance benefits for older adults seen in this experiment, future research should extend investigations to effectively integrate multimodal feedback into GUI interfaces in order to improve usability for this growing and diverse user group.
Understanding patients
Authors: Stroetmann Karl A. , Pieper Michael , Stroetmann Veli N.
Published: January 2007

The objective of our research was to undertake first steps to analyse patient access to their electronic health records (EHR) as a crucial universal access issue: Why is patient involvement becoming a key issue, what approaches are available to learn more about patient attitudes and needs, which concrete outcomes can be obtained from such research? The paper outlines a reference scenario for tele home monitoring of chronically ill patients including measurement devices and system environment, provides an assessment of selected participatory approaches like questionnaires, interviews and group discussions, and reports about universal access design issues from a patient perspective. Concrete conclusions concerning access devices and presentation of EHR contents are developed. To allow all citizens equality in access, to benefit from advances in eHealth and to avoid a "Medical Divide", creativity, innovations and support are needed to progress towards a true Information Society for all also in the health arena.
Involving young girls in product concept design
Authors: Isomursu Minna , Isomursu Pekka , Still Kaisa
Published: January 2007

Young girls are a user group often neglected in the design of technical devices. In this paper, we describe a method for involving pre-teen and teen girls in a concept design process. With this target group we have experienced serious challenges in applying traditional participatory design methods, such as observations or interviews. As a solution, we have adopted a web-based storytelling environment where our target group is encouraged to create usage scenarios of a mobile terminal that would support their activities in a virtual community. Our results show that this approach is a very natural and fruitful method for involving this target group.
Helping to avoid e-discrimination in UK tertiary education
Authors: Sloan David , Phipps Lawrie
Published: January 2007

The UK e-learning and disability agenda is discussed, and how it is affected by social inclusion and government initiatives and legislation. The important role of the TechDis service in this initiative is also described, and how it is helping the tertiary education community in the UK to use technology to improve inclusion for staff and students with disabilities. An outline of the approach TechDis has taken to achieve its goals is provided, along with current issues being addressed by the service.
On the medium access control problem in Ad hoc networks with smart antennas
Authors: Sundaresan Karthikeyan , Sivakumar Raghupathy
Published: January 2007

In this paper, we address the problem of medium access control in ad-hoc networks with fully adaptive array antennas, which to the best of our knowledge is one of the first efforts of its kind. We show that, unlike in the case of directional and switched beam antennas, significant performance improvement can be leveraged with just a simple extension to CSMA/CA that we refer to as CSMA/CA (k). We than provide PHY layer based insights into why a MAC scheme that is smarter than CSMA/CA (k), and can achieve significantly better performance is possible in the target environment. Finally, we propose an idealized protocol called SMART-MAC that builds on the insights.
Data management requirements
Authors: Bray Olin H.
Published: January 2007

Memory management, database management, and message processing have in the past been defined in a relatively narrow way. With memory management the problem was to obtain cost effective use of real memory. Given a multiprogrammed environment, virtual memory systems allowed more effective use of expensive real memory. Memory management has become even more important with the development of very large and complex memory hierarchies. Database management systems were developed to allow the more effective use, sharing, and control of data resources - objectives which operating systems had previously provided for hardware resources. The driving force behind message processing has been the increased use of data communications and computer networks. This paper will consider the basis of the overlap in these areas, their common data management functions. Data management, as defined in this paper, includes the locating, routing, moving, and translating of data resources and the locating, reserving, and releasing of physical resources, i.e., primary and secondary storage.

The analysis performed in this paper is essential because of trends in computer architecture discussed below. Early hardware was designed for general purpose environments with software used to tailor it to specific applications. However, according to Gagliardi
9
future systems will consist of a set of subsystems, including a storage subsystem at the core surrounded by computational, spooling, and communications subsystems. The computational subsystem is the traditional “number cruncher” part of the system. The spooling subsystem provides the I/O interface between the system and the outside world. The communications subsystem links the various subsystems together and provides an interface to the rest of the network if the system is part of a larger distributed system. The storage subsystem consists of all the system's storage resources and their control processes. It controls all levels of the system memory and storage hierarchy. The storage subsystem controls the allocation of the physical storage resources and the movement of the data resources through the system. Depending on how these resources are used, they may be non-conserved or conserved, and if conserved, either serially reusable or sharable. Physical and data resources may be located, and if necessary reserved, independently or jointly.
Computational algebra and algebraic curves
Authors: Shaska Tanush
Published: January 2007

The development of computational techniques in the last decade has made possible to attack some classical problems of algebraic geometry. In this survey, we briefly describe some open problems related to algebraic curves which can be approached from a computational viewpoint.
Estimating loss rates with TCP
Authors: Allman Mark , Eddy Wesley M. , Ostermann Shawn
Published: January 2007

Estimating loss rates along a network path is a problem that has received much attention within the research community. However, deriving accurate estimates of the loss rate from TCP transfers has been largely unaddressed. In this paper, we first show that using a simple count of the number of retransmissions yields inaccurate estimates of the loss rate in many cases. The mis-estimation stems from flaws in TCP's retransmission schemes that cause the protocol to spuriously retransmit data in a number of cases. Next, we develop techniques for refining the retransmission count to produce a better loss rate estimate for both Reno and SACK variants of TCP. Finally, we explore two SACK-based variants of TCP with an eye towards reducing spurious retransmits, the root cause of the mis-estimation of the loss rate. An additional benefit of reducing the number of needless retransmits is a reduction in the amount of shared network resources used to accomplish no useful work.
A new hybrid approach to exploit localities
Authors: Cui Jike , Samadzadeh Mansur. H.
Published: January 2007

This paper reviewed a number of existing methods to exploit the spatial and temporal locality commonly existing in programs, and provided detailed analysis and testing of adaptive prefetching (a method designed to utilize spatial locality) and the least recently and frequently used (LRFU) method (a method designed to utilize temporal locality). The two methods were combined in this work in terms of their exploitation of locality. The comparative studies of the methods were done using real traces, and hit rate was used as an evaluation measure.Results showed that by using adaptive prefetching, the hit rate improved significantly by an average of 11.7% over the hit rate of LRU in the traces and cache configurations used. It also showed that LRFU consistently gives higher hit rates than LRU, but not by much in the trace files and cache configurations tested. And the X value (a controllable parameter which determines the Weights given to recency and frequency) has to be in a certain range, which is usually narrow, in order to get the best performance for hit rate. Compared to adaptive prefetching and LRU, the hybrid approach of combining adaptive prefetching and LRFU gave a consistently higher hit rate also. But, affected by the performance of LRFU, the improvement in the hit rate by the combination was low.
Inclusive design in industry
Authors: Dong Hua , Keates Simeon , Clarkson John
Published: January 2007

The aim of this research is to identify the motivations for, and barriers obstructing, the adoption of inclusive design practices within industry. The working processes of a number of design consultancies have been audited and large-scale industry surveys conducted. A toolkit aiming to help designers and design managers to appreciate inclusive design has been developed and has received positive feedback from the preliminary evaluation with industry.
Children's interface design for hierarchical search and browse
Authors: Hutchinson Hilary Browne
Published: January 2007

I propose to design and evaluate a hierarchical category browser interface for children. Previous tools for handling hierarchical data rely on text-based visualizations, lose or distort global context, and/or rely on complex abstractions, excluding children from using them. I will instead use graphic representations of hierarchical categories and animated query creation in an accessible, web-based environment to support conjunctive queries. I will evaluate this tool using iterative design and a study comparing it with a version without animated query creation.
Musical syntactic and semantic structures in APL2
Authors: Friis Erik S. , Jordan Stanley
Published: January 2007

APL2 provides an excellent platform for implementing both syntactic and semantic representations of music, and for effecting transformations between the two. We use general arrays to represent syntactic information in the form of Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data streams and illustrate a semantic structure by defining a diatonic scale. Chords are created within that scale using the “each” operator to facilitate this development. Finally, we make a few observations regarding relationships and transformations between these representations.
APL for economic and management control in KTAS
Authors: Iversen Torben
Published: January 2007

In this paper I want to describe the use of APL for economic and management control in the Copenhagen Telephone Company, KTAS.
The travelling salesman problem, revisited with APL
Authors: Langlet Gérard A.
Published: January 2007

This paper introduces a new algorithm for the TSP and the class of n-p complete combinatory problems, which was first found empirically, with the help of APL - used as a “tool of thought”. Then, a demonstration was worked out, which shows that simplicity - as well as vector programming - might lead to significant progresses in some fields of optimization. Programs are short and efficient. Reprogramming in Pascal or Fortran leads to a code that proved to run indeed faster than the interpreted APL models.… but only to a certain extent. The use of parallel processors would still greatly improve the solution of the TSP. APL should also play a role in this new tendency of computer science.
An insurance simulation model
Authors: Meyer Ole M.
Published: January 2007

This paper describes an interactive insurance simulation model comprising all major aspects of a financial report for an insurance company. The model was developed by Topdanmark A/S for it's own use, and has been in use since it was completed in 1985. Based on actual data, some of which are collected from other APL systems, the model is used for summing up the detail budgets. Hereby a forecast financial report can be produced, and sensitivity to the assumptions behind the budgets and the composition of the budgets can be tested.

The paper gives a brief introduction on how the model was conceived, and an explanation of why APL was chosen for the task. This is followed by a presentation of the model itself, with a detailed description of the extent and complexity of the model. As an example of model usage, an impact is introduced into the model, and the effect hereof is demonstrated. Finally some future ambitions regarding model development are sketched.
An array-theoretic look beyond APL2 and Nial
Authors: More Trenchard
Published: January 2007

The extended abstract below outlines the main points of a more complete paper in preparation. The purpose of the paper is to trace seven lines of development that have carried array theory from some of its original questions through a succession of intermediate answers to current suggestions for a more coherent theory. The paper explains the algebraic motivations for the theory and how and why the treatment of empty arrays in the Nested Interactive Array Language, Nial, differ from that in APL2. The paper introduces modular indexing, indexing from the end of an axis with negative indices, arrays viewed as tori, arithmetical and Boolean operations on non-numbers and nontruth values, and a purely structural operation underlying reshaping.