ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
The KIM query system: an iconic interface for the unified access to distributed multimedia databases
Authors: Fabrizio Massimo Ferrara
Venue: ACM SIGCHI Bulletin (1994)

In this paper we present the iconic query system of the KIM environment, providing the user with a homogeneous access to distributed, heterogeneous and multimedia databases through a modality independent of the specific underlying environments (i.e. DBMS and physical installations).A prototype of this system is being designed and implemented by a European Consortium under the KIM project, within the European ESPRIT programme. The characteristics of the query system have been identified on the basis of several research contributions, integrated and refined with the actual discussion and validation with a significant number of users in real working environments. Now, a significant nucleus of the prototype is operating and is being experimented with real databases at several pilot sites in Europe, and mainly at the European Space Agency in Frascati (Italy).The basic assumption underlying the KIM approach, is that conceptual (graphical) models can represent a suitable and integrated method to permit the user to access information from distributed, heterogeneous databases without needing to know the actual organisation, models and physical products.Different requirements and classes of users can be envisaged for a generic query system. An analysis of these categories is provided, discussing the most effective interfacing modalities for the individual cases.On the basis of the depicted considerations, the system provides both iconic and diagrammatic interfaces. The adoption of mixed interface (including both icons and ER diagrams) is quite innovative in this field, both as concerns the research activities and its actual implementation in industrial environments.
The random oracle hypothesis is false
Authors: Richard Chang, Benny Chor, Oded Goldreich, Juris Hartmanis, Johan Hastad, Desh Ranjan, Pankaj Rohatgi
Venue: Journal of Computer and System Sciences (1994)

The Random Oracle Hypothesis, attributed to Bennett and Gill, essentially states that the relationships between complexity classes which hold for almost all relativized worlds must also hold in the unrelativized case. Although this paper is not the first to provide a counterexample to the Random Oracle Hypothesis, it does provide a most compelling counterexample by showing that for almost all oracles A, IP^A
Protection traps and alternatives for memory management of an object-oriented language
Authors: Antony L. Hosking, J. Eliot B. Moss
Venue: Proceedings of the fourteenth ACM symposium on Operating systems principles (1994)

Many operating systems allow user programs to specify the protection level (inaccessible, read-only, read-write) of pages in their virtual memory address space, and to handle any protection violations that may occur. Such page-protection techniques have been exploited by several user-level algorithms for applications including generational garbage collection and persistent stores. Unfortunately, modern hardware has made efficient handling of page protection faults more difficult. Moreover, page-sized granularity may not match the natural granularity of a given application. In light of these problems, we reevaluate the usefulness of page-protection primitives in such applications, by comparing the performance of implementations that make use of the primitives with others that do not. Our results show that for certain applications software solutions outperform solutions that rely on page-protection or other related virtual memory primitives.
An Artificial Vision System for X-ray Images of Human Coronary Trees
Authors: G. Coppini, M. Demi, R. Poli, G. Valli
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (1993)

The coronary tree expert (CORTEX) analyzer, which is a vision system for the description of the bidimensional shape and position of coronary vessels using standard nonsubtracted radiographic images, is described. A bottom-up approach was used to deal with the typical characteristics of medical images, such as structural and nonstructural noise and complexity and variability of biological shapes. On these grounds, grouping criteria were utilized to produce intermediate image representations with an increasing complexity in a hierarchical manner (from edge points to curves, segments, bars, and finally to vessels and their mutual relations). In this way, uncertain, inconsistent, and deficient information was efficiently processed. The evaluation of CORTEX segmentation is also performed according to a signal-detection-theory-like approach.
From trees into boxes
Authors: David Steinbrook, Eugene McDonnell
Venue: ACM SIGAPL APL Quote Quad (1993)

This paper is a progress report on work undertaken to include tree data structures by means of the boxed data type available in J. Methods for displaying these boxed arrays as trees are shown. This work is part of a larger effort to provide a comprehensive set of facilities in J for working with tree structures. The facilities described were at first modelled in J and subsequently translated into C, in order to provide a J interpreter which has trees as native facilities. Thus this work also exemplifies the way in which one can tailor the J interpreter to special needs.
Look-ahead branching hardware
Authors: Robert McLaughlin
Venue: ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News (1991)

The operation that causes the greatest slow-up in the execution of computer code on systems with cache is branching. We propose a simple solution to the problem of doing look-ahead branch prediction. This method can be implemented totally in hardware.We also suggest that cache be partitioned to reduce idle CPU cycles during update of cache memory. The ideal cache would consist of at least 4 partitions. Two for data and two for instructions.
Better late than never
Authors: Hossein Moiin, P. M. Melliar-Smith, Louise Moser
Venue: Proceedings of the 1993 ACM conference on Computer science (1993)

This paper investigates the trade-off between timeliness and precision of real-time tasks. For a task that must satisfy real-time requirements and that is capable of generating intermediate results of lower precision, an overall value function is defined as the product of its timeliness and precision. The problem of finding an optimal schedule for a set of tasks with such overall value functions is decomposed into two related subproblems of ordering and optimization. Optimal and heuristic solutions for each subproblem as well as the overall scheduling problem are presented.
Learning mixture models of spatial coherence
Authors: Suzanna Becker, Geoffrey E. Hinton
Venue: Neural Computation (1993)

We have previously described an unsupervised learning procedure that discovers spatially coherent properties of the world by maximizing the information that parameters extracted from different parts of the sensory input convey about some common underlying cause. When given random dot stereograms of curved surfaces, this procedure learns to extract surface depth because that is the property that is coherent across space. It also learns how to interpolate the depth at one location from the depths at nearby locations (Becker and Hinton 1992b). In this paper, we propose two new models that handle surfaces with discontinuities. The first model attempts to detect cases of discontinuities and reject them. The second model develops a mixture of expert interpolators. It learns to detect the locations of discontinuities and to invoke specialized, asymmetric interpolators that do not cross the discontinuities.
Report on the CHI'91 workshop: HCI and users with special needs
Authors: Alistair Edwards
Venue: ACM SIGCHI Bulletin (1993)

This was a two-day workshop, attended by some 13 people. The days were split into sessions following a given theme with 45-minute talks from each of two or three participants followed by an open discussion. An outline of the programme and presentations is as follows:Session 1: Advancing accessibility as an HCI design principleAlan Newell, Dundee University, Scotland: Extra-ordinary computer-human operationRex Hancock, GSA: The Role of the Federal GovernmentSession 2: Accessible design: a framework for current trends and directionsAlistair Edwards, University of York, England: Are 'special needs' really special?Jackie Ryan, University of Guelph, Canada: An Interface Design BuilderElliot Cole, University of Pennsylvania: Cognitive prosthetics: application of computer-human interaction to restore function in individuals with brain injuriesSession 3: How to design, implement and evaluate accessible interfacesJerome Elkind, Lexia Institute: Models of writing by dyslexics using speech and other output methodsGary Strong, Drexel University: An evaluation of the PRC Touchtalker with Minspeak: some lessons for speech prosthesis designRobin Shaw amp; Anne Loomis, Rhode Island VA: The eye wink control interface and using computers to enhance the abilities of severely handicapped personsSession 4: The changing marketplace: opportunities and obstaclesSaul Greenberg, University of Calgary, Canada: Predictive interfaces: what will they think of next?Bob Williges, Virginia Tech: Travel alternatives for mobility impaired: the surrogate electronic traveller (SET)
NAUDA: a cooperative natural language interface to relational databases
Authors: D. Küpper, M. Storbel, D. Rösner
Venue: ACM SIGMOD Record (1993)

The NAUDA1 System is a cooperative natural (German) language database interface for relational databases. The project is carried out at FAW2 - funded by the state of Baden-W&uuml;rttemberg and IBM Germany. This paper describes the extension of a natural language interface to relational databases with respect to its cooperative behavior. We argue that cooperative support of users is especially important for a complex domain such as environmental protection. In order to enrich traditional database reports our system provides dialog-oriented features such as over-answering (providing more information than explicitly requested) and handling of presupposition failure, as well as presentation-oriented features such as natural language responses and geographical maps. Additional information by the system includes (meta-) information about the domain.
Abstract analysis with aspect
Authors: Daniel Jackson
Venue: Proceedings of the 1993 ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on Software testing and analysis (1993)

Aspect is a static analysis technique for detecting bugs in code based on three forms of abstraction: declarative specification, data abstraction and partiality (ignoring some behavioural details). Together, they bring efficiency (the checker runs almost as fast as a type checker), modularity (a procedure can be analysed independently of the procedures it calls) and incrementality (allowing the checking of incomplete programs). Aspect can detect errors that are not detectable by other static means, especially errors of omission, which are pervasive but usually hard to detect.
Specifying operational profiles for modules
Authors: Denise M. Woit
Venue: Proceedings of the 1993 ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on Software testing and analysis (1993)

We describe a technique for specifying operational profiles for modules. The technique is more general than those of the current literature and allows more accurate specification of module usage. We also outline an algorithm for automatically generating random test cases from any such operational profile specification for a module, such that the test cases correspond to a random sampling of the module's input in actual operation. Operational-based statistical estimations, such as operational reliability, may be more meaningful when our specification method and generation algorithm are used, because our method permits more precise specifications than do other methods in the current literature.
Demeter Tools/C++ (abstract)
Authors: Karl Lieberherr, Ian Holland, Walter Hursch, Ignacio Silva-Lepe, Cun Xiao
Venue: ACM SIGPLAN OOPS Messenger (1993)

We are demonstrating the Demeter Tools/C++, a CASE research prototype developed at Northeastern University, including the latest tools described in papers presented at ECOOP 91, ER 90, CSM 89 and OOPSLA 89 and in the Software Engineering Journal (1991). The Demeter system has been under development since 1985 and has been regularly used and refined with support from companies such as IBM, Mettler- Toledo and SAIC. Demeter Tools/C++ consists of the following tools: 1. Design level (programming language independent): cddraw: to draw a class dictionary learn: Learns class dictionary for object examples optimize: Optimizes class dictionary sem-check: Checks class dictionary for violations and proposes changes to the class dictionary parse-generate, run-parser: Checks conformance between class dictionary and objects cd-compare: Compares two class dictionaries cd-abstract: Finds the largest class dictionary common to both input class dictionaries xref: Draws a graphical representation of a class dictionary 2. Generation level (C++ specific): generate: Generates C++ class library from input class dictionary propagate: Generates C++ member functions from propagation pattern headers: Generate C++ function interfaces from implementation 3. Implementation level (C++ specific): Class library of predefined member functions for object manipulation (e.g., reading, writing, drawing, accessing, etc.)
DDB: an object oriented design data manager for VLSI CAD
Authors: Anoop Singhal, Robert M. Arlein, Chi-Yuan Lo
Venue: Proceedings of the 1993 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data (1993)

In this paper we present an object oriented data model for VLSI/CAD data. A design data manager (DDB) based on such a model has been implemented under the UNIX/C++ environment. It has been used by a set of diverse VLSI/CAD applications of our organization. Benchmarks have shown it to perform better as compared to commercial object oriented database systems. In conjunction with the ease of data access, the data manger served to improve software productivity and a modular program architecture for our CAD system.
Explicit data placement (XDP): a methodology for explicit compile-time representation and optimization of data movement
Authors: Vasanth Bala, Jeanne Ferrante, Larry Carter
Venue: ACM SIGPLAN Notices (1993)

The ability to represent, manipulate and optimize data movement between devices such as processors in a distributed memory machine, or between global memory and processors in a shared memory machine, is crucial in generating efficient code for such machines. In this paper we describe a methodology for representing and manipulating data movement explicitly in a compiler. Our methodology, called Explicit Data Placement (XDP), consists of extensions to the compiler's intermediate program language, as well as run-time structures that allow certain operations to be performed efficiently. We also illustrate one of the unique features of the XDP methodology: the ability to manipulate the run-time transfer of data ownership between processors.
Hints and the VC dimension
Authors: Yaser S. Abu-Mostafa
Venue: Neural Computation (1993)

Learning from hints is a generalization of learning from examples that allows for a variety of information about the unknown function to be used in the learning process. In this paper, we use the VC dimension, an established tool for analyzing learning from examples, to analyze learning from hints. In particular, we show how the VC dimension is affected by the introduction of a hint. We also derive a new quantity that defines a VC dimension for the hint itself. This quantity is used to estimate the number of examples needed to "absorb" the hint. We carry out the analysis for two types of hints, invariances and catalysts. We also describe how the same method can be applied to other types of hints.
Maintaining views incrementally
Authors: Ashish Gupta, Inderpal Singh Mumick, V. S. Subrahmanian
Venue: Proceedings of the 1993 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data (1993)

We present incremental evaluation algorithms to compute changes to materialized views in relational and deductive database systems, in response to changes (insertions, deletions, and updates) to the relations. The view definitions can be in SQL or Datalog, and may use UNION, negation, aggregation (e.g. SUM, MIN), linear recursion, and general recursion. We first present a counting algorithm that tracks the number of alternative derivations (counts) for each derived tuple in a view. The algorithm works with both set and duplicate semantics. We present the algorithm for nonrecursive views (with negation and aggregation), and show that the count for a tuple can be computed at little or no cost above the cost of deriving the tuple. The algorithm is optimal in that it computes exactly those view tuples that are inserted or deleted. Note that we store only the number of derivations, not the derivations themselves. We then present the Delete and Rederive algorithm, DRed, for incremental maintenance of recursive views (negation and aggregation are permitted). The algorithm works by first deleting a superset of the tuples that need to be deleted, and then rederiving some of them. The algorithm can also be used when the view definition is itself altered.
The Complexity of Multiterminal Cuts
Authors: E. Dahlhaus, D. S. Johnson, C. H. Papadimitriou, P. D. Seymour, M. Yannakakis
Venue: SIAM Journal on Computing (1994)

In the multiterminal cut problem one is given an edge-weighted graph and a subset of the vertices called terminals, and is asked for a minimum weight set of edges that separates each terminal from all the others. When the number $k$ of terminals is two, this is simply the mincut, max-flow problem, and can be solved in polynomial time. It is shown that the problem becomes NP-hard as soon as $k=3$, but can be solved in polynomial time for planar graphs for any fixed $k$. The planar problem is NP-hard, however, if $k$ is not fixed. A simple approximation algorithm for arbitrary graphs that is guaranteed to come within a factor of $2-2/k$ of the optimal cut weight is also described.
The power of geometric duality and Minkowski sums in optical computational geometry
Authors: Y. B. Karasik, M. Sharir
Venue: Proceedings of the ninth annual symposium on Computational geometry (1993)

Continuing our earlier study [12], we present optical algorithms for solving a variety of basic problems in computational geometry, each requiring only a constant number of basic optical operations. The main tools that we use are based on optical computational tricks that involve geometric duality and Minkowski sums of geometric figures.
Disseminating critical target-specific synchronization information in parallel discrete event simulations
Authors: Carmen M. Pancerella, Paul F. Reynolds,  Jr.
Venue: ACM SIGSIM Simulation Digest (1993)

A hardware-based framework which supports a wide range of parallel discrete event synchronization protocols has been proposed in [Reyn92]. This framework offloads all synchronization activity from the host processors and host communication network in the system. The underlying hardware computes results of global, binary associative operations, or global reductions. In this paper we present results of simulations that strongly suggest the need for a next-generation reduction network which computes and disseminates results of target-specific reductions to support both aggressive and non-aggressive parallel discrete event simulations. Target-specific reductions allow a logical process to receive synchronization information only from those logical processes which may have a direct or indirect impact on its performance.
Integrating analysis and design methods (abstract)
Authors: Derek Coleman, Paul Jeremaes
Venue: ACM SIGPLAN OOPS Messenger (1993)

Integrating Analysis and Design Methods Derek Coleman Paul Jeremaes, HP Labs, England Most of those who practice object-oriented analysis and design do not follow any standard method exactly, but combine different techniques to suit their own unique requirements. Each method employs its own set of models, notations, and processes, so it can be difficult to combine them. This tutorial shows how to design a method by providing a framework for understanding and evaluating current methods, applying it to three recent methods (OMT (Rumbaugh et al), Responsibility Driven Design/CRC cards, Booth 91 Method), and combining them to produce a new method, FUSION, that builds on their best aspects. The tutorial introduces a set of criteria for evaluating methods from the viewpoint of the object-oriented concepts they support, the kinds of models and notations they employ and the process steps that they recommend. The criteria provides a way to understand the underlying similarities and differences between methods. The criteria were developed as part of a program to assess what kind of method should be made available to HP engineers, which led to the development of the FUSION method. The tutorial ends with a brief account of the usefulness of FUSION in practice.
Integrating a dynamic lexicon with a dynamic full-text retrieval system
Authors: Peter G. Anick, Rex A. Flynn
Venue: Proceedings of the 16th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval (1993)

There has been a great deal of interest within the Information Retrieval community in evaluating the use of linguistic knowledge to improve the indexing and searching of textual databases. Such systems must often employ a lexicon to store information about the words and phrases comprising the application's domain. Unlike a static lexicon, a dynamic lexicon raises practical concerns about the coordination between the state of the lexicon and IR indexing schemes based on lexical knowledge. Additionally, it introduces a host of database management issues, many of which are similar to those found in the text databases as well. In this paper, we explore a range of system design and performance issues that arise when integrating a dynamic lexicon with a dynamic full-text information retrieval system. We observe that the principle of functional isolation argues against the use of language-dependent information in article indexes and favors the use of query-time strategies for applying lexical knowledge. We propose and evaluate a system architecture which embodies this principle. We also show how a storage and retrieval infrastructure based on Burkowski's [BURKOWSKI92] &ldquo;containment model&rdquo; abstraction can be employed to implement both the text retrieval and lexicon facilities required in an integrated system.
Progress on HPCC and NII
Authors: Marianne Winslett
Venue: ACM SIGMOD Record (1994)

In this issue we briefly touch on the continuing turmoil over NSF, ARPA, and HPCC, and the brighter news regarding the US National Information Infrastructure plan. We then describe funding opportunities from NSF, ARPA, the National Security Agency, the National Center for Automated Information Research, the Air Force, and NASA.