ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Attaining Level 5 in CMM Process Maturity
Authors: Frank McGarry, Bill Decker
Venue: IEEE Software (2002)

In November 1998, the CSC SEAS Center became the sixth organization in the world ever to have attained the rating of Capability Maturity Model (CMM) CMM Level 5.This achievement was the culmination of an aggressive process improvement initiative which began in mid-1994. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) CMM(Reference 1) is a worldwide recognized benchmark for software organizations, used to assess the maturity and quality of an organization's software process. The SEAS Center has twice reaffirmed its high maturity performance by independent assessments. Since the start of the focused improvement program in 1994, detailed records of cost, impacts, activities and overall approach have been captured, tracked, and analyzed so that other CSC programs could capitalize on the SEAS efforts and experiences. This paper is a direct result of the collection and analysis of that process experience data.After a brief overview of the SEAS organization and its aggressive process improvement approach, this paper describes the coordination of improvement initiatives, the role of goals and industry benchmarks, the organizational strategy, and the use of key documents in measuring improvements. Additional discussion covers the investment and benefits of an improvement program. Finally, based on the SEAS experience, the paper presents seven key recommendations for any organization planning to initiate a process improvement program.
Pipelined Adders
Authors: Luigi Dadda, Vincenzo Piuri
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Computers (1996)

A well-known scheme for obtaining high throughput adders is a pipeline in which each stage contains an array of half-adders performing a carry-save addition. This paper shows that other schemes can be designed, based on the idea of pipelining a serial-input adder or a ripple-carry adder. Such schemes offer a considerable savings of components while preserving high throughput. These schemes can be generalized by using (p, q) parallel counters to obtain pipelined adders for more than two numbers.
Bounds on Maximum Delay in Networks with Deflection Routing
Authors: Jack T. Brassil, Rene L. Cruz
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (1995)

We consider the problem of finding the worst case packet transit delay in networks using deflection routing. Several classes of networks are studied, including many topologies for which deflection routing has been proposed or implemented (e.g., hypercube, Manhattan Street Network, shuffle-exchange network). We derive new upper bounds on the evacuation time of batch admissions, and present simple proofs for several existing bounds. Also derived are bounds on worst case transit delay for certain networks admitting packets continuously. To demonstrate the practical utility of our results, we compare a new delay bound to the maximum delay observed in simulations. The results have application in both protocol design and the determination of the required capacity of packet resequencing buffers.
Why is distributed system evolution not better supported?
Authors: Huw Evans
Venue: Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution (2001)

This position paper takes the view that modern programming languages, their tools and software architectures do not adequately support the programmer in their day-to-day task of evolving large, long-lived, distributed systems. Evolving programs is the dominant cost on these kinds of system projects and the programmer is not as well supported in this task as they should be. This is argued by presenting what these three technologies do well and less well at code development time and at system run-time. We discuss the various degrees of support that are offered and then describe what can be improved for the tractable problems and what can be done for a particular intractable problem.
Determining the Axis of a Surface of Revolution Using Tactile Sensing
Authors: M. D. Berkemeier, R. S. Fearing
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (1993)

Dextrous robot hands need to be able to determine the pose of objects to reliably grasp and manipulate them. The first contacts with an object can be used to provide an initial estimate of this information if the object is constrained to be of a particular class. The authors consider a simple example of exploiting class constraints: finding the axis of an unknown surface of revolution. Three tactile curvature measurements on a surface of revolution with twice-differentiable sweeping rule function are shown to be sufficient for determining the axis except for certain singular configurations. Position and orientation error uncertainties and experimental results are presented for a cylindrical tactile sensor.
Conceptual Prototyping of Scalable Embedded DSP Systems
Authors: Lan-rong Dung, Vijay K. Madisetti
Venue: IEEE Design Test (1996)

Increasing product complexities combined with very short time-to-market scenarios requires the ability to consider both the customer's flexible requirements and the rigid constraints imposed by the design and the manufacturing processes very early in the design cycle. These preliminary tasks, which include functional design, partitioning, resource allocation, architecture selection and verification, communication and interface design, determine over 70% of the final product design, manufacturing and maintenance costs. We propose that conceptual prototyping, a systematic process that utilizes model-based architectural synthesis and verification, ensures that the early design is efficient, economic and meets customer requirements in addition to the capability for rapid upgrade of legacy systems. We demonstrate how complex embedded digital systems can be conceptually prototyped in a matter of weeks using a scalable, plug-and-play, model year design methodology proposed as part of DARPA's RASSP program.
Porting Ada: A Report From the Field
Authors: Joseph G. Skazinski
Venue: Computer (1994)

With the constant barrage of new systems, porting software applications is inevitable. This article takes a look at the problems involved in porting an Ada/C application. The porting effort begins when the software architecture is defined and the code implemented. The task is completed with the successful execution of the software on all target platforms. The AFATDS porting effort to the HP RISC platform was completed successfully. The effort to port AFATDS to an InteVSCO Unix platform is still incomplete and is awaiting an Ada compiler upgrade that can pass the AFATDS messaging schema's large arrays to generic procedures. With the numerous operating systems available, the constant barrage of new operating system releases, and the continual hardware advancements, the need to port software applications is evident. The success of any porting effort depends on the maturation and reliability of the tools being used. If the Department of Defense's dual-use strategy is to succeed, DoD must also foster the development of reliable and affordable Ada tools.
MicroScope: A Knowledge-Based Programming Environment
Authors: James Ambras, Vicki O'Day
Venue: IEEE Software (1988)

A description is given of MicroScope, a knowledge-based environment with tools that directly help programmers understand and modify complex programs. MicroScope is a collection of tools that share a common knowledge base and user interface and that run in a programming environment with many other tools. The features it provides are examined, namely, incremental support, annotations, constraints, dynamic analysis, history and program slices, and location of bugs. The knowledge base is described. The current MicroScope prototype is presented, and the lessons learned from it are discussed.
A+: DOS/Windows Study Guide, 2nd edition
Authors: David Groth
Venue:  (1998)

:Here's the second edition of the best-selling A+: Windows/DOS Study Guide--updated and expanded for the new A+ exam from the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA). This study guide provides comprehensive coverage of each A+ objective, together with practical exercises and reference information. The CD contains A+ test-preparation software.
Incremental Recovery in Main Memory Database Systems
Authors: E. Levy, A. Silberschatz
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (1992)

Recovery activities, like checkpointing and restart, in traditional database management systems are performed in a quiescent state where no transactions are active. This approach impairs the performance of online transaction processing systems, especially when a large volatile memory is used. An incremental scheme for performing recovery in main memory database systems (MMDBs), in parallel with transaction execution, is presented. A page-based incremental restart algorithm that enables the resumption of transaction processing as soon as the system is up is proposed. Pages are recovered individually and according to the demands of the post-crash transactions. A method for propagating updates from main memory to the backup database on disk is also provided. The emphasis is on decoupling the I/O activities related to the propagation to disk from the forward transaction execution in memory. The authors also construct a high-level recovery manager based on operation logging on top of the page-based algorithms. The proposed algorithms are motivated by the characteristics of large MMDBs, and exploit the technology of nonvolatile RAM.
A Routing and Broadcasting Scheme on Faulty Star Graphs
Authors: N. Bagherzadeh, N. Nassif, S. Latifi
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Computers (1993)

The authors present a routing algorithm that uses the depth first search approach combined with a backtracking technique to route messages on the star graph in the presence of faulty links. The algorithm is distributed and requires no global knowledge of faults. The only knowledge required at a node is the state of its incident links. The routed message carries information about the followed path and the visited nodes. The algorithm routes messages along the optimal, i.e., the shortest path if no faults are encountered or if the faults are such that an optimal path still exists. In the absence of an optimal path, the algorithm always finds a path between two nodes within a bounded number of hops if the two nodes are connected. Otherwise, it returns the message to the originating node. The authors provide a performance analysis for the case where an optimal path does not exist. They prove that for a maximum of n-2 faults on a graph with N=n! nodes, at most 2i+2 steps are added to the path, where i is O( square root n). Finally, they use the routing algorithm to present an efficient broadcast algorithm on the star graph in the presence of faults.
Constant-Time Parallel Algorithms for Image Labeling on a Reconfigurable Network of Processors
Authors: H. M. Alnuweiri
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (1994)

A constant-time algorithm for labeling the connected components of an N/spl times/Nimage on a reconfigurable network of N/sup 3/ processors is presented. The maincontribution of the algorithm is a novel constant-time technique for determining theminimum-labeled PE in each component. The number of processors used by the algorithm can be reduced to N/sup 2+(1/d/), for any 1/spl les/d/spl les/log N, if O(d) time is allowed.
Markov Regenerative Stochastic Petri Nets to Model and Evaluate Phased Mission Systems Dependability
Authors: I. Mura, A. Bondavalli
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Computers (2001)

This study deals with model-based dependability transient analysis of phased mission systems. A review of the studies in the literature showed that several aspects of multiphased systems pose challenging problems to the dependability evaluation methods and tools. To attack the weak points of the state-of-the-art we propose a modeling methodology that exploits the power of the class of Markov regenerative stochastic Petri net models. By exploiting the techniques available in the literature for the analysis of the Markov Regenerative Processes, we obtain an analytical solution technique with a low computational complexity, basically dominated by the cost of the separate analysis of the system inside each phase. Last, the existence of analytical solutions allows us to derive the sensitivity functions of the dependability measures, thus providing the dependability engineer with additional means for the study of phased mission systems.
Configurations for IDDQ-Testable PLAs
Authors: Manoj Sachdev, Hans Kerkhoff
Venue: IEEE Design Test (1999)

In this article two IDDQ testable PLA configurations are proposed. In these configurations adjacent precharge lines (and adjacent evaluation lines) are precharged (evaluated) to complementary logic levels. Owing to this DfT technique, all likely bridging faults in PLAs are tested efficiently by IDDQ tests. Such a test is largely independent of the function implemented in a PLA. The performance impact of these configurations are also examined.
Minimizing the Mean Damage for Parallel-Series Systems with Two Failure Modes
Authors: Vladimir Kirilyuk, James E. Falk
Venue: Computational Optimization and Applications (2000)

We address a non-convex optimization problem involving the minimization of the difference between two symmetric functions which are log convex. Specifically we are interested in minimizing the mean system damage of a parallel-series system composed of a maximal number of identical units, each capable of failing in one of two ways.We characterize the solution of the problem, and develop an algorithm to solve large scale versions of it.Numerical results are presented. It is shown that an optimal configuration with n available components may not use all n components.
Partitioning Message Patterns for Bundled Omega Networks
Authors: P. J. Bernhard, D. J. Rosenkrantz
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (1994)

Considers a strategy for dealing with communication conflicts in omega networks. Specifically, the authors consider the problem of partitioning a set of conflicting messages into a minimum number of subsets, called rounds, each free of communication conflicts. In addition to standard omega networks, they consider this problem for a more general class of networks called bundled omega networks, where interconnection links in the network are replaced by bundles of wires. Although the partitioning problem has previously been considered in the literature, its computational complexity has remained open. The authors show that for a number of cases, the problem is NP-complete, but for certain special cases, it is solvable in polynomial time. In addition, they present a class of distributed, on-line heuristics for the problem. Finally, they give a lower bound of /spl Omega/(log N) on the performance ratio for one of these heuristics.
Adaptive Retransmission Diversity with Packet Combining for Slotted DS/CDMA Packet Radio Networks
Authors: A. Annamalai, Vijay K. Bhargava
Venue: Wireless Personal Communications: An International Journal (1999)

A time diversity automatic repeat-request (ARQ) scheme is investigated for slotted random access direct-sequence code-division multiaccess (DS/CDMA ALOHA) wireless packet radio networks on multipath Rayleigh fading channels. The receiver retains and processes all the retransmissions of a single data block (packet) using predetection diversity combining, instead of discarding those which are detected in error. This effectively improves the system throughput and delay characteristics especially at small values of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) per bit. A simple and practical selection combining rule is proposed, which lends itself to a low-complexity receiver structure and specifically suitable for high data rate transmissions. Owing to the stochastic nature of the multiple access interference, the new maximum output selection diversity (MO/SD) system yields superior performance in comparison to the traditional maximum SNR selection diversity (SNR/SD) model. The bit error rate performance, throughput and the average number of transmissions required to transmit a packet successfully with and without forward error correction (FEC) are evaluated. Numerical results reveal that the proposed adaptive retransmission diversity with packet combining provides a considerable advantage over the conventional slotted DS/CDMA ALOHA without incurring a substantial penalty in terms of cost or complexity.
Maintenance of views
Authors: Oded Shmueli, Alon Itai
Venue: Proceedings of the 1984 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data (1984)

In relational databases a view definition is a query against the database, and a view materialization is the result of applying the view definition to the current database A view materialization over a database may change as relations in the database undergo modificationsIn this paper a mechanism is proposed in which the view is materialized at all times The problem which this mechanism addresses is how to quickly update the view in response to database changes A structure is maintained which provides information useful in minimizing the amount of work caused by updatesMethods are presented for handling both general databases and the much simpler tree databases (also called acyclic database) In both cases adding or deleting a tuple can be performed in polynomial time For tree databases the degree of the polynomial is independent of the schema structure while for cyclic databases the degree depends on the schema structure The cost of a sequence of tuple additions (deletions) is also analyzed
Intersecting families with minimum volume
Authors: Jerrold R. Griggs
Venue: Discrete Mathematics (2002)

We determine the minimum volume (sum of cardinalities) of an intersecting family of subsets of an n-set, given the size of the family, by solving a simple linear program. From this, we obtain a lower bound on the average size of the sets in an intersecting family. This answers a question of G.O.H. Katona, whose 60th birthday we celebrate with this result.
Object-Oriented Programming for Structured Procedural Programmers
Authors: Emdad H. Khan, Mansoor Al-A'ali, Moheb R. Girgis
Venue: Computer (1995)

Object technology is attracting attention in many areas, such as programming, databases, systems analysis and design, computer architecture, operating systems, and expert systems. The object-oriented programming approach promises to produce greater reusability, more extensibility, and easy maintainability. Structured procedural programming, on the other hand, is well understood, well defined, and widely used for developing software. As a consequence, structured programmers may not yet be familiar with the OOP approach. Using example programs, this tutorial compares the two paradigms, showing some of the benefits of OOP, and provides concrete illustrations of such concepts as encapsulation, hierarchical class inheritance, and polymorphism, which underlie the object-oriented paradigm.
Deep Blue's Hardware-Software Synergy
Authors: Scott Hamilton, Lee Garber
Venue: Computer (1997)

When IBM's Deep Blue rocked the chess world by defeating World Champion Garry Kasparov in a regulation match, many attributed the win to sheer hardware power. Because Deep Blue can evaluate 200 million moves per second, one observer said it had won by packing 380 years of human thought into three minutes. Improved hardware certainly did play a role in the victory, but brute-force calculations alone are not the whole story. To win, Deep Blue combined sheer speed and the ability to manage the complexity of searching these combinations. Its optimized game tree search employed evaluation functions tuned with expert knowledge from human grand masters. This article details the synergism of software algorithms and hardware strategies that the Deep Blue team used to beat Kasparov. Kasparov himself hinted at the rest of the story when he said Deep Blue was making human moves. This observation underscores the role software played in capturing the human expertise.
Solving An Algebraic Path Problem and Some Related Graph Problems on a Hyper-Bus Broadcast Network
Authors: Horng-Ren Tsai, Shi-Jinn Horng, Shun-Shan Tsai, Tzong-Wann Kao, Shung-Shing Lee
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (1997)

The parallel computation model upon which the proposed algorithms are based is the hyper-bus broadcast network. The hyper-bus broadcast network consists of processors which are connected by global buses only. Based on such an improved architecture, we first design two O(1) time basic operations for finding the maximum and minimum of N numbers each of size O(log N)-bit and computing the matrix multiplication operation of two N×N matrices, respectively. Then, based on these two basic operations, three of the most important instances in the algebraic path problem, the connectivity problem, and several related problems are all solved in O(log N) time. These include the all-pair shortest paths, the minimum-weight spanning tree, the transitive closure, the connected component, the biconnected component, the articulation point, and the bridge problems, either in an undirected or a directed graph, respectively.
An unconditionally convergent discretization of the SEIR Model
Authors: H. Jansen, E. H. Twizell
Venue: Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (2002)

The SEIR (susceptible, exposed, infectious, recovered) model has been discussed by many authors, in particular with reference to the spread of measles in an epidemic. In this paper, the SEIR model with constant rate of infection is solved using a first-order, finite-difference method in the form of a system of one-point iteration functions. This discrete system is seen to have two fixed points which are identical to the critical points of the (continuous) equations of the SEIR model and it is shown that they have the same stability properties. It is shown further that the solution sequence is attracted from any set of initial conditions to the correct (stable) fixed point for an arbitrarily large time step. Simulations confirm this and results are compared with well-known numerical methods.
The Density Advantage of Configurable Computing
Authors: André DeHon
Venue: Computer (2000)

More and more, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are accelerating computing applications. The absolute performance achieved by these configurable machines has been impressive--often one to two orders of magnitude greater than processor-based alternatives. Configurable computing is one of the fastest, most economical ways to solve problems such as RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adelman) decryption, DNA sequence matching, signal processing, emulation, and cryptographic attacks.But questions remain as to why FPGAs have been so much more successful than their microprocessor and DSP counterparts. Do FPGA architectures have inherent advantages? Or are these examples just flukes of technology and market pricing? Will advantages increase, decrease, or remain the same as technology advances? Is there some generalization that accounts for the advantages in these cases?The author attempts to answer these questions and to see how configurable computing fits into the arsenal of structures used to build general, programmable computing platforms.