ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Ensuring software safety in robot control
Authors: P. Wetterlind, W. M. Lively
Venue: Proceedings of the 1987 Fall Joint Computer Conference on Exploring technology: today and tomorrow (1987)

Hazard prevention and/or risk minimization are especially pertinent in industrial robot installations. Software for controlling robots must be analyzed as a contributor in risk situations. The use of 'failure mode and effects analyses' and 'fault tree analyses' on such software offers a measure of risk minimization. This paper contains an example application of FMEA and FTA to software, and offers guidelines for similar uses in other situational investigations. Another benefit of applying FMEA and FTA to software is the encouragement of communication and cooperation between software developers and industrial personnel. Suggestions regarding cooperative communication protocol are in the paper's concluding remarks.
A centrally controlled shuffle network for reconfigurable and fault-tolerant architecture
Authors: Nripendra N. Biswas, S. Srinivas, Trishala Dharanendra
Venue: ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News (1987)

The paper describes a multistage shuffle interconnection network which is controlled by a central monitor. A control code broadcast by the monitor to all the basic switching elements of the network simultaneously, makes the network dynamically reconfigurable. The control code plays three vital roles. Firstly, it establishes conflict-free paths between several source-destination pairs. Thus the problem of collision, a major obstacle of a self-routing network, is completely eliminated. Secondly, the direct paths are established in one clock period irrespective of the number of stages. This makes the system faster. Thirdly, the control code also acts as a grouping code for executing a table of arbitrary data exchange requests between nodes in minimum number of passes. It is also shown that the network can be made fault-tolerant by the addition of an extra stage. Any single fault and some multiple faults in the intermediate stages can be tolerated by this scheme. Moreover, the switching from the faulty state to the fault-free state can be done in a single clock period, thus enabling fast fault-tolerant reconfiguration.
Multimedia document presentation, information extraction, and document formation in MINOS: a model and a system
Authors: S. Christodoulakis, M. Theodoridou, F. Ho, M. Papa, A. Pathria
Venue: ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS) (1986)

MINOS is an object-oriented multimedia information system that provides integrated facilities for creating and managing complex multimedia objects. In this paper the model for multimedia documents supported by MINOS and its implementation is described. Described in particular are functions provided in MINOS that exploit the capabilities of a modern workstation equipped with image and voice input-output devices to accomplish an active multimedia document presentation and browsing within documents. These functions are powerful enough to support a variety of office applications. Also described are functions provided for the extraction of information from multimedia documents that exist in a large repository of information (multimedia document archiver) and functions that select and transform this information. Facilities for information sharing among objects of the archiver are described; an interactive multimedia editor that is used for the extraction and interactive creation of new information is outlined; finally, a multimedia document formatter that is used to synthesize a new multimedia document from extracted and interactively generated information is presented. This prototype system runs on a SUN-3 workstation running UNIX'". An Instavox, directly addressable, analog device is used to store voice segments.
Typesetting APL with TeX
Authors: Aarno Hohti
Venue: ACM SIGAPL APL Quote Quad (1988)

The production of documents, preprints, books, teaching material etc. containing APL code has always been difficult or expensive, in particular when good quality has been desirable. Therefore, people have experimented with various computerized typesetting systems for solving this problem. In this note we describe how TEX, Donald Knuth's revolutionary typesetting program, can be used to generate a high quality typesetting environment for APL.
An empirical study of the impact of user involvement on system usage and information satisfaction
Authors: Jack J. Baroudi, Margrethe H. Olson, Blake Ives
Venue: Communications of the ACM (1986)

"User involvement" in information system development is generally considered an important mechanism for improving system quality and ensuring successful system implementation. The common assumption that user involvement leads to system usage and/or information satisfaction is examined in a survey of 200 production managers. Alternative models exploring the causal ordering of the three variables are developed and tested via path analysis. The results demonstrate that user involvement in the development of information systems will enhance both system usage and the user's satisfaction with the system. Further, the study provides evidence that the user's satisfaction with the system will lead to greater system usage.
On first-order-logic databases
Authors: Henryk Rybiński
Venue: ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS) (1987)

The use of first-order logic as database logic is shown to be powerful enough for formalizing and implementing not only relational but also hierarchical and network-type databases. It enables one to treat all the types of databases in a uniform manner. This paper focuses on the database language for heterogeneous databases. The language is shown to be general enough to specify constraints for a particular type of database, so that a specification of database type can be &ldquo;translated&rdquo; to the specification given in the database language, creating a &ldquo;logical environment&rdquo; for different views that can be defined by users. Owing to the fact that any database schema is seen as a first-order theory expressed by a finite set of sentences, the problems concerned with completeness and compactness of the database logic discussed by Jacobs ("On Database Logic,&rdquo; J. ACM 29,2 (Apr. 1982), 310-332) are avoided.
Marching cubes: A high resolution 3D surface construction algorithm
Authors: William E. Lorensen, Harvey E. Cline
Venue: ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics (1987)

We present a new algorithm, called marching cubes, that creates triangle models of constant density surfaces from 3D medical data. Using a divide-and-conquer approach to generate inter-slice connectivity, we create a case table that defines triangle topology. The algorithm processes the 3D medical data in scan-line order and calculates triangle vertices using linear interpolation. We find the gradient of the original data, normalize it, and use it as a basis for shading the models. The detail in images produced from the generated surface models is the result of maintaining the inter-slice connectivity, surface data, and gradient information present in the original 3D data. Results from computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) illustrate the quality and functionality of marching cubes. We also discuss improvements that decrease processing time and add solid modeling capabilities.
An algorithm for linear programming which requires O(((m+n)n2+(m+n)1.5n)L) arithmetic operations
Authors: P. M. Vaidya
Venue: Proceedings of the nineteenth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing (1987)

We present an algorithm for linear programming which requires &Ogr;(((m + n) n2 + (m + n)1.5 n) L) arithmetic operations where m is the number of inequalities, and n is the number of variables. Each operation is performed to a precision of &Ogr; (L) bits. L is bounded by the number of bits in the input.
Computation of aliases and support sets
Authors: A. Neirynck, A. J. Demers
Venue: Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN symposium on Principles of programming languages (1987)

We provide a scheme for determining which global variables are involved when an expression is evaluated in a language with higher order constructs and imperative features. The heart of our scheme is a mechanism for computing the support of an expression, i.e. the set of global variables involved in its evaluation. This computation requires knowledge of all the aliases of an expression. The inference schemes are presented as abstract semantic interpretations. We prove the soundness of our estimates by establishing a correspondence between the abstract semantics and the standard semantics of the programming language.
A New VLSI Graphics Coprocessor-The Intel 82786
Authors: Glen Shires
Venue: IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (1986)

Most graphics systems available today suffer from low performance, minimal flecibility, or high cost and high component count. Intel carefully looked at these problems and designed the 82786 chip to address them. The 82786 combines into a single of supporting today's graphics standards and a powerful display processor that supports windowing in hardware.
RT PC distributed services overview
Authors: Charles H. Sauer, Don W. Johnson, Larry K. Loucks, Amal A. Shaheen-Gouda, Todd A. Smith
Venue: ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review (1987)

RT PC Distributed Services provides distributed operating system capabilities for the AIX1 operating system. These include distributed files with local/remote transparency, a form of "single system image" and distributed interprocess communication. Applications, including data management/data base applications, can typically be used in the distributed environment without modification to existing object code. Distributed Services is architected for strong compatibility with AIX, the UNIX2 operating system, IBM architectures such as SNA and some of the architectures of Sun Microsystems'3 NFS. The Distributed Services implementation includes caching mechanisms and other algorithms designed for high performance without sacrificing strict functional transparency. This paper describes the key characteristics and decisions in the design of Distributed Services.
Mathematical description of the control of steady states in metabolic systems
Authors: W. Meiske, J. G. Reich
Venue: Systems Analysis Modelling Simulation (1987)

A program which translates an algorithmic language such as ALGOL into the machine language of an electronic computer performs the following functions: Analysis. From the program in algorithmic language are determined the operations which the computer must perform in the execution of the target program and the logical interdependence of these. Optimization. Of the many possibilities for optimization that exist, two are pertinent to this note: (2a) the elimination of superfluous operations, and (2b) the execution at translation time of those operations which do not depend on results produced by the target program. Synthesis. The sequence of operations which arise from steps 1 and 2 is expressed in the language of the computer and placed into the target program.
On the stability of the Ethernet
Authors: J Goodman, A G Greenberg, N Madras, P March
Venue: Proceedings of the seventeenth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing (1985)

We consider the stochastic behavior of binary exponential backoff, a probabilistic algorithm for regulating transmissions on a multiple access channel. Ethernet, a local area network, is built upon this algorithm. The fundamental theoretical issue is stability: does the backlog of packets awaiting transmission remain bounded in time, provided the rates of new packet arrivals are small enough? We present a realistic model of n &ge; 2 stations communicating over the channel. Our main result is to establish that the algorithm is stable if the sum of the arrival rates is sufficiently small. We report detailed results on which rates lead to stability when n = 2 stations share the channel. In passing we derive several other results bearing on the efficiency of the conflict resolution process. Lastly, we report results from a simulation study, which, in particular, indicate alternative retransmission strategies can significantly improve performance.
A Monolithic Hough Transform Processor Based on Restructurable VLSI
Authors: F. M. Rhodes, J. J. Dituri, G. H. Chapman, B. E. Emerson, A. M. Soares
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (1988)

The implementation of a Hough transform processor using a wafer-scale-integration technology, restructurable VLSI circuit is described. The Hough transform is typically used as a grouping operation in an image processing sequence. The transform discussed here groups pixels in order to extract linear features. This calculation is realized with a wafer-scale processor that allows a complete line extraction system to be integrated on a single PC board. Also discussed is the use of the CAD tools that allowed this processor to be realized without incurring silicon layout and processing overhead.
Performance Analysis of Distributed Routing Strategies Free of Ping-Pong-Type Looping
Authors: K. G. Shin, M.-S. Chen
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Computers (1987)

This paper deals with a distributed adaptive routing strategy which is very simple and effective, and is free of a ping-pong-type looping in the presence of network failures. Using the number of time intervals required for a node to recover from a network failure as the measure of network's adaptability, performance of this strategy and the ARPANET's previous routing strategy (APRS) is comparatively analyzed without resorting to simulation. Formulas of the exact number of time intervals required for failure recovery under both strategies are also derived. We show that i)the performance of the strategy is always better than, or at least as good as, that of APRS, and ii) network topology has significant effects on the performance of both strategies.
A consistent hierarchical representation for vector data
Authors: Randal C. Nelson, Hanan Samet
Venue: ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics (1986)

A consistent hierarchical data structure for the representation of vector data is presented. It makes use of a concept termed a line segment fragment to prevent data degradation under splitting or clipping of vector primitives. This means that the insertion and subsequent deletion (and vice versa) of a vector leaves the data unchanged. Vectors are represented exactly and not as digital approximations. The data is dynamically organized by use of simple probabilistic splitting and merging rules. The use of the structure for implementing a geographic information system is described. Algorithms for constructing and manipulating the structure are provided. Results of empirical tests comparing the structure to other representations in the literature are given.
APL thinking: examples
Authors: Murray Eisenberg, Howard A. Peelle
Venue: ACM SIGAPL APL Quote Quad (1987)

In an effort to understand &ldquo;APL thinking&rdquo;, we examine a few selected examples of using APL to solve specific problems, namely: compute the median of a numerical vector; simulate the Replicate function; string search; carry forward work-to-be-done in excess of capacity; rotate concentric rectangular rings in a matrix; find column indices of pivots in an echelon matrix. These examples are drawn from our teaching experience as well as from APL literature. We are particularly interested in studying thinking processes underlying alternative solutions to such problems &mdash; i.e., our goal is to &ldquo;get inside the head&rdquo; of the APL programmer. Analyses include reconstructing thoughts, comparing alternative approaches, and, in general, scrutinizing supposed characteristics of APL thinking.
New results for random determination of equivalence of expressions
Authors: Gaston H. Gonnet
Venue: Proceedings of the fifth ACM symposium on Symbolic and algebraic computation (1986)

We devise several procedures based on signatures (or hashing functions) to determine equivalence of expressions in Random Polynomial Time (also called Probabilistic Polynomial Time) (RPT). We extend the previous results known to include various new functions that can be tested. These procedures return as result: &ldquo;equivalent&rdquo; or &ldquo;not-equivalent&rdquo;. The result &ldquo;not-equivalent&rdquo; is always correct, while the result &ldquo;equivalent&rdquo; is correct with probability at least 1 &mdash; &egr;. This probability depends on a random number generator and is independent of the problem being solved. In all our procedures, the value &egr; can be made arbitrarily small. This method works for determining equivalence over an important class of functions as well as answering other questions like linearity, polynomial dependence, squareness, independence, etc. The general scheme for all these algorithms is to use a basic heuristic &ldquo;test&rdquo; several times. I.e. solve( problem, epsilon ) repeat select suitable characteristic p randomly; assign random values to all variables; t := test( problem, p ); if t = &ldquo;not-equivalent&rdquo; then return( t ) until Prob of cumulative failures >= epsilon; return( &ldquo;equivalent&rdquo; ); It is assumed that &ldquo;test&rdquo; gives a wrong answer with probability &dgr;, where &dgr; remains bounded below 1. For all our &ldquo;test&rdquo; procedures, &dgr; &le; 1/2. In what follows we will describe the &ldquo;test&rdquo; part of the different procedures, it is always assumed that these are used in the above context. Without loss of generality we will assume that equivalence of expressions (A &equiv; B) can be transformed into testing for 0 (A &mdash; B &equiv; 0). This test can be performed &ldquo;quickly&rdquo; in the sense that it can run in polynomial time on the size of the dag (directed acyclic graph) representation of the expression, also known as &ldquo;linear program representation&rdquo; of an expression.
Efficient demand-driven evaluation. Part 1
Authors: Keshav Pingali, Arvind
Venue: ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS) (1985)

We describe a program transformation technique for programs in a general stream language L whereby a data-driven evaluation of the transformed program performs exactly the same computation as a demand-driven evaluation of the original program. The transformational technique suggests a simple denotational characterization of demand-driven evaluation.
A case study of workstation usage during the early phases of the software development life cycle
Authors: Rakesh M Mital, Marcia M Kim, Richard A Berg
Venue: ACM SIGPLAN Notices (1987)

This paper presents initial results in an ongoing study of workstation usage in a real, commercial software development environment. The methodology being supported is explained and the background for the project is presented. Predictions of the resources and schedule required is calculated using the COnstructive COst MOdel (COCOMO). Actual resources and schedule used to date are presented and shown to be quite favorable with respect to the model predictions. Further discussion of workstation usage and the impact on project performance is presented. Conclusions indicate that workstation use can be quite favorable on software development projects, but the workstations are still only automating the more mundane aspects of the requirements analysis and design phases.
Indentation styles in C
Authors: John C. Hansen, Roger Yim
Venue: ACM SIGSMALL/PC Notes (1987)

Hansen and Sands [1985] compare two different styles of indentation shown in Figure 1.
801 storage: architecture and programming
Authors: Albert Chang, Mark F. Mergen
Venue: ACM Transactions on Computer Systems (TOCS) (1988)

Based on novel architecture, the 801 minicomputer project has developed a low-level storage manager that can significantly simplify storage programming in subsystems and applications. The storage manager embodies three ideas: (1) large virtual storage, to contain all temporary data and permanent files for the active programs; (2) the innovation of database storage, which has implicit properties of access serializability and atomic update, similar to those of database transaction systems; and (3) access to all storage, including files, by the usual operations and types of a high-level programming language. The IBM RT PC implements the hardware architecture necessary for these storage facilities in its storage controller (MMU). The storage manager and language elements required, as well as subsystems and applications that use them, have been implemented and studied in a prototype operating system called CPR, that runs on the RT PC. Low cost and good performance are achieved in both hardware and software. The design is intended to be extensible across a wide performance/cost spectrum.
Evaluation of the SPUR Lisp architecture
Authors: G. S. Taylor, P. N. Hilfinger, J. R. Larus, D. A. Patterson, B. G. Zorn
Venue: ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News (1986)

The SPUR microprocessor has a 40-bit tagged architecture designed to improve its performance for Lisp programs. Although SPUR includes just a small set of enhancements to the Berkeley RISC-II architecture, simulation results show that with a 150-ns cycle time SPUR will run Common Lisp programs at least as fast as a Symbolies 3600 or a DEC VAX 8600. This paper explains SPUR's instruction set architecture and provides measurements of how certain components of the architecture perform.
An algorithm for multidimensional data clustering
Authors: S. J. Wan, S. K. M. Wong, P. Prusinkiewicz
Venue: ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS) (1988)

A new divisive algorithm for multidimensional data clustering is suggested. Based on the minimization of the sum-of-squared-errors, the proposed method produces much smaller quantization errors than the median-cut and mean-split algorithms. It is also observed that the solutions obtained from our algorithm are close to the local optimal ones derived by the k-means iterative procedure.
Software plant: the Brazilian software consortium
Authors: F. G. Sobrinho, M. D. Ferraretto
Venue: Proceedings of the 1987 Fall Joint Computer Conference on Exploring technology: today and tomorrow (1987)

This work describes the effort for conquering software production technology in order to position the Brazilian software industry in a competitive level as required by the international marketplace. The basis for such achievement is the introduction of formal methods and paradigms of reusability, measurability and prototyping into a truly engineering approach.
Novel security techniques for online systems
Authors: Richard Botting
Venue: Communications of the ACM (1986)

By ensuring entry to subsystems (zones) with different facilities and security levels, log-in procedures can do more than simply delay illicit access.
Data Integration in Distributed Databases
Authors: S. M. Deen, R. R. Amin, M. C. Taylor
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (1987)

Data integration in a distributed database refers to the production of union-compatible views for similar information expressed dissimilarly in different nodes. Such a facility is needed for location transparency and for easier formulation of global queries over the apparently incompatible data aggregated from different nodes. This paper examines the issues in data integration within a relational context, and proposes a solution based on special relational constructs which produce union-compatible relations. The advantages of this approach over others have also been discussed.
Interactive recognition of handprinted characters for computer input
Authors: Jean Renard Ward, Barry Blesser
Venue: ACM SIGCHI Bulletin (1986)

Recent development in real-time recognition of handprinted characters have resulted in a commercial device that reads "unconstrained," or free-form, handprinting. Unlike most devices that optically read machineprinted characters in finished text, this device is suitable for interactive system: It reads from a digitizing tablet while the user is writing.