ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Managing the Tension in IS Projects: Balancing Alignment, Engagement, Perspective and Imagination
Authors: Kevin Gallagher, Robert M. Mason, Betty Vandenbosch
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04) - Track 8 - Volume 8 (2004)

The differing experiences and practices of systems professionals and users cause majorobstacles in the process of requirements definition. For system design projects to be successful, users and systems professionals must learn from each other. Wenger (1998) believes alignment, imagination and engagement to be the core elements for learning in a community of practice. Boland and Tenkasi (1995) believe that perspective taking and perspective making are core elements in learning across communities. We explore the value of these elements as a model for evaluating how users and IT professionals came together to work on an ERP project.The non-profit organization we observed undertook an accelerated and iterative approach to the configuration process in order to surface relevant issues and expedite the project's delivery. Participants were organized into teams dedicated to developing individual modules for the system. The model we propose offers theoretical insight and support for the major problems identified by management as the organization began to test the initial configurations of the system.The case provides insights into how a high degree of active involvement in the configuration process by users, with the assistance of knowledgeable and experienced consultants, can help bridge the boundaries of knowledge across these two communities of practice. Yet, the accelerated schedule limits their ability to leverage their future system. Furthermore, the current project structure created limitations in the team's ability to fully integrate the system modules. This research offers a new lens through which to examine systems design processes. For both practitioners and researchers, it provides insights into the importance of balancing the tensions in a design project.
Uncovering Hidden Contracts: The .NET Example
Authors: Karine Arnout, Bertrand Meyer
Venue: Computer (2003)

Software contracts take the form of routine preconditions, postconditions, and class invariants written into the program itself. The design by contract methodology uses such contracts for building each software element, an approach that is particularly appropriate for developing safety-critical software and reusable libraries. This methodology is a key design element of some existing libraries, especially the Eiffel software development environment, which incorporates contract mechanisms in the programming language itself. Because the authors see the contract metaphor as inherent to quality software development, they undertook the work reported here as a sanity check to determinewhether they see contracts everywhere simply because their development environment makes using them natural or whether contracts are intrinsically present, even when other designers don't express or even perceive them.
Theoretical and architectural support for input device adaptation
Authors: Jingtao Wang, Jennifer Mankoff
Venue: Issue 73-74 (June-September 2002) (2002)

The graphical user interface (GUI) is today's de facto standard for desktop computing. GUIs are designed and optimized for use with a mouse and keyboard. However, modern trends make this reliance on a mouse and keyboard problematic for two reasons. First, people with disabilities may have trouble operating those devices. Second, with the popularization of wireless communication and mobile devices such as personal data assistants, the mouse and keyboard are often replaced by other input devices. Our solution is a tool that can be used to translate a user's input to a form recognizable by any Windows-based application. We argue that a formal model of input is necessary to support arbitrary translations of this sort. We present a model, based on Markov information sources, that extends past work in its ability to handle software-based input such as speech recognition, and to measure relative device bandwidth. We also present our translation tool, which is based on our model, along with four applications built using that tool.
A data-structuring technique for gridded VLSI layouts
Authors: Saleem M. Haider, Peng H. Ang
Venue: Proceedings of the conference on European design automation (1990)

This paper presents the LINKED ARRAY data structure for storing rectangular structures which are constrained to a grid. The data structure is particularly useful in integrated layout systems for VLSI technologies like gate-arrays; it is also useful for building schematic editors. This data structure has been used to implement a prototype layout system which has significant memory usage and timing response advantages for large layouts (~ 100,000 used gates, running on a workstation like SUN 3/260). The paper describes how the data structure is created, how it operates, and how it compares with existing mechanisms.
Modeling RPC performance
Authors: J. A. Rolia, M. Starkey, G. Boersma
Venue: Proceedings of the 1993 conference of the Centre for Advanced Studies on Collaborative research: distributed computing - Volume 2 (1993)

Distributed computing applications are collections of processes allocated across a network that cooperate to accomplish common goals. The applications require the support of a distributed computing runtime environment that provides services to help manage process concurrency and interprocess communication. This support helps to hide much of the inherent complexity of distributed environments via industry standard interfaces and permits developers to create more portable applications. The resource requirements of the runtime services can be significant and may impact application performance and system throughput. This paper describes work done to study the performance behaviour of an application server executing within a distributed computing environment (DCE) on an AS/400 communicating with other processes via the remote procedure call (RPC) Mechanism. The results of the study provide insight into the potential benefits of redesigning some aspects of the current DCE RPC, its current implementation on the AS/400, and provide guidance to those developing DCE applications.
A distributed data flow model for composing software services
Authors: Gio Wiederhold
Venue:  (2003)

This thesis presents a distributed data-flow model for composing autonomous software services, as might be provided over the web. The autonomous services are linked to form a data processing system, controlled by one node, which we call the megaservice. The distributed data-flow model allows direct data exchange among the autonomous services. This is different from the traditional centralized data-flow model where the megaservice is the central hub for all the data traffic. A theoretical analysis shows that the distributed data-flow model has better performance and scalability than the centralized data-flow model. The distribution of data communications fully utilizes the network capacity among the autonomous services, and avoids bottlenecks at the megaservice. A prototype infrastructure for service composition, the Flow-based Infrastructure for Composing Autonomous Services (FICAS), has been implemented to support the distributed data-flow model. FICAS is a collection of software modules that support the construction of autonomous services, facilitate the specification of the megaservice, and enable the efficient execution of the megaservice. The distribution of data communications is enabled by a metamodel defined for autonomous services, which separates the data interchange from the control processing in the services. Autonomous services conforming to the metamodel can be coordinated by a centralized controller, while data communications are distributed among the services.Data transformations and similar computational tasks are often needed to interface autonomous services. Since in the distributed data-flow model the data do not flow through the megaservice, such transformations have to be carried out externally. To achieve that we define mobile classes, dynamic processing routines that can be loaded onto an autonomous service to prepare data local to the service. By moving computations closer to data, the amount of data traffic can be significantly reduced for a megaservice, hence improving the performance of the megaservice. Based on FICAS, an engineering service infrastructure is constructed for project management applications in the construction industry. The infrastructure demonstrates that the distributed data-flow model is suitable for composing large-scale software services.
A Worst-Case Model for Co-Channel Interference in the Bluetooth Wireless System
Authors: Simon Baatz, Matthias Frank, Peter Martini, Christoph Scholz
Venue: Proceedings of the 28th Annual IEEE International Conference on Local Computer Networks (2003)

This paper presents a model for the expected throughputin a Bluetooth network in presence of a number of otherBluetooth networks that cause radio interference. The analysisconsiders unidirectional traffic and makes worst-caseassumptions on the effect of radio interference. In order toverify the model, simulation results are presented.The results from this work may be very useful when designingad-hoc networking functionality for future versionsof Bluetooth.
A Moment-Parity Multigrid Preconditioner for the First-Order System Least-Squares Formulation of the Boltzmann Transport Equation
Authors: P. N. Brown, B. Lee, T. A. Manteuffel
Venue: SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing (2003)

This paper describes a preconditioned conjugate gradient scheme for the Pn-h finite element discretization of a first-order system least-squares (FOSLS) formulation of the Boltzmann transport equation. The preconditioner is based on the norm equivalence between the FOSLS functional and a V norm. Its realization is an inexact inversion of the system of partial differential equations corresponding to this V norm. This preconditioner is essentially a moment-parity multigrid solver. It involves a 2 &times; 2 block diagonal system with each block describing only the interior like-parity coupling (even-even or odd-odd) of the spherical harmonic coefficients or moments. The interior cross-parity coupling is handled in the outer conjugate gradient iteration. Since the like-parity coupling consists of only second- and zeroth-order differential terms, whereas the full Pn system consists also of cross-parity, first-order coupling terms, the construction of a robust multigrid algorithm for each diagonal block is easier than the construction for the full Pn system. Numerical results indicate that this preconditioned conjugate gradient algorithm is more robust than a stand-alone multigrid solver for the full Pn system.
Synchro-Tokens: Eliminating Nondeterminism to Enable Chip-Level Test of Globally-Asynchronous Locally-Synchronous SoC's
Authors: Matthew W. Heath, Wayne P. Burleson, Ian G. Harris
Venue: Proceedings of the conference on Design, automation and test in Europe - Volume 1 (2004)

Globally asynchronous locally synchronous (GALS) clocking applied to a system-on-a-chip (SoC) results in a design in which each core is a synchronous block (SB) of logic with a locally generated clock. Inter-core communication is asynchronous and controlled by wrapper logic around the cores. The nondeterministic synchronization used by most GALS architectures makes chip-level silicon debug and functional test difficult and costly. Deterministic GALS methodologies make dataflow assumptions which are only valid for a very limited set of applications. This paper describes a novel deterministic GALS methodology called "synchro-tokens" whose parameterized wrappers are flexible enough to be useful for a wide range of applications while supporting synchronous debug and test methodologies such as1149.1 and P1500. The validation of determinism, estimation of area overhead, and analysis of performance impact are detailed.
Nameservers in a campus domain
Authors: Smoot Carl-Mitchell, John S. Quarterman
Venue: ACM SIGCUE Outlook (1986)

The implementation of domain nameservice in a certain campus subdomain of the ARPA Internet has lead to several questions on the part of the local user community. This paper answers some of them. It describes the purpose of Internet domains and nameservers, how domains and networks are related, and the historical reasons for the existence of domains. There is a summary of the protocols nameservers use and of how they are implemented. Then the paper describes the logistics of how nameservers are used in a campus environment, first from the user's point of view, then from the administrators. Issues of the utility or necessity of subdomains of the campus domain are addressed. Finally, mailbox binding is treated: this is a potential use of the nameservers to provide a campus-wide distributed database of personal human names and their mappings into network host addresses.
Performance of reconfigurable architectures for image-processing applications
Authors: Domingo Benitez
Venue: Journal of Systems Architecture: the EUROMICRO Journal (2003)

Reconfigurable architectures combine a programmable-visible interface and the high-level aspects of a computer's design. The goal of this work is to explore the architectural behaviour of remote reconfigurable systems that are part of general-purpose computers. Our approach analyses various issues arising from the connection of processors with FPGA-based microarchitecture to an existing commodity microprocessor via a standard bus. The quantitative evaluation considers image-processing applications and shows that the maximum performance depends on the amount of data processed by the reconfigurable hardware. Taking images with 256 × 256 pixels, a moderate FPGA capacity of 1E+5 logic blocks provides two orders of magnitude of performance improvement over a Pentium III processor for most of our benchmarks. However, the performance benefits exhibited by reconfigurable architectures may be deeply influenced by some design parameters. This paper studies the impact of hardware capacity, reconfiguration time, memory organisation, and bus bandwidth on the performance achieved by FPGA-based systems. Those image-processing benchmarks that can exhibit high-performance improvement would require about 150 memory banks of 256 bytes each and a bus bandwidth as high as 30 GB/s. This quantitative approach can be applied to the design of high-performance reconfigurable coprocessors for multimedia applications.
Variational and numerical analysis of a quasistatic viscoelastic contact problem with adhesion
Authors: O. Chau, J. R. Fernández, M. Shillor, M. Sofonea
Venue: Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics (2003)

A model for the adhesive, quasistatic and frictionless contact between a viscoelastic body and a deformable foundation is described. The adhesion process is modelled by a bonding field on the contact surface, and contact is described by a modified normal compliance condition. The problem is formulated as a coupled system of a variational equality for the displacements and a differential equation for the bonding field. The existence of a unique weak solution for the problem and its continuous dependence on the adhesion parameters are established. Then, the numerical analysis of the problem is conducted for the fully discrete approximation. The convergence of the scheme is established and error estimates derived. Finally, representative numerical simulations are presented, depicting the evolution of the state of the system and, in particular, the evolution of the bonding field.
A case study of the use of the viable system model in the organization of software development
Authors: Peter Kawalek, David Wastell
Venue: Advanced topics in database research vol. 1 (2003)

This chapter considers the usefulness of the Viable System Model (VSM) in the study of organizational adaptation. The VSM is a rigorous organizational model that was developed from the study of cybernetics and has been given considerable attention by management science research. The chapter presents a longitudinal case study that focuses upon a software development team. The VSM was useful in diagnosing the likely consequences of different organizational designs and in prescribing an alternative solution.
Bidirected and unidirected capacity installation in telecommunication networks
Authors: Stan P. M. van Hoesel, Arie M. C. A. Koster, Robert L. M. J. van de Leensel, Martin W. P. Savelsbergh
Venue: Discrete Applied Mathematics (2003)

In the design of telecommunication networks, decisions concerning capacity installation and routing of commodities have to be taken simultaneously. Network Loading problems formalize these decisions in mathematical optimization models. Several variants of the problem exist: bifurcated or non-bifurcated routing, bidirected or unidirected capacity installation, and symmetric versus non-symmetric routing restrictions. Moreover, different concepts of reliability can be considered. In this paper, we study the polyhedral structure of two basic problems for nonbifurcated routing: network loading with bidirected and unidirected capacity installation.We show that strong valid inequalities for the substructure restricted to a single edge, are also strong valid inequalities for the overall models. In a computational study, several classes of inequalities, both for the substucture and the overall problem, are compared on real-life instances for both variants of network loading.
Cryptography and cryptographic protocols
Authors: Oded Goldreich
Venue: Distributed Computing (2003)

We survey the paradigms, approaches and techniques used to conceptualize, define and provide solutions to natural cryptographic problems. We start by presenting some of the central tools (e.g., computational difficulty, pseudorandomness, and zero-knowledge proofs), and next turn to the treatment of encryption and signature schemes. We conclude with an extensive treatment of secure cryptographic protocols both when executed in a stand-alone manner and when many sessions of various protocols are concurrently executed and controlled by an adversary.The survey is intended for researchers in distributed computing, and assumes no prior familiarity with cryptography.
Computational method for analysis of polyethylene biodegradation
Authors: Masaji Watanabe, Fusako Kawai, Masaru Shibata, Shigeo Yokoyama, Yasuhiro Sudate
Venue: Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics (2003)

In a previous study concerning the biodegradation of polyethylene, we proposed a mathematical model based on two primary factors: the direct consumption or absorption of small molecules and the successive weight loss of large molecules due to β-oxidation. Our model is an initial value problem consisting of a differential equation whose independent variable is time. Its unknown variable represents the total weight of all the polyethylene molecules that belong to a molecular-weight class specified by a parameter. In this paper, we describe a numerical technique to introduce experimental results into analysis of our model. We first establish its mathematical foundation in order to guarantee its validity, by showing that the initial value problem associated with the differential equation has a unique solution. Our computational technique is based on a linear system of differential equations derived from the original problem. We introduce some numerical results to illustrate our technique as a practical application of the linear approximation. In particular, we show how to solve the inverse problem to determine the consumption rate and the β-oxidation rate numerically, and illustrate our numerical technique by analyzing the GPC patterns of polyethylene wax obtained before and after 5 weeks cultivation of a fungus, Aspergillus sp. AK-3. A numerical simulation based on these degradation rates confirms that the primary factors of the polyethylene biodegradation posed in modeling are indeed appropriate.
Implementing a delegation model design of an HPCC application using concert/C
Authors: Patrícia Comes Soares, Alan Randolph Karben
Venue: Proceedings of the 1993 conference of the Centre for Advanced Studies on Collaborative research: distributed computing - Volume 2 (1993)

The emerging High-Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) environment is significantly changing the way in which processes cooperate. In this paper, we identify some of the difficulties involved in modeling HPCC applications. We choose a specific application to illustrate these challenges: the collection and analysis of time series data for the observation of seismic sensored phenomena. We advocate the suitability of the delegation model to design HPCC applications, and we describe a delegation model design of the time series application. We validate the use of the Concert/C language as a tool for supporting the delegation model and report our experience in using Concert/C to implement the application.
A reformulation of Rule 2 of centering theory
Authors: Rodger Kibble
Venue: Computational Linguistics (2001)

The standard preference ordering on the well-known centering transitions Continue, Retain, Shift is argued to be unmotivated: a partial, context-dependent ordering emerges from the interaction between principles dubbed cohesion (maintaining the same center of attention) and salience (realizing the center of attention as the most prominent NP). A new formulation of Rule 2 of centering theory is proposed that incorporates these principles as well as a streamlined version of Strube and Hahn's (1999) notion of cheapness. It is argued that this formulation provides a natural way to handle "topic switches" that appear to violate the canonical preference ordering.
Neural networks library in Java&trade;: a proposal for network intelligent agents
Authors: Daniele Denaro, Franco Rubinacci
Venue: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Principles and practice of programming in Java (2003)

Although it is now possible to find a huge quantity of neural networks software in several programming languages, it is still not common to find the Java version. More significant than the nth example of neural networks simulators, this software would be a simple and practical tool for generic computational nodes networks. Using the intrinsic portability and the dynamic binding of Java's features, but paying attention at the same time to the performances, this software aims to be a good candidate for net intelligent agents core.
Error bounds for Gauss-Turán quadrature formulae of analytic functions
Authors: Gradimir V. Milovanović, Miodrag M. Spalević
Venue: Mathematics of Computation (2003)

We study the kernels of the remainder term Rn,s(f) of Gauss-Thrán quadrature formulas ∫-11f(t)w(t)dt = Ai,vf(i)(τv)+Rn,s(f) (n ∈ N; s ∈ N0) for classes of analytic functions on elliptical contours with foci at ± 1, when the weight w is one of the special Jacobi weights w(α,β)(t) = (1 - t)α(1 + t)β (α = β = -1/2; α = β = 1/2 + s; α = -1/2, β = 1/2 + s; α = 1/2 + s, β = -1/2). We investigate the location on the contour where the modulus of the kernel attains its maximum value. Some numerical examples are included.
An overview of RoboCup-2002 Fukuoka/Busan
Authors: Minoru Asada, Oliver Obst, Daniel Polani, Brett Browning, Andrea Bonarini, Masahiro Fujita, Thomas Christaller, Tomoichi Takahashi, Satoshi Tadokoro, Elizabeth Sklar Gal A. Kaminka
Venue: AI Magazine (2003)

This article reports on the Sixth Robot World Cup Competition and Conference (RoboCup-2002) Fukuoka/Busan, which took place from 19 to 25 June in Fukuoka, Japan. It was the largest Robo-Cup since 1997 and held the first humanoid league competition in the world. Further, the first ROBOTREX (robot trade and exhibitions) was held with about 50 companies, universities, and institutes represented. A total of 117,000 spectators witnessed this marvelous event. To the best of our knowledge, this was the largest robotic event in history.