waashk/acm huggingface dataset:
the market environment for database machines and servers (keynote address)  since the early 70s, the industrial research community has pursued the elusive dream of a commercially successful database machine: a dedicated- function computer based on an architecture specialized and optimized for database functions, with price and performance characteristics substantially beyond what can be achieved with general purpose software and hardware.  during this period, several forces have conspired to frustrate achievement of this goal - forces which are for the most part independent of the dbm research itself. chief among these is the accelerating pace of advances in microelectronics, which simultaneously creates a moving target for database machine vendors while focusing the beleaguered computer manufacturer's r&amp;d; resources on trying to keep up with protracted product life cycles. meanwhile, successive generations of relational database software products are incorporating sophisticated performance techniques that further challenge the database hardware vendor.  the database server, in contrast, finds itself in a far more hospitable environment. at one time, the database machine (say, in the role of a "backend") and the database server in a network were viewed as minor variations on a common theme. now the differences are understood to be essential, bringing the server concept in tune with prevailing trends as surely as the backend is in conflict with them. the opportunity for database servers is fueled by the growth of distributed computing and the strength of the "open systems" movement, leading to standards at multiple levels of the relational database architecture.  as database server interface standards (de facto or otherwise) are established, a market for these subsystems will emerge which is both very large and broadly based. but, if the market for database machines is to expand beyond narrowly defined niches, product suppliers must overcome far greater obstacles.  gene lowenthal
response time analysis of multiprocessor computers for database support  comparison of three multiprocessor computer architectures for database support is made possible through evaluation of response time expressions. these expressions are derived by parameterizing algorithms performed by each machine to execute a relational algebra query. parameters represent properties of the database and components of the machines. studies of particular parameter values exhibit response times for conventional machine technology, for low selectivity, high duplicate occurrence, and parallel disk access, increasing the number of processors, and improving communication and processing technology.  roger k. shultz roy j. zingg
designing a portable natural language database query system  one barrier to the acceptance of natural language database query systems is the substantial installation effort required for each new database. much of this effort involves the encoding of semantic knowledge for the domain of discourse, necessary to correctly interpret and respond to natural language questions. for such systems to be practical, techniques must be developed to increase their portability to new domains.  this paper discusses several issues involving the portability of natural language interfaces to database systems, and presents the approach taken in co-op \\--- a natural language database query system that provides cooperative responses to english questions and operates with a typical coda-syl database system. co-op derives its domain-specific knowledge from a lexicon (the list of words known to the system) and the information already present in the structure and content of the underlying database. experience with the implementation suggests that strategies that are not directly derivative of cognitive or linguistic models may nonetheless play an important role in the development of practical natural language systems.  s. jerrold kaplan
user/system interfaces and natural language processing (session overview)  this session consists of three papers that discuss various aspects of user/system interfaces and natural language processing. topics to be addressed will include rapid prototyping, windowing, and natural language processing for a relational database management system.  the first paper, by j. reese et al., presents a description of the design of the graphical user interface design system (guides) for rapid-prototyping and testing of user interfaces. guides utilizes a graphics editor and a user interface management system (uims) for the design and maintenance of user interfaces. users can execute the designed interfaces and perform interface- related tasks that are monitored by the guides system for subsequent analysis. an example illustrating the rapid prototyping capabilities of guides is also presented.  an overview and evaluation of windowing is presented in the next paper by richard holcomb and alan l. tharp. windowing and windowing operations are first defined and then evaluated with respect to how four specific task-aid criteria and five memory-aid criteria are met utilizing windowing. the paper also includes a comparison of windowing, menus, and command languages with respect to the specified task and memory aids.  the last paper, by david w. embley and roy e. kimbrell, discusses the implementation of a schema-driven natural-language processor. this processor, mnemos, utilizes an augmented schema to process natural language queries thereby enhancing or portability and ease of implementation. schema augmentation is achieved through the assumption that the database schema is relational and derived from an entity-relationship model, as well as the use of data frames (a higher construct) for attribute, entity, and relationship descriptions. initial experimental results and efficiency considerations are also presented.  christie d. michelson
funding for experimetal computer science  for almost a decade funding in experimental computer science has faced a problem similar to the weather--- everyone talked about it but no one did anything about it. fortunately, there are now some signs of relief. many industrial and government agencies are trying to find effective ways to provide environments in which experimental computer science can thrive in academia.  this session brings together two leaders from government, one from industry and one from academia. each is uniquely qualified to address the issue of funding for experimental computer science. dr. adrion heads the national science foundation's funding efforts in this area. dr. druffel heads the department of defense's newly created software technology initiative. dr. matsa is a leader in ibm's effort to support extramural research. and, finally, dr. ritchie heads the university of washington's computer science department, which was the recipient of nsf's first experimental computer science award.  richard adrion larry druffel samuel matsa robert ritchie
operations considerations in a large privated packet switching network  in early 1977, southern bell began to study ways to reduce terminal and leased line costs associated with internal computer communications. because a large volume of these communications were of an asynchronous, character-mode nature, packet switching emerged as the most attractive solution to reducing these costs. in may, 1979, the first application went on- line with one switch, one host concentrator and three terminal concentrators. operation of this network was simple, with operations and planning residing in the same work group.  today, the network consists of twenty tandem switches, 185 local switches and 85 packet assembler/disassemblers, interconnected by 15,928 miles of trunk facilities. the network architecture has evolved to geographically distributed "principle switching points" interconnected through a single major switching center in atlanta, georgia. each "principle switching point" serves an area of company interest by supporting a number of local switches and concentrators.  as the complexity of the network has increased, so has the complexity of network operation. operations have been both functionally and geographically differentiated to keep up with the evolution of the network, and to stay consistent with changing packet switch architecture. this talk will cover the network operations and maintenance considerations associated with the operation of today's very large network.  r. d. stubbs l. dee swymer t. l. quinn
the average time until bucket overflow  it is common for file structures to be divided into equal-length partitions, called buckets, into which records arrive for insertion and from which records are physically deleted. we give a simple algorithm which permits calculation of the average time until overflow for a bucket of capacity n records, assuming that record insertions and deletions can be modeled as a stochastic process in the usual manner of queueing theory. we present some numerical examples, from which we make some general observations about the relationships among insertion and deletion rates, bucket capacity, initial fill, and average time until overflow. in particular, we observe that it makes sense to define the stable point as the product of the arrival rate and the average residence time of the records; then a bucket tends to fill up to its stable point quickly, in an amount of time almost independent of the stable point, but the average time until overflow increases rapidly with the difference between the bucket capacity and the stable point.  robert b. cooper martin k. solomon