waashk/acm huggingface dataset:
chairman's remarks (panel session, abstract only)  from its experimental 1968 inception in arpanet, followed by ccitt standardization of the x.25 protocol in 1976, packet switching now provides inexpensive worldwide data communications capabilities for its subscribers. customer connections to public packet switched network services are increasing at a phenomenal rate, typically 30-40% year over year with no foreseen slowdown. this 2-3 year doubling effect presents numerous challenges to network operators in trying to effectively support and evolve their packet switched networks while simultaneously increasing customer service levels.  this panel presents an overview of current customer packet switching applications and then focuses on how network operators are innovatively meeting the challenges presented by high growth on the operation, control, support, configuration and evolution of their packet switched networks.  t. c. buttle
design representation in cad tools (session overview)  design is an evolutionary process which transforms a set of requirements into a working, manufacturable product. to mechanically assist this process, a design must be represented in one or more formal languages which unambiguously convey the intent of the engineer to (and between) the design tools. this session addresses the relationship of computer aided design (cad) tools for digital systems and design representation. there are three papers in this session and each discusses a facet of the representation problem.  drongowski. a qualitative theory for design representation is presented which provides an overview for the other papers. the discussion focuses on the importance of formal semantics for representation and problems in the translation from one representation to another.  bammi. in this work, a behavioral hardware description language, isp', is extended to include structural information (e.g., the interconnection of registers, combinatorial logic, control, etc.) the application of the language to synthesis is discussed.  iyengar. representation is an especially critical issue in the application of expert systems to cad. this paper explores the representation and rule base for an expert system that synthesizes combinational logic.  this work is being applied to the development of a logic synthesis system called agent which takes a register transfer level description to a control graph and coarse grain datapath network.  paul j. drongowski
professional chapters annual report every year, each director on the siggraph executive committee compiles an annual report for the annual siggraph organization report. to keep the overall report from becoming a book, the siggraph chair must pick highlights from each area. this issue's _computer graphics_ column contains my full annual report as presented to the siggraph executive committee. i hope that it helps to give you a better understanding of the structure of the professional chapters committee, the events we sponsor at the annual conference and what the chapters do over the course of a typical year. please keep in mind that this report is for the 1997-98 year so some information dates back to siggraph 97. as always, if you have any questions or comments, you can email me at **lang@siggraph.org.** scott lang collen cleary
information systems performance measurement and evaluation (session overview)  the importance of performance measurement and evaluation has long been recognized in the field of computer science. it is used in the analysis of existing systems, to make projections on the performance of new or modified systems, and in the design and selection of new hardware and software. the tools and methods used in performance measurement and evaluation are varied. they include such things as timings, benchmarks, simulations, analytic modeling, and both hardware and software monitors. the ones used in a given instance depend upon the goals of the investigator and the system being studied.  in "proposed automated information management at nasa: its performance measurement and evaluation" rebecca r. bogart presents performance measurements that are being considered for use in evaluating an information system that is still in the planning stages. this system will be an automated information system for a network that includes nasa headquarters and ten nasa centers. the paper describes the goals and objectives of this system and an evaluation technique that can be used to determine how well the goals and objectives are met. the primary tools proposed are software monitors embedded in the system which will gather system performance statistics. the use of user questionnaires is planned to augment the evaluation effort.  john e. tolle used transaction log analysis and stochastic processes in the study described in his paper, "performance measurement and evaluation of online information systems." transaction logs, records of user commands and system responses, were gathered from several different online information systems and analyzed. this paper describes how desired data were obtained from these logs and how they were used in the stochastic processes. the primary objective of this study was to discover the extent to which online systems were used and to determine the patterns of user commands when conducting information searches. this information could then be used to determine how well the designs of the systems support the demands placed on them by the users.  in "workload models for dbms performance evaluation" evans j. adams defines a hierarchy of workload models to support performance measurement and evaluation of database management systems. each successive layer in the hierarchy is characterized in progressively greater detail going from a user's view of the conceptual data model down to the underlying machine at the lowest level. he describes techniques for deriving the workload models at each level in the hierarchy and identifies, for each level, measurement parameters and performance metrics. this hierarchical model is proposed as a framework for constructing a dbms performance analyst's workbench and the incorporation of the workbench into future dbmss is suggested.  j. wayne anderson
field oriented design techniques: case studies and organizing dimensions this workshop, held at chi 95, focused on field research methods that allow us to incorporate a holistic understanding of users and their work and its context into the design process at the earliest stages. although these techniques hold great promise and have attracted attention and interest in the chi community, they have not been widely adopted or systematically discussed in the published literature. this workshop was developed to address this deficiency. we were fortunate in receiving a large set of position papers in response to our call for participation; we accepted 12 of about 20 papers submitted (and we both had a case to contribute, for a total of 14 cases).we planned the workshop activities to allow for maximum interaction among the participants. so that we could all arrive already acquainted with each others' studies, we circulated the participants' position papers ahead of time. our goals for the day-and-a- half workshop (extended by popular demand to include working lunches and extra time on the second day) were to develop a common understanding of the work done in each of the studies, to map the work done in each study to the stages of the design process where it fit best or had the greatest impact, and to come away with a systematic model of the terminology, methodology, and effectiveness of field research as represented in this set of cases. these goals were naturally larger than we could achieve in the short time allotted us, but the enthusiasm and dedication of the group has enabled us to continue to work on them since chi 95 and will yield a published collection of case studies and essays this fall. dennis wixon judy ramey
a database management system for the federal courts  a judicial systems laboratory has been established and several large-scale information management systems projects have been undertaken within the federal judicial center in washington, d.c. the newness of the court application area, together with the experimental nature of the initial prototypes, required that the system building tools be as flexible and efficient as possible for effective software design and development. the size of the databases, the expected transaction volumes, and the long-term value of the court records required a data manipulation system capable of providing high performance and integrity. the resulting design criteria, the programming capabilities developed, and their use in system construction are described herein. this database programming facility has been especially designed as a technical management tool for the database administrator, while providing the applications programmer with a flexible database software interface for high productivity.  specifically, a network-type database management system using sail as the data manipulation host language is described. generic data manipulation verb formats using sail's macro facilities and dynamic data structuring facilities allowing in-core database representations have been developed to achieve a level of flexibility not usually attained in conventional database systems.  jack r. buchanan richard d. fennell
distributed file access (session overview)  distributed file access is a key aspect of distributed system design. the ease and the efficiency with which files on remote machines can be accessed has a very pervasive influence on the overall success and acceptance of a distributed system. careful design is required to achieve these goals. techniques for efficient remote file access are therefore an area of active research.  the papers in this session provide quite a diverse sampling of recent efforts in the construction and the evaluation of distributed file systems. the paper by david cheriton and paul roy describes the design and the performance of a file server supporting a collection of diskless workstations connected by a local area network. a much more loosely coupled environment is described by peter weinberger: his paper discusses the integration of a number of independently administered unix† machines into a network-wide file system. finally, paul leach presents an evaluation of a commercial system based on a network-wide single level store.  willy zwaenepoel
sphere packings and generative  in 1998, the oldest problem in discrete geometry, the 400-year old kep ler conjecture, was solved. the conjecture asserts that the familiar cannonball packing of balls achieves the greatest density of any possible packing. the proof of the conjecture was unusually long, requiring nearly 300 pages of careful reasoning, 3 gigabytes of stored data, and 40,000 lines of specialized computer code. the computer verifications required for the proof were carried out over a period of years.  this lecture will propose a new, vastly simplified, intuitive solution of the kepler conjecture based on ideas from the field of generative programming.  thomas c. hales
on the foundations of the universal relation model  the universal relation model aims at achieving complete access-path independence in relational databases by relieving the user of the need for logical navigation among relations. we clarify the assumptions underlying it and explore the approaches suggested for implementing it.  the essential idea of the universal relation model is that access paths are embedded in attribute names. thus attribute names must play unique "roles." furthermore, it assumes that for every set of attributes there is a basic relationship that the user has in mind. the user's queries refer to these basic relationships rather than to the underlying database.  two fundamentally different approaches to the universal relation model have been taken. according to the first approach, the user's view of the database is a universal relation or many universal relations, about which the user poses queries. the second approach sees the model as having query-processing capabilities that relieve the user of the need to specify the logical access path. thus, while the first approach gives a denotational semantics to query answering, the second approach gives it an operational semantics. we investigate the relationship between these two approaches.  david maier jeffrey d. ullman moshe y. vardi
implications of certain assumptions in database performance evauation  the assumptions of uniformity and independence of attribute values in a file, uniformity of queries, constant number of records per block, and random placement of qualifying records among the blocks of a file are frequently used in database performance evaluation studies. in this paper we show that these assumptions often result in predicting only an upper bound of the expected system cost. we then discuss the implications of nonrandom placement, nonuniformity, and dependencies of attribute values on database design and database performance evaluation.  s. christodoulakis
domain names (panel session, abstract only): hierarchy in need of organization  the darpa domain name project is an attempt to move from a centralized naming authority to a distributed one. in essence, the domain system computes a single binding from a character string known as a host name to another string known as the host address (a 32-bit integer). besides the syntactic changes in names, the chief difference between the old-style names and domain names is that in the old system, a database containing the name-to-address bindings was distributed to each host where bindings were performed locally, while in the domain system computation of the name-to-address binding uses the internet to contact search the hierarchy of domains until a server is found that can perform the binding. unfortunately, to make the system efficient, servers cache bindings they look up, and clients begin a search by contacting the nearest "leaf" server to avoid searching the hierarchy. if sufficient memory is available, the cache at a server corresponds exactly to old-style host tables.  the domain scheme raises other questions. in principle, the hierarchical structure of domain names permits easy delegation of naming authority because it allows names within independent subtrees to be assigned by independent organizations. in practice, however, the hierarchical scheme collects together organizations under fixed top-level domains. because extremely small organizations cannot afford to maintain a domain name server, they must be supported by (and obey the authority of) a domain server for the subhierarchy under which they lie.  a hierarchical organization of names also imposes restrictions on the use of the system. for example, even though domain name servers contain (name, address) pairs, it is impossible to locate the desired binding given only the address.  douglas e. comer
concurrency control in a dynamic search structure  a design of a data structure and efficient algorithms for concurrent manipulations of a dynamic search structure by independent user processes is presented in this paper. the algorithms include updating data, inserting new elements, and deleting elements. the algorithms support a high level of concurrency. each of the operations listed above requires only constant amount of locking. in order to make the system even more efficient for the user processes, maintenance processes are introduced. the maintenance processes operate independently in the background to reorganize the data structure and "clean up" after the (more urgent) user processes. a proof of correctness of the algorithms is given and some experimental results and extensions are examined.  udi manbar richard e. ladner
datapac (panel session, abstract only)  packet switched networks are well accepted and provide cost-effective data communications for a wide range of applications. this paper will examine the growth of packet switching by profiling telecom canada's packet switched network, datapac. it will focus on the following:  the emergence of applications by new users of data communications,  development of new applications by existing users,  migration to packet switching networks from dedicated leased line networks,  the development and introduction of new service features to continue the phenomenal growth rates achieved in earlier years.  a. dobson
technology for managing large packet switching networks (panel session, abstract only)  the evolution of packet switching network technology over the past ten years has been strongly influenced by the dramatic growth of these networks. the ability to control and manage large networks has required many innovations and has been most successful where the growing network itself has provided the mechanisms needed for network management.  this discussion will cover the increasing use of decentralization and parallel operation of functions required to monitor the network, to remotely test and maintain subscriber facilities, to collect billing and statistical data, and to distribute and install new software. specific problems which require special attention in large network management will be covered; these include time synchronization, routing optimization, and network security.  the sl-10 packet switching system from northern telecom is referenced through this discussion as an example of a system which has built on the facilities and technology of the network switching equipment to provide the management function. since all of the attributes of capacity, availability, reliable communication, configuration flexibility, and security are the same for both packet switching subscribers and network management, using a common base provides real advantages.  the discussion will show how the exclusive use of network terminal interfaces, virtual circuits, and x.25 host interfaces for all management data transfer functions provides the required function with virtually unlimited growth potential. support of both packet switching and management functions on the same base of processor, storage devices, and software, further extends the benefits of commonality.  d. jeannes
computer graphics are brittle with the entertainment industry focus of this issue, i decided to ask a selection of artists for their thoughts on the broad (and deliberately vague) theme: art, computer graphics and entertainment. the authors come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, each with their own unique perspective on computer graphics.the results constitute this month's artist's view column. i hope you find these collective musings as stimulating and thought-provoking as i did. iara lee and taylor dupree's invited visual contribution appears on the back cover of this issue.many thanks to those who agreed to participate with very short notice, and to the many people who helped out with suggestions. bruce sterling
measurement, management and optimization (session overview): session overview  the abundance of literature devoted to the topics of measurement, management and optimization of digital systems is ample evidence of their vital importance in computing research. the papers in this session treat the issues of processor utilization measurement and file partitioning to enhance search performance.  richard w. moulton presents a method for the characterization of processor utilization. the approach is designed to be self-calibrating, thereby providing independence from the many variables that have an impact on processor performance. an implementation of the method in a real-time control system is also described.  on a slightly different note, yuan y. sung discusses the issue of distributing a file across a set of devices to minimize the query response time. a restriction of this general problem is defined and an accompanying distribution method is presented. this method is analyzed with respect to query resolution performance and contrasted with several other approaches.  randy michelson
software complexity, program synthesis, and data flow analysis (session overview): session overview  the papers in this session address three different themes - software complexity measurement, program synthesis, and data flow analysis. research results in each area should have significant impact in the software industry.  kearney, et al's paper describes the difficult problems that must be solved by software complexity measurement research. researchers in this area are looking for the structural properties of software that make programs difficult to understand and debug. much software measures research has been plagued with theoretical and methodological problems which the paper describes. because software complexity measurement research results promise to benefit the software industry through lower development and maintenance costs, the software industry is often too ready to apply measures that are still of questionable value. as the paper points out, users of complexity measures should be aware of the current limitations.  james m bieman
information system modeling and management (session overview)  as information systems and their applications become more complex, automated tools and techniques for modeling and managing such information system environments become more critically needed. this session deals with tools and techniques for modeling and management of information systems.  horndasch and studer propose a formal model for office systems analysis and modeling in their paper "thm-net: an approach to office systems modeling". they use the concept from temporal-hierarchic data model (thm) for semantic data modeling together with petri nets for modeling the parallel, asynchronous aspects of office systems. the paper introduces the temporal-hierarchic data model and defines thm-net with examples from ifip working conference organization problem. various thm- net and thm data scheme concepts are illustrated by modeling part of the ifip problem.  in the paper "xcp: an experimental tool for managing cooperative activity," sluizer and cashman present an experimental coordinator tool, xcp, which allows organizations to develop, maintain and implement plans of cooperative activity, called protocols. its goals are to reduce the costs of communication, coordination and decision by executing formal plans of cooperative activity in partnership with its users, and to aid new staff to learn a procedure. the paper describes the tool and its architecture. an annotated example is shown, and the status of the xcp project is given.  in the paper by kao, "an automated scheduling system for project management," he presents a scheduling tool, the flight operations planning schedule system (fopss), used by the scheduling team of the johnson space center of nasa to support the space shuttle flight operations. the paper describes the fopss software, design goals and considerations, some special features and possible enhancement of fopss.  frank y. chum
solving growth problems in a rapidly expanding pdn (panel session, abstract only)  tymnet's public data network has been expanding in size and revenues at about a 35% per year rate since its inception. maintaining this growth has put strain more on the organization than the technology. i will discuss several dimensions of the problem of managing prolonged rapid growth, including capacity management (bandwidth, switching, interfaces, and floor- space), topological complexity, job specialization, order processing, forecasting, and deploying new versions of code. the topic selection will favor issues that are likely to be common to other operations and the discussion will be biased toward solutions and pro-active management.  stephen c. poppe