Opportunities for a Truffle-based Golo Interpreter

Golo is a simple dynamically-typed language for the Java Virtual Machine. Initially implemented as a ahead-of-time compiler to JVM bytecode, it leverages invokedy-namic and JSR 292 method handles to implement a reasonably efficient runtime. Truffle is emerging as a framework for building interpreters for JVM languages with self-specializing AST nodes. Combined with the Graal compiler, Truffle offers a simple path towards writing efficient interpreters while keeping the engineering efforts balanced. The Golo project is interested in experimenting with a Truffle interpreter in the future, as it would provides interesting comparison elements between invokedynamic versus Truffle for building a language runtime

Kecelaruan personaliti antisosial di kalangan pelajar politeknik : satu kajian awal

Kajian ini adalah bertujuan untuk mengenalpasti kecelaruan personalis antisosial (KPA) yang berlaku di kalangan remaja atau muda-mudi terutama di Politeknik Malaysia yang mungkin mengakibatkan berlakunya masalah sosial di kalangan mereka. Kajian ini berbentuk kuantitatif. Sampel kajian telah dipilih di empat buah politeknik. Politeknik yang terlibat adalah politeknik zon selatan. Responden kajian ini terdiri daripada 340 orang pelajar pengambilan bam semester satu yang memasuki institusi berkenaan. Responden juga terdiri daripada pelajar peringkat sijil dan diploma daripada pelbagai pengkhususan. Instrumen yang digunakan adalah borang soal selidik. Data yang telah dikumpulkan dianalisis menggunakan Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Statistik yang digunakan adalah statistik deskriptif. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan di antara 10 jenis kecelaruan, kecelaruan avoidant mencatatkan skor min tertinggi iaitu dengan skor min 3.24 (a = 1.055). Selain itu, pengkaji mendapati personaliti antisosial yang berlaku di kalangan pelajar politeknik adalah pada tahap yang sederhana iaitu skor min 2.35 (a =0.933). Hasil daripada kajian juga mendapati faktor sosial mencatatkan skor min tertinggi iaitu 2.07 (a = 0.851). Faktor keluarga pula hanya mencatatkan skor min 2.03 (g = 0.887). Pengkaji juga mendapati responden lebih gemar kepada konsep keagamaan berbanding konsep-konsep yang lain sekiranya mereka menghadapi masalah. Oleh itu diharapkan kajian ini dapat memberikan penjelasan sedikit sebanyak mengenai kecelaruan personaliti antisosial yang berlaku di kalangan pelajar politeknik di masa kini

Smoothing a program soundly and robustly

We study the foundations of smooth interpretation, a recently-proposed program approximation scheme that facilitates the use of local numerical search techniques (e.g., gradient descent) in program analysis and synthesis. While the popular techniques for local optimization works well only on relatively smooth functions, functions encoded by real-world programs are infested with discontinuities and local irregular features. Smooth interpretation attenuates such features by taking the convolution of the program with a Gaussian function, effectively replacing discontinuous switches in the program by continuous transitions. In doing so, it extends to programs the notion of Gaussian smoothing, a popular signal-processing technique used to filter noise and discontinuities from signals. Exact Gaussian smoothing of programs is undecidable, so algorithmic implementations of smooth interpretation must necessarily be approximate. In this paper, we characterize the approximations carried out by such algorithms. First, we identify three correctness properties—soundness, robustness, and β-robustness—that an approximate smooth interpreter should satisfy. In particular, a smooth interpreter is sound if it computes an abstraction of a program’s “smoothed” semantics, and robust if it has arbitrary-order derivatives in the input variables at every point in its input space. Second, we describe the design of an approximate smooth interpreter that provably satisfies these properties. The interpreter combines program abstraction using a new domain with symbolic calculation of convolution.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CCF-0953507)Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laborator

Pembangunan kerangka transferable skills bagi perlaksanaan penyelidikan dalam kalangan pelajar pascasiswazah di Malaysia

Malaysia berhasrat menjadi negara maju dan berpendapatan tinggi maka keperluan sumber manusia profesional iaitu graduan pascasiswazah adalah semakin mendesak. Namun demikian, timbul isu tentang tekanan yang dihadapi pelajar dalam menjalankan penyelidikan, seperti putus asa, hilang minat, hilang keyakinan diri, tidak fokus, mengalami tekanan mental, ketandusan idea, tidak mencapai target yang diinginkan, hilang komitmen dan gagal dalam menamatkan pengajian. Terdapat keperluan terhadap peranan transferable skills untuk melakukan pelbagai aktiviti, untuk mencapai sasaran dan menyelesaikan masalah yang timbul sepanjang proses penyelidikan. Oleh itu, kajian ini dilaksanakan untuk membangunkan kerangka transferable skills bagi perlaksanaan penyelidikan dalam kalangan pelajar pascasiswazah di Malaysia. Dalam kajian ini, pengkaji menggunakan reka bentuk penerokaan bercampur berurutan yang melibatkan kajian kualitatif dan kajian kuantitatif. Peserta temu bual iaitu seramai 11 orang pakar dan peserta kajian Fuzzy Delphi iaitu 13 orang pakar, yang telah dipilih menggunakan kaedah persampelan bertujuan. Sampel bagi kajian tinjauan pula iaitu seramai 483 pelajar pascasiswazah dalam bidang sains sosial dan kemanusiaan di universiti awam yang terdapat di Malaysia, telah dipilih menggunakan kaedah pensampelan rawak berlapis mengikut kadar. Dapatan kajian ini menunjukkan bahawa terdapat enam domain transferable skills dan 22 elemen transferable skills. Kajian ini mendapati bahawa pelajar Sarjana dan Doktor Falsafah memberikan tahap persetujuan yang tinggi terhadap enam domain dan 22 elemen transferable skills. Hasil dapatan kajian ini menunjukkan bahawa tidak terdapat perbezaan kesesuaian domain dan elemen transferable skills untuk menjalankan proses penyelidikan berdasarkan pelajar Sarjana dan Doktor Falsafah (PhD). Kajian ini juga mendapati bahawa kerangka transferable skills yang dibangunkan adalah sah dan boleh dipercayai untuk menjadi panduan bagi perlaksanaan penyelidikan dalam kalangan pelajar pascasiswazah di Malaysia. Oleh yang demikian, pengkaji berharap kerangka transferable skills yang dibangunkan melalui kajian ini dapat menjadi panduan bagi pelajar pascasiswazah untuk mencapai target yang diinginkan dan dapat menyelesaikan penyelidikan sebagaimana tempoh yang ditetapkan sehingga berjaya menamatkan pengajian

Acceptability with general orderings

We present a new approach to termination analysis of logic programs. The essence of the approach is that we make use of general orderings (instead of level mappings), like it is done in transformational approaches to logic program termination analysis, but we apply these orderings directly to the logic program and not to the term-rewrite system obtained through some transformation. We define some variants of acceptability, based on general orderings, and show how they are equivalent to LD-termination. We develop a demand driven, constraint-based approach to verify these acceptability-variants. The advantage of the approach over standard acceptability is that in some cases, where complex level mappings are needed, fairly simple orderings may be easily generated. The advantage over transformational approaches is that it avoids the transformation step all together. {\bf Keywords:} termination analysis, acceptability, orderings.Comment: To appear in "Computational Logic: From Logic Programming into the Future

Finally, a Polymorphic Linear Algebra Language (Pearl)

Many different data analytics tasks boil down to linear algebra primitives. In practice, for each different type of workload, data scientists use a particular specialised library. In this paper, we present Pilatus, a polymorphic iterative linear algebra language, applicable to various types of data analytics workloads. The design of this domain-specific language (DSL) is inspired by both mathematics and programming languages: its basic constructs are borrowed from abstract algebra, whereas the key technology behind its polymorphic design uses the tagless final approach (a.k.a. polymorphic embedding/object algebras). This design enables us to change the behaviour of arithmetic operations to express matrix algebra, graph algorithms, logical probabilistic programs, and differentiable programs. Crucially, the polymorphic design of Pilatus allows us to use multi-stage programming and rewrite-based optimisation to recover the performance of specialised code, supporting fixed sized matrices, algebraic optimisations, and fusion

An automated Model-based Testing Approach in Software Product Lines Using a Variability Language.

This paper presents the application of an automated testing approach for Software Product Lines (SPL) driven by its state-machine and variability models. Context: Model-based testing provides a technique for automatic generation of test cases using models. Introduction of a variability model in this technique can achieve testing automation in SPL. Method: We use UML and CVL (Common Variability Language) models as input, and JUnit test cases are derived from these models. This approach has been implemented using the UML2 Eclipse Modeling platform and the CVL-Tool. Validation: A model checking tool prototype has been developed and a case study has been performed. Conclusions: Preliminary experiments have proved that our approach can find structural errors in the SPL under test. In our future work we will introduce Object Constraint Language (OCL) constraints attached to the input UML mode

Report on the formal specification and partial verification of the VIPER microprocessor

The formal specification and partial verification of the VIPER microprocessor is reviewed. The VIPER microprocessor was designed by RSRE, Malvern, England, for safety critical computing applications (e.g., aircraft, reactor control, medical instruments, armaments). The VIPER was carefully specified and partially verified in an attempt to provide a microprocessor with completely predictable operating characteristics. The specification of VIPER is divided into several levels of abstraction, from a gate-level description up to an instruction execution model. Although the consistency between certain levels was demonstrated with mechanically-assisted mathematical proof, the formal verification of VIPER was never completed